Latest from the Blog

1. Don’t try to sell. For most people it all ends tragically here. They mistakenly stroll into the industry conference or chamber of commerce meeting with the idea that they need to find someone to sell to. Don’t do it. It gives people the creeps. And it kills your real opportunity at these events–finding strategic partners.
   
2. Give before you get. Don’t go with your hand out empty to your network. Not until you’ve made some deposits in your good will account. Build up your account first, by asking about them before talking about you.
3. Be Remembered. Create a ‘Memory Hook”. This term created by BNI, the largest networking organization in the world. Introduce yourself with an interruption, a cause to make them stop and listen. When someone asks me what I do I say, “I help people STOP Selling”. They say what? Did you say stop? Now I get a few seconds to explain it. (and only a few seconds).
4. Ask questions. Everyone says you need an elevator pitch to use when you meet someone at a networking event. But the way MOST people do it is, frankly boring.

It usually goes like this “Hi, I’m Bob, I’m an accountant…” or “Hi, I’m Bob with Enormicon, we specialize in scalable solutions to strategic problems by finding synergy with customers, suppliers and partners”…Yuck! If you’re doing this, you’re boring and forgettable.

Ask a few questions to get the other person talking. What do you do? How long have you done that? What do you like the most about it? If I met someone that I thought would be a good referral for you, what would that look like?

5. Set goals. Never attend a networking event without deciding how many strategic partners you’re going to meet. If you’re just starting, commit to two. As you get better, increase the number. When you hit the number go home, knowing you succeeded.

Top 6 Changes in Sales You Must Make in 2017!

 

 

 

As much as the world of business has changed, some of the same mistakes are still being made by business development professionals. These 6 things are simple yet a must in creating business today.

 

• Searching for Customers is Different Today.

 

Prospecting is the true key to finding and keeping customers but most people do it wrong. Networking is not for direct prospecting, “hey do you guys use promotional products, here’s an example..” 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 you prospects 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.

 

• Tell the prospect it’s 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.

 

 

• Be a Reporter.

 

 

An example of the best salespeople today are reporters. Reporters don’t have a specific agenda besides learning as much as they possibly can about a person, subject or situation. They do their research, ask great open-ended questions and always listen in between the lines. They are trying to dig out all of the information they can to recreate it in a great story. Sales people fall short because when they hear something they want to jump n what they heard and try to solve it with their solution. When you stop someone from telling you more about their situation to sell them, it is usually too early to do so and you loose the sale.

 

• Research is important but not for the reasons you would think.

 

 

Research should be used for credibility purposes but most importantly to create good, quality questions to engage your prospect in conversation and truly understand their needs. Additionally research the heck out of an organization or person before you call them. Refer to that information you learned to form a good question, not s ‘salesy’ one.

 

• Cutting Prices are a Big Problem.

 

 

Discounting is almost always a result of one of 2 things. 1) The customer doesn’t truly trust you/your product or service so there is only price to use as a differentiator or 2) 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! Write this down; WAIT (Why Am I Talking)?

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!!!

 

 

My son recently told me a story that I felt was really interesting. I wanted to share it because I think we can all learn some things from this story.

He explained to me that he has a friend who works at an art gallery. This particular gallery hosts art exhibits where people come get cocktails and walk around viewing the art.

Sometimes, artists are there to answer questions or do demonstrations. At times the gallery invites an artist to come, set up and paint while they are at the show so people can actually see them in action.

For one particular show, the artist agreed to come, and he requested a large black canvas that he could paint on. The rest he would supply.

My son’s friend, who was the gallery assistant, pulled the plain black canvas from the back room and set it up on an easel. She had a chair next to the canvas and posted the artist’s name with it.

About 4 p.m. on the day of the event, the artist called, saying he had an emergency and had to cancel. In all the craziness, the assistant forgot to take the canvas down, so it was left there throughout the show that evening.

At the end of the night, they have a service where, if you bought a piece of art, the organization will take the art into the back room, wrap it up, bring it out to your car and put it in for you, or deliver it, if necessary.

My son’s friend, who was outside working the deliveries, and a man were standing there for quite a long time. So, she said, “Can I help you sir?”

He said, “Yes, I’m waiting for my piece of art to come out.”

She replied: “Well, let me help you. Which is it?” He told her it was the black portrait.

She said, “Which one?”

He said it was the all-black modern piece. And the man explained that he paid $700 for that and really liked it.

She scratched her head, walked inside, and had someone wrap it up for him and bring it to the car.

I’m not sure how I feel about the ethics of this, but what I found so interesting about this story is that perception is reality, and what happened was because it was in an upscale art gallery and, nicely displayed, the man perceived the blank canvas to be a piece of modern art.

Perception is such an interesting thing. His perception was that was a piece of modern art. Because it was in an art gallery, presented on an easel and surrounded by other pieces of art, his perception was not only that was a piece of art, but he liked it.

So, what do we learn through this? I think what we learn is that, in most cases, and most things that we do and sell, people really think what they want to think, no matter what you tell them.

What’s important here is to make sure that your brand — in other words, what your company stands for or what you as a salesperson or entrepreneur or professional stand for — should be the best quality it can be.

If you are going to see someone in person, you should be dressed as if that person is the most important person you could ever meet. You need to be researched and prepared, and everything you do has to be professionally done.

When it is, you’re perceived as a professional. You’re perceived to be of a higher quality than your competitors for no other reason than perception.

So, how are you being perceived?

Warren Buffett is a truly brilliant man. Of course this is my opinion and may not be everyone’s, that’s fine but here is why I say that. Warren Buffett is a billionaire many times over. He has truly earned all of his own money and is well respected because if it.

There are many people, including him, that feel that the amount of money he has is crazy over excessive and certainly not necessary.

 

Since he does feel that way, not only has he committed to give half of his fortune away to charity, he has enlisted other billionaires to do the same through the Giving Pledge;

 

“The Giving Pledge is a commitment by the worlds’ wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy”

 

What do I like about this? Well besides the obvious, which is helping people in need, I like it because it allows these billionaires to do something good, great in fact, by choice. Choice is a very important part of the human psyche. When we are given choices and opportunities to make them, we feel empowered and we have ownership.

 

How can we adopt some of this thinking into our own organizations today? Simple work with your sales people in helping them develop their own goals. I’m not talking about setting charity donation goals, though that is a great idea, I am just talking about the idea of choice.

 

Right now we are starting fresh with a new year, new goals. Often companies have revenue goals and from that, trickle down these numbers to their salespeople to create their goals. That would be great if that worked but I would bet money that most of you would tell me that the majority of your sales people didn’t reach that goal in which you wanted them to hit.

 

Why? There are several reasons. One that you can change the outcome of right now is to give them some ownership in creating their goals.

Try this. Start with how much money they need to make as well as how much they want to make. There is a difference. When I say have to make that is to pay bills and live their life. What about the other “stuff”? The stuff that gives them the motivation to do whatever it takes. What is that? If you can help them uncover it, everyone wins.

 

Additionally when you dictate that number, even if it could get them the “stuff”, those things that do motivate them to do whatever it takes, that exercise must be done so they can come to that realization themselves. That is important. Carving the path for someone instead of letting them carve out their own is massively different. You must let them go through this exercise. Find out what the underlying needs and wants are?

 

If you want help, here is a free download to walk you through it. www.StartwithGoals.com. To get started begin with you. What do you want? Why do you want it? What would it mean if you achieve it?

 

Remember when someone creates their own destiny and has worked through the process of how to get there, they are empowered, engaged and feel good that they made their own decisions.

 

And maybe if this goes well, create your own giving pledge among your sales people as well. How much would they like to give, to whom? Let’s have them share that in a sales meeting!

 

 

My client Bobby was telling me a story yesterday about his son. His son is 12 years old is a very good tennis player, he tells me. He explained to me that when his son goes to the tennis camps, which he does in the summer and a couple times throughout the year, he plays with other kids that are at his level. They’re serious about tennis, they love tennis, and they want to win. And when Bobby’s son goes there, he does really well. Then during the year, when he plays at school, he doesn’t play so well, he misses balls, hits shots that are so easy for him during camp are much more difficult for him at school. So the interesting thing about that is what Bobby said to me is “When I watch my son play at school as opposed to at camp, I notice the difference. And I said how can that apply to me in my business?”

What Bobby said was he felt that setting yourself goals to compete at a higher level forces you to compete at a higher level. It also allows you to want to be the best that you can be. When you’re playing with people, competitors, associates, that aren’t that good, aren’t that serious, and aren’t that competitive, you just don’t have the motivation to reach to the next level. So Bobby said what he thinks that means to him is that he has to set his goals higher than he had set them before, and it doesn’t matter what his other associates have set their goals at, he needs to set his at that next level. It also means that he needs to play his best all the time, and even when something becomes easy for him, he still needs to play at the highest level. He needs to be going on all eight cylinders; he needs to be using a process that’s much better on the process all the time, not just when he’s in a difficult sales call. So I thought that was interesting that he tied both together. So what could I learn from that. Well, I thought it was first of all very introspective of him and interesting that he thought about how to take that situation and put it into business for him. But even more importantly, I thought what was truly interesting is what happens when you have others around you that compete at a higher level. We’ve all heard the saying associate yourself with smart people, and you’ll be smarter. Well, it doesn’t necessarily mean it happens through osmosis, but when you have people around you that thrive, people around you that want the best, you are going to naturally rise to the occasion. And how do you do that with a bunch of associates in your organization? Well, you can’t. You can’t control other people, but what you can control is that you’re always competing at the highest level.

Now, the most important thing is to make sure that you are always hitting the top level of your game all the time, no matter whom you’re competing with, no matter how easy you feel it is to make that sale because you are always competing with yourself. If you are always competing at the highest level, you will always get referrals to bigger and better opportunities, you will close more sales, and you’ll have the pride that you should have knowing that you did the best that you possibly could all the time. Keep that in mind. The next time you go see a prospect you say, this one’s going to be easy.

 

Greta Schulz is president of Schulz Business SELLutions in West Palm Beach, Florida. She is the best selling author of “To Sell is Not to Sell”. Greta does corporate training for fortune 1000 companies and she has an on-line training course for entrepreneurs. For more tips go to: “http://www.schulzbusiness.com” www.schulzbusiness.com

 

I just finished speaking to a large CEO group this morning and I asked a very simple question. “What are you doing to track your sales people?” Several of them didn’t have an answer, but one of the men in the room spoke up. He owned a manufacturing company and said, “We track the amount of quotes that they send out on a monthly basis.” I said “Ok, tell me about that.”

“Well, we require all sales reps”, and he has sales reps around the world, “to put out a minimum of 20 quotes per month.” I said, “Ok, why do you do that?” and he looked at me with curiosity, and said, “What do you mean?” “That’s how we track what they’re doing and we know that if each one of them puts out 20 quotes, they’ll typically get six back with interest, they’ll negotiate and usually close two of them”. I said, “So you’re closing 2 of every 20?” “Well, not every 20, but pretty close, that’s pretty much our track record” I then asked “How much time are they spending on the other 18 that they don’t close?” He said, “What do you mean? They don’t spend any time on them.” I said, “Who does their quotes?” “They do.” “Who puts them together?” “They do.” “Who sends that out or presents them to the clients?” “They do.” “Who follows up?” “They do.” “Then ok, so have you ever tracked the amount of time they’re spending on the ones they don’t close?” “And a 2 out of 20 ratio is 10% and so if you think a 10% closing ratio is a good idea, I would make sure that you are hiring very very inexpensive sales reps, and just get them to throw enough quotes out there. You certainly don’t need professional sales people because you’re not looking at professionalism when you do it that way.”

This is such a common occurrence, when I talk to leaders of sales organizations. So many of them don’t have any tracking at all. So many of them just say, “I hire professionals, and they get out there, and if they don’t meet their revenue number, I get rid of them.” “Ok, that’s one way of going about it, but you’re supplying no tools to them, no coaching, no mentoring, no leading and that’s not the right thing to do. You take a big chance there.” So I do admire the fact that he’s tracking something, though he is tracking the wrong things. You don’t want to track the amount of quotes, proposals, whatever you call them in your world. You don’t want to track those, because anybody can throw a bunch of proposals and quotes out there and see what sticks. You might as well sit back in your office and sent ‘em on out. What you need to do is not send any proposals or quotes out until you actually have a conversation with somebody. It is imperative to pre-qualify every opportunity, confirm that they have issues that you know you can solve with your product or service, you have had some level of discussion about investment so not to spring that on them in the proposal and finally a true understanding the solutions that you’re going to provide. Most importantly, and most commonly missed, you know when they get that proposal, what they’re going to do with it. Who’s going to be looking at it? Who are they, and if they’re happy with the proposal, what is going to happen on the other side of that?

If you don’t know those things, and your sales people don’t know those things, you shouldn’t be putting proposals out in the street. Depending on what kind of company you have and what you do, you could be spending a lot more time and money than you think developing recommendations and proposals, getting quotes, putting numbers and things together.

It is a huge waste of salespeople’s time to throw a bunch of quotes and proposals out there and just keep following up on them until you either exhaust the client or the salesperson.

Maybe, they do buy 2 out 20, it’s probably less than that. Either way 2 out of 20, a 10% closing ratio is shameful, absolutely shameful.   Your proposal should never get into the hands of anyone until;

Number 1, you know what their issues are, you know what their needs are and you know you can solve them and you have an idea of what solutions you will use to solve them.

Number 2, You have had a discussion of what the approximate dollar amount would need to be for you to come up with a solution to solve their problem.   You don’t have to give the number but you had to have some level of investment discussion and

Number 3, in my opinion most importantly, is never give anyone a presentation or a proposal or a quote until you know exactly what they’re going to do, once you presented to them, if they like it. We all know what they’re going to do if they don’t like it. So if they do, what is their process?

The CEO who owns the manufacturing company is a very bright man. He has processes in place for everything and I admire that, but the process he has in place for tracking his salespeople is poor, and if I were grading him on it, he would get an F.

Make sure that you keep your proposals back; you hold your proposals and don’t show them to anyone until they qualify and deserve to see them. Proposals never sell. The sales should be almost complete before you make your presentation, and your presentation or proposal or quote is merely the proof statement of what you already discussed. If that’s not what is happening you’re doing it backwards.