20 Tips From High Performers

I have been jotting down sales tips that I have noted from working
with several high performing sales people over the past few weeks.

Here they are.

1. Sales is a game of confidence
2. Two ears one mouth – the best sales people use them in that proportion
3. Increase sales activity – set some goals and make the calls
4. 80% of sales will be made by 20% of sales people , those 20%
will have clear priorities
5. Sales people must be confident in the value and skills they
deliver to their client
6. Develop relationships of trust, telling someone you cant do
something isn't the end of the world
7. Conduct effective needs analysis – 8 out of every 10 sales people don't!
8. Face the fear of rejection, head on, what's the worst that can
happen, a client says no
9. Have thought through the objections you will face before you
meet/call a client
10. Ask the customer/prospect is there anything else on their mind
before wrapping up a meeting
11. Set clear goals for meeting and gain commitment to a next step
12. Will block time in their calendar to call on new prospects
13. Apply the 80/20 rule to all sales activity
14. Be absolutely clear on the ideal customer
15. Plan visits around locations – don't waste time
16. Listen to CD's, read, uses travel time effectively, make the car
your place of learning
17. Be consistent with your message and make sure what you say and
do are aligned
18. Transfer knowledge and ideas into concepts that clients can
easily understand
19. Do the sales activity you least like doing first thing in the morning
20. Present yourself as an expert, people want to talk to experts

John O' Gorman Director

Accelerate Sales Growth, sales management

Put them to the side, or Keep In Touch!

For those of you who think selling is about just making sales calls and getting someone to buy, think about the following.

You meet say Mr. X and they don't buy from you and have no short term intention of buying from you. What do you do? Well, 7 out of every ten sales people just push Mr X. to the side and forget about him.

Well I can tell you from personnel experience recently that those 7 sales people need their heads examined. Mr X may not be in a postion to buy from you know, but he may know someone who is and if you keep in touch with him and think of him he is likely to recommend you to his contacts. One of our customers did this recently and now have a €100,000 opportunity in their pipeline that they wouldn't otherwise have

Lessons to be learned from this: Adopt a KIT mindset - Keep in touch

If you think of others, and send them something of value from time to time, they will more than likely refer you to someone who could buy your product or service.

John O' Gorman - Director of Accelerate Sales Growth, Sales
Management, Sales coaching

http://www.acceleratesalesgrowth.com/

The big lie - Great sales people are born, not made

Despite the traditional misconception, great salespeople are not born, they are made.  Ok there are personality characteristics that indeed can help in selling, such as; an outgoing personality, the ability to develop rapport easily and maybe even the ability to deal with rejection.  However the reality is that a great many of those qualities traditionally associated with the natural fast talking and super-confident sales person are a hindrance, rather than a help.

However, the core skills essential to sales success are not part of the DNA, but are learned, practiced and perfected over time including; listening, asking questions, empathizing, building rapport, expertise / product and industry knowledge, determination, communication skills, etc.  These skills are the difference between the average sales person and the sales champion. 

The profession of selling is open to everyone.  The price of success thereafter, is the continual learning and refinement of a set of skills – the skills involved in helping people to buy.  You don't have to be the perfect or natural salesperson, just one that is committed to getting better all the time. 

Like any other profession selling requires continuous improvement and refinement of skills, attitude and approach.   And the most important way to learn is not necessarily through training, or from books, but by doing.  The good salesperson always analyses the last sales meeting, the last sales campaign and the last proposal to identify opportunities to refine their approach and thereby increase their success.  With every sales call the good salesperson gets even better.

Average sales people can achieve extraordinary results if they following the right approach to selling their product, or service and if they are provided with the right systems and supports.   A great sales person in the wrong environment with the wrong sales approach, will achieve only average results.    In particular, sales success is increasingly about process - a consistent set of steps, governing key activities; such as pre-qualification, relationship building, needs analysis, etc.

The Different Types of Sales Meetings

There are lots of different types of 'sales meetings' and understanding the differences between them is key to success.

However, salespeople and sometimes even the customer get it wrong, with the result being a mismatch of expectations. Here are two classic examples:

1. A buyer makes an enquiry and the sales person visits as a result. The sales person arrives expecting to listen and engage with the customer to explore his needs and requirements, but it does not turn out as planned:

- To his surprise the buyer is withdrawn and says very little. It becomes more like an interview of the salesperson, than a two way conversation, or exploration of needs. The salesperson ends up doing most of the talking and leaves confused about why the buyer even wanted to meet.

- Worst still the sales person arrives to be led into the board meeting, introduced to a number of people from the buyers side and shown where he or she can connect a laptop in order to deliver a presentation.

2. A sales person arrives to meet a potential customer for the first time. After a few short pleasantries, the salesperson powers up his/her laptop and launches into a slide presentation about his/her company and its solutions. After a dozen slides the buyers eyes glaze over, but with a lot more slides to get through the sales person does not even notice. When the presentation is over the buyer wants to get out of the room as quickly as possible.

The sales person has used up all the time talking about himself and has found out little about the buyer and his requirements. Because he/she delivered a presentation before finding out what the customer wants, there is no way of ensuring that the content of the presentation reflects the requirements of the customer.

All too often when a sales person visits a prospect the objective is to deliver a sales presentation – a slide show, or powerpoint presentation. But, although that is the most common approach, it is suited to only a small proportion of all sales meetings. The problem is that it means the sales person ends up doing most of the talking.

Most sales meetings are conversations - purposeful two-way conversations that explore needs, the implications of those needs and the potential solutions that can address the same. The word purposeful is important here – in that you have giving the buyer a reason to meet and that reason is clear. There is no mismatch of expectations.

For almost all sales meetings the salesperson almost always does more listening than talking, although the balance can shift as the sales cycle / relationship develops.

Winning Advice - Do Fewer Presentations and Proposals!

Ironically, fewer presentations and proposals generally results in more sales!

Traditionally the view was that the more customers you presented to - the more sales were likely to result. However sales presentations where the salesperson does all the talking (with or without the aide of a set of powerpoint slides) are not an effective way to sell. Great sales people will give a presentation if they have too, but prefer conversations instead. In this way they can clearly establish requirements and more successfully match solutions to needs.

Traditionally managers saw a direct relationship between the number of proposals prepared and sales revenues. However, that has changed. In fact, many managers complain that their organizations are writing too many proposals, or that win rates are slipping. Great sales people write proposals, but only as the culmination of an extensive two way process of understanding the buyers needs, exploring solutions and trial ballooning price/other key aspects of the proposition.

Too many proposals are prepared unilaterally and at an early stage in the sales cycles. But that means they generally involve the salesperson 'going out on a limb' to propose something without the confidence that it will be well received and without a thorough understanding of the customers' requirements.

--
Ray Collis
Director - The ASG Group, Ireland.

Win, Lose, or worse of all Stalled!

There was a time when the worst that could happen to a salesperson was
that he, or she would lose the sale. But, even more dreaded are those
sales cycles that are stalled.

A stage cycle gets to the stage where a salespeople needs closure.
That is a definitive yes, or no, that would enable him, or her to move
on. Instead it is a 'not now', 'we are still evaluating what to do',
or worst of all there is a deafening silence from the prospect.
For many sales people the stalled sales cycle is worse than the sales
that is lost.

Today's buying decisions are more complex – they involve more people,
information and stages. That means it is more difficult to predict
what deals will close and when. Once more in a time of great
caution, owing to the slowdown, gitters in the buying organization can
easily derail a sure thing sales deal.

A sales person and his/her team may have been working on a sale for
many months, getting all the right signals from the prospect and
increasingly confident that the deal will close. Then all is laid to
waste, with the moment of the buyer stalled and so often the
salesperson helpless on the sidelines to do anything about it.

There are a myriad of factors that can cause a sale to get stalled and
some are beyond the ability of the salesperson to control, or perhaps
even anticipate. However, it is important to say that the number one
reason for stalled decisions is a failure among the buying
organization to match the purchase with a key business imperative, for
example cutting costs, driving sales, etc.

The number two reason for stalled decisions relates to the sales
approach and in particular the sales person getting ahead of the buyer
assuming that he, or she is following. Hence the importance of;
gradually building, gauging and seeking commitment consistently
throughout the sales process, ongoing prequalification (in terms of
budget, timing, etc.) and working closely with the customer to
establish needs, implications and the ideal solution.

Top 10 Opportunities to Improve Win Rates

Half of sales managers say they can gain further efficiencies in terms
of their sales approach.

This desire is driven by longer sales cycles, the difficulty of
forecasting what deals will close and pressure on win rates.

The Top 10 opportunities identified by managers are:

1. More systematic approach to the management of sales opportunities
(ie. sales process)

2. More structured and interactive approach to needs analysis, with a
focus on implications as well as needs

3. Greater coverage of the buying unit and selling higher generally

4. More systematic pre-qualification earlier and ongoing throughout
the sales cycle

5. Working more closely with the buyer to find solutions to their problems

6. Incrementally building and gauging buyer commitment throughout the
sales process

7. Quantification of business impact and benefits

8. Trial-ballooning price and other aspects of the solution

9. Bi-lateral approach to proposal preparation

10. More systematically building relationships

More Tips on Selling in a Slow-Down

You may have read my complaints about the level of negativity at some recent business events I attended and my conviction about staying positive in spite of the market downturn.

Well, when up to a hundred consultants get together there are certain to be lots of ideas shared on how to take business challenges and that most topical one of the moment – the slow-down.

Here are some of the most useful pieces of advice shared among consultants recently:

- Demonstrate that you can really add value, explain a drop dead difference and be clear about the business outcome of what you are proposing.

- Reflect the clients changing priorities (cutting costs, etc.) and help them to deal with the impact of the recession. Empathize with their business challenges.

- Recession is the motivation for many firms to fundamentally change their business model (out-sourcing, new routes to market, etc.). Those companies that implement 'knee jerk' reactions to the slow-down (e.g. making less than surgical cost cuts) significantly underperform in the longer term those that take a more strategic approach to dealing with a slow-down. So, there is a positive side.

- It is not about relying on RFPs – you have to talk to prospects about new ideas that can impact on their business – you have to create the opportunities not just reply to requests for tender.

- Sell higher in prospect organizations, it is not enough to sell to the IT director, you have got to create the business drive behind the IT solution that you are selling with the COO, CEO, etc. In times of a slow-down decisions must be shown to impact on business performance and must win the approval of the CEO.

- If you are a consultant, be careful as it is often the first and often the least painful area to get cut in a slown-down. That is because consulting has an image problem and its professionals need to do something about it. What is the problem? Well, value (as addressed in the points above).

See here for more sales related tips on selling in a slow-down.

Stop Trying to Demotivate Me with Talk of Slowdown

I travelled across town this morning to have an early breakfast with up to 100 management consultants and to benefit from the wisdom of two guest speakers. I should have gone to the office instead.

The breakfast was a solid base for the day (although not one my cardiologist would approve of), the rest was not. It was a diet of 'challenging times', 'slowdown', 'very difficult time', 'worst recession since the 1990s if not before', 'financial turmoil, etc.'

In the only moment of levity one of the speakers (the head of one of the big multinational consulting firms) joked that things were so bad that when another consultant asked how business was and the presenter replied 'challenging' that person whose business was obviouslyin even greater distress expressed surprise and responded 'that good is it?'

Stop right there! I refuse to be de-motivated. It is too easy to focus on the negative. There is a job to be done and moaning about an economic downturn won't help in doing it. Am I in denial (see the psychology of a slowdown)? No.

The facts about the economy are as undeniable, as they are outside my control. What I can influence is the level of sales activity I undertake and the degree of energy and enthusiasm that I bring to it. This is where depressing stories about the economy won't help.

After all, it's not the recession that really matters, it is how you react to it (see strategies for selling in a downturn). Thanks for the breakfast, but I left the negativity at the door on my way out!

http://www.theASGgroup.com

The verdict on what makes a good sales person

What makes a good sales person? Now that may sound like a difficult question to answer, but as you will see it's not. In fact, there is no mystery to what makes a good sales person.

To see what I mean - think of the salespeople you have dealt with over the past 12 months – both on the home front (e.g. buying a car, or a suite of furniture) and at work (e.g. the stationery salesperson, or the IT vendor).

First, think of the bad ones and what made them bad. That is an easy list to create and typically includes such items as; arrogant, insincere, pushy, overly-friendly, fast talking, does not listen, lack of product knowledge, un-trust worthy, just wants to sell, interrupts, etc. Yes, we are all too familiar with that type of sales person.

Then think of the good salespeople that you like dealing with. They may be fewer in number than their bad counterparts, but their characteristics stand out. They are generally described as; good listener, asks questions, respectful, polite, does not interrupt/arrive uninvited, not pushy/gives us space, knows our industry, offers good advice, has our best interest at heart, trustworthy, looks to build a relationship, etc.

I have been asking these questions of groups of managers up and down the country for two decades and they have no problem clearly identifying the characteristics of both good and bad salespeople. The guidelines for all of us in sales are clear!