Archive for Sales Hall
June 18, 2008 at 7:33 pm · Filed under Sales Hall
One of the best known lessons from the Bible is found in Luke 6:31. This Bible verse is also known as the Golden Rule. It says, “Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You.”
Few can argue with the merits of the Golden Rule, if for no other reason, because we all like to be treated like we like to be treated. If everyone were to follow the Golden Rule, the world would certainly be a better place.
But if you were to be talking specifically about the profession of sales, there is actually a better Rule, one that’s called the Platinum Rule. This Rule calls for salespeople to “…Do Unto Others as THEY Would Have You Do Unto THEM.” The Platinum Rule is quite a bit different from the Golden Rule because it focuses on what others want from us rather than what we might want from others.
To practice the Platinum Rule® effectively, it’s necessary to get inside the head of the customer or the prospect. We need to know a lot about the person we’re trying to persuade. We need to know a lot about the way the individual thinks if we are to be successful at getting inside his head and treat him the way he wants to be treated. Just any behavior won’t get the job done.
Here’s an example that illustrates the difference between these two rules:
If smokers did unto others the way they would have others do unto them, smokers would smoke in a non smoker’s office. But if smokers treat non smokers the way THEY want to be treated, smokers would refrain from smoking in the non smoker’s presence.
This is a great lesson for successful selling!
The Platinum Rule® also calls for us to talk to others (in this case customers or prospects) about the kinds of things others want to talk about. So to be effective at getting our foot in the door, we must do enough homework to figure out the kinds of things the customer or prospect likes to talk about.
Here’s my recommendation: Prepare a dossier on each customer and each prospect. Keep notes on their hobbies, interests, sports teams followed, club affiliations, vacation preferences, pet peeves, etc. There is hardly any better way to get your foot in the door of someone you don’t already have a relationship with than to find out where their passion lies and show a sincere interest in that passion.
My daughter, Shannon, is one of the best salespeople I know. She has soared through the ranks in business, starting out as a sales representative and advancing to managing a third of the nation for her company.
In her second job in sales, she was promoted to sales manager for Nextel in Charlotte, NC. I was working in my office on a Saturday afternoon when she telephoned me. She telephones me often, but this day was different, I could hear a loud roaring noise in the background. When I asked her where she was calling from, she told me that she was calling from the Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte.
“What are you doing there? I asked. I didn’t know you liked NASCAR.”
“I had no choice,” she told me. “All my customers here seem to enjoy talking about is racing, so if I’m going to fit in, if I’m going to be able to talk to them about the things they enjoy talking about, I figured I had better learn something about racing. So here I am watching drivers drive around in circles at very high rates of speed.”
I told you my daughter is smart about selling. She figured out rather quickly that she would be at a disadvantage if she could not communicate with her customers and prospects on their level; that is, if she couldn’t talk to them about the kinds of things THEY liked to talk about.
How much do you know about your customers and prospects? What new could you do — something you’ve never done in the past — to demonstrate to your customers and prospects that you’re genuinely interested in some of the same things they’re interested in?
What new could you learn - something you don’t currently know how to do — to enable you to communicate with your customers and prospects in areas that are important to THEM?
Remember the Platinum Rule® and Do Unto Others the Way THEY Would Have You Do Unto THEM.
Bill Lee is author of Gross Margin: 26 Factors Affecting Your Bottom Line and 30 Ways Managers Shoot Themselves in the Foot. http://www.BillLeeOnLine.com
April 28, 2008 at 5:11 pm · Filed under Sales Hall
Silence is Golden
Want to close more sales? STOP TALKING!!!!! Think back to your
high school and college days. When your teacher or professor
told you that whatever he/she was talking about was going to be
on a test or quiz, did you listen more intently? Did you wakeup
and start taking notes? Were you suddenly trying to capture as
much information as possible?
When you are on a sales call, it’s not too much different than
what was supposed to happen when you were in a classroom
environment. You were there to learn. You were there to obtain
information.
Your client is meeting with you presumably because they need
help. Are you giving your clients the solution before you really
understand the problem? Do you have a tendency to interrupt
people and give them your ideas before they can complete a
sentence? When you do the talking, you are inhibiting your
prospects and clients from wanting to talk. Your job is not to
dominate the conversation and give a lot of advice. Your job is
to listen, and encourage your prospects to keep on talking. Your
job is to help your customer solve a problem. Your job is to
find the root of the problem and determine if your customer
wants to fix it. You can’t do that if you are dominating a
conversation.
Encourage your prospects and clients to do the majority of the
talking. Use short statements and questions to encourage your
prospects to continue giving you more information. Some examples
are. “Tell me more. Can you elaborate on that? Please go on. How
long has this been a problem? Could you give me an example of
that? How have you tried to fix the problem? What is the
financial impact of this problem?”
Next time you are in a sales situation and you are trying to
understand the customer’s motivations, concerns, problems, pains
and challenges, pretend what they are saying will be on a test.
Listen 70-80% of the time.
Don’t be too surprised if your closing ratio increases as your
talking decreases. An “A” on this test is a closed sale. B’s and
C’s don’t count.
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly” -
Robert F. Kennedy
Have a great week
Please call me if I can help with any business development and
prospecting questions.
Ken
Ken Levine Impact Business Solutions, Inc. 508-845-8849
www.impactbussolutions.com
April 4, 2008 at 8:59 am · Filed under Sales Hall
One of the most critical choices that an executive or entrepreneur can make is to determine which sales/revenue opportunities to pursue vs. which ones to pass on. How do you determine where you will allocate your time, your resources and your talent? Do you use a rational decisioning process to arrive at the right conclusion or are you the person that is often second guessed or proved wrong because your decision was made irrationally and you arrived at your conclusion by default, osmosis or some other unknown process?
For purposes of this posting I will exclude the greener pastures of new sales opportunities and focus on the most overlooked area of opportunity assessment which is prioritizing decisions surrounding sales of your existing product or services. It has been my observation that many sales plans simply evolve for no quantifiable, qualifiable or tangible reason other than just because…Following are the top 10 reasons not to pursue a particular sales opportunity:
#10: Because a strong sales or product manager flexed his muscles and pushed their bias;
#9: To seek static gains in a vacuum buy just looking for increases in quarter over quarter sequential revenue growth;
#8: To buy business in order to gain market share;
#7: Because more marketing budget exists for Product A vs. Product B;
#6: Because the sales force can’t seem to get traction with Product X;
#5: Because the sales force is getting traction with Product X;
#4: Because the ad agency made a good pitch;
#3: Because the market research said you had a competitive advantage;
#2: Because your competition does it, and;
#1: Because it’s always been done that way.
Some of the aforementioned reasons if encapsulated in an overarching strategy may not in and of themselves be bad reasons to pursue a sales opportunity. However in the absence of a plan and standing alone in a vacuum they will result in wrong choices being made more often than not. To avoid the common mistakes outlined above conduct a thorough comparative analysis of all product and service lines assessing the following key metrics:
• Cost of sales and profit margins;
• Length of selling cycle;
• Sales/revenue obstacles;
• Competitive analysis;
• Current market demand;
• Potential for future market growth;
• Ability to further brand recognition/growth;
• Quality and quantity of available talent and resources supporting a particular product or service line;
• Execution and delivery capabilities;
• Post sale costs of service;
• Ability to add to lifecycle value;
• Recurring revenue vs. one time revenue, and;
• Creation of additional revenue opportunities.
Take the above metrics and plug them into a grid ranking each category from highest to lowest for each product or service line. In addition to individual rankings also created a weighted rank based on the metrics that are most important to your business. Lastly create a blended score for each product or service line. Conducting this type of analysis will help you determine where you should be placing your emphasis for the purpose of moving you toward a best practices approach when creating a well engineered sales plan.
Mike Myatt is the Chief Strategy Officer at N2growth. N2growth is a leading venture growth consultancy providing a unique array of professional services to high growth companies on a venture based business model. The rare combination of branding and corporate identity services, capital formation assistance, market research and business intelligence, sales and product engineering, leadership development and talent management, as well as marketing, advertising and public relations services make N2growth the industry leader in strategic growth consulting. More information about the company can be found at http://www.N2growth.com
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