Barriers can prevent success, but inconveniences just make it a little tougher.  Knowing the difference can be key to succeeding.

One thing about Kansas City – if you don’t like the weather, just wait a while. Or, as I’ve done today, drive around a bit, and you can get several different weather options. Today, I’ve had several out-of-the-office appointments, and I’ve encountered the following weather patterns: Clear and chilly, sleet, freezing rain, light snow, heavy snow, and back to freezing rain – all within a four hour period, and within about  40 miles of driving. Now, do I love weather like this? Nope (which makes my wife’s suggestion of ‘that winter headquarters in Miami’ all the more appealing). But it’s something that you just work around to make a living.

Which is why I was so surprised when I talked to a salesperson at 1 PM who, he said, was canceling his afternoon appointments (“for safety”) and heading for home. I couldn’t help but ask a few more questions, and found out that his basic philosophy was that the coming severity of the weather would mean that “nothing would get done” this afternoon, and that he might as well be safe and head for home. In his mind, the same weather that had inconvenienced me by forcing me to drive more slowly and had gotten me cold and wet while outside had become a barrier to him doing his job. Which, as the title of this article suggests, reminds me that what is an inconvenience for some is a barrier for others – and since, as salespeople, we make our living overcoming obstacles, it’s best to have as many inconveniences as possible.

The truth is that a lot of people are pretty good at turning inconveniences into barriers. Here’s an example: One of the most common things that I hear from people is that “cold calling doesn’t work in my business.” Really? So I start probing to get an understanding of the facts that led them to that conclusion. Seldom is there a strong database to support this position. However, their perception that cold calling doesn’t work has allowed the prospecting process to move beyond an inconvenience to become an obstacle. Here’s the thought process:

1. I (or my salespeople) prefer not to prospect (Prospecting is an inconvenience).
   

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2. Since I (or my salespeople) prefer not to prospect, I (they) do it as little as possible.
   

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3.  Since I (or my salespeople) prospect as little as possible, we have no success stories from our industry to share when it comes to prospecting.
   

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4.  Hence, prospecting doesn’t work in my industry. (Prospecting is a barrier).

Notice that the conclusion – that prospecting is a barrier – is driven not by experience and data but by a lack of willingness to push through and do what is inconvenient. This is the same as my salesperson friend who is unwilling to go to the inconvenience of completing appointments during the bad weather, and instead, goes home in front of a nice fire with a cup of cocoa (Okay, I’m imagining that last part).

Many times in selling, we have to be able to make decisions – good ones – regarding what is an inconvenience, what is an obstacle, and what is a barrier to selling. If you set your bar too low, you will cost yourself money by overstating the inconvenient as a barrier. Here are some examples:

Inconveniences:

• I can’t get to the decision maker.
•  They won’t allow me to present a proposal in person.
•  My computer is down.
•  I don’t have any prospects to call.
•  I’m not getting any referrals.
•  My quota is too high.
•  The weather is too bad to drive.

You get the idea, right? Each one of the above are inconveniences; they make the selling process harder or more time consuming, but none is a direct barrier to success. Barriers, on the other hand, can close off a path to success:

Barriers:

• Nobody buys my product anymore (hey, somebody sold the last buggy whip – the key is, do they really not buy it – or just not from YOU?).
•  My customer doesn’t have any money (if this is literally true, it’s a barrier).
•  My prospect is contracted to a competitor, and there’s no way to legally break it.
•  The roads are closed.

The truth is that I had a hard time coming up with a list of real barriers, because most of the things that we state are barriers are inconveniences of varying levels. Our job as salespeople – what we are paid to do, and what our employers and customers expect us to do – is to push through the inconveniences, overcome the obstacles, and adapt and improvise to make the right things happen and drive business. To do less is to fail. Make sure, when you think about bailing out of a particular customer, function, or duty, that you have examined the situation and found it not to be an inconvenience, but a barrier.

Often, salespeople forget, or are scared, to deal with the customer’s real benefits as it relates to their product.  This article shows how to deal with them the right way.

Yesterday, I was driving along the highway when I saw perhaps the most powerful advertising message I’ve ever seen. It was for a hospital and it said this:

More People Who Come Here….Live.

Wow. That is some powerful stuff. Think about it; if you visit the hospital, isn’t your #1 hope to simply survive the experience? And, if in fact that is your #1 need as a potential buyer (patient), why don’t more hospitals address that issue instead of talking about room comfort, staff education, technology employed, and other peripheral benefits? Well, it’s for the same reason that many salespeople shy away from the key benefits of their “stuff” – fear or assumption.

The fear – at least in the case of the hospital – is obvious. By addressing the key issue of survivability, the hospital acknowledges that some people who go there die. Since acknowledgement of the OPPOSITE of the key benefit is decidedly unpleasant, I’m sure a lot of marketing experts shy away from mentioning it. My response, of course, is, “Do you think people don’t recognize the possibility?” It’s similar to when Johnny Cash played Folsom Prison in 1968, and the warden asked him to stay away from playing songs that would remind the inmates that they were in prison. “Warden,” Johnny reputedly said, “Do you reckon they forgot?”

This is a key question for salespeople or marketers who, through fear, shy away from key benefit statements because they are afraid of reminding customers of the opposite outcome. For instance, if a freight line advertises that “98% of our shipments arrive on time and undamaged,” they are also saying, “Of course, you have a 1-in-50 shot of your stuff winding up in Nome, Alaska with big dents on it.” Is that a worthwhile risk to take? It depends, I suppose, on how the 98% stacks up against your competitors. If it stacked up well, I’d say that the risk is worth taking.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin: Assumption. “Assumption” in this case means that you believe that your customers already know where you stack up on the key benefit, so it’s only worthwhile talking about the secondary benefits. Apple has done a great job of this with their campaigns regarding the PC vs. the Mac. (I should point out that I’m still a loyal PC user, but I’m impressed with the campaign.) The key benefit of computer users is that the computer won’t crash; meanwhile, most computer salespeople talk about hard drive size, RAM, etc. Apple makes the statement, “Our stuff won’t crash.”

So how can you use this idea to make money? Simple. Compile a list of benefits for your product or products. When you do, remember that NOTHING IS TOO BASIC. When you’re done, figure out what is the key, ultimate benefit of your sales proposition, then don’t be too afraid or too assumptive to use it. Remember Johnny – “Do you reckon they forgot?”

Salespeople have a lot of control over our own destinies – but we also have control of the destinies of many others, too.  How often do you think about them?

This is another one of my articles inspired by a question or comment that came out in a training session. Yesterday, I was in Reno doing a program for a company in the agricultural industry, and the question arose, “How do you feel about using politics as an icebreaker?” Actually, it was phrased a bit more, uh, ruggedly than that, but you get the picture. Now, I am aware that the common advice is to avoid the topic of politics in selling. It’s advice that I often give, and to be honest, sometimes I don’t follow it myself. In fact, I would go so far to say that most of my clients, and even nonclients, have some inclination about my political bent.

HOWEVER – I am aware that this can cost me business from time to time. If it does, the only person penalized is ME. I’m pretty much a solo entrepreneur, and if I make choices about what to discuss, knowing that there is a chance that it could cost me financially, that’s all on me. It’s not that way if you work for someone else. The immediate thought is of your boss, but there are others. Read on and watch as I expertly weave together politics, salespersonship, and Charlie Sheen into one topical and enjoyable article.

Right now, Charlie Sheen is in the spotlight as he has never been before, even in his Brat Pack days. The reason? Because he’s exposing himself as a complete flipping loon who likely receives his drug deliveries via a loading dock. Every time Charlie talks about “Tiger Blood,” waves a machete in front of a video camera, or chainsmokes while babbling incoherently, the nation is captivated. I get it. It’s always hard to look away from a train wreck, and when said wreck is being broadcast in slow-mo into your living rooms, it’s even harder.

People have a variety of takes on what the ol’ Chuckster is doing. My take? He’s an incredibly self centered (insert your favorite perjorative here) who cares not a whit for anyone else. Sure, I enjoyed “Two and a Half Men,” and I recognize that the entire eight-year scenario has required less actual ACTING than anything Sheen has done (he’s just been playing himself, really). But, for me, the biggest thought that I have is, “Wow. How many livelihoods has he trashed just because he wants to be a very public jerk?”

See, unlike me (in one of the thousands of ways that Sheen and I are unlike), Sheen has hundreds of people who depend on him for their livelihood. I’m not concerned about Jon Cryer, Courtney Thorne-Smith, or any of the other actors on the show. They’ve made good coin and they’ll be fine. But a show like “Men” requires hundreds of people behind the scenes who do not make wealth wages, and who may or may not have another ready job to go to. For trashing those people’s livelihoods with his own self-indulgence, Sheen is slime. Frankly, I’m surprised that the group of support staff on “Men” hasn’t strung him up by his thumbnails.

But – and this is where we circle back to selling – salespeople have the ability to make the same kinds of decisions, with the same kinds of consequences, every day. And it’s not just undertaking activities (like discussing politics or religion) that could potentially drive away customers. Inactivity is just as bad. Every cold call you don’t make, every networking function you blow off, every appointment that doesn’t happen, has a real effect on the economic well being of your company and those who depend on it for their livelihoods.

See, the person who asked me the question about politics did so with a big assumption; he assumes that everyone in his industry looks at political issues the same way. Knowing his industry and his politics, I’d be willing to bet that he’s right a great majority of the time. However, for every rule there is an exception, and within those exceptions is the problem. Even if there’s only a 5% chance that he says the wrong thing to the wrong person, that 5% is a risk without any real reward. And the customer that he drives away within that 5% might be funding someone’s job at his company.

Now, risky behavior – risking driving away some customers – is fine if there’s a commensurate reward. For instance, we might want to build ourselves out of the market for smaller customers so as to be attractive to larger ones. This produces a win; our efforts generate more revenue and profits. In terms of politics, there’s really no win involved; I can’t think of a single customer in my 22 year career that I’d have won by discussing politics that I didn’t win with other conversation.

In terms of sales inactivity, there is absolutely no reward to doing a halfway job – but there is a high risk. Here’s the bottom line: In selling, we are confronted with opportunities every day to engage in behavior that has economic consequences for ourselves and those that depend on us. If you need motivation, how about this?  Even if you’re willing to live with the consequences of low or risky activity, are the people back at the office or the warehouse?

Sometimes, the biggest enemy of selling has nothing to do with selling skills; personal habits can kill sales in a heartbeat.

Oftentimes in my training, I’m asked what topics to completely avoid during a sales call. The conventional answer – which we touched on last week – is to stay away from politics or religion. If you’re wondering why, go to my sales blog and read last week’s article. That said, there’s an even worse combination of words that are often used to start a selling appointment, but can kill your chances of making a sale.

Those words are, “Sorry I’m late.” Of course, the real sin isn’t apologizing for lateness; it’s being late in the first place. Of course, things do happen and everyone is late from time to time. Yes, even me (Very seldom; I’m a stickler for punctuality). But over the years, I have noticed that there are those people who are habitually late. Frankly, those are people for whom I have no time.

There is no bigger sign of disrespect for someone than being late for an appointment. It is an expression that you live on your own schedule, despite the commitments you have made to others. Admittedly, I’m from the old school, where 10 minutes early is acceptably early, 5 minutes early is on time, and on time it is late (still a heck of a good policy in my opinion); that said, I’m far from the only one who takes punctuality strictly.

A lack of punctuality is simply a lack of professional discipline. One of the most common questions I get asked goes something like, “Troy, I have a problem keeping appointment times. How can I better manage my time so that this doesn’t happen?” I have a hard time coming up with an answer that doesn’t start with, “Grow up.”

Still, punctuality is far from the only simple killer of sales. I’d love to know how many sales die in a year due to simple bad manners and unprofessional conduct. Here are the top 8 ways that simple bad personal habits cost salespeople sales; the good news is that, if you’re guilty of one or more of these things, they’re easy to fix.

1. Lateness – already discussed.
2. Bad cell phone etiquette; leaving it on or (worse) taking calls in the middle of a sales call.
3. Poor personal grooming; looking like an unmade bed in front of the customer.
4. Rudeness, particularly to people you perceive beneath you.
5. Lack of follow-up; leaving customers hanging when a simple phone call would keep them informed.
6. Poor written communication; written sales communications should not look like a text message written by a 12 year old.
7. Taking the best parking spot – those are for CUSTOMERS.
8. Unpreparedness; when salespeople walk into a call with neither pad nor paper I always wonder what they think they’re going to accomplish.

As I said, none of these is terminal. If you’re guilty of one of them, changing it is a simple matter of applying a little personal discipline. The rewards will be much higher than the investment.

Well, this missive is inspired by an injury, of all things.  But the article is good; read on.

One of the biggest impeders of selling success is the existence of pre-existing habits. Bad pre-existing habits, to be more precisely. Training, coaching, and troubleshooting techniques can fail – and fail badly – if old habits which conflict with new techniques and skills are not overcome.

I’ve learned a thing or two about habits in the last couple of days. See, two nights ago, I sliced the knuckle of my right index finger open on a grinder while working on one of my hobby projects. Some really loud and profane words were followed by a trip to the ER, where some very professional nurses and one doctor cleaned out the wound and stitched it up. These were the first stitches I’d received in my 42 years, if you’re wondering. But, the end of the process was taping my right index finger into a splint – which was a habit-changer in itself.

Some of the most basic things I do, things like carrying my keys and wallet in my right-hand pockets, suddenly became something between inconvenient and pretty darn painful. Breaking old – really old – habits has suddenly become essential as many things that I do (including typing this article) are darned near impossible with the splint. What is has done is reminded me of a basic 4-step process that I used to use years ago when I had to help salespeople break their habits.

Step One: Analyze the cost of the habit. In this case, “hurts like heck” is a good enough cost. Whether you’re looking at your own sales behaviors, or working with a salesperson to break their bad habits, the first thing you have to do is understand what the habit is costing the person. What is the impact on quality of sales calls? Is it impacting the quantity of calls performed? Remember – quality x quantity = results; if the bad habit is affecting funnel ratios or overall quality of activity, you can put a dollar figure to each instance of the bad habit. This should inject the urgency to fix it.

Step Two: Create an alternative behavior. Habits are formed and then reinforced because our minds can’t think of anything else to do in certain instances. That’s why it’s not enough to say, “stop doing that.” Instead, we must substitute a behavior. This is the reason that smokers, for instance, may chew gum or pop LifeSavers as part of their effort to quit. If I’d bought stock in LifeSavers when my Dad quit smoking, I’d definitely be more wealthy now; it wasn’t that he loved LifeSavers, it was that his fingers and mouth needed an alternative behavior.

In a selling situation, when we see our salespeople habitually doing something that harms their results, it’s not enough to say, “stop.” We must instead suggest an alternative technique that can substitute a positive habit for a negative one. Hopefully, the new technique is based upon solid knowledge of customer behavior.

Step Three: Create a reminder. The salesperson needs some signal or reminder that they are about to go down a wrong road. Sometimes a large note written at the top of a legal pad works. For me, I am consciously grabbing my keys and wallet with my left hand so as to remember to place them in my left pockets. I’ve had salespeople who needed to remind themselves to smile before teleprospecting that put a mirror in front of their desks. The reminder is probably going to need to be as individual as the habit.

Step Four: Reinforce the positive. In selling, the reinforcement is the positive reaction of the customer, or of the manager. In this case, fixing the habit is its own reward. In any habit-breaking effort, you are far better to reinforce the positive, however, than penalize the negative. Stay with it, stay consistent, and bad habits can and are broken.

For me, the reinforcement of breaking right-handed habits is less pain and less chance of popping my stitches; something of its own reward. I won’t say this has been a good experience, but it’s been a nice reminder of a successful old management technique. Hopefully you can use it to your benefit.

It’s not enough to say you care about your customers – you must PROVE it on every interaction!

One of my favorite questions to ask business owners is, “Why do your customers buy from you?” Despite the diversity of my client base, there isn’t much diversity to the answer: It’s always some variation of “great customer service,” or “our people.” (Which is pretty much the same answer.) The trouble is that the answer is almost always OUR PERCEPTION of the issue, rather than the CUSTOMER’s perception. Which do you think is more important?

If you said, “The customer’s,” you’re right. The truth is that most of us don’t really know why our customers buy because we don’t ask. We simply rest on the knowledge that our people care, but we seldom verify that or justify it. Let me give you two radically different examples of companies that say “our employees care,” and you can decide which company means it.

The first example is from the hotel I’m staying at this week: The Outrigger Reef on the Beach in Honolulu. Now, I haven’t been to Honolulu for 17 years, and I’m definitely not a regular at the Outrigger. In fact, my travel agent helped me find this hotel. Who’s my travel agent, you ask? I’ll tell you – Kim Shannon at All About Travel in Mission, KS. She really cares, too, but I’ll save her story for a future HotSheet. But I heartily recommended her.

My experience at the Outrigger has been unique, and I have stayed at a lot of high-end resort hotels. Let’s start with the parking valet. In my experience, there are two kinds of valet parking operations at hotels – the Vegas kind, which is free, cheerful, and lightning fast, and the other kind, which is pricey, mandatory, impersonal, and slower than Charlie Sheen heading to a sobriety clinic. In other words, thanks for your money, and we’ll get you your car when we darn well feel like it. Call this the “everywhere other than Vegas” model.

The Outrigger was different. There is a not insignificant charge for valet parking, but I knew in advance, so it’s OK. I pulled up to the valet parking stand, and a smiling young man wished me “Aloha” and asked my name. I gave it to him, and – this is new – he quickly found my name on the list of reservations. He got our bags, and then spent a few minutes orienting us to the resort and explaining some of the features. Very nice. I should point out that when I went to get my car the next morning, the service was Vegas-quick and Vegas-cheerful. I hereby do not mind the extra charge.

Then there was the check-in. We all know about hotel check-in, right? You walk up to a desk and stand there while the person behind the desk (hopefully) finds your reservation, then spends quite a bit of time creating your documents and keys. Not here. Checking in here, you actually sit down and speak to a desk clerk who is also sitting down. You give him your name, and he pulls out a file of pre-made documents and keys. Two signatures, and we’re on our way to the room. I commented to him that this was the smoothest check-in I’ve ever seen. The clerk smiled and responded, “Most of our guests have been traveling six or more hours to get here (we traveled a total of eleven hours). We don’t want to keep them from their vacation any more than necessary.” Nice touch, wouldn’t you agree? There are more examples, but suffice it to say that the Outrigger cares about their customers. Yes, it’s a luxury resort, but I’ve stayed at a lot more high priced resorts that couldn’t approach the service here.

Now, for the other extreme, I will pull back the mask a bit. I do the cooking at our house, and I’m darn good at it. Not the most manly thing in the world, I suppose, but it’s one of my skills. My wife bought me a very nice set of cookware about a year and a half ago, and recently, the bottom plate of one of the pans separated from the main pan. No problem, these pans are lifetime warranty, so I’ll just take it back to where I bought it and get a new one.

When it comes to lifetime warranties, my best experience is with tools from Snap-On and Craftsman (for those of you keeping score at home, this is where I get my man-card back from the cooking issue). When you have a broken tool, you take it back and they give you a new one. No exceptions, no worries. They don’t ask for receipts; they don’t even particularly care where you got the tool. My dad once bought a ratchet that was made by Snap-On in the 1920s. The mechanism didn’t work. The tool man said, “I’d happily swap you for a new one, but as rare as that is, you’d probably rather have it rebuilt.” One week later, he returned and the ratchet had been rebuilt and polished to look new. Turns out that they had to specially cut a new gear for it since they no longer stocked parts for it.

So this is my frame of reference. Armed with these expectations, I walked into the store and to the housewares department. I explained my issue to the lady at the counter, and she began peppering me with questions about what I did to it, did I have a receipt (no), and finally the statement that “we don’t carry this style anymore.” I explained patiently that lifetime means lifetime, and I expected the situation to be made right. Cue the call to the manager.

The manager came out and first observed, “Gee, that’s been exposed to a lot of heat.” I fought the urge to respond in a Bill Engvall “here’s your sign” manner and instead said, “Yes, I cook with it and that involves heat.” Again I told them that all I expected was something comparable since they didn’t carry the product line. The manager went back to the “we need a receipt” stance. This is when I got a bit assertive. I explained that, lifetime means lifetime, and if I have to leave and get a receipt, I’ll simply leave and purchase a replacement somewhere else, and in the process continue to buy elsewhere. It’s simply not worth my time to return. Finally – after 35 minutes of deliberation – they decided on a replacement and a course of action, telling me multiple times how they were “violating store policy” to do so.

So, which company cares about its customers? More to the point, look at the two situations – which one is more exemplary of the experience that YOUR customers receive? Sometimes the truth can be painful, but it’s still the truth. How can you show your customers that you really do care, instead of saying so? It’s the total customer experience that counts.

Social networking is a reputation builder.  It’s up to you whether that reputation is positive or negative, as with the examples here.

Today, we’re going to talk social networking. Now, if you’ve been reading my articles over the last year, you know that I don’t advocate substituting social networking for prospecting, but I do think social networking can be an excellent reputation building tool. Further, I would consider LinkedIn to be my favorite social networking platform.

Today, we’re going to talk about how even LinkedIn can work against you. When you post something on a social networking platform, you essentially are ringing a bell; i.e. sending a message out. As they say, you can’t un-ring a bell, and recently, I saw an example of how a bell can be rung badly. The post, on a LinkedIn group, went like this:

“Does anyone have a good suggestion or referral for a Web developer who isn’t going to charge me an arm and a leg for something a 3^rd grader could do?” Now, let’s break down what this person (who shall remain nameless) posted. First of all, he’s looking for a Web developer. So far, so good. Next, he indicates that his budget is low (won’t charge me an arm and a leg); questionable, but still not that bad. But the closing offended a lot of people, as it should. “For something a 3^rd grader could do” is a slap at an entire industry of trained professionals.

My question is, if you were a Web developer, why would you want to work with this guy? You already know that he pinches pennies and that he has little respect for your business. Hence, the likelihood that you’re going to have a satisfactory transaction is low. Most of the responses were of the tone saying that Web developing, like other business disciplines, is one that takes training and experience, and that experience has a monetized value. The bottom line, however, is that the poster ended up damaging his reputation by posting an insulting comment.

One problem with social networking is that it’s very easy to post things in the heat of the moment (this person might have just had a frustrating experience) that you can repent in leisure. Even given this fact, it takes discipline not to do so, because LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms make it easy and accessible to post the stream of consciousness; in fact, they virtually demand it. This is what I mean when I say that social networking lends itself to lowest-common-denominator conversation.

A further example, from the same board and a week earlier: “Can anyone recommend a KC recruiter that has clients needing Business Development / Sales / Sales Management candidates and will actually work hard to create good matches? I sure can’t find one!” This comment was from a job seeker and not a hiring manager. Full disclosure; I have met with this person in the past because he was referred to me; he wasn’t a fit for a search I was doing at the moment. After reading this comment, he’s removed himself from being a fit for any search I might do in the future.

The point is that it’s easy to insult entire professions, or providers, without thinking. In the case of post #2, I have no doubt that I will at some point hear from him again as a “follow up” call. What will my response be? Can you guess?

As I noted, social networking can be a great tool for building reputations. The key is that you want to make sure that those reputations are positive and not negative. Everything you put out on the Internet creates a composite picture of your character; is your social networking consistent with the reputation you want to build? If not, why not?

One quick technique that I use – I never enter anything directly into Twitter or LinkedIn. I always write a draft in Word, even for Tweets. I let the draft sit for an hour. If I still like it, I will post it.

Salespeople limit their performance every day by what they are not willing to do.  Are you one of them?

Recently, I was involved in a conversation with people who were discussing “self-limiting beliefs.” Without going into the specifics of that conversation, the interesting part to me was that it seems that there are many different opinions on what constitutes a “self limiting belief.” I gave this some thought, and came up with a definition: A “Self Limiting Belief” is an opinion that prevents you from doing something based on a perception of a behavior that is in fact, changeable. Pretty wordy, huh? If you read this often, that probably doesn’t surprise you.

Let’s look at it a different way. Most self-limiting beliefs are really excuses for a lack of willingness to change a behavior that inhibits your success. For instance, here’s one that I heard recently: “I can’t lose weight because I eat out all the time and the portions are so big.” Well, there are two potential changeable behaviors in that statement. First, the person could eat out less. Second, the person could simply eat less of the large portions (I know, it’s hard to put down a good cheeseburger with 1/3 remaining). Now, let’s look at how this applies to selling.

Salespeople will rail against capped commissions until the cows come home; yet many (most?) salespeople put caps on their own commissions every day through reinforcement of behaviors that cap their achievement. When you have a self-limiting belief, that’s really what you are doing – capping your achievement because you acknowledge that a change in the behavior might produce an additional positive result. Does this sound smart to you?

If it doesn’t, that’s because it’s not; yet I hear self-limiting beliefs in every training session, seminar, and workshop that I perform. Here’s an example: In a recent program, I advocated writing handwritten thank you notes as a way to communicate appreciation to clients. Someone said (as they always do), “Troy, that won’t work for me, because I have bad handwriting.”

For them, that shut off the conversation. “Bad handwriting” means that they shouldn’t write letters to customers. I agree that a badly handwritten letter might be a negative, rather than a positive. But let’s look deeper – was the person born with bad handwriting? Of course not. It was a learned habit. I’d be willing to bet that their handwriting was pretty decent all the way through high school, because it had to be and because they practiced every day. As the years went on, the person did less and less handwriting until it became a habit to be nearly illegible.

So, given that their bad handwriting is a habit, is it changeable? Of course it is. And it usually doesn’t require a re-teaching of how to write. Usually, all that is required is to slow down a bit (most bad handwriting is caused by hurrying), and to focus on the letters being written down. But that, of course, is a lot of work, and it’s easier to just say that “I have bad handwriting,” which gets them out of the work to change the habit and the work to write the letters. It also locks them out of any potential benefit that could be gotten from sending these letters, thus putting a small and subtle cap on their achievement.

Let’s take a look at another common one. “Troy, I can’t cold call owners or Presidents of companies; my product doesn’t justify their attention.” This one is driven less by laziness and habit than by fear. The fear, in this case, is the fear of rejection by company owners. Again, this can be overcome. First, the person should recognize that one appointment with a company owner is worth at least two appointments with subordinates. Second, the salesperson should go through the exercise of learning just how, precisely, his product or service DOES benefit the bottom line (they all do). Then, the further exercise of coming up with a strong benefit statement to get the owner’s attention. Of course, again, this is a lot of work, so they prefer to settle for middle management that has to ask the owner before buying.

What caps do you put on your achievement? How do you limit yourself by avoiding activity that is uncomfortable, requires habit change, overcoming fear, or just plain hard work? Odds are that you have self-limiting beliefs and that changing those beliefs could result in higher achievement.

The truly successful people are not characterized by a lack of obstacles; rather, they are characterized by a willingness and determination to do the hard work to overcome those obstacles.

The meek may inherit the Earth – but they won’t lead the sales rankings.

Recently, I was asked what effect I see from the slow economy on the work of salespeople. We all know the common answers – slow sales, long decision cycles, etc. – but I think it’s worth focusing on another area. For want of a better phrase, I call it “excessive timidity.” This timidity can be a career killer, if you let it.

Understand first, that a salesperson’s role is to assist, and yes, persuade customers in the effort of helping customers to make purchases that are beneficial both to themselves and to the salesperson. This process works best when the salesperson and the customer mutually advance through a process that begins with Prospecting, moves to Discovery/Needs Analysis, to Presentation, to Proposal, to Decision. It’s the salesperson’s job to assess the readiness of the customer to advance through this process, and then to move the customer.

Ideally, in selling, we want each contact with the customer to advance the relationship. This is true even with existing customers with whom we are already doing business. “Advancing the relationship” with current customers can take many forms; we can advocate new products, we can ask for new and different contacts within the customer’s chain of command, or we can get testimonials and referrals.

The common thread between all of those things, however, is that we must ask for the right things to happen. If we want the customer to buy new products, we have to ask. If we want the customer to give us a referral, that typically won’t happen if we don’t ask. In selling, you will not get what you want unless you ask for it.

On the face, it would seem logical that, in tough times, it becomes more important for salespeople to make the most out of every sales call by asking the right questions, and moving relationships forward. In the real world, this is true. The problem is that tough times generate fear, and resultant timidity, in salespeople – which causes them to do the exact OPPOSITE of the desirable behavior.

The key here is that salespeople become defensive with the relationships they have. They become their own worst competitors, and thus they back off from asking the right questions and doing the right things, out of a fear that their customers will perceive them as “pushy” and cut off the relationships. The result is that the biggest time-suck of salespeople (chasing ‘maybe’s’ and deals that won’t happen) becomes a BIGGER time-suck, and the salespeople become less productive. That defensiveness also leaves you ripe for the picking from competitors, because aggressive competitors will work to show your customers new products, and new opportunities – which can leave you out in the cold.

Let’s look at some classic symptoms of sales timidity:

“I was just calling to see if you have any questions about…” This one is normally used in place of competent follow up on a proposal. You’ve issued an offering of a specific service for a specific price, and you’re looking for an answer. But instead of gutting up and asking for what you want, instead you ask if they have ‘any questions,’ with the hope that they will close themselves. What nonsense. If they had questions, they’d have asked. Instead, just ask for what you want – the sale.

“Hi, Mr. Customer. I’m just calling to touch base/follow up…” Again, an agenda-free call. That’s not respectful of your time or your customer’s. Instead, when you call, have a reason and a desired action for the customer to take – and then ask them to take that action.

“Mr. Customer, here’s the price – but…” This is followed by any number of weak phrases that essentially invalidate the price you’ve just given. Anytime you use weasel words after quoting a price, you have hurt yourself in two ways – first, you will not sell at the quoted price, because you have virtually demanded that the customer negotiate you down. Second, you lose the right to close that piece of business, because you haven’t quoted a firm price.

In tough times as well as good times, your job as a salesperson is to ASK for what you want! You will not get it (a sale, a referral, a testimonial) unless you ask. Your customers will not kick you out for asking, and if they do, they’re not really your customers at all. Lose the fear, and get back to selling.

In this article, we dissect the nature of excuses as well as some common sales excuses.

Have you ever had one of those instances where you hit your limit of patience? I did recently, and I want to share that moment with you. Earlier this week, I had a meeting set up with a salesperson. The salesperson had been referred to me by a friend, and I had accepted the meeting largely out of courtesy to the person and in recognition for the referral. I didn’t have a burning interest in buying, but I was willing to listen and there was an outside shot of a sale for the guy.

So what happened? You guessed it – he called at meeting time, complaining about a traffic jam due to a wreck on the highway. He wasn’t moving, and could he show up late or reschedule? Since I had just gone through the same traffic jam 30 minutes before, but found an escape route and took surface streets, I wasn’t inclined to cut a lot of slack. The truth is that my calendar was (is) packed fairly tightly, and a missed appointment represented a missed opportunity. I told him that I’d wait 20 minutes (more than fair), and if he couldn’t make it, I wasn’t sure I could reschedule. That was on Monday, and I haven’t heard from him.

I’m sure that he’s telling himself that I’m a bad guy and that he wouldn’t have wanted to deal with me anyway. Maybe that’s true, and maybe it’s not. The point is that it was his responsibility to make the meeting on time. I know for a fact that, based on the location he gave to me, that in 20 minutes he could have driven on the shoulder of the road to the nearest off-ramp and then taken surface streets to my office. He chose not to. This whole episode started me thinking about common sales excuses, and how most of them really represent an unwillingness to get off the highway (most common route) and instead weave some surface streets to get the job done.

“Traffic,” or any other excuse for poor punctuality: Of all the sales excuses, this is the one that I have the least patience for. When you are late for an appointment, it is a signal of poor time management on your part, period. I am seldom late (in the interest of full disclosure, I was 2 minutes late for a lunch meeting yesterday, and it was entirely my fault), and when I am, I don’t blame any outside force.

“The Economy:” You already know that I do recruiting for some clients, and this excuse is a sure interview-ender. Yes, economic conditions have taken their toll on some industries, but I know of no industry that has gone completely inactive. The truth about “the economy” is this: In every industry, some salespeople have thrived, some have survived, and some are going under. If you are one of those going under, it means that you are unwilling to do what those in the first two groups are willing to do.

“I work in a dying industry:” This one is interesting, and I’m hearing it more and more in those industries that are affected by new technologies (such as printing, for instance). The question here is, is your industry dying, or are you a dying salesperson in a dying company? As one of my printing clients put it to me recently, “I think we’re in a last-man-standing industry, and I’m planning on being the last man.”

“(Insert sales technique here) doesn’t work in our industry:” What this one really means is that, whatever the sales technique is under discussion (usually cold-prospecting), the salesperson is unwilling to do it and find out if it works. I have a friend who tried operating a management consulting business. He hung out his shingle and placed some ads, and started networking – but he refused to make cold calls. He said that “cold calls would hurt my credibility.” Well, he’s out of business and looking for a job now – how’s that for credibility?

I could go through a litany of other excuses here, but I won’t – partially because I don’t even like typing them. The bottom line is that each excuse represents (much like my salesperson example that started this story) an unwillingness to get off the highway (the easy route) and look for surface streets that could help get the job done. There’s a great line in the movie Road Trip: “Of course it’s rougher and tougher. That’s why it’s called a shortcut. If it was easy, it would just be called ‘the way.’”

If you find yourself using any of the above excuses, my advice to you is this: Get your butt off the highway. That’s where all your competitors are. Find a side street and start making things happen, instead of letting them happen to you.