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The Most Valuable Commodity You Can Market

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From time to time, I enjoy engaging practiced salespeople and sales managers in conversation about selling on a deeper level. One such conversation that happened this week centered around the question, “what is the most valuable quality salespeople can bring to the table?” Answers ranged from “product knowledge” to “likeability” to “good communication,” and on into “expert questioning” before one of the salespeople hit the correct answer – the answer that trumps all of the above.

That answer is trustworthiness. The reason it is the trump card is simple; if the customer doesn’t believe what you say, it doesn’t matter how well you know your subject matter, and if the customer doesn’t trust you, they won’t answer questions honestly. Trust, then, is a prerequisite for all activities that center on communication – selling in particular. In that spirit, this week I’ll share a few methods for building trust with customers, but first I have to share one of the most outrageous stories of a salesperson ruining his customer’s trust in him. It’s too good a story not to share.

It seems that this salesperson was employed by a cleaning company that was providing janitorial services to a group of hospitals. The hospital management liked him a lot, and liked the service provided. They believed in him and the quality and integrity of his company. Then came a charity golf tournament.

As a friend of mine (who happened to be in the same fivesome as this salesperson) explained, “It was a typical five-man scramble; one guy would hit into the sand, one into the woods, one way into the rough, one guy would dunk a ball and one would get stuck in a tree somewhere (sounds like my own lack of a golf game wouldn’t have been out of place – but I digress). The salesman would hit first on each hole, then drive the cart down the fairway to ‘spot’ for the team. When the rest of the group had hit and went down the fairway, a ball would have magically appeared in the middle of the fairway with the salesman explaining that one of the shots ‘kicked’ into the fairway.” Yep – he was cheating in a charity golf tournament. But wait – it gets better.

It seems that the key decision maker for the hospital account was also in this same fivesome, and what was happening wasn’t escaping him. In fact, immediately after the 18th hole, the manager left in disgust, skipping the post-tournament party. Slick Salesman wasn’t done, however. He did the same thing a month later – at a tournament sponsored by the hospital. After getting a feel for this guy’s character, the hospital management began watching everything that the janitorial company did, and lo and behold, they found bad billing, cleaning that was supposed to be done that wasn’t, and other problems. Long story short, the salesman is no longer employed by the company, and the company no longer has the account. The moral of the story? Some salespeople believe that trust is solely generated by work habits and activities; the truth is that anything you do that shows a lack of integrity can ruin your trust. In that spirit, here are some ways that you can build trust with your customers:

Do what you say, and say what you will do: This is so painfully obvious that I hate to even say it, but I encounter salespeople on a daily basis who think nothing of not fulfilling promises in a timely fashion. When you make a promise to a customer, they remember it. When you fail to fulfill that promise, they remember it FOREVER. It’s not that tough; only promise what you can actually do, then DO IT.

Do the right thing, even when you think no one is looking: Someone once said that this was the very definition of integrity. Sometimes, you’ll be tempted to behave in ways that you would never think of doing if you knew a customer was watching; guess what? They might be. Several years ago, I was in Minneapolis making calls with a salesperson as a favor to a branch manager of the company I worked for. On our second call, the customer got a look at my salesman and immediately threw us out. It turns out that, the night before, the salesman had been out at a bar, got a few drinks in him, and started a conflict with another patron over a particular seat at the bar. Huge stuff, right? Well, it turned out to be. The other patron turned out to be the person he wanted to sell to the next morning. Behave like a jackass in public at your own peril; you never know who is watching.

Keep your big yap shut when it needs to be: These days, customer confidentiality is huge. Salespeople are regularly trusted with company secrets of their customers. Unfortunately, many salespeople are “Instant babbler, just add beer.” I’ve seen salespeople who think nothing of telling me incredibly confidential details about their customers – stuff that their customers would probably have a heart attack if they knew the salesperson was repeating indiscriminately. If you want to continue to have your customers confide in you, you must respect and value that confidence by keeping it.

Respect your customer’s boundaries: Sometimes, there are pieces of information that your customer doesn’t want to give, or places they are unwilling to take you. If that’s the case, consider it a measure of the increasing bond of trust when your customer eventually gives you those pieces of information or takes you those places. Continue pressing immediately for them and your customer will back off.

Of course, because trust is such a huge subject, there are many more ways to build it. However, this has hopefully given you some things to look for in conducting yourself and building trust in your customer base.

The Five Behaviors You Must Have in 2015

The Navigator News

Happy New Year! Isn’t that what we’re supposed to say at this time? Some of you are saying, “Gee, Troy, we said it a week ago.” Yes, I know….but this is the first Navigator News of 2015, so it seems appropriate. How happy will your 2015 be? That might depend on your approach.

This is the time of the year that people make New Year’s resolutions. Statistic – only 8% of people who make New Year’s resolutions actually keep them. So let’s forget New Year’s resolutions, and instead focus on the five behaviors that will drive your sales success in 2015.

Behavior Number One: Every sales call is a meaningful sales call. This behavior is number one for a reason; in fact, it’s Number One with a bullet. The time you get to spend eyeball to eyeball (or voice to voice for those of you who are inside salespeople) is your most valuable time. How do you plan to spend that? If your answer is “talkin’ about fishin’,” welcome to 1975. Today’s customer demands more from you. If you commit to nothing else, commit to this: each and every sales call you make this year has a purpose. It moves a sales process forward, it brings benefit to your customer, etc.

Behavior Number Two: Prospecting is your habit. In sales, the truly big bucks go to those salespeople who can consistently and repeatedly bring in new business, while retaining current business. You can’t bring in new business without prospecting. Want to be successful at prospecting? Make it a consistent habit. Define your prospecting needs, and the hours that it takes to fulfill your targets. Then break it up into two-hour segments (I find that calling effectiveness goes down after two hours), and make appointments with yourself to get it done. Want to know more about this one? Attend my Teleseminar, 21st Century Prospecting, at the end of this month.

Behavior Number Three: Work the Hard Forty. I’ve used the term “Hard Forty” for years now to refer to the work habits that salespeople should adopt. The vast majority of sales jobs can be done successfully in forty good hours per week. You might “work” fifty or sixty hours per week, but how many of those hours are really devoted to 100% working at your job? Too many salespeople use valuable prime time (the hours that your customers are available to meet with you) on personal fluff – picking up dry cleaning, shopping, or other non-selling activities. Don’t be that guy or gal. Work hard, then play hard.

Behavior Number Four: Remember that Comfortable Customers Buy! Yes, I know, it’s my tag line, but it’s true. Comfortable Customers Buy! Great salespeople know that customer discomfort is the biggest obstacle to successful selling. Is there tension in the sales call? That tension can keep you from making a sale, getting a referral, forming a relationship, or winning a recommendation. Remove the tension by focusing on the customer, the customer’s needs, and respecting the customer’s buying process and your stage within it.

Behavior Number Five: Use Technology, But Don’t Let It Use You. The world of selling has changed significantly in the last decade, and most of that change has been driven by techology. Too many salespeople are finding themselves wrapped completely up in technology, spending hours each day Tweeting, posting on Facebook, and making endless posts on LinkedIn, hoping that the world will beat a path to their door. It seldom happens. Technology should be another tool for your sales efforts, not the effort itself. Want to be successful with technology? Focus on one platform. For most salespeople, LinkedIn is the best. Build your network on LinkedIn, use it to get introductions, and use it as part of your teleprospecting efforts.

Bonus Behavior Number Six: Always Be Aware of Your Sales Process. I’m calling this a “bonus behavior,” but it’s as important as any of the others. You should always be aware of your sales process, and which stage your customer is in as you meet with them (and of course, having an eye toward moving the customer forward on each call – remember Behavior Number One). Noting the sales stage should be part of your pre-call prep for each sales call.

The question of the moment is this: How successful will your 2015 be? Will it be better than 2014? If you focus on these behaviors, it will be better.

Better Presenting Through Storyselling

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A few weeks ago, I boarded a Southwest flight to Minneapolis. As is my habit, I took the window seat. Soon, a woman in her mid-30s came along, pointed to the aisle seat, and asked, “Is this taken?” I told her no, and she sat down. Nervously, she smiled at me and said, “Don’t worry, I’m not weird.” “I’m sure you’re not,” I smiled. She continued, “It’s not like I’m a serial killer or anything.” Well, that’s an odd thing to say on a plane, so I said the only thing I could think of. “Of course you’re not. What would be the odds of two of us meeting like this on an airplane?”

If you’re anything like the live audiences I’ve told this story to, you’re laughing out loud right now. Good. The point of the story was to grab your attention and get a reaction. Depending on what speech I’m giving, it could have a few different uses. Right now, the point is to illustrate the power of story in customer dialogue. If your presentations fall flat, perhaps this article will help you find some ways to liven up your presentations.

All too often, our sales presentations are filled with facts, figures, and contentions that we hope add up to a buying decision on the part of our customer. All too often, they do not add up to a buying decision – because the customer isn’t involved, or our contentions aren’t ‘real.’ From the time I started selling, I started storytelling as part of sales – or “Storyselling,” if you will. It’s a natural in sales because we’re constantly meeting people and collecting stories. The bad part is that we only share stories over the watercooler with our co-workers or over a beer with our buddies. What if you collected stories and then used them as part of your sales dialogue? Here are three ways to use stories:

  1. For a little humor. The old saying, “If I can make a customer laugh, I can make him buy,” is at least partially true. Too many salespeople, however, take the low road. They tell jokes. First of all, jokes are hackneyed and false, even in the best of situations. Second, they’re lowest common denominator humor. Third, oftentimes, they can be offensive. We’re salespeople. Funny things happen to and around us all the time, and well-told, those stories will get a laugh out of your customer as well.
  2. To make your customer comfortable. Remember my mantra: “Comfortable Customers Buy.” There’s a built-in tension between salespeople and their customers, and one way to break that tension down is to tell a story that illustrates commonality, either between the salesperson and the customer, the customer and the salesperson’s company, or the customer and other customers of the salesperson.
  3. To show past successes. One of the best uses of a story is to show how the salesperson (or the company) has helped a past customers succeed in an area where the new potential customer has a need. These kinds of success stories can (and should) pepper your conversation – in introductions, in presentations, and in general dialogue with your customers. As they say, “Nothing succeeds like success,” and a success story can and will win business.

In a future edition, we’ll talk about how to tell a story that will sell – from constructing it to delivering it. For now, start thinking about the stories that you have to tell, and start writing them down.

Oh, and the woman on the plane?  She looked at me for about ten seconds.  Then she quietly picked up her bag….and changed seats.  I don’t think I stopped laughing until we landed.

5 Changes You Must Master to Succeed in Today’s Selling Environment

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“I don’t understand it,” the salesman said. “I’ve been selling to that guy for fifteen years! I’ve taken him to football games, bought countless lunches, we’ve been to each other’s houses. And now,” the salesman wailed, “he’s buying most of his stuff from someone else! I mean, what the heck?”

This salesperson (let’s call him Bob) is a veteran salesperson who works for one of my clients. I’ve known him for years. Bob’s a very charismatic person, an absolutely fabulous rapport builder (to a degree that I’ve always envied), and he builds deeply personal relationships with his customers. He’s the kind of guy that if you met him out in public, you’d immediately tab him as a salesperson, and probably a great one. And you’d be right. Or at least, you would have been about ten years ago. Today, not so much, and there’s a big reason why.

The sales world has changed. It’s changed in a big way, and some salespeople are struggling to keep up. Bob went through my training a few years ago, and, to be honest, he wasn’t impressed. He told me that “Look, sales is simple. I just wing it. Customers buy from people, and specifically, people they like. My job is to be liked and be their friend, and if I can be that, they’ll buy from me.” Essentially, he viewed sales as a friendship contest – and to be fair, for much of his career, it worked for him.

Today, it doesn’t. My client (his employer) asked me to interview a couple of his key customers – customers who once made up a big part of his volume, and now only bought incidental items from him. In interviewing him, I found that the reason that customers had stopped their purchases was that Bob just wasn’t useful. Their comments basically boiled down to this:

“Look, I like Bob. We all do. He’s a great guy. If we didn’t like him as much as we do, we wouldn’t buy anything from him, but we feel a certain obligation. But the truth is that Bob isn’t much help to us. Whenever we have a technical question, he has to call someone else and have them get ahold of us. His competitor can answer questions on the spot, so we buy most everything from him.”

I found out that the competitive salesperson also spends a lot of time keeping abreast with industry developments that affect his customers; Bob asks about the son’s soccer team. The competitor is constantly refreshing his knowledge of the customer’s business and introducing new products and services; Bob makes sure to bring doughnuts for the women who work in the office.

When I took that information back to my client, he sighed and said, “So, what should we do about Bob?” You see, Bob has been a loyal employee for a long time, and his employer felt the same way as his customers. They like Bob (and so do I), but Bob no longer contributes value. Bob is now into the ‘mercy buy’ phase of his career. The orders he gets are ‘mercy buys,’ and his job is a ‘mercy job.’ I advised his employer that if Bob wants to remain vital in his sales career (and he’s not close to retirement age yet), he’s going to have to embrace some changes. If you resemble Bob in any way, you might need to embrace them, too.

  1. Embrace sales process. One thing that sharp salespeople do today is that they are always conscious of sales process, and they keep their customers involved in a sales process at all times. There’s no better way of building a relationship with your customer than to always be selling to them – requalifying them for new products or services, presenting, and constantly working to improve the customer’s condition. The “just wing it” salesperson is behind the 8-ball in this respect.
  2. Become a business resource. Bob’s competitor won business not because he was more likeable than Bob – in fact, both customers made it clear that in the “friendship sweepstakes,” Bob was in the lead by half a lap – but because he could be a business resource for his customers. Customers know that the competitor is good for more than buying a good lunch – he’s good for helping them solve their problems.
  3. Always have a call objective. Most of Bob’s sales calls were centered around simply reinforcing friendships and staying visible. Meanwhile, his competitors pick his pocket because they are going in with a call objective, working to constantly advance the status of their business relationships.
  4. Develop customer expertise. The most valuable knowledge is customer knowledge. Bob’s competitor worked to build his knowledge of his customers on every sales call. In fact, both of them remarked on the competitor’s ongoing questions. “It’s like he’s always trying to learn more about us,” one said. Bob is a friend who talks about the Chiefs football team; his competitor talks about the direction that his customers are going in.
  5. Make good use of the customer’s time. Both customers remarked on how time-efficient the competitor is. “He does something positive for us on every visit,” one said. “Granted, he’s not as personal. We like him, but he’s not our friend like Bob is. But we know that every time he’s here, something good will happen – and Bob stopped doing that long ago.” Your customer now expects a return on his time investment with you. How are you going to generate that?

By the way, it’s not only veteran salespeople who fall victim to this kind of selling and its consequences. I’ve had young salespeople with the sale ‘friends first’ focus, and they lose business for the same reason.

Today’s customer demands more than a buddy. The customer demands a resource – and if you can’t be that, your competitor will.

How to Master the Upsell

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What is an upsell?

Well, it’s retail shopping season, which means that it’s ‘upsell season.’ I saw living proof of that just a few minutes ago. I stopped into one of my favorite bookstores. As is my habit, I picked up a new motorcycle magazine, and proceeded to the counter. And there…I played the new version of Twenty Questions.

“Do you have our discount card, sir?” she said. “No,” I replied. “Well, would you like to sign up?” “No,” I again replied (First of all, I refuse to pay to get discounts – secondly, I don’t have room for the cards of all the places that I shop). “Would you like to donate to something-or-other?” “No,” I again replied. “Would you like to also purchase…” By this time I was getting annoyed, and I said, “No, what I would really like to do is to exchange cash for a magazine. Do you still do that here?” A bit shaken, she completed the transaction – but she committed the biggest mistake in retail upselling. Let’s talk about that, and some other mistakes – then let’s talk about how to master the upsell in any part of selling.

The biggest mistake in retail upselling is this: Only one upsell per customer per visit. I don’t mind being asked if I’d like to purchase an additional item. Usually I don’t, but I recognize that the company is trying to maximize my purchase volume, and I’m good with that. But when customers have made their selections and are at the checkout, they’re typically ready to pay and go – and if your retail sales process is an impediment to the customer doing just that, you have a problem. So, if you’re in retail, one upsell per customer, please.

The next mistake the lady made is this: The completely unrelated upsell. The third (and final) upsell she tried was a children’s book. I don’t have children, either mine or in my immediate family – so the best kids’ book in the world is lost on me. Of course, she didn’t know this – but that’s the point. However, there’s something that she DID know. I like motorcycles, hence my purchase of Rider magazine. Had she said, “Hey, we also have the new issue of Iron Horse here (they had it at a checkout display) – want to grab that, too?”, it would have been a completely reasonable upsell.

But no, the upsells were designed for every customer, and were one size fits all upsells. These are also a mistake, unless you know for sure that everyone in the door has a common need. For instance, one of my clients manufactures superchargers for automotive applications. When customers call in for parts, it’s completely reasonable that, on every parts call, they ask if the customer needs some supercharger oil – because they usually do. In most cases, however, the one size fits all upsell is not valid.

So, how do you succeed in upselling? First, you understand that there are really only three types of upsell that can be successful – the tag-along product, the more expensive product, or the referral upsell. And you also should understand that the successful salesperson needs to be careful about using them – the ‘one per customer’ can apply well in any sales environment. I’m goinng to discuss these in terms of product, but they can work well in terms of services, as well.

The Tag-Along Product: A ‘tag along product’ is a product that is most likely purchased with another product, or that makes a nice ‘fit.’ “Do you want fries with that?” is the most classic tag-along upsell. Doing a good tag-along upsell requires a little pre-planning. Think about what products (again, or services) you upsell that are a nice fit with other services – particularly if they’re ones that the customer hasn’t thought of or might not normally think of. The best tag-alongs are the ones that complete the buying experience for the customer.

The More Expensive Product: Everyone understands this one. If you’re buying a single cheeseburger, do you want to upgrade that to a double? Want to upgrade that hotel room to a suite? Etc. This is probably the easiest of the upsells to master, since all you have to do is to understand the additional features and benefits of the more expensive product, and guide the customer in that direction. Be careful, though – this can work in reverse. I’m typing this on a new Hewlett/Packard ProBook that I just purchased a month ago for $800. The computer store salesman tried to move me up to the $1000 version – however, a close examination of specs, features, and benefits showed that my $800 selection was actually more computer than the $1000 version!

The Referral Request: Referrals are upsells, too. Typically my preference for referral upselling happens AFTER the customer has achieved satisfaction with their purchase, not at the time of purchase (as part of a business review) – but there are some instances where it’s completely appropriate to ask for referrals at the point of purchase – “Do you know of anyone else who might benefit from this,” etc.

Again, however, the key is to be smart and think on your feet. Nearly all of your customers will allow you one upsell per transaction. Some will allow you two. If you go for three, you’re going to annoy more than you sell. Pre-plan, think ahead, and make sure that your first upsell is your best upsell. That means that if you only get one, it was your best shot.

Know Your Audience!

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In any presentation, it’s vital that you know your audience. To simply present without having some idea of your audience’s needs and concerns can be virtual suicide. I saw two examples of this on a recent trip to Las Vegas.

The first, admittedly, was a non-sales situation. My wife and I decided to take in a comedy show at the Laugh Factory at the Tropicana. I was wearing a rather flamboyant shirt that my wife loved, and had bought for me earlier in the day. Well, the comedian – perhaps not getting the laughs he wanted from his routine – decided to take a couple of shots at me and the shirt…and discovered the value of knowing his audience.

He pointed at me, and said, “Wow, that is an awful shirt! Hey, the ‘70s called…and they don’t even want that shirt back.” (Admittedly, a funny line.) Then he made a fatal mistake. He said, “What, did you lose a bet or something?”

And I said, loudly enough to be heard by everyone, “Yep. The loser had to come see your show.” That got a bigger laugh than anything he’d said. He started to say something else, and I just pointed at him and said, “Think it through. I’m better than you are at this.” He decided to move on. One of my friends who is a stand-up comic told me that the riskiest thing a comic can do is to take on a member of the audience – because you have no idea who that person is and how they can bury you.

The next night, we were at the Italian restaurant at the Tropicana (which I highly recommend if you like Italian) and I overheard a salesperson presenting to a group of four distributors about how his company planned to help them grow their businesses. All was going well until he started telling them about the jan/san (Janitorial/Sanitation) program he had for them. His distributors just UNLOADED on him.

They told him that his products were inferior, and two presented him with printouts of how wildly uncompetitive his prices were. Now, I’m perfectly OK with selling at a higher price – but according to his distributors (who had obviously done their homework), the manufacturer’s product was three times the cost of his competitors. By the time we finished dinner and left, he was still doing damage control – and that was 30 minutes later.

His problem was the same as the comedian’s – except he doesn’t have the excuse that he was going before the audience cold. The salesman simply didn’t understand his audience or their concerns. If he was blindsided by the lack of competitive pricing, shame on him. One of the competitive sources they mentioned was Costco – which does not exactly keep their pricing confidential. Not ony was he blindsided by the issue, he didn’t have a good answer for them as far as why they might consider selling his product anyway.

So, before delivering a sales presentation, what should you know?

  1. Your audience’s needs: This isn’t tough. Your customers and prospects will tell you their key needs and objectives, if you ask the right questions. They’ll also be honest, which is something that my salesman desperately needed.
  2. “Third Rail” issues: When the salesman at the restaurant began discussing the jan/san products, he touched the proverbial “third rail.” (By the way – the “third rail” refers to the highly electrified power rail in a subway system. Touch it and you become quite crispy.) A “third rail” issue is an issue that is likely to set off a quick and intense negative reaction from your audience. Given the fact that two of the four distributors had done their homework on jan/san and the lack of competitiveness, it’s pretty obvious that this was a “third rail” issue. You need to know what these are – because if you touch it, it negates all the good you do in other parts of your presentation.
  3. Your own weaknesses: I sensed that the salesman didn’t really know his competitive situation on the products he was pitching – and if so, shame on him. Even if someone else sets the agenda for your presentation, it’s still your credibility on the line. Know your groundwork.

If you read these columns regularly, you know that I’m not a fan of a canned presentation. Even when you’re presenting to a group, you should be able to interact with the group (or representatives thereof) enough to take the group’s temperature and know what the groundwork is. Take that time, and you won’t be in the situation of either the hapless comic or the unfortunate salesperson.

By the way, my wife laughed all the way back to the room after the comedy show. Four other women came up to us and told us that they loved my shirt. I always defer to her taste!

A Word Every Salesperson Should Know

The Navigator News

The phone rang, and the person on the other end had obviously researched me. “Hello, Mr. Harrison,” she said. “I’m the Human Resources director for ABC corporation (name eliminated to protect the innocent), and we’re interested in having you do some sales training for our sales force.” She went on to explain the size of the sales force, the general layout of the company, and how many days’ training she was seeking.

“Great,” I said. “Who is driving the project?” She explained that she was researching trainers, and I said, “No, by that I mean, who is the ultimate decision maker, whose budget this is coming out of?” She said, “That would be our Vice President of Sales, Chris XXXXX (again, not the real name).” “Terrific,” I replied. “When can I talk to Chris?” “You can’t,” she explained. “I just need you to send me a proposal, and I’ll send it on to Chris.” I then said one of the most important words in selling – a word that every salesperson should know and be comfortable with.

“No,” I said.

“Excuse me?” she asked. I clarified my answer.

“No, I won’t send a proposal without speaking to Chris. I won’t, because from past experience I know that if I don’t speak to the person driving the project, I’m only guessing at what to propose – and hence my proposal wouldn’t be for the right program aimed at the right needs. Which means that I won’t get the business anyway.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said. “We would have liked to have you involved in this project.”

“If I can speak to Chris, I’m happy to change my stance,” I said. She replied, “That won’t be possible.” We wished each other well, and that was that. Except that it wasn’t that. Three days later, my phone rang again.

“Troy, this is Chris XXXXX,” the caller said. “I understand that you refused to offer sales training to my company?” I explained that, in my experience, unless I had the opportunity to have a meaningful conversation with the decision maker, I didn’t get the business anyway, and I simply don’t have the time these days to issue non-viable proposals. “Well, we’re talking now,” he said, and we ended up having a conversation about his needs. Three days later, I received a FedEx package with a signed contract and a check.

What made the deal happen? Well, it seems counterintuitive, but refusing to propose was the difference. Had I simply spent time creating a proposal and sent it (as four other sales trainers did), I’d have been at the buyer’s mercy, and I wouldn’t have gotten the engagement.

Customers give us orders and strong requests all the time, and sometimes it’s not in our best interests to follow them. Yet salespeople are petrified by the idea of saying “no” to a customer, even when they know they should. It’s okay to say “no,” particularly when doing so means that you are guarding the value of your own time and resources. Here are some examples of times when saying “no” is the best option:

  1. When you get a blind Request For Proposal: We get RFP’s all the time. Too often, we simply follow directions, fill in numbers, send them back, and hope. That’s a monstrous waste of time. Here’s a good rule of thumb: For every RFP you receive, someone is driving it and has written it. A salesperson has been able to talk to that person. If that salesperson isn’t you, you’re probably not going to get the business. When you get an RFP, you should endeavor to meet with the decision maker, and if you can’t, you should ask yourself why you’re taking the time to respond. “But Troy,” you’re saying, “If I don’t respond they’ll take me off the bid list.” So what? Every time you get the RFP and don’t get to talk to the decision maker, your results will be the same.
  2. When your customer makes an unreasonable request: The old saying is, “The customer is always right.” Nonsense. Customers are wrong every day. Not to mention unfair, unreasonable, and downright unpleasant. Note that I don’t mean ALL customers – most are terrific. But sometimes even the best, most well-meaning customers can be unreasonable without knowing it. Your instinct, as a customer-friendly salesperson, is to accede to any and all requests – but sometimes that’s the worst thing you can do. When you accept an unreasonable request from a customer, you train the customer to be unreasonable. Sometimes, to protect yourself, you have to say “no.”
  3. When your customer asks for something that’s not in their best interests: As a consultative salesperson, your job is to help your customers make buying decisions that are in their own best interests. Sometimes, your customer will ask for things that are not in their best interests, and when they do, you have to be brave enough to say “no,” and explain why.

These, of course, are only a few of the times that “no” can be your best friend – but it takes courage to say “no” to a customer. I do it, and every time I do, I’m aware that I’m jeopardizing a relationship. But, to be effective, sometimes that’s what I have to do. It works the same for you. Don’t be afraid to say “no;” sometimes it can result in your best relationships.

The conversation I detailed at the beginning of this article was over two years ago. That client has engaged me on numerous occasions since then, and continues to do so. Had I just said, “Yes,” it wouldn’t have happened.

How To Build A Sales Culture in Your Organization

The Navigator News

In my years of experience in working with (and for) companies large and small, I have discovered that there is a common element to the most successful businesses. The most successful companies have a sales culture. A “sales culture” is a philosophy that permeates the company, from the corner office to the loading dock, that says, essentially, “We are a sales organization, and everything else we are able to do is a product of our ability to sell our products or services to our customers.”

This isn’t a philosophical statement; it’s reality. The only difference is whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. It’s reality because no matter how good your products or services, if you can’t persuade someone to exchange money for those products or services, there’s no reason for production or service to exist, and hence your business will cease to exist. An acquaintance of mine attempted to make a go of it as a financial consultant, and to be frank, he was the most brilliant financial guy I’ve ever met. He’s now working for someone else as a CFO – because despite his brilliance, he was unable to make a single sale.

The most successful companies both acknowledge and embrace the idea that they are first and foremost a sales organization, and that culture flows from the top. It flows from the top because it must. Despite the protestations of those who advocate bottom-up leadership, the reality is that any corporate culture is set not by the employees at ground and field level, but by the overriding philosophy of management. That’s you, by the way. So, let’s assume for the moment that you have decided that your company needs to accept and embrace a sales culture. How do we go about that?

Set the mission: First of all, whatever your mission statement, throw it away. I know, it’s something that you’ve put a lot of thought into and probably has some great phrasing. It’s probably also something that your employees couldn’t remember if a gun were put to their heads. Let’s replace it with something simple like this: “We are a sales organization, and we grow profitably by Acquiring new customers, Developing current customers to greater profitability, and Retaining profitable business.” Use this as the mantra that guides your company’s decision making.

Communicate: All good things in sales (and business) come from good communication, and most bad things happen because of insufficient communication. Knowing this, the next step is to communicate the message to your people, and to do so consistently. This is where a lot of companies fail, because the communication happens like this: The Big Guy at the Top will have a staff meeting where he/she communicates the ‘new mission’ forcefully to his key managers, and then expects the managers to communicate it downstream. They do, but with varying degrees of emphasis and enthusiasm. The Sales Manager obviously embraces the mission, while the Production Manager may be less enthusiastic, and so forth. If you really want to effect change, it has to be up to you.

In creating a sales culture, there is no employee whose job is so small or insignificant that he/she shouldn’t hear this message from YOU. Have all-company meetings, or all-department meetings, or all-branch meetings; however you need to do it in order to have the opportunity to have every employee hear the message directly from your lips. I once struggled with the support personnel in a 50-person department; no matter what I told the supervisors, nothing seemed to change at ground level. So, over the objections of several supervisors and even a couple of managers from other departments, I held a full-department meeting and laid out my goals for the next quarter, how we would achieve them, and what everyone’s duty was as part of the goal achievement. The employees asked great questions, and within days were taking the actions that I needed them to take in order to achieve the goals. Result – we didn’t just make the goals, we blew them away. And you can bet that we repeated the quarterly meetings consistently. The take-away is that, for the most part, if your people know the goals, they will act in accordance with them – if they believe that the goal is real and permanent.

Align Goals: To accomplish your goal of profitable growth through acquiring, developing, and retaining customers, you must align all your departments and goals. I once worked for a company that would set each department’s goals in a vacuum; for instance, sales would be tasked to grow the company 15% while the production department would be tasked to cut labor costs by 10%. Assuming there are no major technical innovations (there weren’t), you had departments with goals that could not all be reached collectively. This produced management and interdepartmental conflict on a constant basis.

Instead of this, set department goals in such a way that they can all be achieved together. For instance, instead of budgeting in dollar terms, budget in percentages from the top line. This way, when departments need more resources for equipment and personnel, they know how to get it – help grow the company. Even with the best goal setting, however, you’re going to see some internal conflict.

Remove Internal Conflict: Good sales forces, by their nature, create internal conflict. This isn’t because salespeople are bad people, obnoxious, or difficult to work with (although that is a separate issue), but because good salespeople push the frontiers. Because sales is all about growth, good sales forces are always creating extra work and pressure for the other departments which must then function at a higher level to support the sales growth created. This creates conflict and push-back.

As a business owner, it’s your job to mediate and handle these conflicts and push-backs. It’s a delicate issue because no department, or department manager, wants to feel subordinate or less important than sales. The reality is that, if you’re truly embracing a sales culture, the other departments are exactly that – subordinate to sales. When conflicts arise, you should go back to your mission statement; what helps your company grow profitably through acquiring, developing, and retaining customers?

Few things can be as demotivating to a sales force, or as detrimental to sales productivity, as the daily interdepartmental battles that can result when other departments feel that they must act as a brake pedal on progress. Good sales cultures overcome this problem by empowering managers who are sales advocates and by removing internal obstacles.

Have a High Performance Sales Force: So far, we’ve talked about aligning a company’s objective, people, and goals around the sales force, which creates a very sales-friendly environment. Now it’s time to turn up the heat on the people who are doing the selling. You have the right, and the responsibility, to demand excellence from your salespeople once you have molded the culture of the company around them.

First, you need a strong sales manager. A “strong sales manager” is one who actively works, on a day to day basis, to strengthen and enhance the abilities of his/her salespeople. Your sales manager should be not only a good administrator, reporter, and forecaster; the sales manager must be a good coach and developer of people. He should be willing to advocate for the needs of the sales force while simultaneously demanding the highest effort and achievement from them. He must be capable of surrounding himself with top talent and then making that talent even better.

The sales manager must understand the basic equation of sales achievement: Quantity of activity x Quality of activity = Results. To this end, the sales manager should have performance metrics in place to assess both quantity and quality of sales activity, and be equipped to hold salespeople accountable for those metrics and for the results. Struggling personnel must be either coached or changed; top performers should be rewarded and coached to even higher levels.

Your salespeople should be excellent “fits” for your company and environment, and should be capable of winning new business, developing current business, and retaining customers (remember the mission statement?). They should have the appropriate mix of traits necessary for success, while being highly skilled and trained (which means that your investment in training should be ongoing). The salespeople in a high performance sales force are not salespeople that must be babysit or constantly watched to achieve results.

Moreover, the people in your sales force should be excellent relationship builders, both inside the company and outside. That means that the sales force shouldn’t have any “cowboys” who are negative or abusive to other employees; for a sales culture to work, the other employees have to want to get behind the sales team. Salespeople who can’t play nicely with others will work against your goals, no matter how good they are with customers.

Reinforce the culture: As you’ve probably guessed, it’s not enough to have some meetings, say “we are a sales organization,” and call it good. Cultures happen because they are reinforced, directly or indirectly. For this to work, key decisions must be made based on the new mission statement: “Does this decision help us to acquire, develop, or retain customers?” That doesn’t mean that non-sales departments starve; that new machine for the plant may be completely justified by its benefits in product quality. The raises for the production staff may be appropriate to reward them for their part in acquiring, developing, and retaining customers. It does mean that your company has one universal criteria for spending, personnel allocations, and any other key decision making.

The Benefits: There are numerous benefits to aligning your company around a sales culture. The biggest is this: Sales focused companies tend to produce excellence in every department. The reason is simple: Companies with a strong sales department cannot stay bad or mediocre in other areas; if they do, those sales gains will quickly be lost through customer dissatisfaction and attrition. As noted earlier, good sales departments tend to lift other departments through necessity. This is not true of other departmental objectives; an excellent production department seldom creates pressure on other departments to up their games.

On the whole, organizations that center their culture around the process of profitable growth tend to achieve that growth, year after year. It’s not easy, but the results are worth it.

How to Preserve the Service Relationship

The Navigator News

I love stand-up comedy. When I travel, one of the entertainment venues I always seek out is a comedy club. Some are good, some are mediocre, and every now and then, one is truly awful – but I almost always seem to have a good time. One of my favorite comedians (well, me and millions of others) is Jerry Seinfeld. He has a routine that tells us a lot about selling services.

In the routine, he talks about dry cleaners. He doesn’t trust them, he says, “Because I don’t think they’re really doing it. What is dry cleaning? They take my clothes back into a room that I can’t see, and then charge them to give them back to me.” He then brushes some lint off his jacket and says, “Here. That’s dry cleaning.” It’s hilarious (much more in the viewing than in my retelling), but there’s a lesson here if you sell services. In fact, if you sell a pure service – perhaps one that is invisible most of the time – you can probably relate to what Jerry’s saying. Worse, your customers can relate.

When you sell products, it’s easy to remind your customers of the relationship, your value, and your quality. They see the tangible result all the time. Service sales are much tougher. To keep a service relationship alive, salespeople (and customer service people) must be much more proactive. Here are five keys to preserving the service relationship:

  1. Always be diligent. One downfall of the ‘invisible service relationship’ is that sometimes, the people delivering that service can get a little lax. If your service is that way – for instance, your service is some sort of a recurring activity that doesn’t require the service people to check in with the customer on a regular basis – you MUST constantly check and verify that the service is being done. The worst thing is to get “caught” by the customer. Many times, if this happens, you simply won’t be able to recover.
  2. Remind them. When your service isn’t the reminder of the great value to bring to them, YOU must be the reminder. Schedule ongoing business reviews. If you know the results of your work (ROI, cost savings, time savings, etc.), bring those numbers and show them. If you don’t know (and sometimes you might not), bring the data on the service activities you’ve performed, and don’t be afraid to ASK for the results.
  3. Don’t be the Invisible Salesman. Just as with service personnel, it’s very tempting in these situations to sit back and wait for the call from the customer on the ‘no news is good news’ paradigm. Don’t. One of the great weaknesses of the insurance industry is the salesperson who only calls the customer at renewal time. Many times, that salesperson calls at renewal time only to discover that another salesperson has come in and picked his/her pocket by forming a relationship while salesperson #1 was sitting back and doing nothing.
  4. Ask the tough questions. The toughest question for any salesperson to ask is, “Have I/we delivered on the promises we made?” The most fearless salesperson will choke a bit trying to get this question out – but get it out you must. Believe it or not, every sales question you ask will boil down to this one. And if you don’t ask it yourself, your customer will ask it of themselves – and answer it themselves, without your involvement. Do you want to be part of that discussion?
  5. Keep renewing contacts. One potential pitfall in service relationships – particularly those that are contract-based – is that the salesperson can be lulled into falling out of touch between contract periods. Don’t do this. The problem is that, no matter how good your relationship is with the contact that signed your agreement, people move, they change jobs, they get promoted, they get fired. Then when it comes time to renew, you walk in fat, dumb, and happy, only to find out that nobody knows you and you’re basically on a cold call, having lost the advantage of incumbency. Don’t do that. Constantly work to get multiple contacts (remember High, Wide, and Deep), and keep relationships alive.

The reason that many customers are suspicious of service delivery are that, often times, services aren’t delivered as promised. If that’s your company, there’s very little you can do from a sales perspective to regain lost trust. The best thing you can do is actively monitor and check to make sure services are delivered, and to stay in contact with your customer. Do these things, and your customers won’t compare you to Seinfeld’s dry cleaner!

The Toughest Role in Sales

The Navigator News

One of the questions I’m constantly asked is, “Troy, what do you think about having a selling Sales Manager?” By that, they mean a Sales Manager who also carries his/her own sales territory and is measured against a quota, not only for team production, but individual production. My answer is simple – I almost always dislike it.

Or, more to the point, I only like it when it’s a bridge to something else. For instance, I’ve always maintained that a dedicated Sales Manager needs somewhere between 4 and 12 direct reports. Less than four, you can’t support a Sales Manager. More than 12, your Sales Manager gets stretched too thin. But what of those situations where the object is to grow the sales force, but you’re not at the level of needing a dedicated Sales Manager yet? Well, that’s where the selling Sales Manager comes into play – but if you’re going to do it, you need to know the pitfalls and the must-dos. Hence, today’s article.

Having a selling Sales Manager (we’ll call it the SSM) has numerous pitfalls, and you need to be aware of these – whether you’re the owner employing the SSM, you’re the SSM, or you’re the salesperson working for the SSM. Here they are:

  • Competing Priorities: Every management position has competing priorities; however, for a SSM, the conflict is built-in. The SSM has to budget time between hiring, training, and developing his/her staff (the Sales Manager side), and protect a certain amount of time for selling (the salesperson side). This is a difficult balancing act, and all but the most disciplined people will struggle with it.
  • Personal Production: Production is, of course, important for all salespeople, but for the SSM, personal production can dictate the overall performance of the sales force. Think about it for a minute. If you’re a SSM, and you’re struggling in sales, how can you then coach and counsel performance issues? It’s hard to maintain the moral authority to keep your salespeople accountable for results if you’re not generating results. Hence, the SSM must produce, and ideally should produce at a star level (taking into account the reduced selling hours).
  • Stockholm Syndrome: A struggle that many SSM’s have is that they end up thinking more like salespeople than managers. Let’s be clear – a Sales Manager must be an agent of the company, thinking in terms of the good of the company overall. Sales reps are more free to think in terms of their own territories – they are solo performers. “Stockholm Syndrome” comes in when the SSM stops thinking like an agent of the company, and starts thinking like a salesperson. There are times when the Sales Manager must do things that the salespeople may not like, but are in the interests of the company. This is tough for many SSM’s.
  • The Compensation Conundrum: How do you pay and incent an SSM? One of the most common mistakes is to create a compensation plan that rewards personal production far more than team production. Let’s be clear on this – for the SSM, time and effort directed toward building and developing their sales force must be at least as valuable to the SSM, from a compensation perspective, as time spent selling – or the SSM would be a fool not to direct most of his/her time toward selling.

So, how do we make the SSM a successful position? Well, here are a few guidelines:

  1. Hire the right person. I know, this sounds obvious – but it’s not. The right person for the SSM spot might be different from the right person for either a Sales Manager slot or a Salesperson slot. They need excellent management abilities, precise personal discipline, and exceptional sales abilities (more than you’d normally demand from a Sales Manager). It’s a needle-in-a-haystack proposition.
  2. Have a very clear description and expectations. Clarity is even more important here than for a normal Sales Manager. The job description and expectations should clearly delineate how much time and effort should be directed toward selling vs. managing.
  3. Design the right compensation plan. As I mentioned earlier, the time spent (and results generated) through coaching and developing the team should be at least as valuable as time spent selling. You may need to play with sales commission and override plans, or put a team-centered bonus in place, to make this happen – but if you don’t, you’re on the path to failure.
  4. Manage closely. The SSM will need to be managed fairly closely by the immediate supervisor, whoever that is; managing tightly means that you will be constantly looking for that balance between selling and managing to become unbalanced.

Most business owners who hire an SSM find that their happiest day comes when they turn the SSM into a dedicated Sales Manager. Use the right processes and techniques, and you can achieve that day.