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Being a leader is different then most of us think it is. Most leaders are actually managers in disguise.

Sarah was excited to be promoted to sales director. After all she has been in sales for almost 8 years and has always been at the top of the leader board. She knows she will really be able to help the other salespeople with their sales and they already look up to her since she had always been a top performer.

Colin comes to Sarah one day and asks her what to do about a customer who doesn’t seem to be making a decision though they really like their product. “I’ve tried everything” confesses Colin. I’ve offered free delivery, a 10% discount, I’m just stumped” Sarah asks, “can you get a meeting with the decision makers?” Colin says he thinks he can and Sarah says, “good, I’ll come with you and we’ll get it done!” Colin knows Sarah will and is eagerly dialing the phone while at the same time spending the commissions he is confident Sarah will help him win!!

Real Leadership is not managing. Telling someone what to do is absolutely not leadership. Neither is doing it for them. This reminds me of that old saying, “Take someone fishing, they’ll eat for a day. Teach them how to fish they eat for a lifetime” The idea of leadership is to get someone to self-realize what they can and should do make some decisions on their own. Once they feel good about what the answer is that they are looking for, they will continue to use that information and not have to “check in” with you before making that decision.

We often believe that to be a good leader you need to be outgoing and charismatic. That is often not the case. If you remember the old EF Hutton commercial. If you’re not familiar it is a room of people that are talking and talking but all of a sudden EF Hutton has something to say and everyone stops to listen. Often what happens is being a bit humble, a very good listener, it seems to really work well when it comes to leadership.

Here are some tips to create true leadership;

 

Stop being a parent to your salespeople. If you think about how we grew up, we asked questions to our parents as curious kids do, and as parents, they answer our questions immediately.   As parents they wanted us to know the answer. That’s fine but we are not parents to our salespeople. Our job is not only to get the answer to them but to get them to engage with us by thinking about the answer themselves. When they engage in the process with us, it becomes more their idea.

 

Help them feel empowered. Try this. The next time a salesperson says what should I do about … or how do I … try this, “if you couldn’t reach me right now and needed to make a decision, what decision would you make?” The key here is whatever they say, confirm and if its not right you can say and in addition to that you may want to say…”

You need to be a soft place to fall so if their answer is wrong using this process, you cant get upset with them making the wrong decision or they’ll never feel empowered again!

 

Let them be involved in setting goals. I am always astonished when sales managers/CEOs set goals for salespeople without any of their input. If you want to get them engaged and feeling that the goals are not just for what the company dictates, which by the way are most often never met, but this process should have the sales person involved in the process by not only looking at revenue goals but what are their goals? What kind of money do they want to make and why? What are the activities they will commit daily, weekly and monthly to achieve them? Give them the responsibility to come up with what they feel their goals should be and have them put the proactive behaviors behind it. Then review it together to see if its real. If it doesn’t meet your standards then push on them a bit. “oh I feel you are better then that. Don’t sell yourself short, lets relook at this..’

 

Look realistically at their motivation. Are they making more money then they ever have before? If so you often find that your salespeople are satisfied with the amount of money they are making but you aren’t. Meaning the commissions they are making may be great to them but they aren’t hitting the numbers you need them to hit. Motivation will come from them, not you so make sure that there is always a carrot and if the carrot stops working, you may need to change the ‘horse’.

 

You can’t motivate anyone to do anything. You can only give them an opportunity to motivate themselves. It may be easier to just do it yourself in the short term but remember if you do that now, you will always have to do that. Burnt out much?

How fast the years pass. I am always so shocked when it is holiday time…again!

My kids were just pulling on my leg and now I can barely reach their shoulder! I try to reflect a bit about my life personal and business and being a trainer I’m amazed that as much as the world of business has changed, some of the same mistakes are being made by business development professionals. I have 6 that I was writing down in examining content creation for training:

 

• Searching for customers is different today. Networking 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 g0od 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 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!!!

 

 

 

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

 

This is the time most of you are creating goals and objectives for nest year. It is the time you crunch numbers to decide your revenues for the upcoming year. Are you doing it right?

 

I had an in depth conversation yesterday with a sales VP of an aeronautical products company. We were discussing how good he was at gathering the sales data on how many customers they gained, the percentage that each customer spent as to the overall budget, what the top products ere and so on. He then explained to me how he created the budgets for the next year for each of the salespeople. He said he had been creating salespeople’s budget this same way for several years

 

I asked a few questions here and got that look that you get when you speak to your dog and he obviously doesn’t understand you. My questions were:

 

• Have each of the salespeople made their budget numbers?
• Why or why not?
• How did you involve them in their sales budget decision?

 

I admire someone who has the ability to create spread sheets of probability when creating goals and budgets. The problem is there are actual people involved in making this happen and just because someone puts it on paper doesn’t make it so.

 

In a perfect world we can come up with a logical budget on paper based on statistics and data. Great. Then we have to actually get our salespeople responsible for making it happen, make it happen. There of course are several reasons why we often have a short fall here and this article isn’t long enough to list them all but one of the most important is to create ownership with each sales person and the goals you create.

We all know that when we are a part of a decision, when we have skin in the game when creating goals, we are much more likely to make them happen because they are ours.

 

This year whether you have come up with goals yet or not, lets get your salespeople to define what success is for them. What do they want and need to earn? Why? What will they have to sell and how much will they have to sell to reach that goal? What do they have to do, activity-wise to reach that number?

 

Having your salespeople each come up with their own “business plan” since it is really their business as well being that they have say in the economic outcome, will help create buy in and therefore ownership of their business.

 

Give them the basics of your data that you have for their territory. Give them everything but your budget numbers for them. Ask them to take a week or so, review all of the information and create a goal and a plan that they will follow for next year to reach the goal they have set. Have them present that to you and any other senior executives and tell them to be prepared for questions about their plan.

 

Typically you will find that they are harder on themselves they you would be and they often come up with a higher number for their goal they you will. If not, push them back on that and ask them why so low?

 

It is also important that their goals are attached to something that is meaningful to them so not to just put some pie in the shy number to impress you. If you would like a form to download to give to them that will help them figure out how much money they want and need to make here is a free one for you; www.StartwithGoals.com

 

Give your salespeople all of the tools to be successful but don’t expect them to follow your goals without involving them by making them theirs as well.

 

Greta Schulz is President of SchulzBusiness, a sales Consulting and Training firm. She is a best selling author of a new book “To Sell IS Not To Sell” and works with fortune 1000 companies and entrepreneurs. For more information and free sales tips go to www.schulzbusiness.com. Follow her on Twitter @SchulzBusiness and sign up for ‘GretaNomics’, a weekly video tip series or email sales questions to greta@schulzbusiness.com

 

Logan, a software sales rep, had been having a rough day. He’d been bombarded with questions from several customers and gotten behind on work he needed to finish before the end of the day.

Then, he got a call from Tony, a prospect who introduced himself by saying: “I’ve heard great things about your engineering 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 into my system.”

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

Then, Tony said: “I need to know about the cost, the tech support and how soon it can be installed.”

Logan immediately went into his pitch. He discussed tech support in detail, covered availability and other options, and explained that the price was $12,000, with 30-day terms.

Tony’s response was unexpected. He said that $12,000 was quite a hefty price tag and he needed a couple of days to think about all of this more carefully. He’d call Logan back next week.

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

So, what happened? Logan got lazy, plain and simple. He thought Tony was sold. All he had to do was give him the information he needed, then write it up. He got fooled into assuming the sale without doing the work. He never got Tony to talk about why he was looking now, with what seemed to be a real priority about buying the software. The entire transaction was conducted at the intellectual level, without any real understanding of the true need.

So, what happened? Logan was lured into taking shortcuts. He mistakenly thought the prospect’s enthusiasm was as sure as a sale. No matter. You need the time to qualify the prospect and make sure he’s real before giving out information or making your presentation.

In Logan’s case, a couple of 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. Would you mind if I ask you a couple of questions to better understand?”

Of course, you’re digging in to find out what is really going on. It is so important to gather this information before you discuss price so you can truly have an understanding of not only why they want the software, but the consequence of not installing it.

Once you give away your information – whether on the phone, in a presentation or in the form of a proposal – you have given up any form of control and are literally at the mercy of the prospect.

Are your salespeople going for the quick sale or are they really understanding the true need behind it?

 

I’m going to try my best to do a great benefits statement so the customers know exactly what we do.” We put so much time and energy into coming up with this big introduction/benefit statement, but, honestly, it’s not as important as any of the other things that we do.

This thought is on the mind of most salespeople. They feel that they have to have some great, two-sentence explanation of what they do, and that will help sell it.

Now, it is important to summarize what you do, but that is not what sells. Let me illustrate this point. Think about the last time you read a book, and then saw the movie. Which is typically better? Well, almost everyone I talk to says the book is better. Why is that?

When you read a book, you have the ability to create what the scene looks like, what the characters look like, even the voices and sounds therefore the story becomes yours. When you put something in your own brain, you are able to create what it looks like, and what it sounds like, and what it feels like to you. You attach more directly to the story because it becomes your interpretation of the events – as opposed to some producer and director’s interpretation. This is the same reason why telling someone what you do and the “features and benefits” of your product or service is much less powerful then asking great questions and getting them to see how it can help through their own eyes.

When you tell someone why they should work with you, what the benefits are, what the advantages are, those are your interpretations of the benefits or the advantages that you offer. When you ask really good questions to get people to think about what is important to them, it is their idea.

Ask if they had success in a particular area, or how you can change things. It is this kind of thought-provoking questions that allows a prospect to see the advantage, on their own, your product is supposed to bring. So, asking questions is really much more important than coming up with an important benefit statement.

There are a couple different types of questions. Big-picture questions are thought-provoking questions that get the customer talking about the overall situation. For example, talk about the goals they set for the organization, and where they are along the line of those goals. “Right now, it is (plug in the date) and if it were one year from today and you were to look back and say, it has been a very successful year, what would have to have happened?”

Another might be: “What are the things that you fear the most over the next 12 months, and what are you doing to avoid them?”

The key is to ask big-picture questions and get people to think. The successful questions ask people to think about the answer and put themselves in that place before they do. Big-picture questions are typically used at the beginning of the conversation to get a prospect to open up sooner. You listen to the answers carefully and move through the conversation successfully.

The second type of question are what I call advantage questions. They come directly from what you believe are the advantages of your product or service. For example, if you sell advertising in a very high-end magazine, you might say: “Talk to me about how you get in front of high-income individuals now.” Then a follow-up question like: “If you had the ability to get in front of more of them, what would you say?” Again it forces them to think about not only being in front of potential clients that they’re trying to get in front of, but it has them think about what the message would be. It begins to develop where you’re going to go with your recommendations or proposal in the end.

So, rather than you telling them what they can do with your product or service, this allows them to come up with their own picture of how they might use your product.

Remember, when you go to the movies, it is purely the director and the producer’s interpretation. When you read a book, it’s your interpretation of those words, and you have the ability to create your own picture. It’s much more effective when it’s yours.

 

Well I did it. I did the “It’s the first of the year and I have put weight loss on my resolution list” thing. Actually I don’t make resolutions but I did set a goal to get healthy. I have committed to eating properly, exercising and stop using the excuse of my travel schedule.

 

That being said, on a recommendation of a friend, I tried Weight Watchers. It hadn’t been very long but already I see a difference, a small difference but a difference. Would it be nice to have dropped lots of lbs? Yep but just like in business and in sales, little bits at a time is smarter and has a much better chance for success.

 

I have heard from many of you telling me that you have set New Year’s resolutions to

include higher sales goals in 2016. A resolution and a goal are two different things. Let’s talk about how you should set goals for yourself.

 

Begin with your revenue goals. Not necessarily your company’ goals but your own. What do you need to get what you want? When do you want to be able to retire? How much will you need? If you don’t know these answers, you need to meet with a financial consultant and figure it out. Once you understand what you need to reach, add at least 5% because I am sure you have underestimated.

 

Next you will have to move to your daily and weekly activities. Begin detailing what you need to do every day, week and month to reach these revenue goals. I know you are now asking yourself how do you know what to put down since you probably haven’t tracked your previous activity enough to know what that is. Therefore you need to estimate on what your daily, weekly and monthly activity should be.

 

After you have guesstimated these numbers you will need to track them every day. You need to do this for at least 90 days to begin to have a true idea of what it will really take to meet your goals.

 

As long as you meet your daily goals, you will be successful day by day. That’s important. Most people look at the whole revenue goal and don’t break it down into small pieces. It feels overwhelming unless you break it down into small hurdles that can be jumped. If you can find ways to pat yourself on the back every day, then week, then month, you will not only meet your goals but you won’t give up after looking at the whole goal.

 

So I am not losing 20 pounds, I am eating 23 points a day…and that I can handle.

 

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” with the second edition in 2016. Greta does corporate training for fortune 1000 companies and she has an on-line training course for entrepreneurs. For more tips go to: www.schulzbusiness.com

Jim arrived at the office of Mark Hilson, President of the Hilson Tool and Dye Company early so he could sit in the parking lot and review in his head what he wanted to say. Jim practiced each step of his presentation in his head and exactly what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. He knew that his power point slides were perfectly in order and were just want he needed to land this account. He was confident in what this company needed because he has called on other companies like this and helped them just like he can help this one. Jim took a deep breath and walked into the building, “I’ve got this one down” he thought and proceeded in the door.

 

Once the pleasantries were over Jim got right down to business. “Mr. Hilson, I have been with my company for the past 4 years and our company has been in business for over 50 years. We are the leader in our industry and have worked with lots of companies like yours and are able to meet the needs that you have”.

 

“Well, that’s why I agreed to meet with you, Jim. We do have a need for a product like yours and this might be a good fit” stated Mr. Hilson.

 

“I’m glad you did” Jim said proudly. “Our product line has the best reputation for least failures on the job therefore downtime is at the lowest in the industry which will keep you up and running more efficiently”.

“Great Jim, but our service department isn’t sure if they can retrofit your model into our existing equipment”.

 

“Oh I wouldn’t worry about that we do it all of the time and with companies who have bigger problems then yours. As a matter of fact I brought a power-point presentation that I believe will help you understand why we’re number one in the industry”.

 

After the presentation, Mr. Hilson said, “Thanks for the presentation Jim but I am still a little concerned about our existing equipment and the retrofit we’ll need to do. We can’t afford any downtime with the change or production could be compromised”.

 

“Mr. Hilson, I understand that is a concern but we do this all of the time and don’t worry we can handle it.”

 

Fifteen minutes later Jim said goodbye to Mr. Hilson and promised him a proposal in a few days. After he left, Mark Hilson buzzed his assistant and said when that proposal comes in just round file it.

 

What happened? Jim ignored the real issue that Mr. Hilson wanted addressed and kept telling him what he felt was important. Guess what? No one cares what you think is important, only as it applies to them.

 

Jim missed lots of opportunity to really deeply understand what his prospects issues were and assure him that not only he could solve the problem but help Mr. Hilson understand how.

 

The result? Jim may very well have the best product for Mr.Hilson but he didn’t see it that way. When a prospect gives you a hint of a need address that need by asking really good pointed questions for example;

Tell me more about the retrofit concern?

Have you had that issue in the past in looking to change products?

What happened?

What did you do it address it at that time?

How did it effect production and at what cost?

 

These types of questions would not only have given Jim a real insight to the issue it would have also given Mr. Simmons confidence that Jim knew and could address HIS issue.

 

 

Quick wrap up;

• Stop telling about how great you and your company are (no one cares)
• Ask what some of their concerns are and then dig deeper to truly understand the issue
• Don’t be so quick with a solution, even it if is correct, you haven’t earned the right so early in the process to give one
• Listening is you best sales tool, not spewing your product knowledge

 

 

 

 

Ashley, a sales representative for a regional software company, makes several calls a week to new potential prospects to request a meeting to demonstrate her product. She gets lots of voice mails, speaks to lots of gatekeepers and sends a lot of emails with no response.

Every once in a while – statically five out of 100 – she will reach a potential prospect live. When she does, she is so excited that she doesn’t even recognize the excuse.

There are several excuses that a prospect will give a salesperson. What is most interesting is that the salesperson will likely not see them as excuses and believe them.

There are some examples that are almost always an excuse and not the truth. Let’s look at them one at a time:

The excuse: “Why don’t you send me/email me something?”

The translation: “It’s easier to ignore you through email.”

If this prospect were truly interested, she would take at least a few minutes and talk to the salesperson right then, just to determine if there is a need.

The excuse: “I’m in a meeting.”

The translation: “I have no time to talk and I’m hoping this illusion of interruption will get you off of the phone quickly.”

I love this one! So, you are in an actual meeting in your office, you don’t know who’s calling, but you pick up the phone anyway? Seriously? Salespeople fall for this one all of the time! At this point, the salesperson keeps calling, but the prospect now knows the phone number through caller ID and will just avoid the call.

The excuse: “We don’t have a budget/money at this time.”

The translation: “I just don’t see the benefit, and having no money will make you go away, at least for a while.”

Money is an interesting thing. People will find money for what they determine will bring them value. We often blow this one by trying to quickly show how our product will save them/make them money. The response: Yeah, right! (It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not; you can’t shove your idea of value down a throat on a phone call.)

The excuse: “Call me after the third quarter.”

The translation: “Wow! I just put you off for at least a few months.”

Salespeople like this one because it gives them something they can follow up on – at least in their mind. This is where follow-up, in my opinion, becomes stalking. The salesperson keeps calling when this date arrives, and the prospect will not even remember she told you to call, let alone meant it when she said it.

The excuse: “We’re good right now, but you can check back.”

The translation: See the previous translation.

I say gee, thank you so much for allowing me to check back! You must really like me/be interested, etc. (Yeah, right.)

The excuse: “I’ll think it over and let you know.”

The translation: “I have no intention of reaching back out to you, but I asked for the next move to be done by me.”

This is no move, but sales people happily agree and wait and wait. What’s funny is they would rather take any of these excuses than hear whatever the real truth is – most commonly a no.

If we, as salespeople, could get comfortable with asking right up front for a “no” as an option, we wouldn’t be wasting so much time, energy and our control of the sales process.

 

Greta Schulz is a sales consultant for businesses and entrepreneurs. For more tips and tools, or to ask her a question, go to Facebook.com/schulzbusiness or email greta@schulzbusiness.com.

 

“I feel like nothing is working,” said Connie in frustration about her recent sales numbers.

“Whatever I do, it doesn’t seem to matter. I thought the economy was getting better but no one is going to buy right now”. I really think that once the economy truly turns around and people are feeling more confident, then things will start to move again, but until then, it’s just not happening”.

“I may actually have to get a part time job or something until that happens because I am scared that I cant pay my bills”. Ranted Connie.

 

Connie and I talked about some of the scenarios that she had been dealing with and she told me that people really like her product but the just can’t afford it right now.

“Greta I hear this everyday. People are just not spending right now. My numbers are down so far that I think it’s just a waiting game”.

When I hear Connie’s story it isn’t unusual but it is self-fulfilling. Why are some people thriving and others are in Connie’s boat? I truly believe it is less about the external situation and much more about the internal self-talk we have going on.

 

I have narrowed it down to what I call “ITALK”. I Talk is an acronym that I think might explain what’s going on.

I – Initial Situation. The initial situation here is that the economy went through a one-two punch that most of us have never seen the likes of before and hopefully once fixed, will never see again. The fact is this truly did change a lot of people’s way of life and certainly the way business is conducted today. The initial situation is what it is. It’s fact.

 

T-Thought. The thoughts that we create because of the situation we are presented with are completely ours. This is the filter we see the situation through. How do two people see the same situation differently? It is this filter that creates our thought. Connie’s thought is “people can’t afford it right now”. That is certainly a big assumption and we all know what happens when we assume…

 

A- Attached Feeing. The feelings that we have based on the assumptions we make are very damaging. They are damaging because of the depth of feelings or in other words ‘beliefs’ in the way we conduct ourselves. Connie was so scares she actually thought about getting a second job.

 

L- Lead Action. Our lead action is what we do because of our beliefs. It is the way we approach a particular situation and will be different in approach depending upon the belief. When Connie approaches a prospect she doesn’t have confidence to handle the money objection because she herself believes it. Therefore she is practically waiting for it to come and with it is either feeling defeated or is quick to offer a discount. Neither of which is the outcome she would like.

 

K- Known Result. The known result is what actually happens as a result of these beliefs. This is very difficult because you will almost always get the result you believe you are going to get. When you do, you say to yourself, “see, I knew it” and the cycle continues.

 

ITALK is the talk we have with ourselves. It is our internal dialog, our internal beliefs. In my opinion there is nothing more dangerous then this. No matter how many times someone tells you it’s not that way, your subconscious is much more powerful then your conscious or anything someone might tell you.

 

Fix your internal negative thoughts and you can change your outcomes. It’s not the economy…it’s your thinking that is hurting you the most.