If you want to be successful, forget “busy” and worry about “productive.”

If there’s a constant refrain that I hear as I train salespeople and consult with their bosses, it’s “Troy, I can’t possibly do more!  I’m just too darn busy.”  Of course, I get “busy.”  I understand it; in fact, I get busy myself.  The human desire is to be busy; helps the time go faster.  Yet, when I start digging into what people are busy with, it’s usually a proof of the old saying, “Work expands to fill the time allotted.”

The trouble is that “busy” doesn’t carry with it any time priority, or sense of the value of time.  I’ve always looked at what I call the “hard forty” philosophy of sales jobs.  That means that most sales jobs can be performed well – even excelled in – with an expenditure of forty good, hard working hours per week.  Yet, salespeople will routinely spend 50-60 hours in a week on their jobs, and not excel.  How can that be true?  Usually, it’s because they’re “busy.”  Understanding how to succeed in sales involves getting away from “busy” – and it means understanding the value of time, and the different activities that we do.

There’s a definite hierarchy to the time we spend, and how we should prioritize it.  Salespeople who fail to understand this hierarchy will probably fail at selling.

Face Time: The most valuable time we spend in any given time period – day, week, month, or year – is face to face time with customers or prospects.  Further, the most valuable face time we can spend is time spent having a substantive discussion with our customers; if you’re discovering needs and presenting solutions – or any other activity that moves the customers through a sales funnel – you’re making the most out of your time.  Most professional salespeople spend less than eight hours per week on this activity.  Yes, I said eight hours.

Don’t believe me?  There’s an easy way to check this.  Go to a discount store and pick up a cheap stopwatch. Stick it in your pocket.  On your first sales call, reach into your pocket and push the “start/stop” button.  When the call ends, hit “stop.”  Yes, it’s easy to do this without your customer noticing. Don’t hit the reset button; when your next call starts, repeat the process.  At the end of the week, take a look at the number.  You’ll be surprised at how little time you spend in quality conversations with customers.  If you want better results, you need to maximize this time.

Time Spent Setting Up Face Time: To expect to spend 100% face time is unrealistic, of course.  We have to spend some time getting customers and prospects to see us; this time – phone or e-mail – is the second highest-value time we’re going to spend in a week.  One reason that salespeople fail is that they don’t appropriately budget and plan for this time.  Prospecting seldom happens unplanned; making an appointment with yourself is the best way to make sure this happens.  It also helps avoid the “time allotted” trap, as well, since putting yourself under pressure to do a quantity of calls in a short time makes the best use of your time.

Time Spent Improving Yourself:  OK, maybe this is a gimme – but there’s a definite value to investing time in yourself and your own skills.  I did that earlier this year, going to a speaker coaching program put on by Patricia Fripp and Darren LaCroix, and it was some of the most valuable time I spent in 2012.  The time you spend improving your sales skills, your personal knowledge, your skill with sales tools, etc. has a high value.

Everything Else:  Here’s the big catch-all.  “Everything else” could be time spent preparing proposals, writing letters, attending meetings, or other miscellaneous “stuff” that you do every week.  When I break down the time salespeople actually spend, “everything else” is the dominant category – and much of the time, it’s work that can be moved, rearranged, streamlined, or delegated.  Why don’t salespeople do this?  Because nobody tells you “no” in “everything else” time.  Still, if you want to succeed, this time has to be cut.

Personal Crap:  There’s one category that falls even below “everything else.”  That’s the personal stuff you do – hitting the dry cleaners, grocery shopping, beers with your buddies, etc. that falls during the work hours.  This can usually be eliminated.

You don’t have access to your customers 24 hours a day; during the hours your customers are accessible, you need to be maximizing your time with them.  That’s how average performers become stars, and stars become superstars.  If you want a better 2013 than 2012 was, it’s time to get to work on not being “busy” and instead being productive.

“You’re too tough!” the candidate said to me.  Then he got up and left my office.  This happened last week, five minutes into an interview.  I was recruiting a salesperson for a client.  The candidate had come in wearing a rumpled suit.  I asked him if he had a clean copy of his resume’ with him.  He didn’t (I knew he probably didn’t because he didn’t have a pad or any other writing apparatus with him).  He said, “I thought you got one by e-mail.”  I explained to him that I did, but knowing whether a candidate brought one told me something about the candidate.

Then I noted that he hadn’t brought a pad or anything to write on.  “What if,” I asked, “I needed you to write down some information to continue the process?”  He was stumped for a second, then he brightly said, “Well, you could just e-mail me.”  (He was living, at this point, in a place that I like to call “Don’t-get-it-ville.”)  My next question was, “What do you know about my client?”  He replied – you’ve probably guessed by now – that he hadn’t done any research.  I said, “Do you always go into sales calls ice cold and unprepared?”  That’s when he said I was too tough.  But there’s a reason I’m tough.

It’s simple, and I can sum it up in two words:  Excellence matters.  More importantly, as my friend Patricia Fripp likes to say, “Excellence in all things matters.”  What she means – and what I mean – is that if you do some things well, you’re more likely to do all things well.  That’s because doing things well becomes habit, and habit tends to govern how we live our lives – and how we sell.

Let’s look at the three touch-points of that interview.  He came in without a resume’, which is the key document in the hiring process.  Sure, I’ve been e-mailed one, but why leave that to chance when it’s easy to carry one in?  The same goes for the pad.  I’ve seen very few good salespeople over the years that aren’t good note-takers, and if you don’t have a pad, you can’t very well take notes, can you?  And of course, preparing for an interview by researching the company is elementary.  All of these things showed a casual approach to the opportunity.

Something that at first seemed unrelated happened to me yesterday.  A speaker with whom I became acquainted, who is in the process of launching his career, e-mailed me and asked me if I still get nervous before speaking.  It seems that he has a program on Monday and he’s nervous about it.  I replied, “Yes, I do still get nervous.  I prefer to think of it as ‘eager anticipation.’  I’ve given literally thousands of speeches, training sessions, and workshops – but before every one, I get that little tingle that tells me I’m about to do something important.”

And that’s the key, I think, to both of these things.  I get eager anticipation before a program because the program matters to me.  It’s important that I am good on the podium, that I’m excellent, and that my audience learns what I want it to learn – and more importantly, what they want to learn from it.  We get nervous because we care about the result.  As humans, we get nervous when we are about to do something important, be that a speaking engagement, a first date, a sales call, or a job interview.

That’s the common thread with excellence.  People who dedicate themselves to excellence in their lives and in their work do so because they care about the result.  As I’m writing this column, I’m sitting in the Kansas City International Airport at o-dark-thirty, waiting on the plane that will take me to Orlando, where I’m speaking at the ASI Show tomorrow.  I’m doing four different workshops.  I’ve done all of them at least a dozen times before, for various audiences.  I know them like the back of my hand.  Yet, I’ve practiced each one of them twice this week.  I’ll get to my hotel early enough to do another run-through this afternoon in the hotel room.  I might even do a quick run-through in the morning before I speak.  And I’m excited to do it.  Why? Because the outcome of these workshops is important to me.  I care, therefore I’m a little nervous – and I’m dedicated to excellence.

In sales, there are entirely too many people who aren’t dedicated to excellence.  I see them every day.  They are the ones who have agenda-free sales calls.  They are the ones who show up unprepared and add nothing to the customer’s buying experience.  And they are the ones who will be out of the profession before long.

If I had to give you one piece of advice for 2013, it’s this:  Dedicate yourself to excellence.  Not just in terms of selling, but in terms of living.  Keep your desk clean.  Dress well.  Make your bed.  Prepare for each sales call like it’s the last one you’ll ever get.  And if you do get a little nervous, recognize that for what it is – you care.

Last weekend, I was in Orlando speaking at the ASI Show.  At the conclusion of my program on Prospecting, I opened the floor for questions and discussion.  A man in the middle of the room raised his hand (polite group, these ASI’ers), and said, “I think you missed a very important part of prospecting. You didn’t speak at all about making friends with the executive secretaries so that they will allow you to talk to their bosses.  Why didn’t you cover that?”  I answered, “Because, honestly, I believe that it’s an obsolete skill set.  Few business owners, Presidents, and even fewer middle managers have dedicated assistants now.”

He looked at me for a moment, then smiled and said, “I just asked you a 1983 question, and you gave me a 2013 answer, didn’t I?”  I laughed and replied that, yes, this was true.  This question – and a few others that I received – started me thinking about how much the science and mechanics of selling have changed over the past 10-15 years.  Worse, it started me thinking about how little much of the sales training and sales knowledge has changed to adapt with it.  If you don’t adapt, you’re going to be left behind.  So let’s discuss some of these changes:

Corporate Right-Sizing:  What many companies learned as things got lean in the 90s, and into the 2000s, was that they had more people than they had actual work to do.  This resulted in what many called “Right-Sizing,” and what others called “Downsizing.”  I call it “reality.”  Executive assistants were terminated in droves.  Middle managers whose duties were often redundant, duplicative, or unnecessary were encouraged to find employment elsewhere.  For many salespeople, these middle managers were our contacts, and these executive assistants our pathways to decision makers (hence the question that led off this article).  If those people aren’t there anymore, what do you do?  Some salespeople have found new ways to get to decision makers; others have simply failed as their skills have become obsolete.

There’s a second impact to this, as well.  In the 80s, Miller and Heiman became big forces in the sales training world with a system built around the “complex sale” that happened when you had large numbers of middle managers and committees involved in major purchases.  For most companies, those committees and middle managers have been cut drastically – and what’s left is a streamlined purchasing process that is very time-sensitive, and requires salespeople to give and get high value from the time we’re allotted.  The complex sale has been simplified and intensified – can you handle it?

Customers Don’t Need Us.  This is something I’ve been talking about for a few years.  Virtually everything you sell can be purchased over the Internet, without the intervention of a salesperson (and if your industry isn’t there yet, give it time).  That means that you now have to earn your place in the sales process, rather than have it gifted to you.  Again, this means that you have a duty to give and get high value during your interactions with customers.  The day of the “donut call” is over.

Good salespeople now must have an agenda, and a win for the customer, in every sales call – or they will lose opportunities to make sales calls. Much of the time, it’s more convenient for a customer to tap a few keys and get what they need, so if your sales call doesn’t make them better, you won’t be invited in.

Straight Commission is Dying.  One of the most controversial claims that I make is this one.  In Orlando, a business owner took me on, telling me that he has a very stable and successful sales force that does great without salaries.  His people, he says, are motivated by the lure of uncapped earnings, and moreover, he feels that the best salespeople are motivated this way.    During the session, we agreed that he was probably the exception to the rule.  He told me that his sales force was mature and long-tenured, and I advised him that he’s likely to see a generational shift when he gets ready to hire again (I’m seeing this with every company I consult with that does straight commission).  Post-session, he approached me and admitted privately that he has, in fact, had to pay a salary to his three most recent hires. So, why the battle in session?  My guess is that he’s still stuck on the idea that straight commission = big balls = best sellers.

Here’s a truth.  The sales hiring market has changed.  You can’t simply toss out your shingle and expect to hire winners and pay them nothing.  Nowadays, the truth is that there are fewer quality salespeople than there are jobs for them; this means that it’s a competitive market.  Salespeople who have options (i.e. are proven performers) are going to be fought for, and one of your main weapons is an attractive salary plus commission package.  This is simple psychology – one of our basic human needs is the need for security.  You might like it or you might not like it, but it’s the reality.

Change can be difficult to deal with.  And sometimes changing means swallowing some pride.  But it’s essential that, if you’re still going to be a thriving salesperson in 20 years – or even ten years, or two years – that you change with the times.  You can still live in the fantasy world of what sales used to be like – or you can adapt to reality.  I’ve discovered that reality buys more and pays better than fantasy. What are you doing to adapt?

“Hi, Troy,” the e-mail read.  “This is (let’s call him Scott) with Company X.  I realize it’s been a while since we’ve talked.  We met last year, and you had indicated that you might have interest in our offerings.  I’d like to set up a time to talk, and see if we could do business.  I look forward to seeing you again.”  Nice e-mail.  There’s only one problem.

I’ve never met Scott.  I’m sure of it.  I even looked him up on LinkedIn (we’re not connected).  I have an above average memory (some would say exceptional), and if that meeting and conversation had happened, I’d know it.  Scott is either lying and trying to fool me into believing that I know him, or he merged my e-mail into a group of people that he does know.  Either way, his initial statement to me is false – which means that I won’t be paying attention to any other statements that he makes.  It’s a basic sales scam, and it’s one of many that are unfortunately still being used over the years.  Let’s discuss some more – and if you’re using them, stop it.

The “I already know you” scam:  We’ve already discussed this one, but there are variations.  Some people use the scam as Scott did; they directly approach the contact claiming a familiarity that doesn’t exist.  Others use some variation of this scam to attempt to get receptionists or assistants to facilitate contact with a target contact.  The problem with this one is, if you get found out (and you do), you lose any opportunity to sell to your contact.

The “I work for” scam:  This one is a bald-faced lie.  “Hi, Troy, this is Bob with IBM…”  The only problem is that Bob doesn’t work for IBM.  He works for a company that is a dealer or distributor of IBM.  He’s trying to use the brand name to gain an entrée, and then he’ll let you know – later – that he works for a small company.  Bob thinks he’s fudging a little bit.  I think he’s lying, and again, it’s incredibly easy to find out.  Some of you may be doing this one thinking that it’s OK.  It’s not.  However, I do see why you’d want to use a brand name; if you do, “agent of” is a great phrase.  “Hi, Troy, this is Bob. I’m an agent of IBM…”  Suddenly you’re truthful and still dropping the name of the big company.

The “I might be a customer” scam:  This one is all too common.  The salesperson arranges an appointment based on the idea that the salesperson is actually the customer.  “But, hey, while you’re here, let’s talk about what I sell….”  This one is difficult for the target prospect to extricate himself from, because he doesn’t want to make a bad impression on a potential customer.  But ultimately he feels deceived and misused.

The “buy today” scam:  “Buy today; this deal won’t be available tomorrow!”  OK, we’ve all seen this one.  Car dealers live by it.  It’s a means of applying pressure and urgency into the buying process.  The trouble is that most customers will figure it out.  “So,” they’ll ask, “If I come back in tomorrow and offer to make this deal, you won’t take it?”  You (the salesperson) is left stuttering.
Why have I spent a column talking about these scams?  Because they’re still being used today, unfortunately.  What’s happened in selling is that these scams are getting easier and easier to figure out.

All of these tricks – and hundreds more that I haven’t talked about – are based on fear and insecurity.  The salesperson believes, in his heart of hearts, that what he has to offer the customer, if presented honestly, isn’t good enough.  Hence, the salesperson tries to create a false perception in an effort to “win” business.  It seldom works.  And it works even less with each passing year.

If you tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said.  And if customers won’t buy based on the truth, it’s time to rethink more than just your sales pitch.

I had a problem yesterday.  A friend of mine called.  She’s a salesperson….and apparently a struggling one.  She wasn’t always a struggling salesperson; in fact, she’d been very successful a few years ago.  However, she’s now hopped among four jobs in the last five years, and been a bottom-of-the-force performer at each.  She recited a fairly common litany of complaints – company doesn’t support her, prices are too high, sales manager micromanages, etc.

Here’s my problem.  As a friend, I’m supposed to commiserate and wish her luck on the job change she’s planning.  As a person who lives the sales profession, I can’t do that.  Success in sales is a simple equation:  (Quality of activity) x (Quantity of activity) = Results.  If you’re failing, the downfall is in one of these areas.  If some people are selling for your company, there’s no excuse for you not to be selling.  In fact, each of the common excuses I hear – and I hear a lot of them – have an explanation behind them.

“You know, the economy.”  This one drives me nuts, and I hear it constantly.  Usually it’s when I’m interviewing a salesperson and asking him/her about why a particular job ended.  My response is, “No, I don’t know the economy.  Did everyone suddenly quit buying your product – or did they quit buying it from you?”  What we call “the economy” is simply the combined result of millions of decisions, each day, to do or not to do business.  If we don’t help people make decisions to do business, we’re contributing to a down economy.  If you’re waiting for external forces to life “the economy,” I have a feeling that you’re going to be waiting for awhile.  It’s up to YOU.

“My sales manager is a jerk.”  Look, I realize that it’s popular to beat up on sales managers.  One popular sales author has practically made a career out of it.  BUT – most sales managers are just good people who are trying to do their best at their job.  More importantly, THEY are accountable for YOUR results, and they’re trying to help you get results.  Being “micromanaged?”  Tough.  In sales, you earn your freedom; you want freedom, put up some numbers.  A number of years ago, I had a salesperson who was failing, and who was fighting me and complaining about my “micromanagement.”  I finally looked at her and said, “Do you realize that the easiest thing for me to do would be to fire you?”  It’s true – upper management will always support canning a failing salesperson.  If your sales manager is “micromanaging,” it’s probably because he/she is trying to work with you to turn your lack of results around.  Cut him some slack, and help him do so.

“I just need a product I can believe in.”  I honestly don’t know what to do with this one; the key problem here is that the problem usually isn’t the product or the service.  The problem is that YOUR customers don’t believe in YOU.  The key question to ask yourself is, “Are customers having positive experiences with my product?”  If they are, then the problem is you and not the product.

“Prices are too high.”  Once again, the key is to ask yourself if people are buying at those prices, or are they just not buying from you?  Usually, the former is the case and not the latter.

“I’ve been talking to other salespeople…”  This one is the “surrender” moment.  If you’re struggling, it would be nice to think that other salespeople in the company will help lift you up and perform better.  Unfortunately, that’s seldom the case for several reasons.  First of all, salespeople know that the weakest performer is the first to get fired; if that’s you and not them, so much the better.  Second, salespeople tend to help those whom they respect.  If you’ve been a performer in the past with this company and you’re struggling, they might help you.  If not, expect them to pile on.

The trouble is that too many salespeople have these issues, and feel that the fix is a job change.  It’s not.  Sales is about driving success, not being a passenger.  When you change jobs due to failure, you’re hoping that other people – or external forces – will make you successful.  That hardly ever happens.  So, I pose the question that’s the title of this article:  “If you’re not succeeding now, when do you plan to do so?”  It’s more rewarding – and more permanent – to fix your own problems rather than hope others will fix them for you.

How did I coach my friend?  I gave her tough love.  I told her that she needed to figure out what she was doing when she was successful a few years ago, and then see what’s different now.  I told her that changing jobs would be the worst thing for her.  And I told her that, ultimately, success in sales is self-driven.  And that’s what I’m telling you now.

I’m always hearing people say, “What we need to do is to think outside the box.  We need customers that are new, that our competitors aren’t going after!  We need new markets!”  Well, that’s all well and good.  What gets forgotten, however, is that out-of-the-box customers typically aren’t trained in all the downsides of your business and what you do.  I once worked for a company that tried a major ‘out of the box’ effort..and failed.

I was in the rental uniform industry at the time, and the problem with that industry was that we (and our competitors) knew of the types of businesses –and types of workers – that used rental uniforms. So, in an effort to expand the marketplace, we made a major selling effort to attract ‘business casual’ uniform wearers.  The problem was that these new customers weren’t trained in all the issues of rental uniforms, and they weren’t happy with what they bought.  Our normal customers understood shortages, damage charges, change fees, etc.; these new customers weren’t accustomed to these things – and our ‘out of the box’ selling didn’t extend itself to ‘out of the box’ servicing and production.  Hence, we failed.  That stands in contrast to one of the biggest ‘out of the box’ success stories ever – Honda.

Up until the 1960s, motorcycles were, as one noted motorcycle journalist says, “contraptions rather than machines.”  The majority of motorcycles here were either Harley-Davidson or British, and required arcane and complex kickstarting procedures.  Even if you got it right, sometimes the kickstart lever would kick back and bruise – or even break – a rider’s ankle.  Other times, a bike would just refuse to start, leaving the rider to jump up and down on the lever like a deranged chimpanzee.  Motorcycles vibrated, they leaked oil on the floor, the road, and the rider, and they dropped parts behind them.  If you were a biker, you needed to be a mechanic – or good friends with one.  Engine rebuilds at 15,000 or 20,000 miles were thought of as routine.

The image of bikers wasn’t good, either.  Bikers were thought of as outlaws or hoodlums, a bit of the rougher type.  The motorcycle shops of the time were dark, dingy places that were forbidding to new riders.   And the truth was that bikers expected all of these hassles to come with their riding passion. Into this market, in the early ‘60s, stepped Honda.

Honda revolutionized motorcycling both in terms of advertising and marketing, as well as the delivery of the buying and ownership experience.  1962 saw a huge ad campaign targeted at non-motorcyclists with the tag line, “You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda.”  The ads depicted not rough leather-clad guys, but young, attractive and clean-cut men and women cavorting around on the small Hondas of the time.

Those ads interested a lot of people in motorcycling on a Honda.  And when they decided to go to the dealers, the dealers typically had clean showrooms and friendly staff.  When the young motorcyclists got aboard their new Hondas, they simply pressed a button and the engine came to life.  The bikes didn’t shudder, they didn’t vibrate excessively, and they didn’t shed parts.  They also tended not to break down, even over long hauls.  For the first time, there was a truly user-friendly motorcycle.  Honda didn’t entice buyers into showrooms and then train them to define their expectations downward – instead, they redefined their product upward to meet the expectations.  Honda didn’t ask their new customers to become mechanics; instead, they built a bike good enough that their customers didn’t need to be mechanics.

The result?  Hondas sold like hotcakes.  At first, the bikes were small and non-threatening, though well engineered.  Then, as the ‘60s went on, Honda went a little bit bigger to 450cc engine capacity (the then-current ‘big bikes’ from Harley were upwards of 1200cc; the Brits were at 650cc), and their 450 performed as well as the larger competition – still with the conveniences of electric start, brakes that would stop it, and complete reliability.  Finally, in 1969, Honda released the 750cc bike that most journalists have termed ‘the first modern motorcycle.’  It, and its brethren, revolutionized the industry.

This didn’t come without consequences for its competition.  Unable to compete with Honda and its other similarly-engineered Japanese competitors, the British bike industry was basically dead by 1975 (One manufacturer, Triumph, has regenerated as a top brand again after restarting in 1990 – they did so by building a bike to Honda’s quality standards.).  Harley went through some terrible years before finally upgrading their product to approach Honda’s standard of engineering – and has since benefited from the new bikers in the market.

All this happened because of a proper ‘out of the box’ customer acquisition effort.  Honda went after new customers that didn’t ride motorcycles, and they sold them with sales efforts targeted at their needs and wants.  More importantly, they didn’t ask these new customers to put up with previously-tolerated problems in their industry; instead, they set their product and service experience in accordance with the new buyers’ wants and needs.

Today’s motorcycle buyer can be much different than his (or her) counterpart from 50 years ago.  Today, you can go into any motorcycle dealership, and the bike you buy will be user-friendly enough, and reliable enough, to hop aboard, flick the switch, and ride from coast to coast.  Bikes are no longer contraptions; they are finely tuned and engineered machines that owe their quality standards to Honda.  Not coincidentally, motorcycle ownership has blossomed.  In 1962, there were 646,000 motorcycles registered on the road.  Today, there are over 7.1 million.

What does that have to do with you?  Quite a bit…if you’re wanting to step “outside your box” and attract new customers that aren’t using your products or services.  Before starting on that great sales or marketing project, ask yourself first what issues you’ve trained your customers to put up with.  Then ask yourself, is it reasonable to expect new customers to be trained to put up with them as well?  The answer may be no; and the solution may be in your products rather than your sales.

Whenever I talk about price, I know the question is coming.  And so it did on Wednesday, as I was speaking at the ASI Show in Dallas. “Troy, I do a lot of bid business, particularly with government and schools.  How can I maximize my price in the bid process?”  Internally, I groaned a bit.  You see, I never enjoyed doing bids, and I never enjoyed selling to the government.  The reasons are the same – the things that are fun about selling (discovering needs, using expertise, building relationships) tend to go out the window in this environment.  Over the course of my career, I’ve probably no-bid at least twice as many opportunities as I’ve bid.

However, the person asking the question needed an answer, so I gave her a couple of quick tips.  The trouble is that I felt like I left something on the table; bidding is too big a subject to cover in a 10-minute Q&A period.  So with that in mind, I do have quite a few pointers in dealing with what happens after your customer says, “We have to get bids.”

Is it really bid business?  The first thing to ask yourself is, “Is this a real bid or a created bid?”  If it’s government or a private company tied to a government project, they very well might be required, by law or regulation, to obtain multiple bids.  On the other hand, if it’s private enterprise, the problem is that you’re talking to the wrong person; you’re dealing with the information-gatherer rather than the decision maker.  At this point, it’s usually too late to get in front of the decision maker.

Who helped write the bid?  Here’s the cruel reality of bid business, private or public.  Someone – usually a salesperson – was able to get next to the decision maker and form a relationship.  This relationship allowed them to write, help write, or influence the bid spec.  If that’s not you, your chance of winning this bid is probably 15% or less.  That’s because the competing salesperson – if he’s smart – put ‘poison pills’ into the bid that greatly skew it in his or her favor.  This can be by having brands specified, or product specs that only his product can meet, etc.  Don’t get mad – if you’re smart and you have the opportunity, you’ll do it too.  I did.

What is the awarding criteria?  This question is important to ask, and unfortunately, you have to put the answer through a filter.  If the criteria is ‘price only,’ then you’d better be prepared to be the low price and low profit provider.  Keep in mind that your customer will not adjust their expectations of service based on the lowest price.  If the criteria includes other variables than price, you should know what the prioritization will be for the various criteria.  Again, put it through your filter.  Are they giving you the real answer, or are they simply trying to draw in your bid?

Will the decision maker see you?  If you can’t get an appointment with the person who will make a buying decision, what in the world makes you think he/she will purchase from you?  If I can’t get an audience with the person who will actually make the decision (either face to face or, in the case of non-local business, a phone appointment), it’s an automatic no-bid for me.  That just means that the deck is so far stacked against you that your bid is only to ‘keep someone honest.’

What is the bid opening process?  Government projects typically are a sealed-bid process with a specified opening time.  If it’s a truly fair process, you should ask to be there when they are opened.  On the other hand, in private industry, they simply accept and view them as they come in.  That leads to….

Always be the first responder.  Some people think there are huge advantages to being last, or being in the middle.  Nonsense.  The only person with an advantage is the first responder, particularly in private industry.  First in means first opportunity to close.  Even when they say that they have to get bids, you should always ask for the business after your offering is reviewed.  In private industry, I’ve won many a piece of business by being first in, making a good presentation, and asking for the business.  A couple of times, I’ve actually met a competitive salesperson in the lobby as I was walking out with the purchase order.  Being the first responder also sends the subliminal message that you care enough to respond quickly – and if you care this much now, you’ll care this much after the sale.

Is the juice worth the squeeze?  This is the most important question you can ask yourself.  Is it worth participating in the bid process?  Understand that bidding is designed to put you, the salesperson, at a disadvantage and negate all the skills you have in needs discovery, product expertise, relationship building, and customer service that you’ve spent your career building. Instead, the idea is to reduce you to a number on a piece of paper.  For me, that’s no fun, and most of the time, it’s not rewarding financially either due to the low profit margins.

Many years ago, a salesperson whom I managed brought a large and complicated bid spec to me.  We estimated that it would take about six hours of his time to complete it, by the time he did all the research.  He admitted that he had no particularly great relationship, and of course, his commission was based on profit.  Although the scope was wide, the profit itself would be small.
Further, we knew that in this same six hours, my salesperson could set between 8 and 10 new appointments.  Given his closing ratios, that would equal two new customers, both of whom would likely be higher profit.  I let him make his own decision.  He chose prospecting.  As it turned out, we knew the competitive salesperson who got the business.  Let’s just say that my guy’s time investment ended up better than the other guy’s.  Sometimes a no-bid is the best bid you can offer.

Finally, never build your business around government purchasing.  This is probably the best tip I can give any business owner.  I’ve already said that I don’t like selling to government, of course, and one big reason is that the purchasing process can be politically driven.  Some of you are probably thinking, “Great!  I’m a WBE or MBE right now!”  Yep, you are.  But….what I’ve learned through contacts is that this is a ground that is constantly shifting.  There are preferences within preferences, and today’s ‘most favored’ MBE can be tomorrow’s ‘outside looking in’ MBE.  I know of a few businesses locally that have failed because of this.  The worst part is that who is favored tends to be driven by politicians that are so far removed from the purchase that they don’t even know the companies that they are affecting.

One final note:  I always tell salespeople to never use the word ‘bid’ to a customer because of all that it implies (multiple vendors, price-based decisions, etc.).  And yes, I’ve used it quite a bit here.  That’s because we’re talking between ourselves.  When you’re talking to a customer, always refer to your proposal as a ‘proposal’ or an offering.

If you choose to pursue bid business, that’s certainly your decision. But do it wisely with your eyes wide open.  Too many salespeople fail because they spend their time chasing every big bid that comes along, when their time could be better spent prospecting for non-bid business.

Use social media for what it can do – and don’t ask it to do what it can’t.

Many people don’t know this, but he late, great country comedian Jerry Clower started out as a feed and fertilizer salesman.  Some of his jokes and stories were from this life, and one of my favorites is this one.  As they say, if it isn’t true, it ought to be.  He was once selling to a hog farmer, and he asked the farmer what he fed his hogs.  “Slop,” the farmer replied.  He then began extolling the virtues of the advanced hog food he sold, and closed by saying, “With this food, your hogs could be grown and market-ready in half the time!”  The old farmer looked at him and said, “What’s time to a hog?”

That story illustrates how the same words can mean different things to different people – and few things exemplify this more than social media.  “You’ve got to be on social media,” one person says.  Another says, “Quit prospecting – social media is where it’s at!”  However, at the root, what salespeople are concerned with is not social media; it’s prospecting and lead generation.  To that extent, social media has one big Achilles’ heel that no one is talking about.

The Achilles heel is this:  Your target must KNOW about you before anything you do with social media has any effect.

One of the big positives – for the user – is that social media is an opt-in mechanism.  You might be Tweeting some great stuff, but if I’m not following you (by my choice, not yours), I’ll never see it.
If you’re a salesperson, this is a big problem.  Part of what we need to do in our new-business selling process is to reach out to people to make it so that they DO know us.

“But wait,” you say.  “People pass along what they see in social media; that’s how people build audiences.”  Sounds great, and it does happen.  That’s what they call “going viral.”  But there’s a problem:  In the real world, very little business-oriented material gets the reTweet or the Facebook recommendation.

One example of this is a prominent sales author who in recent years has been, shall we say, emphatic about the power of social media.  At the start of 2011, he promised that he’d tell his readers how to monetize social media.  At the start of 2012, he said that he’d hired a consultant to help him show people how to monetize social media.  So far in 2013, the discussion hasn’t advanced.  However, last year, he posted an example that speaks volumes.

He gave an example of a pithy comment that he posted, and, he said, “It was re-tweeted 18 times!”  Sounds great.  Except that he has 30,000 followers.  I don’t even want to run the ratio involved.  And this guy has been a best-selling author for 20 years, which is how he got his 30,000 followers.

Now, it may sound like I’m down on social media.  I’m not.  What you’re reading is a form of social media, and it’s been very beneficial to me for eight years.  That’s why I keep publishing it.  But to succeed in selling, it’s vital that we understand what social media CAN do and what it CAN’T.

Social media CAN be a great mechanism for reputation-building, relationship development, and demonstration of expertise.  Many buyers will use it as a “check-you-out” mechanism to learn more about you….AFTER they have encountered you from some other mechanism (such as personal contact at a networking event or a prospecting call).

Social media CAN’T be a primary contact mechanism, because of the Achilles heel issue that I mentioned earlier.   There’s an exception to this rule; salespeople in B to C businesses should probably invest more time in social media for two reasons:  First, cold-call prospecting is virtually nonexistent in B to C.  Second, what does get forwarded and re-tweeted tends to be information on personal purchases, entertainment, etc.  Real estate salespeople, in particular, have had a lot of success with social media.

I should also qualify what I said in the last paragraph.  At this time, the social media technology does not exist that will get past the opt-in provisions of the genre, and allow social media to be a primary sales contact mechanism.  That technology may exist someday, however (and I’m sure people are working on it).

Last week, at the ASI Show in Dallas, I did a little test.  I was speaking to a group of about 150 people about prospecting.  I asked all the business owners in the room to raise their hands.  About 50 did.  I then asked every one of the business owners to keep their hands up IF they watched their Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn feeds to find new vendors.

Every hand went down.

Since most of you reading this are B to B salespeople, that should tell you something.  Use social media for what it can do.  Don’t ask it to do what it can’t.

If you’re a regular reader of this sheet, you know that I advocate looking at yourself as a profit generators instead of as a revenue generator.  And if you’re not a regular reader (shame on you!), now you know it.  However, you can’t hold someone accountable for achieving a set of results without letting them know how to achieve them.
 
Even so, many businesspeople do just that every day; that is, they send their salespeople into battle with little or no idea of how to sell to generate the desired long-term results of the company.  That’s because the corporate sales culture is what I call the “Keep ‘em dumb” philosophy.  Too many business owners think that the way to make sure that their salespeople hold price and profit is to just not tell them what things cost, how profit is generated, and what prices generate the desired profit.
 
That’s a philosophy borne out of distrust of salespeople in general, and their own salespeople in specific.  It’s a shame, and it ends up being counterproductive.  If salespeople don’t know what goods cost, and what profit needs to be generated, they don’t know specifically what constitutes a “good” or “bad” deal.  They spend all their time returning to the “bat-cave” for the next price or proposal offer.  Then they get disgusted with the process and move on to a new company.
 
The old saying, “knowledge is power,” applies here.  Salespeople that know their own cost structures and profit structures are salespeople who are able to negotiate from a position of strength with the customer.  They’re also salespeople who won’t be coming to YOUR desk with deals that YOU know YOU can’t accept.  If that sounds appealing, let’s talk about how to equip your salespeople to generate profit.
 
Teach your salespeople how your company makes money.  I’m not talking about platitudes like, “We make money by selling our products.”  I’m talking about getting out the old Profit/Loss, and showing them the cost of goods, ancillary costs, overhead, and yes, sales expenses.  Give your salespeople enough information to understand how their actions, decisions, and proposals affect the company’s overall profit picture.  I’ve managed numerous sales forces, and every time that I shared P&L information with them, our average price and profits went up.  Salespeople are smart, and they are able to understand and buy into this type of information.
 
Simplify your pricing structure.  Nothing leads to downward price pressure like a complicated pricing structure.  Here’s a general rule:  The more complicated your pricing, the more your customers fear getting taken – and want to negotiate price and profit.  Equip your salespeople with the knowledge and tools to price in front of customers, on-site, when the iron is hot, and they will find it much easier to hold price.  What your salespeople really want is to have the tools and ability to close business on-site.  Give them that, and they’ll use it.
 
Pricing stability is a good thing.  That doesn’t mean that you can’t raise or lower prices; what it does mean is that you shouldn’t do so like a hyperactive child playing Tiddlywinks.   I once worked for a business owner who was constantly after the sales team to “get our price.”  The trouble was that we didn’t really know what “our price” was on any given day or week.  We gradually became less invested in our profit picture, because we never got a true feeling for what our profit picture was at any time – the owner reserved that knowledge for himself.
 
Don’t get weak, and live by your own rules.  If you want to know the Numero Uno way to frustrate your salespeople, this is it:  Demand that your salespeople hold a particular price.  Then, when the customer comes directly to you, give the customer a price you told your salesman that you “couldn’t accept.”  This is guaranteed – NOTHING will upset your sales team and de-motivate them quite like this.  Don’t be that guy. 
 
Compensate and reward based on profit.  This sounds intuitive, but actually, it’s not.  At least, it’s not practiced very often.  If your salespeople are to be profit generators, but you compensate and reward them based on revenue, they’ll always be after gross revenue.  Instead, align all your measurements (compensation, bonus, stack rankings, and evaluations) based on gross profit generated during a given period.
 
Banish certain money-losing terms from the vocabulary.  I’m not a big “word guy,” but there are some things that salespeople say that are automatic money losers:
 
“I can save you money on…”
“I’ll give you the best deal around…”
“Can I bid on your business?”
“I want the last shot at the price…”
“If you find a lower price, call me…”
 
If your salespeople are saying these things, they’re costing you money – guaranteed. 
 
“But Troy, I’m only a salesperson.  My company won’t share this info with me.”
 
Well, then, it’s time to put your selling skills to work.  You understand how to sell benefits and results, right?  Sit down with your boss.  Explain what you need in order to be the best salesperson you can be, and what the results will be from doing so.  Show this article if you want.  Ask for an investment, and make a commitment.  Then be prepared to live up to that commitment with better results and higher profits.

There’s an ad playing on the radio here in Kansas City that really irritates me.  It’s for a car dealership, and it extols the virtues of their “Non-Commissioned” sales staff several times in about 60 seconds.  To hear them tell it, “commissions” are a dirty word.  Now I know that they believe that the term “non-commissioned” is a selling feature to their customers.  My question is, “Why?”

Unfortunately, I think this is another example of us (salespeople) doing it to ourselves.  We have an image of being commission-chasers above all else.  Why?  Because too many salespeople are exactly that.  As I’ve been saying for some time, the world is changing around us, and we’d better adapt.

You see, sales in the 21^st century will be more and more about earning.  It’ll be about earning your spot in the customer’s buying process, earning your spot on the payroll, and yes, earning commissions.  The car dealer who brags about his “non-commissioned” sales staff is making a statement.  He’s saying that his salespeople don’t earn their commissions, and he’s also saying that they really don’t earn their spot in the customer’s buying process.  What does that mean?

Earning your spot in the customer’s buying process is one of those things that’s simple to say – but challenging to implement.  To earn your spot in the buying process, you must work to improve the buying experience for the customer.  I know you’re sitting there thinking, “I do that already!”  But do you?  Do you really?  More to the point – do your customers think that you do?
I’ve always been amazed by salespeople who use certain tactics on customers, yet are offended or irritated when those same tactics are used when they are the customer.  Be honest with yourself.  Think about the sales calls you made this week.  On how many of those sales calls did you do something to contribute value, knowledge, or expertise to the customer’s situation?  How many calls resulted in you improving the customer’s condition – i.e., was the customer better off after you left?

Earning your spot on the payroll is done through being a driver of your business and not a passenger. Too many salespeople are passengers of their business.  I see it every day, and it’s become more pronounced since the economic downturn.  When “times” are good, they prosper; when times are bad, they suffer.  Ask yourself this:  What did you do this week – what activity did you undertake – to drive your company/territory forward by bringing on a new customer, or significantly upselling a current one?

This is best illustrated by a mortgage company owner I know.  He used to have five brokers working for him.  As the market tightened, he realized a few things.  His brokers pretty much sat and waited on the phone to ring.  Further, the reason that the phone rang was his advertising and Web presence.  When the phone rang, the brokers took the applications, ran them through the system, and prepared approval letters.  They pushed paper, in other words.

The company owner figured out that he could, for a moderate expense, invest in a Web page that allowed his customers to fill out their applications online and create approval letters.  If they called in, an administrative person could handle those applications.  He fired all five brokers and downsized his office suite.  Sales, in 2012, were down 10%.  Profits were up 400%.  As Bruce Springsteen sang, “These jobs are gone, boys, and they ain’t coming back.”  It used to be about protecting your spot on the sales force; now it’s about keeping your job in existence.

Which brings us to the final aspect of earning – that is, earning your commissions.  What is a commission?  It’s compensation for a valuable achievement.  The car dealer I referenced decided that his salespeople weren’t achieving anything valuable.  So did the mortgage company owner, although he handled it in a different way.  So, allow me to close with this question:  What are you doing to earn your commissions, your spot on the payroll, and your customers?  If you can’t think of anything, it’s time to rethink your work.