Archive - August 2015

Don’t Take Shortcuts in Sales

August 28, 2015

Tim, a software sales rep, had been having a rough day. He’d been bombarded with questions from several customers and had gotten behind on a proposal that he needed to finish before the end of the day. Then he got a call from Gene, a prospect who introduced himself by saying, “I’ve heard great things about your accounting software package. I saw a demo about a year ago, and was not in a position to purchase it at the time, but since then it’s become very apparent that I need to integrate it immediately into my system.”

“Wow,” thought Tim. “This will be easy. It’s about time something went right today.”

Then Gene said, “I need to know about pricing and availability. And tech support is important, too. Tell me how that works.”

Tim went into his pitch. He discussed tech support in detail, covered availability and other options, and explained that the price was $8000 with 30-day terms.

Gene’s response was unexpected. He said that $8000 was quite a hefty price tag and he needed a couple of days to consider the purchase more carefully. He’d call Tim back next week.

Tim did a double take. “What just happened?” he thought. “This sale was in the bag, a sure thing, and now he’s thinking it over? He said he needed the software right away.” And that was the end of the call.

Diagnosis: Tim got lazy, plain and simple. He thought Gene was sold. All he had to do was give Gene the info he needed, then write it up. He got conned into doing a presentation without getting Gene to demonstrate why he was so excited about buying the software. The entire transaction was conducted at the intellectual level.

Prescription: Don’t be lured into taking shortcuts. Don’t mistake the prospect’s enthusiasm for your product or service as a sure sale. Take the time to qualify the prospect and make sure he’s real before you make your presentation. In Tim’s case, a couple of quick questions would have made a world of difference. He might have said, “Before we discuss pricing, help me understand why this software is so important. I want to make sure the application is correct for you. Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?” Of course, you’re probing for pain and one of the most important things to find out is the financial impact of not implementing a solution. Having discovered the financial impact and, assuming it was significant, you will find that the cost of the solution disappears as an objection.

Don’t take shortcuts! Don’t assume anything. Get the prospect involved at an emotional, not an intellectual, level. Use the system, qualify completely, and get the sale.

Bring in the Human Factor When Selling

August 25, 2015

Greta Schulz

B2B, Sales

Corey, a new but eager sales consultant recently asked me at a workshop I was conducting what should he leave for someone when cold calling and they say they’re busy so just leave some information.

It’s best to leave nothing! How often have any of us had someone call on us in the office and we tell them, “I’m very busy, can you just leave your information” and actually stopped and read it?

Leaving information is the most common form of the friendly but meaningless blow off. To the salesperson making walk in cold calls (canvasing), to get someone to even acknowledge us often feels like a positive for the day but make no mistake, it is in almost every case nothing but a rush out the door.

What should you do instead? First of all, there are times when just walking in cold is OK. Most often it is a huge waste of time but if you are going to do it, here are a few things that might help;

1) Acknowledge what they are thinking. Tell them you know how excited they must be to get yet another walk in from a salesperson! That’s right! Just say it! They are thinking it anyway and they may give you a bit of credit for at least being honest. You are bringing in the human factor. It is important to stop with the sales lines and get down to just having a light way of breaking the ice.

If they do ask you to leave something. Ask them, “I appreciate that but honestly, if you’re anything like me, when I ask someone to leave something or send something, I usually am not really interested but it’s the nicer way to say no. Rather then that, would you mind if I ask you just 2 or 3 questions and at that point if it really doesn’t make any sense, I will get out of your way and no need for the games. What do you think?”

The same will apply on the phone. When cold calling you need to do a few things that will help your call be more successful. Again, cold calling is not to the optimal way to build your business but if you are doing cold calls on the phone, lets try to get some more success. It is all about being real, bringing in the human factor.

First of all, stop calling with some lame introduction like, “Hi this is Jim from ABC manufacturing, how are you today”?? Seriously! That line alone will get a hang up. Or even “ Hi this is Jim from ABC Manufacturing, who is in charge of purchasing equipment?”

In this day and age, we should be embarrassed to call anyone and not have done some level of research before picking up the phone. You need to find out who the person is that you need to speak to by doing a little detective work. Google is a wonderful tool, don’t ya think? Additionally your research should also consist of some reason that you’re calling. Look on their website, read up on them in the local publication, etc. You need a reason to call.

Second, if you are going to call even with the research you’ve done, you need to pull back. Give them an out. Yep, that’s right, an out. Why? Because they have one anyway and they are much less likely to hang up if you tell them it’s OK to do so.

Yes people, selling today is about being Human! Forget all of the lines and fancy tricks. Tell them the reason you’re calling is because you read on their website that they are doing (fill in the blank) and since you work with companies in that area you thought it might make sense to talk for a few minutes, and ask just a couple of questions to see if it does but you may have no need at all and if that is the case, we can hang up, no harm, no foul.

Remember make this your own. Put it into your own words but don’t forget, if you act like a salesperson, you will be treated like one. If you act like just another business person with some credibility, you will also be treated like one!

Is social media killing our sales skills?

August 10, 2015

Greta Schulz

Sales, Social Media

NOW WHAT?
Recently, I spoke to an organization that spent an ungodly amount of time, energy and money on Social Media to create Lead Generation. So my question was, “Now what?” they said, “What do you mean?” I said “Okay, so you got a whole bunch of people calling you or contacting you through a web form, email etc. How’s your closing ratio?” They looked at me like I had three heads. The issue is a simple one, just because we believe that we have found a new way to generate business, it is not generating business…alone. Lead generation is Interest; lead generation is getting people to the door. Are they coming over the threshold and are you closing the door behind them? That’s a very important step. One without the other will result in no revenue.

Between Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google and Bing ads on any of the Social Media sites, or email-marketing powerhouses like Infusionsoft, (which I personally use) amongst other things we do today to build leads is it really working? That’s one question. If we’re doing all of the things that we need to do in Social Media and all the ‘white noise’ is going out, what is it bringing us? Well, it should be bringing us Leads. It should be bringing us Emails, filling out contact Information or a website, web forms and phone call, and if that’s happening, Great you have reached step one. This is a very important step but it is ONLY step one. The million-dollar question is “Now What?”

It’s important to make sure that we know once people contact us or when we contact them back, we are using the right process to follow up from any kind of lead generation that we get. Are we setting some ground rules at the beginning of the conversation? Are we asking well? Thought provoking open-ended questions to engage them and truly understand their needs beyond what the told you? DO we have a true picture of all of this before we have the cost conversation and do you clearly understand the next step and what that means as opposed to just “checking back” or following up with them? It’s important to understand that when someone contacts you, they are often contacting several people within your industry. You don’t have a relationship built, there were just some low levels of interest that got them to contact you. Is it better than you calling out cold? Well certainly it is but you still needs the same attention to process as you always did. Getting somebody to call you is only the beginning. So, what are the other steps: What are we doing when we contact them or they call us. Are we using the process properly?

Here is what we typically see. When we get them on the phone, they will typically ask you a simple question that I call a “Wall Question” which is they put up a wall and the question sounds something like this “Hey, I see you guys sell widgets. Can you tell me if I bought a hundred widgets what that would cost?” and we say, “Sure, let me look. What can of widgets you are looking for?” “We’re looking for widget A or widget B.” “Okay well, widget A would be $75,000 for a hundred widgets and widget B would be $82,000. “Oh, that’s a lot of money. “Well, maybe I can do a little better.” You negotiate a price and they say “Okay sounds good, ah we’ll call you back” Or “Sounds good, can you send me a proposal / price sheet/ some more information?” We get their email, we send that information in writing and cricket, we never hear from them again. We try to contact them back, they don’t contact us. We try to call them, they don’t take our call, and we leave messages. Sound familiar? Of course, it does.

The same situation that happened before when you did your prospecting more proactively occurred. Prospecting hasn’t changed. Sales and the sales process haven’t changed just because they’re contacting you. In fact, I would say that it is more difficult now because we are not as on top of our game since they contacted us we feel it is a ‘hot’ lead. Not only do you need to do a good job on working on the sales process in closing the sale, you need to do a better job than you ever have before because remember, they have control. They’re the ones that are calling you but they’re also calling your competitor. So they’ve done a little homework, they know who’s out there and they know what the pricing is out there. That’s where the sale process comes in. If you don’t have a process, you’re going to fail whether they’re lead generating through Social Media or not.

Top 5 Things Every Salesperson / Business Developer Should Know!

August 3, 2015

Greta Schulz

B2B, Sales

What’s the new normal when it comes to developing business? This is not the old ‘ask a few questions, give your features and benefits and trial close’. The 70s wants their slick sales guy back. Today you need to be smart, curious and a true consultant to sell. Here are a few things that today are imperative in business growth.

Tell the prospect its OK to break up….Rejection is a result of trying to sell someone your product or service as opposed to tell them you what you are calling about, let them know it seems that because of what they do you could potentially work together, but (pull back) you don’t want to assume that you are a good fit. What you’d like to do is ask a few questions to see if the two of you are a fit and if not, we decide it’s a NO then we only wasted a few minutes? Sound OK? This allows you to give a NO as an option right upfront. Then you have asked for it as opposed to a prospect pushing you away and that is the rejection.
Mining for customers is different today. Networking is the true key to finding and keeping customers but most people do it wrong. Networking events ate not for direct prospecting! Recognize this scenario? “Hey do you guys use promotional products? here’s a sample, we can really help you!!”..” NO! Instead I say go to an event and look for Strategic Alliances, people that you can refer business back and forth to as opposed to hitting your potential prospects so hard. We all know building business on referrals is the best way to do business so lets network for good alliances that you can refer business to and that is a good source for your referrals.
Research should be used for credibility. Research is essential today before you pick up the phone and call anyone. No excuses! The most important reason to do your research on their web site, Google etc. is to create good, quality questions to ask them to engage your prospect in conversation and truly understand their needs not to tell them that you’ve researched their company and since they do this, we can sell you that…
If you need to discount to get the business is almost always a result of one of these things. a) The customer doesn’t truly trust you/your product or service so there is only price to use as a differentiator or b) you haven’t truly understood the need for the product. I know need seems simple but it isn’t. What are they trying to say? What impression are they trying to leave, how do they want to be seen? What are they using it for? There are lots of questions to not only understand what a prospect needs but the true deep-down ‘whys’. Asking questions will let you also gain credibility and trust but not Selling and truly asking and listening….
Listen and shut up!! Wow! If I could teach people that are in sales/business development to ask questions and listen there would be a lot more success in business! Telling isn’t selling…but it comes from a good place. We are excited about what we represent and want other to be excited too but excitement doesn’t sell, questions and true engagement does. Long ago we were taught to ask a few questions and when you hear a “ buying signal” jump in and tell them you can help with that and how. NO! When you ask a question, wait for the answer and whatever the answer is, especially if it may be something your product or service can help with, the best next question is, “tell me about that”, then SHUT-UP!!!Greta Schulz is President of SchulzBusiness, a sales Consulting and Training firm. She is a best selling author of “To Sell IS Not To Sell” and works with fortune 1000 companies and entrepreneurs. For more information or free sales tips go to www.schulzbusiness.com and sign up for ‘GretaNomics’, a weekly video tip series or email sales questions to greta@schulzbusiness.com.