It’s always sad, but I see it frequently. I’ll get a resume’ from a job candidate (or one of my clients will) that has an all-too-familiar career pattern. A veteran sales professional is applying for a position, and taking a look at his resume’, I see that his career was once tied to the proverbial rocket. He had a list of progressively higher positions (usually with some promotions involved), and great accomplishments. But then….something happened.

“What” exactly happened isn’t always apparent. What is apparent is that something happened to knock the pins out from under the person, because after the progression mentioned previously is a regression, from job to job to job, usually with less income, shorter tenure, and less achievement at every stop. You can even envision the people hiring him for that job thinking, “Wow, I can’t believe I was able to hire someone this accomplished!” and then thinking six months later, “Okay, I get it now.” Usually, my writings are geared at helping the hiring managers to avoid hiring this person. Today, I’m going to take a different tack and help YOU avoid BEING that person.

You might think that my first piece of advice would be, “Don’t get fired.” That’s obvious, and many times, the event that knocked the pins out from under the person was a firing. Sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t give that advice. Getting fired can happen for any number of reasons; some of those reasons might be your fault and some of those reasons might be completely beyond your control. Ask me how I know.

Long term career success isn’t necessarily about avoiding mistakes and unfortunate events; it’s about how you recover from those events. Or, as they say, “It isn’t about avoiding the fall; it’s about getting up and keeping going.” Too many of the people that I referenced in the opening paragraph kept going in name only. In reality, they never recovered. Here’s how to recover.

Assess the situation honestly. Why did something bad really happen? If you got fired, did you deserve it? I know, I know, none of us have ever deserved it, right? Sometimes you didn’t – but sometimes you did. Again, ask me how I know. It’s easy to blame ‘corporate politics’ or ‘downsizing’ when things go bad – but were there certain behaviors you exhibited that caused you to be shown the exit? Now is the time for an honest self-assessment to see if there are behaviors that you must change to succeed. Now is the time to make those changes.

Rediscover your love of the game. Do you enjoy what you do? I mean, do you really enjoy it, or is it something that you just ended up doing? To succeed in sales, you must enjoy the activities involved – the sales calls, the conversations, etc. – or you will not succeed. Virtually every other management and professional level discipline is the same.One great way to trash your career is to keep doing something that you don’t like and that you’ve failed at because it’s “the appropriate level of your career.” For instance, if you’ve been fired as a sales manager, maybe now is the time to rethink whether you should be a manager or perhaps it’s time to be a salesperson again.

Market your abilities, not your experience. You’re going to go job-hunting again. That’s perfectly natural. When you do, there’s a crucial change in mindset that can make all the difference in the world in your success going forward – and that is to market your abilities and skills, not your experience. Marketing your experience is about resting on your laurels and your contact base, and it’s the cause of more failed hires than anything I’ve seen. “I can bring this size of Rolodex and these contacts” means that you’re living in the past. “I succeeded before because of these abilities, skills, actions, and activities” means that you’re ready to repeat your successes of the past – if not surpass them. The way you market yourself as a job candidate sets the tone for the expectations of your new company, as well as your own expectations of yourself.

Adapt your methods, but do what made you successful in the first place. In the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, there’s a scene that’s both poignant and pathetic. It’s the scene where Shelly (played by Jack Lemmon) is yelling at the unsympathetic sales manager (played by Kevin Spacey) that, although he’s failing now, he’ll succeed again because he’s been the top guy in the past. “And do you know how I did it?” he asks Spacey’s character. “COLD CALLING!” Then he begs for the “good leads.” I can never watch that movie without thinking, “If that’s the way you succeeded then, why not do it again now?” We all have to adapt and change with the times, but never forget the grit, determination, drive, and utter love for the chase that made you successful. Don’t just refer to past successes – relive them.

Finally, Make up your mind to succeed. This, quite frankly, is a step that applies to any career stage. Sometimes things get tough on jobs – and too many people these days cut and run when they do. Whether you’re a veteran who’s suddenly having to fight and claw as hard as you did when you were just starting out, or whether you’re just starting out, the key difference between success and failure is that successful people make up their mind that they are going to succeed – unsuccessful people don’t.

Even the best long term careers can have hiccups, and it’s how you react to hiccups that make the difference between having the kind of career you can be proud of, or working at the big box store just to pay the bills and reminiscing about the six figure success you had years ago.

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.