You know, if there’s anything salespeople and sales managers love, it’s a good plan.

 Developing plans, refining plans, targeting accounts, doing research for plans, all of it – you could fill every day with planning if you wanted to. Heck, some salespeople will make plans to make a plan! There’s only one minor trouble with this – none of it involves activity. In my language, sales activity is that work that we do that involves direct contact with customers or prospects.

Over the years, I have had a lot of salespeople work hard to convince me that all this planning has value; in fact, a lot of salespeople will try hard to sell me on the idea that the planning is actually better than the activity being planned. Which leads me to the question – when is no sales activity better than sales activity?

To answer that, we’ve got to break down the activity and sales process, and figure out how we make money. As I’ve written many times before, the basic equation of sales achievement is: Quality of activity xQuantity of activity = results. In other words, the more of it you do, and the better you are at it, the more successful you will be.

The value of any non-selling activity, then, such as planning, meetings, or training, is measured in the degree to which it can increase the quality of activity. This, of course, assumes that you would fill the time used for planning or training with direct sales activity, were you not in the planning or training – right?

Of course, sometimes planning is another word for “procrastination.” If you need a great plan to sell, and it takes time to develop a plan, then it’s unreasonable to expect you to engage in direct selling before the plan is done – right? Hardly.

Another way salespeople put off selling activity is through “research.” Some trainers and books have preached that you must micro-research new prospects before making a call on them. The idea is that you will discover information in your research that will greatly increase the likelihood of winning an appointment. In the real world, however, it hardly ever works that way, and the reason is the contact ratio;or the ratio of calls to conversations. That isn’t helped by pre-call research, and you’d almost have to win on 100% of your conversations to make the time spent in research worth it.

The same typically goes for planning. In my experience, you can develop 80% of a good sales plan very quickly; the devil is in the details, and the last 20% is the most time consuming – and the least profitable because it delays the activity. In the time it would take to develop the last 20%, you could be performing activity that would test your plan, and help you understand whether it works or not.

Training can be beneficial if you apply yourself and learn skills that increase the quality of your sales activity; assuming that the quantity of activity is good, an incremental raise in the quality of activity will continue to pay benefits long after the training is over.

So, back to the question, “When is no activity better than activity?” The answer is, “Not very often, and always tied to an increase in quality of activity.” Whenever you (or your boss) wants to spend time on non-selling work, always ask yourself, “Will this help me perform better day in and day out?”

Professional salespeople control their own destiny, no matter what.  Here’s one good way.

It’s another lovely Kansas City day, and I just finished interviewing a candidate for a sales job. His candidacy was really over within the first couple of minutes after he described his separation from a previous job. He explained, “Well, the sales kept falling, so they had to cut me.” I asked, “You’re a salesman – isn’t it your job to KEEP the sales from falling?” He said, “Well, uh, yeah, but, the economy….stimulus went away….bids…” Finally he admitted that he had not altered his activity in response to a changing marketplace; he just kept responding to bids without noticing that there were fewer of them and he was getting a lower percentage.

Oh, for Pete’s sake. I’m getting very tired of listening to salespeople who can find everyone and everything to blame for their lack of achievement except themselves. Here’s reality, and I’ve said this before: Quantity of Activity multiplied by Quality of Activity = Results. Do external economic conditions affect this ratio? Sure. If you must, include a multiplier in there for current economic conditions. All that means is that, to succeed, you must alter either the quantity or quality of your activity to generate the same, or better, results. Let’s talk about the basic ways that salespeople can succeed.

All sales activities eventually fall into one of three buckets – Acquisition (the selling of new customers),Development (the selling of additional products or services to existing customers), or Retention (hanging on to what you have). Whatever the scope of your company, region, or territory, these are the three things you have available to you to grow the business. How do you determine what to do and how to direct your efforts?

For me, I always start by trying to figure out which accounts are basically retention accounts. A retention account is an account that currently spends money, but that is unlikely to spend more, even with significantly more sales input; i.e. they are at or close to capacity with us. We like these accounts, and we want to hang onto them, but it’s a waste of time to come up with new and different selling initiatives. For whatever reason, they just don’t have the capacity to buy significantly more.

That will narrow your targeted customer list. Now, let’s look for good development accounts. A development account is one that does have the capacity to buy more – maybe a lot more – from you, if you apply the appropriate selling effort. What does it take to develop the account? There are a few things you should answer about these accounts:

First, what other items or categories do they have the capacity to buy, that you aren’t selling them? I find it helpful to try to attach a forecast here.

Second, what new contacts do you need to make in order to make a selling effort on these additional products? I find that normally, the reason that salespeople don’t sell more stuff to their customers is that they lack the necessary contacts and relationships to do so. Time to develop them.

Finally, what is the profitability of the effort? Will the time invested be worth it when the result is generated? If not, the account may be better thought of as a retention account.

Now it’s time to look at your Acquisition efforts. For some of you – especially if you don’t have a lot of good Development prospects – this may be your major thrust. Target some new accounts, pick up the phone, and start making the calls. Ultimately, I always say that the Acquisition step is the step where salespeople really take their destiny in their own hands.

You may find it necessary to also increase the Quality of your sales activity.  This is where sales training, or books, or other reading material can come in handy. Part of being a pro is knowing when you need help; this is also taking your destiny in your own hands.

There are a lot of salespeople out there who never do, in fact, take their destiny in their own hands. I interview them frequently as part of my sales recruiting practice because they are seeking the next company to carry them for awhile. Real salespeople control their own destiny. So if you’re wondering what to do next in this economy, pick up the phone, make some contacts, and sell something. At the end of the day, the willingness to do this is what it really takes to succeed in selling.

One of the best success techniques is to understand how to overcome obstacles.

First of all, if you’re bored talking about overcoming obstacles, I sincerely apologize. But it seems to me that too many salespeople can’t figure out what to do when an obstacle – or an inconvenience – confronts them. Let me give you an example. You all know that when I started selling, I started out in the car business. It can be a cutthroat business to begin with, and it was worse because of a guy named Dan. Dan was another salesman on the floor. At the time, we didn’t rotate “ups” or incoming customers; the rule was that the first person out the door got them. That was encouraged in the car sales training we were going by at the time.

Well, Dan was a big guy, former football player, and I’m pretty sure a bully all of his life. And he was easily the biggest guy on the floor, and he would literally shove or shoulder-block other salespeople out of his way to get to the customers. For his part, the sales manager rooted Dan on for his ‘aggressiveness.’ How to deal with this? Well, I don’t know exactly how it happened and I certainly won’t claim responsibility, but Dan missed an entire Saturday (the best day in the car business) by being in the bathroom all day. Tummy trouble, so to speak; he must have drunk some tainted coffee or something. After that, Dan was considerably more respectful of other salespeople. That’s called “adapting, improvising, and overcoming,” a motto of the US Marine Corps, and it works well for salespeople, too. But what does it mean?

In a nutshell, it means “finding a way to make the right things happen, even when the right circumstances don’t exist,” and I think that’s where a lot of salespeople get lost nowadays. If you’re looking for the “right circumstances,” right now is a tough time to find them. That’s when you’ve got to do some things differently, and that’s when it’s time to take a look at those three very powerful words.

Adapt: The dictionary definition of “adapt” is “to become adjusted to new conditions.” Our profession – selling – is one that is in near constant change, and to fail to adapt is to fail, period. The biggest way to understand adaptation is to listen to what the marketplace is telling you. You might want to build a sales strategy around “whale hunting,” or pursuing a handful of new customers that could do huge business with you. But what happens when the whales don’t bite – or worse, don’t see you? (Yes, I know, we don’t make appointments with real whales – work with me here.) You’ve got two choices – adapt or die.

Me, I prefer adaptation. If one segment of your marketplace isn’t buying, rather than crying in your beer, how about pursuing another segment? If big business isn’t buying, try small business. If vertical A isn’t energized, try vertical B. To do this is to cease to blame others or circumstances, and to take ownership of your own success.

Improvise: Sometimes, a solution isn’t readily at hand. That’s when “Improvisation” comes into play. “Improvisation” means to make up a solution as you go, with the tools at hand. Think MacGyver as a salesperson for a moment. Or think of my example before with Dan. Now, I didn’t have many tools at hand to deal with Dan; my sales manager sanctioned his actions, and although I did try, I couldn’t beat him in a shoulder-block contest. So, again somehow, he came up with some tummy trouble and we all had a great day. Further, Dan got the message. I solved a problem with the tools at hand. Forget not having the right brochure, or the perfect video, or the best case studies; what can you do to communicate what you need to communicate?

Overcome: To “overcome” is to “succeed in dealing with” or to “prevail.” Overcoming obstacles in your way is really predetermined; it’s about your level of commitment to achieving your objectives no matter what – as long as you don’t do anything illegal, unethical, or immoral.

Right now, there are a lot of salespeople who don’t adapt, improvise, or overcome. I talk to them every day in my recruiting practice. Don’t be one of them. When you hit an obstacle, think of the Marines. Or, heck, think of Dan. Then find a way. That’s what professional salespeople do.

Did you know that salespeople are the primary agents of change in business?

As salespeople, we are many things. We are generators of growth, we are rainmakers, we should be profit centers, we are relationship builders, we are the company’s most valuable human asset. But – did you ever think of us as agents of change? Most of the time, that label goes on CEO’s and other high managers, but it fits us, too. I’ll give you some perfect examples.

Recently, I was in a sales meeting with a group of salespeople who had been tasked with a heavier prospecting duty than in the past. These salespeople digested their new duties, and then started worrying about the “hill beyond the hill,” i.e. what would happen AFTER they were successful in generating new prospects? This is a common stumbling block for too many businesses, and ultimately it is always handled the same way.

You see, the salespeople were already worried about who was going to handle the admin work for their current customers, who would help them generate all the new proposals, what new marketing resources could be brought to bear, etc. Part of this was probably trying to find reasons NOT to prospect, but part of it was the common stumbling block. I told them what I always tell sales forces during my sales training programs who get bogged down in this kind of concern: “Look, there’s only one way that these resources will become available to you, and that’s to give this company the actual problem – rather than the hypothetical problem – that you’re discussing. Go sell something! The ownership will make the resources available to you.”

The salespeople, of course, protested that good management would worry about the things ahead and clear the decks in advance of actual sales achievement. We could debate that, I suppose, but it wasn’t helpful. See, here’s something I have discovered: To business owners and managers, sales achievement only becomes real AFTER it happens, or at the soonest, WHEN it is happening. There’s a good reason for this. Salespeople tend to be the eternal optimists, and if management spent money on resources every time a salesperson told them he was GOING to sell something, there would be a lot of broke companies in the world. If you want management to solve problems that are barriers to increased selling, nothing works like increasing sales.

My first real experience with this as a manager was in the late 90s when I was a first-time sales manager for a uniform rental company. I took the first 3-4 months to get the right people in place and doing the right things, and I could see where sales were going to go. The trouble was that our service/delivery department was horrendous. I liked the service manager and had a good relationship and dialogue with him – I thought so, anyway – and so I took him out to lunch one day and said, “Al, the sales are starting to come together, and when they do, your department is going to be the biggest problem at this company. Frankly, you’re on the verge of holding me back already. I need some change.”

Al agreed, in principle, that there were a number of moves he could make, people he should replace, and so forth. So I offered to help him. I offered my time and even some of my budget to help fix his problems, and he politely refused. He said, “Look, Troy, lots of sales managers have promised sales and not delivered. I’m going to stand pat for now.”

I responded that, although I liked him, in the end I would do whatever was needed to make sure that my department – and our new customers – got the service that they needed. While my hope was that he would be part of that, the right stuff was going to happen regardless. One year later, I was a witness (for HR purposes) to his termination. You see, for Al, sales growth wasn’t real yet – even though he could see the green shoots.

We were able to effect a lot of positive change in that company, both at our branch and nationwide – but it only happened AFTER we were selling our guts out. So if you’re thinking that your company has issues or problems, the best way to fix those is to sell MORE, not less, and let the chips fall where they may. Nothing produces positive change like more sales – and that is something that is completely within our control.

Sometimes, winning business comes down to breaking the habits of your prospects.

It’s amazing to me how strongly habits can be formed in people. Take last Tuesday morning for an example. I’m a member of a breakfast networking club here in Kansas City, and when I’m in town I attend as much as possible. On this particular Tuesday, our club was meeting at a different location than usual. Now, I knew this. I’d been reminded of it multiple times. Still, on Tuesday morning, as is my habit, I drove right to our normal location – and remembered as I pulled into the parking lot that the location had changed. Well, to make a long story short, some rather remarkable driving got me to the changed location. But it started me thinking about how difficult it can be to break some habits.

Let’s be clear, though. The habits I’m talking about aren’t YOUR habits – we talk about those a lot. This time I’m talking about your CUSTOMER’s habits. Specifically, I’m talking about your customers’ nagging and annoying habit of not buying from you. Now, are you interested? See, what salespeople fail to realize is that often, getting prospects or customers to move their business to you has less to do with relationships than with habits.

“Take-away” selling can be the most difficult selling of all; that is, selling to break a current customer relationship. Often, we make it more difficult by misunderstanding the nature of that relationship. Essentially, there are three different kinds of buying relationships:

1. Occasional buyer: The buyer shops every purchase and buys when it most suits him/her.
   

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2. Habitual buyer: The buyer doesn’t shop and uses you (or your competitor) as the “default source” of product, but has no real affinity or loyalty. They buy from you because you’re who they buy from. Of course, in many cases, one mistake costs you the business.
   

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3. Loyal customer: The customer has a real affinity for you (or your competitor). The customer identifies with you, wants you to prosper, and is willing to evangelize for you. This is the type of relationship we all seek because these relationships will withstand the occasional hiccup – and hiccups are pretty much inevitable.Here’s the key: When salespeople assess customer relationships – both their own and those of their competitors – they tend to overestimate their quality and depth. Between #2 and #3, far more relationships fall into the #2 category, but salespeople tend to estimate that far more of them fall into the third category. This is a big mistake, because this causes us to both take our own relationships for granted, but to take the wrong selling approach against those of our competitors’.

   Since most of those relationships simply boil down to habit; i.e. “We buy from ABC Company because that’s who we buy from,” selling against those relationships boils down to breaking habits, not trying to displace loyal and carefully tied customer relationships. Now that doesn’t sound so difficult, does it? Of course, breaking those relationships requires a few techniques that I teach in my sales training programs:

Over the weekend, I was channel surfing and came across this “Reality” show called “Ma’s Roadhouse” on TruTV. Well, it was general brain candy, so I watched a couple of episodes. It’s a pretty funny show about a bike shop/biker bar/tattoo parlor in Dallas called “Stroker’s,” run as a family business. One episode featured a health inspector visit; one episode featured a visit from “Ma’s” old boyfriend, a con man type.

Some of the stuff just seemed a bit over-the-top, so I did a little Googling. Most of the stuff that the plots centered around wasn’t real. The health inspector? An actor. The arrest of the old boyfriend? Never happened; the “cops” were from a local security company. There are actually several pages on the Web from people in Dallas pointing out all the fake things that are a part of this “reality” show. Google is great, isn’t it? I also recently had a more business-related example of what the Internet can do, and there’s a sales lesson in it for all of us.

I mentioned my Kansas City breakfast club last week. I’m actually an officer. My duty is Classification and Investigation, which means that I check out new members. The club is a classification-exclusive club, and we only allow one member per profession. It’s my job to make sure that new members do not conflict, professionally, with current members. As part of my investigation process, I Google the person and look him up on LinkedIn.

As part of my investigation, I found that a prospective applicant had another business (which appears to be his primary business) that is a direct conflict with a member. In the discussion at our meeting that detailed why I was advocating his rejection, I explained my process. Someone asked if the person could change his application to avoid the conflict, and I said, “It’s not about what this person represents, it’s what he isthat is the problem.” In other words, we could call him whatever we wanted – but that didn’t change how he actually made his living.

The point of all of this is that, with all the emphasis on Internet presence, social networking, Search Engine Optimization, and other world wide web presence, it’s hard to hide. More importantly, it’s hard to hide what – and who – you are. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing; whether you’re applying for a job (I Google all the applicants in my Recruiting business), whether you’re applying for a club, or whether you’re selling to someone – whatever you put out on the Web is available to those who want it.

Now, there are people who have applied to my club that are basically un-Google-able (sorry for the awkward phrase). That’s because they have not chosen to give themselves a Web presence, and others have not chosen to create one for them by writing about them, etc. It’s still possible to live an anonymous life, but most people perceive the advantages of not going that route.

So, what will people find out about YOU? Well, if you Google Troy Harrison, here are some of the things you’ll find:

• Obviously, SalesForce Solutions as well as a lot of sales-related articles, blog pieces, and other work.
• You’ll find a number of articles on auto racing, and you’ll wonder if it’s the same guy. I’ll save you the trouble; yes, it is. A certain percentage of my blood is motor oil, and has been since birth.
• You might find a business that sells racing parts online. Yep, that’s me too, and that’s what I do during what I laughingly refer to as my “spare time.” It’s actually been very educational for my sales training business.
• Finally, you’ll find a guy in Australia with an athletic career in high school and college that I only wish I could claim as mine!

Those are the major things, anyway, and I suppose if you look really hard, you might find my Facebook page (privacy protected of course), and the occasional comment on message boards on the Wall Street Journal’s site. The point is that I’m aware of what I’ve put out there, and I’m not afraid of any of it.

What about you? Forget those pages that represent yourself as the professional you want to be seen as; what else is there? Are there drunken photos of you? Profane exchanges with other people? Complaining about your boss/job/product? Believe me, I’ve seen it all.

This is the impact of social networking. Every time you post ANYTHING on the web, or anytime that anyone posts anything about you, a bell is rung. Ever tried to un-ring a bell? For that reason, it’s more important than ever to self-manage your reputation and to make sure you know what can be found about you. It’s also important to comport yourself in a way that won’t reflect badly to customers, etc.

Once upon a time, it was said that “You can be whatever you want to be on the Internet.” Nonsense. More now than ever, whatever else happens, reality will come through. Make sure that your reality is what you want it to be.

Selling without passion and excitement isn’t selling – it’s pontificating.  Learn the difference in this article.

As part of my consulting business, I often do ride-alongs with salespeople who work for my clients. Lately I’ve seen a trend that is bothering me – an awful lot of what I call “flat” sales calls. By “flat,” I mean calls devoid of emotion, excitement, and interest. To be sure, information is exchanged. Questions are asked, statements are made, customers are educated about the product. But no excitement has been built, no momentum or what I call “Sales velocity” has been put in place, and it’s unlikely that the opportunities will result in wins.

What’s lacking? Passion. Passion, primarily, on the part of the salespeople. Passion is my word for that indefinable something that creates and builds interest and excitement on the part of the customer. Don’t get me wrong; the salespeople are asking questions. They’re making benefit statements. They’re explaining.  But there’s no fun or excitement in it, and that’s a problem. When the call is over, the customer is no more (or less) interested than they were before. Ultimately, I think there are two causes for this.

First of all, for whatever reason, the salespeople aren’t “into” the calls. They’re going through the motions. Going through the motions, regardless of what you’re doing, is obvious and boring. Here’s an example – I’m not an actor. Give me the script to “The Dirty Dozen,” and I could learn Lee Marvin’s lines. But could I portray Major Reisman like Lee Marvin? Not at all; it would be obvious to everyone watching that I was just reciting lines. Lee Marvin was passionate about that role and knew how to convey it. Me, not so much.

Where does sales passion come from? Well, for too many people, it doesn’t. Where it exists, it comes from an excitement, involvement in, and commitment to the selling profession. It comes from a true beliefin what you are selling – have you sold yourself before you try to sell anyone else? It comes from a need to make buyers feel the same excitement you do. It comes from recognizing the buyer’s needs, seeing what is going to happen through the adoption of the product, and feeling the same result as the buyer.

For too many salespeople, that kind of sales passion is left at the door. The result is wildly unsuccessful – and boring – selling. There’s another reason, though, that sales passion can be missed, and that’s the fact that too many salespeople don’t understand what the customer is really buying, and what I focus on in my speaking and training engagements.

Customers buy successful outcomes. Whatever need the customer is trying to address through a purchase, what the customer is really buying is the experience of fulfilling that need. If a customer is buying a tent, he is buying the experience of being sheltered from the weather at night. If a customer buys a new car, he buys the experience of driving it.

If you don’t know, understand, or address that successful outcome, you’re not going to be able to create that excitement in your sales calls, and you will find yourself offering a lot of proposals that sit on the customer’s desk with no sales velocity (we’ll discuss “Sales Velocity” next week). Want to avoid this problem? Here are 5 steps to incorporating sales passion into your calls:

1. Sell YOURSELF on your products or services. If you were in the position of a target customer, would you buy? Why? If you can’t do this, all else is meaningless. 
   

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2. Take a few moments before each sales call to remind yourself of #1, and get excited about the new opportunity in front of you. 
   

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3. Understand the buyer’s needs by asking good questions. 
   

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4. Moreover, get your buyer to define the most successful outcome that he/she is seeking from working with you. 
   

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5. Finally, paint the picture for that buyer of the successful outcome; don’t just describe it, help them experience it. Let them live in that moment for a few minutes – THEN move the sales process forward.
   

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If you do this consistently, you will get away from the “flat” sales call, and you’ll sell more and enjoy it more. How’s that for a good deal?

I’m always asked how companies should maximize their training dollar.  Here’s how.

Lately, it’s seemed fashionable for a lot of sales trainers to write articles about “why sales training doesn’t work,” which of course allows them to slyly inject why THEIR sales training is the only sales training that could have a possibility of working, in this and all other imaginable worlds. I think I’ll stay away from that.

I prefer to stay on the positive side, so let’s talk about how to make sales training work. In fact, let’s back away a tad and talk about how to make ANY training work. Will that generate a bit of ROI for your time in reading this article? Hopefully, it will. Full disclosure; this article was inspired by a lunch that I had yesterday with a client who commented on how effective my training was. In retrospect, I have to say that part of what made it so effective was how the client handled it – and that’s what I propose to pass along today. First, however, let me pass along the Dirty Little Secret of sales training:

Almost any sales trainer can, and will, generate ROI for your company. That’s a big statement, I know, and there are certainly exceptions. But the reality is this: The economies of sales training are such that even the most expensive sales trainers can pay for themselves if just one person in the class takes what he learns and uses it to significantly up his performance. And I’ve taught very few classes where at least a few people didn’t take the teachings and run with them. Again, there are exceptions; there are people out there teaching techniques that will actually generate negative ROI because the techniques, when implemented, actually make the customer uncomfortable and less likely to buy – but let’s assume that we’re talking about trainers who at least understand customer friendliness.

So, now that the Big Secret is out there (and I’ll follow up on it at the end by giving you some guidelines on how to pick your trainer), let’s talk about what YOU (whether you are manager or salesperson) can do to make training work for you.

Preparation is key. I wish I could tell you how many times I’ve walked into a room, looked around, and discovered that the salespeople have no real idea of why I’m there or what I’m there to do; they just know to show up at a certain place at a certain time.  Don’t be that guy. If you’re a manager, prep your people on what will happen and what the expectations are. Much time gets wasted in these sessions just crossing the “Oh, this is training” hump. If you’re a salesperson, don’t just settle for a scheduled meeting; ask what will be happening and what the expectations are. It’s your time, after all. Good trainers will inform you as to the program outline and plan when they are selling the business; make use of that.

Professionalism is the most basic expectation. When I was a sales manager and I sent my reps to training, I always did so with the expectation that they be on their most professional behavior; unprofessionalism was a reflection on me, after all. However, too many training programs (again, of any type) end up looking more like Romper Room than a business environment. Want to maximize the value of your money? Make sure your people are on their game when they’re in the room, and that they are punctual when returning from lunches, breaks, etc. If you’re the trainee, be the leader. Look at it this way: You’re going to be there regardless, so if others’ conduct is keeping you from learning, it’s your right to call them on it. Is it the speaker’s job to ‘control the room?’ To an extent – but I tell all my clients that I am a trainer and not a babysitter. If your staff requires a babysitter, that reflects on YOU.

Focus on the “nuggets” – profitable behavior modifications. As the training is going on, you will find elements that you have heard before. That’s going to happen with any experienced worker going through any type of training. Training becomes unsuccessful when attendees focus in on those commonalities and stop looking for the differences. Virtually any training of any type, however, will have what I call “nuggets,” or ways to modify behavior that can be very profitable. I went to a training session for speakers a couple of weeks ago; 98% of it was stuff that I had heard and knew; I’ve been working the 2% for the last two weeks with some excellent results.

Learn and reinforce. There’s no substitute for management that participates in the sessions and learns right along with their people; there’s no substitute for when that management, having learned the lessons, continually reinforces that message when the trainer has left. My client yesterday said, “Our profit per stop is up significantly because of your training.” That’s great, and I appreciate it – but reality is that it’s up partially because of what I taught, and partially because the company has adopted those teachings as part of the culture, and has reinforced those teachings in the months since I was there.

Too many managers look at training – of any type – as a self-contained fix-all solution. It’s not. Good training programs are incorporated into the culture of the company or department, and then reinforced consistently and when opportunity comes up. Training is designed to show the benefits of behavioral change; however, true behavioral change does not happen within a one-day or two-day window. It’s consistency of management and follow up that really spikes the ROI.

How do you pick a trainer? So, I promised earlier that I would circle back and talk about how to pick a trainer. I’ll do so now. To pick the right person for your needs, just follow these simple guidelines:

• Pick someone who is expert. There are a lot of ‘seminar’ companies out there who provide general-purpose speakers with prewritten courses to present. The training breaks down when the first person asks a question that starts with “Why?” Make sure your trainer can answer those questions through personal expertise.
• Pick someone who is willing to learn. Too many trainers come in with a ‘program in a box’ and end up not speaking your language. Good trainers build in pre-training time to learn the specific challenges and needs of your business.
• Pick someone who fits your culture, or the culture you would like to have. Training of any kind should set the tone for how things are done at your company; if the trainer is training a method counter to your culture, it won’t be effective. When it comes to sales training, I always tell my clients that sales training dictates how you want your customers to be treated; is the curriculum and approach a fit?
• Finally, pick someone who is available post session. I’ve heard horror stories about trainers who came in, did an outrageously expensive session, then when the manager or trainees have a question, he wants to bill a big amount just for answering. Make sure your trainer doesn’t mind getting the occasional call or email post-session. I always tell my clients that they are free to call or email with questions, and if it gets to a point where I will need to bill for time, I’ll let them know well in advance.

A well designed, planned, executed, and followed training session can be the best thing for you and your staff. A bad one can be a time waster. By following these simple steps, you can make sure that your training is effective.

Would you like to have better momentum with your customers?  Here’s how.

The dictionary defines “Velocity” as the measure of speed in objects that are in motion. Troy Harrison (that’s me) defines Sales Velocity as the measurement of a customer’s need to act on, buy, and implement your proposal. In short, Sales Velocity is the difference between a proposal that lands in the customer’s inbox and gathers dust, and a proposal that stays at or near the top of your customer’s action list – until you are awarded the business.

When I put it that way, Sales Velocity sounds like something we all want, doesn’t it? Yep, it is. But how we get it is the big question. The good news is that the potential for Sales Velocity lies within every sales call you make. The “bad” news is that finding out what will trigger Velocity in your particular customer’s mind is up to you – and sorry to say, it’s not a one size fits all solution.

You see, customers all have their own needs and wants, and those needs and wants range from the direct (the stuff you’re selling) to the indirect effects of what you sell (less hassle, better image, other indirect benefits). Usually, those indirect benefits are the key to Sales Velocity. Even more often, the typical sales call doesn’t really dive into those indirect benefits. To get at them, you have to ask good questions that speak to the big picture needs of the customer, not just product-centric. If your questions are mostly centered around your product, rather than the effects of your product, I can virtually guarantee that you’re missing factors that create Sales Velocity.

Here are some questions that can help you find your customer’s Sales Velocity drivers:

• What are your company’s expansion plans?
• How do your employees feel about their jobs?
• What would you like your customers to think about your employees’ appearance?
• How are people rewarded in your company for good decisions?
• What is the impact of decisions that don’t work out?
• Define a successful program from the perspective of yourself, your employees, your boss, your customers.

There are a lot more, but essentially you want to find out what your customer’s dream-wheel definition of a successful program is. Then, you figure out how to give it to them; customers don’t buy products, they buysuccessful outcomes. That successful outcome – and your ability to give it to your customer – is the ultimate creator of Sales Velocity.

Once you know what your customer’s Sales Velocity drivers are, though, you’re not done. There’s one other ingredient, and that ingredient is passion on your part. Where does sales passion come from? Well, for too many people, it doesn’t. Where it exists, it comes from an excitement, involvement in, and commitment to the selling profession. It comes from a true belief in what you are selling – have you sold yourself before you try to sell anyone else? It comes from a need to make buyers feel the same excitement you do. It comes from recognizing the buyer’s needs, seeing what is going to happen through the adoption of the product, and feeling the same result as the buyer.

Here’s a quick five-step plan to creating Sales Velocity in your calls:

1. Ask GREAT questions. Only great questioning, that gets to the heart of your customer’s indirect needs for your stuff, will allow you to uncover your customer’s real priorities and Sales Velocity drivers.
   

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2. Make sure to catch and note those drivers; they’re easy to spot. Anytime your customer gets excited or emphatic about a need, that’s a driver of Sales Velocity.
   

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3. Tie your products and services to the customer’s Sales Velocity drivers; i.e. “This is how our programs address this issue.” Use testimonials and case studies when you can (if you don’t have them, get them; we’ll talk about Case Studies in a future issue).
   

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4.  Present your products and need solutions with passion. If you can’t get excited about solving your customer’s needs, how can your customer?
   

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5. Close directly and enthusiastically.
   

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Incorporating these five steps into your selling will keep your proposals out of “inbox purgatory,” and instead will make you an action item for your prospects. You’ll also find that your calls will be more fun and interesting for you and your prospects. That’s not a bad deal, is it?

If you’re missing sales, it might be because you’re missing the key issues in the sale.

Recently, I spent part of a Saturday judging a high school debate tournament. Those of you who know me, know that I debated in high school and college. I enjoy going back and judging; it’s a way for me to give something back to an activity that gave me so much and continues to influence my life and career. And of course, while judging, I was inspired to write a sales article – great how that works, isn’t it?

In a debate round, many arguments and issues are presented, but ultimately, the judge usually casts a ballot based on a handful of those issues. In the best round I saw, I went back and counted. The Affirmative presented 42 different arguments; the Negative presented 48. I based my decision on one. How is that possible? Simple – in a debate round, the arguments begin very comprehensively and then funnel down to a handful. Is it starting to sound like selling yet? If not, you’re probably missing a lot of sales. Let’s talk about how to get to the main buying issues.

There’s a big difference between selling and debate, and that’s the role that the Judge plays. In debate, the Judge awards the round. Teams are not allowed to question or converse with the Judge during the round other than the speeches; in other words, a debater isn’t allowed to ask, “Does that argument make sense, Judge?” In sales, the Judge and the Customer are one and the same, and your ability to question and converse with the Judge are primary to winning the business.

One similarity between selling and debate is that, no matter how many issues are presented in the sale, one or two ultimately become the Primary Buying Issue (PBI for short through the rest of this article). One common trait to both great debaters and great salespeople is their ability to find the PBI (or Primary Voting Issue in the debate) and to highlight it in such a way that they win the sale, or the debate. If you’d like to be one of them, here’s how to spot and sell to the PBI.

Begin comprehensively. This means questions; lots and lots of questions. Too many salespeople start out with a handful of questions and then move directly to the Brochure Barf; i.e. a long list of features and benefits to attempt to win the sale. Instead, focus on questioning comprehensively; the more of the buyer’s issues and needs you hear, the more likely it is that the PBI is among them. Many sales are lost because the salesperson never even hears the buyer’s PBI.

Start narrowing. Hopefully you’re a good note-taker; now it’s time to start narrowing the conversation by asking questions about impacts (the effect of the buying issues) and the priorities (what’s more important). Questions like “How does this affect the end-user?” “How does this affect you?” “Of these issues, what’s most important to you (or the ownership, or the users, etc.)?”

Solve for the PBI – or leave. Once you know what the PBI is, you need to measure your solution against it. Can you, in fact, fix the customer’s problem? If you can’t, it’s probably time to find a new customer. Doing otherwise pushes a rope uphill, and that’s never successful.

Understand the buying process. In a debate, it’s simple; you can see all the judges and you know the criteria. In a sale, it’s vital that you know who will be making the decision, how, when, and who will influence the decision. How do you know that? By asking. A question like, “What is your decision making process for this purchase?” can work wonders. The more of the stakeholders you can communicate with directly, the better.

Sell to the PBI. Once you know what the PBI is, and to whom you need to sell it, now you need to pound your solution to the PBI until there is no room for doubt about your ability to solve their main problem. You also need to be aware that different stakeholders might have different PBI’s, and you need all of them to know the solution to each group’s PBI.

Give the Pluses. Now that you’ve solved for the PBI, you probably have other reasons (benefits) why your customer should buy. Don’t neglect presenting these; customers love bonuses.

Too many sales are lost because you’re not on the same wavelength as your customer, and you miss the Primary Buying Issue. Follow these steps, and you won’t.