First, a warning – this particular article is long enough that it will be split into three installments. So, if you have a short attention span, this is notice that you’ll need to make sure to read the HotSheet the next two weeks to get the full story. These articles will be a little wordy; I’m laying out a complete case here. And with that, let’s dive in.

I have commented on Online Social Networking numerous times within this space, as well as in live events. However, until now, I’ve never really laid out where and how I feel Social Networking should fall within a comprehensive sales strategy, and more importantly – where it should NOT fall. That’s what I’m going to do here. I feel almost forced into making this declaration, but it’s time that someone combats the increasing level of hysteria and even silliness surrounding social media and online social networking.

That silliness has reached its height with recent writings by the man that I consider to be the top sales trainer in the USA, Jeffrey Gitomer. Now, don’t waste your time e-mailing me about how much more famous he is, how much more he makes, etc. than I do. I’m painfully aware. That said, I think Jeffrey (and many other trainers, he’s just the top of the heap) have gone off the reservation. His latest stance (summarized) is that, “Social networking is today’s cold call; stop cold calling and start Tweeting.”

Nonsense. In fact, let me go further: If you are a professional Business to Business Salesperson, and you take that advice as written, you are committing professional suicide. Period.

First of all, let’s define Online Social Networking. Online Social networking is the communication with others, through sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other such sites, with the objective of generating business interest. Online Social Networking – which I will hereafter refer to as OSN – can be a good piece of a selling strategy, depending on what you are selling. For most business to business salespeople, it is not a strategy in and of itself.

Now, let’s talk about why my stance – which will surely get me criticized as a technophobe or some other nonsense – is the correct one. For most of us, one of the big pieces of appeal to a selling career is the fact that you can control your income; i.e. through your own efforts, you can increase your income by increasing effort and achievement. There’s a basic equation that expresses this, which I teach in my sales training courses:

(Quantity of sales activity) x (Quality of sales activity) = RESULTS.

In other words, the more you do it, and the better you are at it, the more results you get. For most sales environments, we express that in terms of ratios – i.e. X amount of calls leads to X amount of appointments, which leads to X amount of proposals, to X amount of sales. Even Jeffrey still recognizes this principle; his common putdown to those who believe in cold prospecting is, “Go ahead and make 100 cold calls. You’ll sell one of them.” What doesn’t follow here is the crucial element in my argument against OSN as a primary selling strategy.

There are no ratios with OSN. No one can tell me (or you) how many Tweets lead to an appointment, how many “likes” on Facebook leads to a Proposal, or how many videos on YouTube lead to a sale.  The basic principle and appeal of professional selling – controllability of achievement and income – is gone if you rely on OSN as a primary selling strategy.

So why are people preaching it so hard? Simple – it’s marketable as all get out to salespeople. The reason is simple: Ever since cold prospecting has existed as a method of new business generation, there have been (a lot of) salespeople who disliked it, and looked for a way around it – a “magic button” to new prospects, if you will. And there have been trainers who have capitalized on this tendency by claiming that they had the “magic button.” They’ve been wrong in most cases, and continue to be. There’s no rejection when you Tweet; there’s no hang-up when you put up a Facebook page. Hence, there’s a ton of appeal to salespeople about OSN.

Now, I’m not totally against OSN. This Blog is a form of OSN, and it’s been great for reputation-building for the past six years. In fact, that’s where OSN should fall for most salespeople – as a reputation builder. And before this sequence of articles is over, we’ll talk about doing just that.

And with that said, we’ve used up this space for this week. With everything that I said, you should remember that I do believe that OSN plays a part in the business-building activities of most salespeople. We’ll talk about that in upcoming weeks. Next week, we’ll move into live face-to-face networking, which should be your second priority. After that, we’ll get into OSN and how to use it.

Face to Face networking is, or should be, a salesperson’s second priority after real prospecting efforts.  But there’s a lot that salespeople don’t know…

After last week’s article, hopefully you recognize where I stand in terms of business building activities. When building your business and/or territory by adding new customers, your first priority should be active data-driven prospecting activities (i.e. telephone cold calling). Your second priority should be live, in-person networking efforts. Your third should be Online Social Networking, or OSN. Today, we’ll talk about live, in person networking efforts.

First of all, let’s define “Networking.” Networking is the process of meeting people and forming relationships with a defined result in mind. What separates “networking” from “socializing” is the goal; i.e. the defined result. In our case, the defined result is that we want to find potential customers. But what kind? For that, we need to understand that there are a few levels of contacts we can make (through any of our efforts), and that those levels of contact have different levels of desirability. We’ll rate that desirability by Buying Power (i.e. the cash availability to make purchases) and Buying Authority (i.e. the level of ability to make a purchasing decision independently). Not all contacts rank the same, and it’s important to understand which is better. So, here are the basic levels:

Level One: Implementers: These are the foot soldiers of the business world. Look in the mirror, Champ – if you’re a salesperson, this is probably you. It’s also office clerks, maintenance technicians, etc.   Implementers are the “doers” of the business world. They are also, not coincidentally, the most commonly available contacts in a networking environment. The problem is, at least in a B2B environment, Implementers typically have low Buying Power and even lower Buying Authority. So if your main contacts are Implementers, your hope of making a sale is wrapped up in your Implementers’ ability and willingness to introduce you up a level.

Level Two: Influencers: Influencers are mainly middle managers, department heads, and other people who may have high Buying Power (departmental budgets) but low Buying Authority (they need to get the approval of others before making a purchase). If you’re hearing “I have to ask my boss”or “It’s not in the budget” a lot, you’re selling primarily to Level Two contacts. Single-employee entrepreneurs can also fall in as a Level Two contact, since they have high Buying Authority (nobody else to ask), but lower Buying Power (low cash reserves).

Level Three: Decision Makers: Decision Makers are Presidents, CEO’s, VP’s, Owners, and other C-level people. They are the people in the building who have high Buying Power (i.e. money to spend) as well as high Buying Authority (they don’t need to ask anyone before cutting the check). These are the most beneficial contacts for you to be dealing with. They are also the least common contacts for you to deal with. Why? Lots of reasons, but fear of approaching people at this level is right up there near the top. There are also levels above Level Three, but they are characterized by size of checkbook rather than authority.

Ideally, you’d all rather be dealing with Level Three and above, right? So why don’t you? Simple answers – your own fear and the fact that the deck is stacked against you.

Fear comes into play in your own cold calling approaches. Many salespeople (you?) get scared to call the person in the corner office, thinking they will be “too busy” or are “too important” to talk to you. Most of the time, they’re not; most of the time, other salespeople are just as scared as you, and the field is clear.

The other reason is that, in networking, the deck tends to be stacked against you. Remember the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together?” Well, it’s true – more importantly, they network together. Go to any Chamber event. What percentage are Level Ones? Probably 70% or more. Level Two is another 20%, and if you’re LUCKY, maybe 10% will be Level Threes. That’s because middle managers and owners have their own networking venues, and many of those venues don’t allow salespeople to join. So how do you get to network with Level Threes? Here are a few ways:

1. Cultivate a strong relationship with a Level One who has the ability and the willingness to introduce you to his/her own Level Three contacts.
   

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2. Analyze your own contacts and customers. Do you have any Level Threes? If so, start by cultivating relationships with them, and work for introductions.
   

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3.  If you don’t have any Level Threes, get some! Start by cold calling on Level Threes, sell them, impress them, and then network through them.
   

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Well, that’s about all the space we have for this article. Next week, we’ll be back to talking about OSN, and this week’s column will probably get more meaningful to you.

Now that I’ve established where Online Social Networking should fit in the sales priority list (below real prospecting and real face-to-face networking), let’s get into the “how” of OSN.

The first thing you need to do is set some meaningful time constraints on your OSN program. I know from experience that even the most well-meaning salesperson can quickly segue from “business networking” to “surfing the Web.” Without some discipline (either self enforced or externally enforced), the Web can become a huge barrier to productivity. Don’t let that be you!

Once you’ve established your time constraints, now you need to prioritize OSN sites. Remember the levels of contact that we discussed last week? If you missed that one, here they are:

Level One: Implementers: These are the foot soldiers of the business world. Look in the mirror, Champ – if you’re a salesperson, this is probably you. It’s also office clerks, maintenance technicians, etc. Implementers are the “doers” of the business world.

Level Two: Influencers: Influencers are mainly middle managers, department heads, and other people who may have high Buying Power (departmental budgets) but low Buying Authority (they need to get the approval of others before making a purchase).

Level Three: Decision Makers: Decision Makers are Presidents, CEO’s, VP’s, Owners, and other C-level people. They are the people in the building who have high Buying Power (i.e. money to spend) as well as high Buying Authority (they don’t need to ask anyone before cutting the check).

First, figure out what level your desired contacts are. Then, to evaluate each OSN platform, you should ask yourself these questions:

What is the likelihood that my targeted contacts will be using this site? (and, therefore, receiving your messages)

What is the likelihood that my targeted contacts will be motivated into a buying process by something that I do on this site? Remember, Motivation is the first step of the buying process; if you can’t generate Motivation, you can’t generate sales.

The four main sites/platforms that should frame these questions are: LinkedIn, Facebook (business pages), Twitter, and YouTube. Now, imagine your targeted contacts investing time in those sites. What’s your likelihood of gaining a win? I’m not going to play out every possible scenario on these sites and contact levels, but I’m sure you can do this for yourself. However, whichever site/platform you choose, there is one rule:

Contribute value. By that, I mean post meaningful content. Tell people how to do things, apprise of new developments, give tips, help people do their jobs better. If you don’t, you will lose your viewers. For that matter, make sure that EVERY post contributes some sort of content. Nobody cares whether you have meatloaf for dinner – but the first time you post that you did, serious people will tune out of your feeds. Meaningful content builds your sales credibility.

Of course, there are other forms of OSN that get a lot less press than the above sites, but might be more effective at communicating a business message. They are:

Blogs: We all know what blogs are; do you have one? Blogs allow long-form content that can get in depth on how to do things, and contribute value in all the other ways I noted above. This, to my way of thinking, is the major weakness of Twitter; the 140 character format doesn’t allow anything but lowest-common-denominator communication. Blogs can be what you want them to be, and they can archive your content. I strongly recommend them. But you must follow the rules of good written sales communication.

Message Boards and Forums: Every business discipline has online message boards. These can be excellent if you get the right forum; this is where businesspeople go for advice on solving problems. If you can provide that advice, you become expert in your field. The danger here is “Spamming” the forum; I’ve seen many message boards die because its members exclusively used them to broadcast sales messages. Don’t be that person; be a person of interest and advice.

E-newsletters: As you can probably guess, I’m a fan of E-newsletters. I’ve been doing mine for six years, and it continues to be my best form of social networking. This little HotSheet started with four readers six years ago. Now I’m approaching 20,000 readers worldwide, and it continues to be a great tool for building my business. Can you establish one? Platforms like Constant Contact (this one) are cheap and easy to use. I’ve been offered a lot of different platforms over the years. I stick with Constant Contact because it works for me.

Above all, here is the key to remember. Online Social Networking builds reputations; it is not a direct path to building your customer base. If you use OSN effectively, over time, you will get inquiries and customers from your efforts. These inquiries and customers will likely not be regular and predictable; but they will be a nice supplement to your ongoing prospecting efforts. The bottom line?

Good salespeople do it all. OSN isn’t magic; it is just another tool in the toolbox.

Well, let’s get back to good, old-fashioned yet still surprisingly effective prospecting, shall we?  This week, we’re going to talk specifically about the teleprospecting phone call (which I refer to as a cold call; in my opinion the walk-in cold call may not be dead, but it’s wheezing and sick).  I’ve had quite a run of BEING cold called in the last week, and from that comes this little compendium of ways to completely screw up a cold call.  If I’m not being clear enough, don’t do this stuff!  I present it as a cautionary tale.

1. The “Person Who” call:  “Hi, Mr. Harrison, I’m calling to talk to the person who handles your telephone service.”  Well, now, I’m not a very big company, and I handle my own telephone service.  Of course, when the person asks for the “person who,” my response is always, “he’s not here right now.”  When youcall and ask for the “person who” buys whatever you’re selling, three things are always true:  First, you haven’t done any homework to learn who the key managers are in the company.  Second, you’re willing to settle for someone low on the totem pole, and aren’t trying to get to the people who can actually say “yes.”  Third, the receptionist is going to send you to the lowest possible person they can, ensuring you hear “I have to talk to my boss” as much as possible.  Do a little research and ask for a specific person, and your success rates go up significantly.
2. “How are YOU today?”  If there’s anything I hate with a passion, whether it’s someone calling me or listening to a salesperson call, it’s this:  asking someone, whom you don’t know, “How are you today?”  It’s a lazy calling habit that announces you as a pesky salesperson who can’t think of anything better to say.  It immediately puts prospects on the defensive and makes them wish that they were anywhere else.  When a salesperson I don’t know calls me and asks how I am today, I tell them I have explosive diarrhea.  The calls usually don’t last long after that.
3. “I’m not trying to sell you anything.”  This is another fear-driven chestnut that is supposed to make prospects more comfortable.  In truth, it does the opposite – because you’re lying to them.  Heck yes, you’re trying to sell something!  Why else would you call?  Salespeople say this because they believe their time is valueless to both themselves and the customer; if you feel this way, either convince yourself of your value or change jobs.
4. Inappropriate Prospects Called. This can be a close relative of #1, in that both are a failure to do homework.  If you’re selling payroll services, for instance, why are you calling one-person businesses?  I see this all the time.  There are simply too many good resources out there, from ReferenceUSA to Hoover’s to D&B to Jigsaw, to call inappropriate prospects.  Doing so means that you haven’t taken the time to learn these resources.  Take away:  Go to your library, get a card and PIN, and then ask the reference clerk to teach you to use ReferenceUSA.  It’s a business database that’s both complete and FREE.  You can afford free, right?
5. Failure to contribute value.  This usually manifests itself in the call that begins, “I’d like to talk to you about your ___________ service.”  That’s a call that’s a dead player 9 out of 10 times.  Instead, have an idea and contribute value!  “Mr. Harrison, we’ve been helping companies like yours make more money and reduce operational time through (your stuff) for the last 10 years.”  That’s a statement that contributes VALUE into the call.
6. Failure to engage.  As you can see above, I’m a fan of showing value immediately.  Past that, you’d better ENGAGE them by asking a question or three to get them involved in the conversation. What are they doing now?  What do they like/dislike about it?  You get the idea.  And finally:
7. Selling the product and not the appointment.  Remember, all you’re selling on the initial phone call is the APPOINTMENT – the value of spending time with you.  Crossing that line and getting into serious feature/benefit discussion of product or service only makes it easier for the prospect to cut you off without giving you the opportunity to assess needs and present recommendations – which, after all, is the object of the call.

If you’re doing any of these things, the only advice I can give you is to STOP, redo your technique, and try again.  You’ll increase your odds and your appointments – which, after all, is what we are shooting for.

In one of my all-time favorite movies, Clint Eastwood articulates what might be the greatest salesperson’s motto ever – and he wasn’t even playing a salesman!

Okay, I admit it. I’ve never seen Clint Eastwood sell. I’ve also never seen him play a salesman in the movies, although I’m sure that at some point during his career, he’s had to do some selling to get a part, or to get a movie made. What I have seen Clint do is articulate one of the best sales philosophies I’ve ever seen.

One of my favorite movies is an early-80s piece called “Heartbreak Ridge,” starring Clint as Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway, a craggy Marine that’s committed to the Corps, but is too headstrong and rebellious to ever hold rank for long. Highway takes over a small band of misfits that he must whip into shape as a model Marine Recon unit. At one point, one of his charges asks him how to accomplish a challenge, and Highway growls, “You’re Marines. You adapt. You improvise. You overcome.” If “adapt, improvise, overcome” isn’t one of the most succinct selling philosophies around, I don’t know what is. Let’s look at what it means to a salesperson, shall we?

Adapting, as it applies to sales, should be the most natural part of our jobs. As much as we’d like to think, we don’t know everything. We’re not going to know everything. Our environment, both competitive and customer, changes constantly. Salespeople who don’t adapt simply don’t survive.

To adapt (change) to meet the needs of our environment, we must first understand what our environment is. We do that by acquiring information and knowledge. The best single source of that information, happily, is also the most important – our customers. When salespeople begin sales calls by asking questions to determine needs before presenting, they are adapting. In short, the essence of adapting in sales is to discover how your customer wants to buy – then create a way to sell that matches. Listen to your customers. They will tell you what you need to know.

Improvising is a very important skill for salespeople. Generally, “improvising” means creating something on short notice – or no notice. A good example in the entertainment world might be improvisational comedy, where the audience suggests a topic and actors make up a skit on the spot.

In sales, improvisation means changing our selling techniques, tactics, or presentation at a moment’s notice. If you’ve ever walked into a presentation where you anticipated an audience of one or two, then found that the entire executive committee decided to sit in, you know what I mean.

Improvisation can also be found in the salesperson who avoids canned sales “pitches,” but rather tailors his/her presentation and product offering to the client – and does so on the spot. That kind of salesperson is almost always guaranteed to be successful in sales, because he/she is speaking directly to the customer’s needs at all times.

The real key to improvisation is to be prepared for as many eventualities as possible. Know your stuff, and use the knowledge of your stuff, and you’ll be prepared to improvise.

Finally, salespeople must overcome obstacles in their path – but they must recognize those obstacles. Some salespeople turn selling into a contest between themselves and their customer. Not surprisingly, the customer usually wins, and the salesperson loses. Let’s be clear – the contest should NEVER pit the salesperson against the customer. The salesperson is pitted against any and all competitors or obstacles to helping the customer reach a beneficial buying decision. Note that “competitors” does not have to mean other companies that do what you do – “competition” can simply mean maintaining the status quo, doing whatever it is in-house as opposed to outsourcing, or anything else that serves as an alternative to buying what you have to sell.

If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend renting it. You’ll see Clint at his crustiest, and you’ll also see a pretty accurate sales philosophy played out in war guise.

When I am speaking, I get a lot of inquiries and solicitations asking me what my “#1 tip” for increasing business is.

This, of course, is a very complex subject that requires a lot of detail. But there is one quick tip I send along that can help people in any phase of business or even their lives. And that is:

Take the second shot.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Persistence pays off.” Most people interpret this to mean that “persistence” means aggravating and annoying people to death until they buy to get rid of you.  Many things, including fear, keep people from going down this road. However, there’s a nice medium ground, and that is what I call the “second shot.” The second shot means just that – it means trying twice to make good things happen.

The reason that I focus on a second shot, rather than a third or fourth, is that most salespeople are easily put off. While the public image of salespeople is that of the bulldog that never lets go, the truth is far from it; most salespeople are perfectly willing to take the first “no” rather than battle a bit for the win. That’s a shame, because a lot of business and opportunity lies beyond the first “no.” Let’s look at this in context, as I would in a sales training course.

The context will be the teleprospecting phone call, which as you know, I still believe is the core skill of B2B new business generation. Let’s imagine a call from a salesperson selling copiers:

Salesperson: “Hi, Mr. Prospect, this is Salesperson from Pretty Darn Awesome Copier Company. Our manufacturer has just released some new technology that can drastically reduce your per-page cost while actually increasing the quality of your paper documents. Could we meet next week, and see if there is a fit between your company’s needs and this new technology?” (NOTE – this is an imperfect call – there’s a step missing – but it’s typical of a decent teleprospecting call.)

Prospect: “Sorry, I’m not interested.” Now, about half the time that a customer says this, they’ll hang up on you. No second-shot opportunity exists on those calls. But, half the time, they’ll hang on and wait for the salesperson to say something weak like, “Uh, thanks anyway.” If you say that, you’re done. Instead, let’s take the second shot.

Salesperson: “I don’t blame you for not being interested. I’ve sold a number of these machines already, and I’ve found that the customers didn’t really have any interest until they understood what these machines could do, how they could reduce expenses and at the same time build your customer image through better documents. Would it be worth, say, 20 minutes of your time to at least know what those customers now know? If there’s a fit, I’ll tell you, and if there isn’t a fit, I’ll even tell you that. Fair enough?” Second shot taken. You’ve now given the prospect a better window into why he/she should take the appointment, and perhaps even aroused a bit of curiosity. Here’s the thing – whatever your chance is of getting the appointment on the second shot, it’s better than the zero you’d have if you bailed out at the first ‘no.’ A good rule of thumb is that whatever your ratio of contacts-to-appointments (let’s say you get 1 appointment in every 5 contacts normally), you’ll increase that 20 to 30% with a  good second shot effort.

Of course, even though this sounds good, it doesn’t come for free. You have to have a game plan. You need to anticipate common objections, have responses ready, and be very focused on the conversation. That requires a lot of thought and preplanning, and it also requires a focus on generating an appointment, not a sale.

This technique doesn’t limit itself to cold calls, either. Final objections, job hunting, getting a raise, getting a date – all of these can be improved by focusing on the second shot. Just keep in mind these steps:

1. Be prepared. Know the objections and the common responses.
   

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2. Create a “win” for the other party by accepting your second shot.
   

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3. Take extra shots with great care. Two makes you persistent, more can make you a pest, depending on the situation (the farther into the sales process you are, the more persistent you should be).
   

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4. Finally, remember that there are some objections that cannot, and should not, be overcome. Use good judgment, and don’t sell bad business.
   

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Most non-salespeople reading this article would think that it’s completely unnecessary; salespeople always do this, right? Nonsense – most salespeople are easily put off, because they fear pushing farther. Don’t be that guy or gal, and you’ll be more successful.

Is it time to reinvent yourself, or your company?  It’s hard to say – but this article might shed some light on it.

Whenever I think about tough economic times – such as we’re dealing with now – I always remember an interesting story about the inventors/founders of the Palm corporation. You know, Palm – the company that basically built the handheld computer industry. In the article, I was reminded of the fact that Palm actually started as a company that made software for handheld computers made by other companies. They just had one teeny-weeny little problem in the early 90s. Their industry was dying without ever really living.

If you remember, the handheld computers of the time sucked. They were heavy, awkward, and didn’t work well. Therefore, if you happened to be in the business of making software for a type of computer that people weren’t buying, you were not in a particularly good position in the market. During a meeting with their investors, one investor happened to ask Palm’s founders if they knew how they would build their own handheld. Jeff Hawkins, the brains at Palm, replied that he did. Hawkins actually didn’t have the slightest clue how to build a handheld, but the board didn’t know that. They tasked Hawkins with reinventing Palm. And in the reinvention (if you hadn’t guessed), there’s a Business Development lesson for all of us.

Frankly, Hawkins was working with more machismo than anything else, but sometimes, that’s what it takes. After the board meeting, he and his co-founder had a brief meeting where they decided that it was better to take a risk of going out in a blaze of glory, rather than dying of a thousand paper cuts as their industry tanked. The rest, of course, is history. Palm reinvented themselves, and in so doing, reinvented their industry. It goes without saying that a lot of people got rich in doing it.

I’m reminded of a couple of my Consulting clients (and several other people I’ve talked to in the last couple of years) who lament the fact that their industries are dying, shrinking, or just stagnant. Or worse – that their companies are. Or, finally, I’ve encountered salespeople with the same lament about their territories. And they don’t know how to fix the problem. Well, take heart. There is a fix. But it takes the same kind of huevos that Hawkins showed, and sometimes it takes the willingness to plow forward without a full knowledge of what lies ahead.

If you’re finding yourself in this situation, you have to reinvent yourself, or die a slow death. One essential truth of business is that you’re either growing or shrinking. There’s no middle ground. Even if your revenues are the same year to year, you’re shrinking due to increases in costs. And if you’re shrinking, it takes radical steps to fix the problem. I’ll tell you how, but I’m making the assumption that you’re doing things right. You’re still making sales calls, your products and your services are meeting customer expectations, and overall, you’re not actively killing your company. Here are the things you need to think about to reinvent yourself:

• Change your stuff. Your “stuff” is your array of products and services. Sometimes, the stuff you’ve been selling for years is no longer the stuff that the market demands – maybe your technology has become obsolete, or maybe your products have fallen behind your competitors. You still have a valued asset – your customer relationships. Use that relationship. Find new stuff (preferably somehow allied to your current stuff) that those happy customers will buy from you. I worked recently with the sales manager for a copier company here in Kansas City. Nothing remarkable in that, except that the company started many years ago as a typewriter repair company. Think there’s a lot of call for typewriter repair these days? At some point, they reinvented. With some good sales training (provided by me of course), they have succeeded.
• Change your customer base. Maybe, instead of adding new products, your stuff can be sold to a different industry or customer base. The classic example of this is Viagra. There’s no delicate way to put this, but Viagra was originally developed as a medication for certain heart conditions – and it didn’t work as well as they hoped. It had…uh…certain side effects that were marketable. Conventional thinking trashes a couple hundred million in research and development – creative thinking has made billions.
• Go to the mattresses. Remember that old line from the “Godfather?” Sometimes, you’re not in a position to change your customers or your products. It’s just that someone is going to survive, and it’s going to be either you or your competitors. Well, who’s it gonna be? This is definitely a risk it all strategy, but if you’re going to do this, there’s no halfway. History is littered with failed companies that viewed their competitors as “gentlemen” and “friends” who reacted too late to their competitors’ aggressiveness. Don’t be that guy.
• Cut out the middleman. If your product or service is sold through distribution, and those distributors quit supporting you, don’t wait. Go to the end user. It’s a tough strategy, but if it’s survival, who do you want it to be?
• Vertically integrate. This is what Palm did. Their survival depended on the quality of the manufacturers upstream from them. When those manufacturers laid a collective egg, they were toast until they decided to take control of their own destiny. A decade later, they still command the handheld computing market.

Usually, I write my columns hoping that they apply to a lot of my readers. In all honesty, I hope it doesn’t apply to too many of you. However, if you see yourself in any of the above examples, it’s time to fix the problem. You can either write a success story or a failure. Good luck and good selling!

At this time of year, there really are two types of salespeople – the ones who can give thanks for a great year, and the ones who ring their bell and beg for dimes.  Which are you?

Ah, yes, the holiday season is upon us. That means that this is the time to spend with friends and family, giving thanks, gifts, and appreciation for all that they give us. It’s also the season for something that is charming at its start, but – if we’re all honest – can get kind of annoying by Christmas – the Salvation Army bell ringers at every supermarket and shopping center. It seems to me that there is a parallel in the sales world.

I’ve always found that in selling, there are essentially two types of salespeople within the last month and a half of the year. Those who have had a successful year are in a very celebratory mood, because they already have a pretty good idea where their year-end numbers will be. They’re not worried about the “holiday objection;” instead, they are thinking about, and lining up, January business to get a good start on the year. The other kind has had a bad year, and spends their time running from customer to customer, ringing their bell and begging for dimes so that the less fortunate (themselves) can have a Christmas. Which are you? More importantly, would you like to be one of the celebrators next year?

If you do, it needs to start NOW. Over the years, I’ve written several articles on dealing with the “holiday objection,” (“talk to me after the holidays”). The reason that salespeople have trouble with this objection is that they don’t contribute value to the discussion. Too many salespeople spend their lives doing what I call the “doughnut call,” where they bring a box of donuts and ask for an order. If you’re one of them, it doesn’t have to be that way. If you’re NOT one of them, you’re still probably wanting to move ahead next year, so let’s talk about that. Here are some ways to redo your game for 2011:

Every call has a purpose. The biggest sales-killer is the purposeless sales call; i.e. a call that begins with no agenda and ends with no result. Stop ‘just dropping by’ to get the weekly order (or beg for an order); instead dedicate yourself to moving the relationship forward on every call. Ask new questions, present new products, get introductions to new contacts, etc. If the relationship is no better at the end of the call than the beginning, you’re wasting your time and your customer’s.

No excuses. Salespeople are great at making excuses and coming up with reasons why they don’t control their own destiny. Quit it. Your company blows? Find another company. Products are outdated? Find new applications or again, find another company. No new business? Get comfortable with prospecting resources like ReferenceUSA and Jigsaw, and build your business. It’s on YOU, champ, and there are more resources available to you than ever before.

Know your numbers and live them. Sales is a process, and like all processes, it has predictable results. While equal quantities of activity may produce differing results in the short term, over the long haul, you can predict your results with a given level of activity. Given that, there’s really no excuse (see above) for poor results – other than an unwillingness to live by the numbers. Know your numbers – how many calls produce an appointment? How many appointments produce a viable proposal? How many viable proposals produce a sale? Then EXECUTE them to achieve what you need. Or – just for giggles – why not go BEYOND the basic formula and overachieve?

Better your game. The basic formula of sales achievement is: (Quantity of activity x Quality of activity = Results). We just talked about the quantitative issue; when was the last time you worked to up the qualitative side of the equation? If you learn a new technique, every call you make is more powerful. The truly great salespeople work consistently to become better week in and week out, year in and year out. Do you want to be one of those people?

There’s no magic to this, of course. It just takes hard work and dedication. Even in this time of 10% unemployment, few salespeople who live these principles are out of work. Start working NOW to make 2011 your best year ever, and this time next year, you can be giving thanks.

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently teaching engineers how to sell.  As it turns out, they’ve been helping me learn something very valuable about selling, too.

For whatever reason, I have spent a lot of my time, particularly within the last three years, working with a lot of companies who have sales engineers – meaning that they hire people with engineering backgrounds to be salespeople. When I tell people about this fact, they give expressions of horror or sympathy, because of what they perceive as the difficulty of training engineers to be salespeople. What’s funny is, I love working with engineers. Want to know why?

It’s simple. Engineers know their numbers, and they understand repeatable processes. Engineering is all about creating repeatable processes, and so is selling. The only difference is that in selling, our processes aren’t 100% repeatable because we sell to human beings who have their own motivations. That said, every new skill learned, every new technique applied, is designed to raise our percentages. If a new skill does not raise our percentages, we ought not use it. There’s a basic formula to calculating your chances of selling success, and it is:

(Quantity of activity) x (Quality of activity) = Results.

Notice that I didn’t use variables like “luck” or “economy” in there. Those are factors that might skew your results somewhat in the short term, but over the long haul, your success in selling depends entirely onhow much selling work you do, and how good you are at it. Although that sounds simple, there are a lot of salespeople – and a lot of companies – that do not get it. Salespeople will look forever for a “magic button” to improving their results without measurably improving their quantity or quality of sales activity. Hence, with this in mind, let’s take an engineering-focused approach to a sales improvement plan for 2011.

Step One: Optimize Quantity of activity.

You will notice that I didn’t say “Maximize” quantity of activity. Sometimes, the “maximum” level of activity isn’t desirable; you then find yourself rushing through calls just to put up numbers. You increase your Quantity, but you can actually decrease your Quality of activity enough that your results are worse. Consider this: Most B2B salespeople have about 40 hours of meaningful selling time to work with in any given week. Let’s look at two simple ways to maximize your “Between the lines” time:

Cut the BS. Look, I’m no saint when it comes to sales activity. I have been known to make personal calls, pick up dry cleaning, etc. during that 40 hour window. But whenever I do those things, I first consider the penalty for lost selling time. Too many salespeople don’t. Make a log, in fifteen minute increments, of how you spend your selling time during the week. What can you cut out, and more importantly, what meaningful selling activity can you plug in? Push as much personal junk off to the after-hours, and optimize your selling time.

Delegate. Every task has a value, and every person in a company also has a value. If the value of the task doesn’t match the value of the person, you have an inefficient allocation of resources (gee, that phrase sounds like the engineers are rubbing off on me, too). Essentially, we want tasks delegated to the lowest salaried level that can carry them out well. Hence, if your time is better spent outside making calls than sitting at your desk writing sales letters, perhaps you might work with your manager to find someone to write those letters for you. Can a customer service department or inside salesperson process that order? Give it to them, and get back to what you do best. In doing these things, you will optimize your activity.

Step Two: Improve Quality of Activity.

This step differs from Step One, because in Step One, there’s a limit to how much you can streamline your workday. There’s no limit to how much you can improve your skills – yet I see salespeople who have been selling for 25 years and obviously haven’t learned anything new in the last 20. This is a process ofcontinuous improvement, gang. The selling environment never stops changing. When you stop changing, you are giving up.

Get up to speed with technology. I thought about putting this under step one, but the truth is that technology can improve your quality of activity much more than your quantity. I’ve already made myself clear on social networking (and if you haven’t read those articles, they’re archived on my site in the blog section), but you should be using technological tools like Jigsaw and ReferenceUSA to find new prospects, Google News Alerts to keep up on current customers, and tools like Constant Contact to stay in touch. If you’re not on game with these, all the Tweeting in the world won’t help you. Selling in today’s world is a battle of information, and the salesperson with the most customer information usually wins.

Commit to a program of self improvement. You should be a continuous digester and user of selling information; fortunately today’s technology puts more of this at your fingertips than ever before. Commit to learning one new skill every two weeks. Week one is to research and read about the skill; week two is to practice and adopt it. Repeat the process every two weeks for the rest of your professional life. Sometimes these skills don’t work in your environment; have the professional discipline to toss them out.

No Donut Calls. The “Donut call” is the lowest common denominator of selling activity; it’s “Hi, here are some doughnuts. Can I have an order?” There’s no effort at relationship building here. Don’t be that guy or gal. Instead focus on building the relationship with every customer you have, and developing them to their maximum.

Well, this plan is simple to write, but it’s not simple to execute. However, if you COMMIT yourself to executing these steps on a continuous basis, 2011 will be a lot better than 2010 – even if your 2010 was pretty good. Hopefully that’s a repeatable process we can all get behind.

No, I’m not talking about making sales in December 2010. It’s too late for that.

 Heck, it’s been too late for that for a couple of months. Is it possible to get appointments and sales this month? Sure. But let’s be honest – it’s not likely by now.

There are few things as sure as the “holiday objection.” That objection goes roughly like this: “Sure, Troy, that sounds interesting. Tell you what – call me back after the holidays, will you?” If you’re selling, you’ve heard that objection. There are reasons both legitimate and illegitimate for it, and best of all, there are ways around it. I can’t give you magic words that will automatically make people want to see you, but I can help you win sales in December 2011.

Here’s the secret: You win December sales based on the work you do from January through November. You don’t win them in December. As I noted, there are reasons both legitimate and illegitimate for customers not wanting to see you during the holidays, so let’s take a look at them:

Your prospect is closing out the year. If you’re calling on top management – or worse, the financial department – you’re going to get this objection a lot. It’s real, or it can be. Upper managers are worried about closing out their books in December, and they may not want to make time to see a salesperson at that time. Unless you can demonstrate that seeing you is a higher return on investment than working on the books, you’re probably sunk with this one.

They’re out of money. This one can be figurative or literal. Figuratively, they’ve spent their budget. Literally, their own customers are stretching them out financially (trying to make their own year-end) and they’re cash-poor. If this is the real issue, you might be able to work out some creative payment or shipping terms that work with their financial issues.

Of course, there are illegitimate issues. Or at least, there are issues that salespeople like you and I perceive as illegitimate, and all those issues boil down to this one:

They just don’t freakin’ feel like seeing salespeople during the holiday season. Sad but true – however, customers will take whatever excuse they can to NOT see salespeople, and since salespeople accept the “holiday objection” so readily, why not use it?

So what can we do about this objection? Sadly, there’s not much we can do right now. There are the usual combinations of sales words we can try:

“So what will change after the holidays?”
”If you’d like to do business after the holidays, why not get together and start now?”

“How about helping me make a sale, and we can both have a Merry Christmas?”

The truth is that these words will sometimes get you in the door. Sometimes. Well, actually, probably not very much unless you’ve already built a foundation. What we know is that we need to build a sales funnel, and we need to communicate value in order for prospects to want to meet with us. In December, both those skills are raised tenfold. Keep in mind that, in addition to the “holiday objection,” the normal reasons that people won’t appoint us still exist.

To win in December, you have to start in January. You start by understanding customers’ decision and buy cycles, and plan your sales efforts. Most salespeople don’t do this – if the customer in front of them won’t help them make this month’s quota or next month’s quota, they aren’t interested. By doing so, they lose sales opportunities. Don’t be that guy (or gal). When a customer or a prospect indicates a potential buy cycle, note it and use it – plan for the long term.

You can also create a reason to buy in December that doesn’t exist in other months. Most people are thinking of cutting price right now, but you don’t have to do that. What if you offered a heightened level of initial service for December purchasers that only cost your time? By doing this, you might be able to pull some sales forward from January (you’re planning your sales ahead, remember?).

Or, if none of the above options are available, you can simply get more aggressive in December. Step up your letter-mailing efforts at the end of November, and bite the bullet and make more calls, more cold calls, more networking, more whatever in December to hit your numbers. Yes, it’s possible.

See, here’s a cold fact. Whatever you’re selling (with the possible exception of beachwear in Minnesota), it’s being purchased in December. That means someone is making the sale. Shouldn’t it be you? Get cracking. If not now, then when?