There was one issue with this business. Those that tended to stay the longest in the job and do well…were sometimes economical with the truth. That is to say, they were hungry for business – they knew when the person on the other end of the phone was interested and in some cases they would over sell or make promises that were not in their remit to deliver. In my short time there, I heard some real whoppers.

Obviously, this isn’t a great long-term approach to doing business. When customers who were mis-sold products complained they had to go through a lengthy and time consuming process of compensation which didn’t do the company very good. I get it though – this company was a short term business. Easy to re-locate, revamp, remarket and move into other areas of business. They could afford to move around doing the same thing – the danger was for the mobile phone network. Their brand was systematically getting tarnished by third part companies like this.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like the idea of incentives and bonuses. It is nice to be recognised for bringing in more than you are required to do. Yet, it seems to me that we aren’t even over the last financial cataclysm in the banking sector, which might I add was driven by bonuses and commissions, and still we haven’t learned any lessons.

My colleague Anthony Iannarino is perfectly right to say that targets should be about personal development rather than a blanket statement of intent from the board room. I have always believed, perhaps a little altruistically, that the company is the sum of its parts, meaning that the quality of the company is reflected in the people that are working for it. In a time where people are losing jobs, there are plenty of people who would kill for the chance to work and contribute to a company. They don’t need incentives to give their all – they want the chance to contribute, to make a difference and to fulfil ambitions for reasons more than just financial. By making a job purely just about commissions and incentives businesses are setting their stall out to attract the wrong types of people.

We often say in sales that competing on price alone is a dangerous business. There has to be more value. Why then is it all right to have that attitude with those that work for you? Why has it got to be all about the commission?

“What does the next three months hold for me, O Soothsayer”, the mighty ruler would say and the soothsayer would read his signs, that only he as a learned soothsayer can read. “O mighty ruler, the signs are good. You will be victorious in battle and will sack your enemies city’s and earn riches for your kingdom”.

The problem, of course, is when three months later those things don’t happen. The same soothsayer is hauled up in front of the mighty ruler to explain just why those predictions didn’t happen and why in fact the mighty ruler had been roundly annihalated in a series of battles and contrary to sacking city’s, his own had been plundered and the treasury depleted. “O mighty ruler, recent readings of the tea leaves suggest those victories you were looking for have slipped back a few months etc. etc.”

Sound familiar?

When it comes to predicting next March’s sales forecast, some – not all – seem to look to the soothsayer gods of sales for the divine insight into knowing how healthy their pipeline is. It is strange that in a modern society, confident in the scientfic knowledge that we possess, that mentioning the word ’sales forecast’ can at times conjure a mysticism totally unplaced in the 21st century.

Yet, predicting with some degree of accuracy how well your March sales are going to be isn’t very difficult at all. Ironically, this actually involves history – though a much more immediate history. Yes, it is quite possible to measure sales data over the past months and years in sufficient terms to analyse trends and patterns so that you are reasonably certain about where you stand today in respect of what happens in March. If for instance the trend of your pipeline over the past few years is that you make between 50-70% of a three month projection then you can reasonably predict how healthy your sales pipeline is now. If you have forecasted $100,000 in march and your target is $95,000 then you can reasonably suspect that you have an issue, without having to fall back to explaining why and how you are going to make 95% of the forecast. Similarly, opportunities in the pipeline that are slipped from one forecast to the next can also be analysed as well as the harder issues of sandbagging where sales people hold the proverbial card up the sleeve.

Adding up this history so that you have a realistic picture of the sales forecast means that you get past the sparring that inevitably happens in sales meetings between sales managers and sales people who need to justify their forecast and explain their past performance. What does it require? Simple….. honesty. Not only from the sales person but from the sales manager. Innaccuracy in forecasting, I think, is primarily down to the way that forecasts are used by both. If the forecast is used as a tool to improve as opposed to a measure of performance then issues can be worked on and data can be collected in a more accurate way with less of the sparring, sandbagging, slippage etc. Inaccuracy in the forecast then can be used to identify issues that both manager and sales person can work on ie. if opportunities are slipped constantly is there an over-optimism in the sales persons expectaction? What is leading the sales person to make the forecast date for that particular time? Is there something the manager and sales person can do to rectify this and improve this?

How are your March sales? I would like to think that this is relatively easy to predict but I am constantly surprised at how many organisations and people leave it down to pure gut feel. I say consign the soothsayer of sales to where he belongs – in ancient history.

*For those who haven’t read Asterix, the comic book is about a village of Gauls in France holding out against the might Roman Empire of Julius Caesar with the aid of a magic potion that makes them invincible.

Even in such hard financial times as we face today it is perhaps difficult to contemplate that the majority of people on this planet don’t have the opportunity to possess all they need to live comfortably. Therefore, the act of buying for most is an act of therapy in itself by being able to provide for themselves and their family. For thousands of years we have toiled, fought and traded on the basis of being able to procure enough to feed and clothe ourselves. For thousands of years we, like the rest of nature’s animals have struggled with finding the resources to obtain what we need. Feeling good about buying something therefore is programmed into our very nature.

Only relatively recently with the industrial revolution, technological advancements in transport and refrigeration, have we been in a position where we have as a society been able to produce and earn more than our basic living needs require. That basic feeling of positivity when buying something is still there though. In the society that we are used to living in, where financial income far exceeds basic living we have a surplus of money that has fueled the increase in lifestyles we expect. Do we need absolutely everything we possess today? Of course not. We would feel bereft if we didn’t possess our cars, TV’s, ornaments, furniture etc. but most of these things are not, if we are honest, essential to our basic living requirements but rather are a product of our ability to buy what we ‘want’ rather than what we ‘need’.

For those of us selling, our products and services are purposely aimed at customers who have a combination of ‘want’ and/or ‘need’. Our jobs rely at some point on our ability to tap into the primordial therapeutic feeling of buying products based on one or both aspects. In a recession, the difficulty of selling ‘want’ based products is naturally more difficult as customers are more focused on ‘need’.

Yet, we live in a complex society that has also developed over thousands of years, and with society there is competition. Again, there are examples in nature where species that create society use property as a means to demonstrate their social standing. Those that demonstrate their ability to obtain the most resources are the most attractive. In our society, the same can be said. The most powerful members of society are the ones with the most property; they have the cars, the houses the absurdly younger spouses etc. In such cases their property isn’t based on ‘need’ at all but purely on ‘want’. They want to earn more, to have more power and to earn more respect. They don’t need even half of what they have, but by buying more they demonstrate their social standing. At the more mundane level of you and me, the term ‘keeping up with the jones’s’ is what drives some. Why? Because buying makes us feel good.

Feeling good about buying is built into our character whether it is based on buying through necessity or whim. For those in sales it is perhaps something to keep at the back of the mind when dealing with prospective customers that deep down there is a primordial urge to purchase and to feel good about doing so.

Are you in competition with other people. Yes, sure you are, in so far as it should drive you to be continuously strive for improvement and furthering yourself, but in reality if you are so totally focused on what other people are doing then you are losing sight of the real objective. To highlight this, let me tell you a very real story… you may have heard it, it’s about a bank who cleverly marketed a product that so attracted it’s customers in being so different that it was highly sought after. Other banks became jealous and in striving to outdo the other marketed ever more attractive different and complex offerings to it’s customers until both they and their customers didn’t have the first idea what they were selling and buying. And of course we now realise that these very attractive products weren’t at all good for us at all – part of the problem was that banks were pre-occupied with being different and interesting, rather than actually asking a very important question “Is this product going to help my customer?”.

Supposing you are selling the exact same product to another company. What is the ‘difference that makes the difference’ that makes one person buy from you over that of the other? You. You are the difference.

Even where you have a product offering that is uniquely different, I still think that the ‘difference that makes the difference’ is you. Problems and solutions are reasons why people buy but a reason isn’t necessarily an emotion. Emotion is strongly linked with what makes people buy a particular product from a particular person and that emotion is formed not by the product but the person.

Do you have to be different? No, you just have to be yourself, to be truthful, listen, ask questions, solve problems, enquire. If the sales person down the road is doing the same – great! Good for them and for you. There really aren’t enough great sales people. You have nothing to fear from them. If they aren’t great – good for you also. In each case you should just be concentrating on your own performance and not get side tracked by other issues.

1. Who Exactly Is In Charge? – I’m not a huge fan of PowerPoint but it does seem to be one of the presenter’s aids of choice in large presentation settings. The problem isn’t with PowerPoint itself but the focus of presentations. You see, there appears to be an unconscious feeling by some presenters that the most important thing in the presentation is the information that resides within that presentation aid. In a way, the main focal point of the presentation becomes that piece of collateral and the presenter becomes the presentation aid. Shifting the importance value by directing attention away from the presenter is actually quite damaging because the interest, trust and engagement that you would hope to be built between presenter and audience is actually deflected to the sales aid and not to you.

2. Why Are You Fighting Your Own Presentation? – Another cardinal sin with presentations directly following on from the last point is when presenters and their presentations constantly vie for the audience’s attention. While talking to your audience, why are there masses of text or odd little animations or video’s in the background? Why make it hard for your audience to pay attention to you?

3. What Are Your Hands Doing? – Pens and paper are sometimes a really bad idea to hold on to in a presentation especially to those with a nervous disposition (and even those that don’t) Subconsciously we like to occupy our hands in nervous activity, so while pacing around, a presenter may be in the middle of an important point succinctly delivering the information whilst unknowingly fiddling with a pencil between his fingers. Paper is worse (I know, I did a presentation once holding a piece of paper with notes – it was a disaster), in that it exaggerates nervous shaking so that the audience can see quite plainly that you are nervous. If you have to use notes, make sure they are in a portfolio that doesn’t easily accentuate minor shakes. If nerves are evident you can bet that the audience is preoccupied with thinking about that rather than the information you want to deliver.

4. Engage Everyone – This may appear contradictory to what I’ve said in point two but using different methods of delivering information is actually a good idea. Why? Because we all learn in different ways. Some of us like listening, while other like watching or doing or participating. Mix this up and the audience will retain the information you are giving more easily. I used to hate going to lectures when studying because a presentation of aural information over an hour long was not my ideal way of understanding information and my interest was not engaged for very long and I soon forgot what was said. If you watch some stand-up comedians they employ different ways of engaging their audience, perhaps interacting with audience members or asking for volunteers to act out stories. One of the purposes of which is to break up the monotony of delivering information in one format. Planning different ways of delivering information into a presentation means there is less likelihood of there being conflict between different media as in point two.

I will have to admit, that prior to that timely find, I was beginning to feel at a loss as to what to write about pitching. I don’t really pitch an idea to clients without them having some idea of what I’m going to say. Most prospective client interaction that I have is a collaborative process where ideas are arrived at together. By the time I get to a proposal situation, the client has as much of an understanding of all the requirements of the project as I do… so why do I need to pitch?

Then of course, I realised that I am pitching ideas all the time. That’s what brainstorming is, isn’t it? In the movies, a character in a brainstorming session will in all likelihood say something like ‘OK, let me throw a curve ball here!’ – meaning, I presume that the idea is a little way out of left field…..

(I would point out that living in the UK I have little to no knowledge of baseball at all, yet surprisingly the terminology seems to creep in. My apologies if I get it wrong. However, I digress.)

I bounce ideas all the time, with colleagues, management, customers, etc. They also bounce their ideas off me. The process is collaboration. Sometimes ideas are carried and improved upon, another will see the potential of the idea and instantly understand, and sometimes you have to reinforce the idea. To me the term pitching means throwing ideas around and bouncing them off other people. I understand why the term ‘sales pitch’ means the way it does in the way Geoffrey James says in his article, but in this situation pitching ideas is a healthy activity worth pursuing.

Supposing you have an idea that you truly believe in, a concept that you see will be highly successful. What if your idea isn’t understood? You recognise the potential but others don’t initially see it. Do you fight to make it understood? Passion for ones ideas can compel us to try and convince others of the merits of an idea and that is when you get into the realms of the ‘sales pitch’. Entrepreneurs, thought leaders and innovators will undoubtedly go through this a lot, because they are developing technology and ideas ahead of fashion trends and will have to convince investors and early adopters of their ‘vision’.

Is the sales pitch really dead? I think in the sense that Mr James talks about it is, especially in relationship selling. I have to agree with my colleague Colin Wilson; I too don’t like the term and its connotation. It suggests coercing or changing someone’s mind; it’s confrontational. Yet, if TV programmes like we have here in the UK like the ‘Dragons Den’ are anything to go by then the ‘sales pitch’ is still alive and kicking. Certainly, in realms where people are pushing boundaries there is inevitably going to be a gap between the innovators and the majority. At some point, these innovators have to convince everyone else that they have a vision of the future that will be successful and that might require a ‘sales pitch’ if nothing else to show the commitment and passion in the idea. This pitch may not be to us, but a few investors and early adopters to start the ball rolling. By the time we catch on, there’s no need to convince us.

What I would like to share, I came across while listening to Shane Gibson’s ‘28 Days to Better Selling’ series. I assure you I wasn’t approached to recommend Shane’s podcast here, but in day 11 of the series Shane does go into depth about ‘Needs Analysis’ and a great discussion on question types and moving discussions along.

On listening to this podcast discussion I particularly empathised with a certain scenario, mainly because I have to resist the urge on every occasion to fall into the very trap being discussed. Picture the scene; you are at a networking event and you meet a great contact and spark up some rapport, you ask some great questions and develop quite an instant friendly discussion. There are certain questions that you know you ask that will instantly qualify a situation as a lead… it goes with the territory; you’ve asked these questions thousands of times before. You ask the question and three words come out of the other person’s mouth and you already know what issue that person has.

Inwardly, you are cackling with glee, you are an expert at this and know the solution. You are dying to spread the news and inevitably it is taking so long for the other person to finish. Like a primary school child who knows the answer to a maths question and strains to extend their arm up an extra foot above his classmates to prove his knowledge – the restrain finally breaks and you interrupt the other’s flow to gift wrap them the knowledge they so require. You fail.

No matter how much you want to help, sometimes the answer is not in the result but by the way the result is achieved. No matter the temptation, interrupting another person is against common courtesy and risks alienating yourself not only for being rude but for not listening – it’s obvious that while the other person is talking that you are already forming a different conversation. Besides, it’s incredibly arrogant to jump in assuming you already know the answer – you may not…

…that is unless you let the other person finish what they are saying. What exactly is the rush? Don’t be afraid to ask further questions, go over things again, think, ponder.

Be present in the moment and not looking forward to the next.

In the business sense, the sales process is a series of events that a company has to go through in order to successfully sell that product. The sales process isn’t, or shouldn’t, be the sole concern of the sales department, nor should it be up to individual sales people to fathom or discover. In essence, the sales process should be the focus of every department in any company where sales drives the business (and let us face it, which business isn’t?). The overall sales process as an entity separate to other functions within the business is like trying to understand how the lungs work without knowing how blood circulation works. An understanding of any part of a process on it’s own is of limited benefit. The same can be said for sales, how can you know the process of selling a product without understanding the market audience or how the product is made or serviced.

But hang on a minute, I’m a salesman, it isn’t my job to do the marketing or to implement the product I’m selling or to profile the ideal client. That is someone else’s job. Well, as a process statement this is entirely the wrong attitude. When you drive your car, you expect every mechanical part to work in harmony with its corresponding parts; if one part doesn’t work it usually affects the effectiveness of the overall machine. The sales process is similar, to gauge effectiveness one needs to see the overall picture from concept to finish, which means mapping out from the very initial product design process, manufacturing process, marketing process, selling process, delivery and implementation process and service process. Depending on the complexities of the company, product offerings, customers etc. there can be a myriad of different processes within processes. This is where the importance of mapping comes into its own. Many companies, I’m constantly surprised to find out, don’t or haven’t mapped their process, rather leaving the company to sell through an evolutionary process of learning.

Diagnostically mapping out a sales process is the same as learning how an engine works. Unless you know what part of your process isn’t working how do you know what to fix? I for one don’t know how my car works, so I don’t have the power to fix it if goes wrong. The same is true for sales.

If a salesman can’t sell a product, then they may be blamed for not having the right skills. If the sales process is mapped and historical information is gathered monitoring sales process effectiveness, then you can find out a lot more…perhaps that it isn’t the salesman’s fault for not selling the product but that the wrong product is being sold to the wrong audience.

The analogy to be drawn is that in some ways people in general need to have that initial spark within themselves that you can motivate. There are many ways of motivating people to succeed but the kernel or spirit of success comes from within. Very deep, but you can motivate as much as you like but if a person you are trying to motivate isn’t inclined to improve or change or try… then you will undeniably waste your time.

The most productive and successful people in any field are the ones who are personally driven; they need little encouragement because they already have the ambition, the drive, the will to achieve. However, along the way they have learned from their mentors and have been encouraged and motivated to learn until they realised a certain truth, that they were incredibly capable people in their respective field. The confidence you have that you know you are good at something, you have the tools to make things happen and that you possess the skill to fulfil is one of the greatest motivators – and ultimately that realisation has to come from the individual and no one else.

What can be done to help those who haven’t attained this confidence? The greatest asset one can give any person is a business environment where that person can learn, build and realise. I was drawn to a particular article this week courtesy of Christian Maurer on twitter (@camaurer) on HP’s reaction to motivating sales people in the recession. I was mentally applauding the attitude that a corporate company could take by making a ‘human’ decision to revise sales targets and create the opportunity that a recession provides in learning. Many companies now are responding to the recession by offering more pressure and the weaker, newer, greener, potential sales people are being driven out before they have had a chance to bloom. The HP case acknowledges that in a recession the ones who are being de-motivated are the sales people – the life blood of the company – putting more pressure on them isn’t motivating but disheartening. In this case, HP have created a work atmosphere where sale people have the power and self-motivation to learn and prosper and what could be more motivating than that?

On the other hand, that data is being used to constantly monitor the sales force. That may be good for management but what does that offer to the sales individuals within the department? Are sales managers asking sales people to participate in being their own police force? Perhaps it’s our inherent resistance to ‘big brother’ that we don’t like the thought of our information, that we input for ourselves, being wrested from our grasp.

The debate, like many others, is neither black nor white and perhaps reflects not how a system is used but the attitude that sales managers have in using them. Yes, the obvious merit to using systems is in monitoring behaviour to see if those in the department are on course to meet targets, are making the most of their time and inputting the correct information on key accounts but in using the system to police staff sales managers potentially tread on the grey area of surveillance over management. The obvious danger in creating a surveillance culture in the work place is that sales people aren’t inclined to input data into those systems.

Data, whether it is written down on scrap of paper, collected in an excel spreadsheet or collated in a more efficient data management system is the life blood of the company. The flow of information throughout the organisation is what keeps the entire organic system of the company circulating. Any measure that blocks or stops that flow of information is detrimental to that. In this case it may be required for the sales manager to think very carefully the balance that is ideal to maintain between monitoring behaviour and encouraging input of data.

Many sales trainers advocate the importance of ‘coaching and mentoring’ as part of the training and improvement of sales individuals and I tend to think that this same approach needs be employed in helping sales managers use information that they have at their fingertips. Where I work, we specialise in creating sales performance systems which we combine equally with the coaching not only in using the system but in working with those who are using the system to create the right culture to get the best results. In my opinion, that help in creating the culture behind the system is in many ways more important than the system that is being used. What tends to be forgotten when viewing data on a screen or printed out on paper is that information is translated into activities, relationships and ultimately the very personalities of those that inputted them.