There’s a dozen bad analogies about selling and sex.

All that “take it slow” and “close the deal” double-entendre that is a distraction from the real task of explaining how you need to expertly engage your customers.

See.  That’s the real issue — engaging with you prospects, leads, and customers.

Getting past the nonsense.

Now when I say engage, what’s the first thing that pops into your head?

You probably think of engagement, right?

And if you know anything about that, then you know pretty much all you need to know to build a ridiculously amazing relationship with your “soon to be” customers.

Engagement isn’t so much an act as it is a process.  You don’t walk up to random hotties and ask them to marry you (unless you happen to be vacationing in Vegas).  While it might make a great National Lampoon storyline, it’s pretty darn creepy.

Aren’t you appalled?

The same applies to your sales process.  Have some standards, people…  You’re not out to whore yourself out to anyone who will pay for your services. Despite what your sales manager just told you, you don’t want to land every deal.

Some them flat out stink.  They’re the craznots of your pipeline.  You bust your ass to bring them in and then you regret ever cashing their check.  Some customers are too much trouble to bother with.

So stop acting like a chump and start planning  to put in the effort to romance the customers that you want.

Do something about it.

Here are few ways to do a better job of romancing your customers:

1. Be clear about what you expect from your customer
2. Be careful that you don’t sacrifice your standards
3. Be choosy about who you are targeting with your messaging
4. Be complete about your research of each prospect
5. Be captivating with your messaging
6. Be concerned about your prospect’s success
7. Be casual with powerhouse cold-calling script
8. Be courageous with your goals for closing
9. Be crisp and timely with your follow-up
10. Be comprehensive in your strategy

And there are three dozen more life lessons that I could offer you as you work towards a better concept of engaging your customers.

Drop the crazies.

Find some real customers to start dealing with…

Popularity: 1% [?]

What happened at the end of 2008 and through 2009 was remarkable. It was an historic downturn and the worst economic crisis that any of us have ever experienced. If you worked in sales, you faced the hurricane force headwinds of demand for your product or service declining by an order of magnitude. If you worked in sales you worked much harder to produce results—results that may not have been what you or your company desired. It was the worst of times.

The end of 2008 and all of 2009 was as difficult a sales environment as any of us have ever experienced, and with luck, something we will never have to experience again. But the real trouble with going through periods that cause the kind of deep stress and entrenching that was required to survive the Great Recession is that the mindset that is required to survive sticks. You hang on to the entrenched, survival mindset longer than is necessary and longer than is useful.

At some point, you have to move from keeping your head down and plowing through in darkness to lifting your eyes to capture a new vision of a better and brighter future.

Will You Notice the Light?

I usually save my question for the end of my posts. But this post is really about the questions that you need to ask yourself now. Your sales results are the result of what you believe and how you act on those beliefs. At the halfway point of this year, let’s do some checking in.

Have you shed your entrenched, head down, nose to the grindstone, survivalist mentality for something more useful?

Have you lifted your eyes yet?

Have you traded old fears for new hope?

Have you traded your goal of survival for a new ambition?

Do you still believe that nobody is buying?

Have you made the choice to act?

Have you captured a new vision of what 2010 means to you? Has it changed from what it was in 2009?

A New Vision for 2010

The great danger in retaining the fear and the behaviors of the past few years is that they prevent you from capturing new opportunities. Those that believe there is a better future act on those beliefs and make it their reality. The find opportunity and they make opportunities. The first do so win, and they win big.

There is still time in 2010 to make of it what you will. There is still plenty of time for you to attach a new meaning to 2010, to create a new vision for what it will mean to you and your company (if you haven’t already). And there is still time to take the actions that will produce the results that can and will define 2010 for you.

But to see that vision, to really capture that vision, you have to lift your eyes and look up. Then you have to march forward and act on your new vision. There are lots of people who are counting on you to both provide the vision and to act on it.

Be changed by what you experienced during 2009. But be changed in a positive way. Capture the lessons that allowed you to survive; you may someday need them again. But don’t allow the fear of the darkness to prevent you from going out into the light.

Is it the easiest time in history to make sales? No, it probably isn’t. But there is no reason to believe it is still December 2008, either.

Lift your eyes.

Make your future.

Popularity: 1% [?]

2010 has certainly started off as a better year than 2009, but the scars and the holes left by 2009 will not be erased or made forgotten by a few good months.  It is always easy to make the recovery look better by comparing things to the through, but if you compare 2010 to 2008, [...]

Your personal development can and will do more to improve your success in sales than any other single factor. Personal development focuses on the one factor that is common to every sale in which you will ever be involved: you. Developing the foundational attributes of success in any endeavor and the foundational attributes of sales are the key to developing both your confidence and your competence in sales.

I realize that the title of this post makes a bold claim. Normally, anyone who guarantees that a system works is a fool. Nevertheless, I stand by my claim: if you’ll implement this simple, 2-step process, I will personally guarantee you success in your quest to sell more.

Before I get to the 2 steps, though, I want to warn you up front that you’re probably not going to like it. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’re going to hate it. I won’t be at all surprised if some you call me names or question my intelligence, and I’m willing to forgive you in advance. Whatever you say or think about me won’t change a thing, because this is the only process that’s guaranteed to work every time.

Another warning: just beacuse this process is simple doesn’t make it easy. I’ll tell you right now that it’s not easy. In fact, it’s really, really hard. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you’re looking for easy, you’re in the wrong industry. Go look for work as an accountant or engineer; sales isn’t for you. If you’re willing to do the work of following this process, though, the rewards can be truly great.

Are you ready? OK, then; here it is.

The Simple, 2-Step Process to Selling More is:

1. Try.
2. Repeat step 1 until you get the desired result.

That’s it. Nothing fancy or complicated. No additional education or certification required. Just try, and when what you’re doing doesn’t work the way you think it should, try something else. Stop looking for Magic Bullets and Secret Formulas. The secret to selling more isn’t in the latest fad sales book or the Guru of the Week’s training class; it’s in you. You’re willingness to keep trying until you find what works for you is the biggest secret to sales success.

Here’s the truth about sales: while the fundamentals of a good sales process are the same everywhere you go, the devil is in the details, the subtle differences that make the combination of you, the product you sell and the company that you represent unique. The sum of those three variables dictates what works and what doesn’t in any given market.

The good news is that there is a place where the three intersect and sales happen; the bad news is that no one can tell you where that place is. You have to find it on your own. The other bad news is that you only have control over one of the variables: you. And so you have to experiment. If you’re working from a solid foundation of character and a commitment to the selling process, you’re starting from a good place; the rest is just experimentation.

Let’s break this down a little more. To start with, every sales process has to include some kind of prospecting, right? But who can say how that prospecting should be conducted in your unique situation? There is no one answer; what effective prospecting looks like for you is going to be different than what it looks like for me. So what do you do? You go try something. Maybe it’s telemarketing. Maybe it’s door-to-door canvassing. Maybe it’s starting conversations at a Chamber mixer. Just try something, and if it doesn’t work, try something else. Same goes for qualifying, presenting and conversion.

The fact is that nobody can tell you what’s going to work for you; you have to find out on your own. You have to be willing to try. And if you’re willing to follow this 2-step process for the rest of your career, I GUARANTEE that you’ll sell more.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The word “simple” means that something is not complicated. It doesn’t mean that something is without difficulty. Selling is difficult. Here are five simple (but not easy) ways you can sell more.

Focus Less on Closing and More on Being Effective at Every Stage

Salespeople place far too much emphasis on closing. The problem with focusing on closing sales is that you are focused on the scoreboard instead of on playing the game well and playing the game to win.

Instead of spending your time on the eventual outcome, spend your time, your effort, and your energy on prospecting effectively to open new relationships, on making effective sales calls that lead to an advance in the sale, on building the consensus necessary to selling your solutions, and on building a compelling presentation.

Spend your time and your energy on ensuring that you are effective at every stage, and the score will take care of itself.

Focus More on Solving Business Problems

Making more sales means solving more business problems. Making bigger sales means solving bigger sales problems. Becoming the lifelong partner and provider of choice means solving the most challenging problems your customers face, and in doing so, helping them build a competitive advantage in their space.

To sell more, spend more time discovering these problems and helping your clients solve them.

Stop Selling to Prospects Who Can’t Buy

Your time is limited. You have to use great discretion in how and where you spend your time. There is no reason to spend time with prospects that cannot buy. The faster you can qualify prospects out, the faster you can move on to prospects and clients where you, your company, and your products and services can be of value and of service.

This means that you cannot pad your activity with sales calls that will result in no sales simply to make the activity goals. In the long run, your time is far better spent doing the heavy lifting and prospecting like crazy to identify prospects that can buy.

Study and Practice the Fundamentals

Sales isn’t about gimmicks, tricks, shortcuts, or secrets. If something sounds to good to be true, it is. You should leave it alone. The only certain way to success in sales, and to selling more, is to study and practice the fundamentals.

Instead of resisting the fundamentals, embrace them. Go to your bookshelf and pull off all of the books on sales whose titles include the word “never” or “secrets” or “closing“ or “shortcuts.” Take these books to your fireplace and burn them. You may as well search your computer for all of the similar PDF’s you have downloaded, as well. You don’t have to burn them, but you sure as Hell need to delete them. Let this purging serve as a clean break from any of this kind of thinking that may have crept into your thinking.

Embrace prospecting. Embrace cold calling. Embracing studying sales. Embrace writing a set of needs analysis questions that demonstrate you understand your business and your client’s business. Embrace learning to be a masterful listener, and masterful presenter. And most of all . . .

Learn to Close and to Obtain Commitments

Closing is not the single event at the end of the sales cycle. Closing is the ability to ask for and obtain the commitments that move a sale forward. These commitments have to be gained from the time you ask for the commitment to meet for an appointment all the way through the execution of the sale when it is eventually closed.

Closing should be natural and easy—if you have created value during each and every sales encounter. Asking for the commitment to move forward together is as simple as saying something like “I believe we have learned enough to be confident that we can move forward from here together. Can we schedule to take this next step together, or is there something you would still need from us?”

Is it perfect? No. Do you have something better? I am certain you do, and I hope you’ll share. But is it a Hell of a lot better than the Ben Franklin close? It’s not even a contest.

Conclusion

To sell more, stop focusing on the scoreboard and play the game. Spend you time solving your clients most pressing business problems, and stop spending time with people who cannot buy. Forget the shortcuts, the tips, the gimmicks, and the tricks and spend your time learning the fundamentals. Following these first four ideas will help you create the value that makes obtaining commitments natural and easy. Now go sell more!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Paying commission wisely is a big challenge for business owners and managers. Commission can either drive sales performance, or turn your sales team into a bowl of oatmeal. Designing a commission plan that drives sales performance isn’t as easy as it sounds. There’s a minefield there, and you have to navigate through it successfully to have a commission plan that works.

Here are nine thoughts about commission plans and compensation:

1. I hate the word “target.” I don’t like the word “plan” when used as a substitute for a job requirement. I even shy away from the word “goal.” These words sound too tentative. I had a target age of retirement at age 40. I planned to have $10,000,000 in the bank before I retired. I had a goal of buying a 10,000 square foot house. Yet, none of those things happened. So much for targets, plans, and goals. Did I mention I want to lose fifty pounds?

Why don’t you simply just say what you mean. How about “minimum acceptable revenue produced,” as in, “Derek, your MARP for 2010 is $1.2 million. Got it?”

2. Most commission plans are based upon a percent of something. But if the something is gray or unclear or inconsistent, the percentage amount will be gray or unclear or inconsistent. How can employees be clear and consistent in revenue production if you’re not clear and consistent in how they’re being paid? Clarity is king.

3. Don’t roll out a new compensation plan only to change it one month later because you had to rethink a bunch of stuff. Do your homework. Accurately predict your losses and other challenges that will arise with the new compensation plan. Plan ahead. Then implement it. No going back, no waffling, no negotiating – it is the new commission structure. If you must, review the plan annually and make whatever small tweaks are required.

4. Compensation plans should do the best job of compensating your best performers. It’s okay if your bottom 10% of sales performers quit every year because they’re not making enough money working within your commission plan. Hire a new group who won’t be in the bottom 10% the next year. Don’t worry about low performers. Do you really want them? Do you really need them? Make sure your structure compensates high performers.

5. No compensation plan will make every employee happy. Some won’t even make any employee happy. Do what you need to do to run your business. Compensation should drive performance. If it does that, you’re a winner.

6. Whenever an employee complains about your compensation plan and has a suggestion for you (“How about if we pay 12% instead of 10 %”), ask “What are you willing to give up to earn 12%?” They won’t have an answer. End of discussion.

7. Pay “super commission.” If your commission rate is, say, 8%, consider paying 9% once the salesperson meets their monthly sales requirement (or some other landmark), and only 7% commission when they don’t. That’s super commission, and better than paying everybody 8%.

8. Pay super-dooper commission. Add a bonus for making 10% over minimum expectations for annual sales production. That’s super-dooper. Use what you’re saving paying the low performers in #7 to pay your high performers (refer to #4).

9. It’s okay if salespeople make a lot of money…if they earn it. I’m amazed at the number of small and medium-sized businesses that believe, either consciously or unconsciously, that there should be a cap in salespersons’ commission earnings.

Sometimes it takes this form: New compensation plan is implemented > it works like it’s supposed to > the best sales reps make a lot of money > management thinks they made too much so lower how much reps can make the next year> high performers quit performing or leave the company. Let your plan work. It’s okay if salespeople make lots of money. Part of that money goes to you. What you want is lots of salespeople who make lots of money. That’s how you can make even more money.

Popularity: unranked [?]

March

I know the Sales Bloggers Union topic this month is “How Were Your March 2010 Sales.” Since this is December of 2009, the gist of the topic is that March 2010 sales are already being decided by salespeople’s actions this month (at least for those with a 3 month or so sales cycle).

But I want to take a look at your sales last March (March 2009). What can you gain by looking at your sales from last March? That was six months ago! How can it help your sales this month? Or next March?

Selling is a profession of immediacy. Commission salespeople get paid for what they sell today. The presence of weekly, monthly, and yearly sales goals stresses the need for immediacy. Given all the attention on the “What have you sold for me lately” mentality of sales executives and managers (I don’t disagree with it, I just think it gets out of hand in some organizations to the point that it is no longer healthy for the long term health of the business), it’s not common for salespeople to look backward to analyze performance of a previous month, especially when it is six months prior.

Here are five questions that will help you analyze your March sales from earlier this year, and then use that information to maximize your sales now.

1. Who did you meet with that is still a viable prospect, but who you allowed to drop off your radar screen?

Low-hanging fruit is tasty and accessible, and any salesperson would be a fool for passing it by for more high-maintenance fruit. But once all the low-hanging fruit has been consumed, a salesperson is confronted with either waiting for more low-hanging fruit to appear (thereby ceding control of his career to external forces), or going after fruit that requires more advanced  effort.

Follow up is a weakness of many sales professionals. They may have started with good intentions, but six months later, they’ve forgotten all about the follow-up and are pulling their hair out looking for new sales to meet the monthly target. What’s wrong with that picture?

The nice thing about letting customers drop off your radar screen is that you can quickly recalibrate and pick them up again. Radar is like that.

2. Who did you sell to, and why did they buy?

Salespeople are often just so darned happy to have a sale that they are energized to move on to the next prospect, hoping the magic will continue. But when we do this, we are overlooking the opportunity to identify the real reason each of our customers bought from us.

Were you in the right place at the right time? Was your pricing better than your competition’s? Did they like you or your company better? Did you do a better job of selling? What needs were met by you, your company, and your product or service that your competitor didn’t or couldn’t meet?

Completing an analysis to identify why your customer purchased can provide you with information that will help you over and over again.

3. What did you do to engineer a positive outcome?

Sometimes salespeople amaze themselves with the sales results they’re able to get. But a little constructive analysis can bring subconscious behaviors in to the realm of conscious thought. Conscious thought allows us to examine our behaviors, question them, and connect dots that may have been out of our consciousness previously.

If you can quantify your behaviors, you can repeat them. If you leave behaviors up to chance, they can’t be quantified. Find out what you’re doing that works so you can make it work better for you now and in the future.

4. What can you sell now to those customers that already bought last March?

Over and over again, I’ve seen sales professionals call upon their book of past clients to raise them from a quota deficit or worse. We need to cultivate sales from the fertile fields of our selling past to squeeze the most from our limited resources.

There just may be one or two or fifty customers you served last March who would buy from you again, if you’d only ask.

5. Have you extracted referrals from your March customers?

Have you asked? Did you contact them? Did you make it easy for your March customers to refer their contacts to you?

Maybe you intended to but never got around to it. Now’s a great time to get around to it.

- – - – -

Here’s to March of 2009, and to all the Marches of the future, too.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Selling to consumers in a retail setting can be challenging (I know, all selling can be challenging). In retail, we have little control over our prospects. They can exit our store at any time. We don’t have offices or desks or conference rooms to anchor our interaction. We typically don’t have any privacy with our prospect as we might in their office or in our office. They often have children or other family members with them when they need individual attention, or don’t have a family member with them in order to move ahead with a purchase.

But we have several collaborative selling devices available to us in retail that can aid our selling in the retail sector. Use of these devices can increase customer engagement and increase our sales effectiveness. Here are three of my favorite retail selling techniques that use collaboration to its best advantage.

1. The Turn-Over.

Sellers of big ticket retail items can benefit from having a system in place so you can turn-over your prospect to another sales representative (or sales manager) if things are not progressing appropriately. A turn over can be particularly helpful in one call close sales situations.

Let’s imagine you sell boats and watercraft, and a couple comes to your store. You spend an hour with them discussing their needs and desires and looking at a product that interests them, but then progress seems to stall. You haven’t been able to develop the rapport that you want, and the relationship between you and your shoppers seems to lack energy.

It’s time to bring someone new into the relationship! Prospects with different personalities sometimes have preferences for salespeople with certain personalities, and your personality may not be the right one for this couple on this day. So bring on “the turn-over!” Here’s how to execute one.

Excuse yourself from your couple and fetch another sales representative or your sales manager. Quickly tell them you want to do a turn-over. Bring him or her back to your prospects and introduce everyone. Then, summarize the action so far: “Megan, this is Linda and Tony, and they’ve been looking at the XRT-100. They really like its [insert feature or specification here], and they have some good friends who have an XRT-90 which they purchased about five years ago. We’ve talked about the [insert feature here] and the [insert feature here] and aren’t sure they would use them.”

Continue the summary until Megan has a very clear picture of what’s going on, and then be quiet. Megan should now take the lead and start asking questions of the couple to either clarify or confirm the information you just shared with Megan and then move ahead with the selling process. You hang out with Megan and the couple for a few minutes while quietly observing. Then, you quietly slip out of the picture. Megan is now the primary sales representative for Linda and Tony and you are free to move on.

Turn-overs need to be a part of the company culture and guidelines in place so everyone knows how to initiate one and how to step into one. It needs to be practiced like any element of selling.

When Linda and Tony buy, you split the commission. Since half commission from a buying customer is better than full commission from a non-buying customer, everyone comes out a winner when a successful turn over is executed.

2. Team Selling

In police work they have “good cop / bad cop.” In selling, we have “team selling.”

“Good cop / bad cop” is used to manipulate a suspect through intimidation and fear, and then removal of that intimidation and fear to achieve the desired result. Although some companies use team selling in a similar manner (to intimidate), team selling can be used in a more comfortable and ethical manner to help move the sales process forward.

Team selling is most effective not when you use it to gang up against your prospect and close the sale through intimidation, but when two salespeople bring different strengths to the table. These strengths might be contrasting personality types, contrasting knowledge, contrasting experience, or something else.

Although the team selling concept can be introduced to your shoppers at the outset of the sales interaction, it’s usually more effective if you wait until some level of trust and rapport exists between an initial salesperson and the prospect. It’s even better to wait until some progress is made at identifying the prospects’ needs and desires.

Here’s a team selling scenario: It’s a slow Tuesday morning at the car lot until prospect Ben enters the store. You greet Ben and introduce yourself. Within a few minutes, Ben feels some level of comfort with you and he’s explaining why he’s there and what he needs.

To begin team selling, you excuse yourself and retrieve the other team member. You bring Rachel into the conversation and introduce him to Ben by saying, “Ben, this is Rachel, and she also has an interest in hybrid vehicles, so she’s going to join us as we chat if you don’t mind.” Rachel and Ben shake hands, Rachel shares some niceties, and if Ben seems amenable to the situation, you have now successfully initiated a team selling initiative.

You selected Rachel for some asset that you yourself don’t possess. It might be her analytical nature, her knowledge, or her killer body, but team selling works best when each team member offers distinct advantages to the conversation.

You and Rachel split the commission for the sale.

3. The Product Expert.

John and Danielle enter your furniture store. You learn that they are looking for a pair of recliners for their new cabin. As you get into the sales interaction, you excuse yourself and bring Charles into the conversation like this:

“Charles, this is Danielle and this is John, and they’re looking for a pair of recliners for their new cabin they purchased on Lake Whisper by Big Falls. Charles and Danielle, I wanted you to meet Charles because nobody knows more about recliners than he does.”

You and Charles continue selling together. Consumers love experts, and the more specialized the expert, the greater the likelihood this will influence your shopper’s decision.

You and Charles split your commission for the sale.

Popularity: 31% [?]

People LOVE to buy… There is no question this is true. A little research on Retail Therapy supports the idea that when people feel bad they want to go out an buy things. The real question is why dont retail sales people help people buy? This is going to be a short post, and really more of a spark that will hopefully start some good conversation, but lets think about this for a second. When was the last time you had a REALLY good retail salesperson? How many times have you WANTED to buy and walked away with nothing because nobody gave you the little nudge you needed to make the purchace? Skip hit on the idea earlier this week in his post that most retail people see them selves as customer service people not sales people. Lets think about that for a second though… Isn’t helping people to buy things they WANT providing good customer service?

The retail industry needs help right now. They are stuck in a downward spiral and there is only one way out… Sales Training. Retail sales are down, but the mall is not empty. The problem is no one is buying despite low prices.

Retail managers… does this look familliar? I cut prices to drive up sales, but now I have a reduced margin. To solve that I cut costs (People usually), but revenue is still not where I need it so I cut costs again and agan and again… There is no end to this cycle other than bankruptcy.

The real solution? Retail organizations need to focus on helping people buy by improving sales skills instead of cutting prices. Imagine what would happen if a organization with only 1 Million in sales improved by 1% because of a $3000 investment in sales training… Ya, it’s only a 10K improvment but 7K is positive ROI and you have it every month from here on out… AND you did not have to reduce margins to get it. Just a thought… Now, what do YOU think?

Popularity: 27% [?]