John Hirth's commentary on sales...

How you think determines how you act...

Sales people and the actions they take are predicated on their "Sales Belief System". Your belief system is a collection of thoughts which drive the actions you take. In order to succeed in sales you need to understand what actions you need to take and then build a "supportive belief system" to support and drive those actions. You also need to explore your current belief system and determine if your beliefs (thought processes) are sabotaging your efforts (our individual sales person assessment can help you explore and understand your belief system).

An example of a non-supportive belief follows:

"I believe I need to educate my prospect on the features, benefits and advantages of my products/services in order to make a sale" is a non-supportive belief that will negatively impact your sales performance. This belief is often created unwittingly by companies that tend to focus more on product training and less on "sales process training". The problem with this belief is that through the education of your prospect you often provide a "shopping list" that helps them shop or write RFP's that are designed to drive your margin into the toilet! This condition is identified in our training programs as "free consulting".

Often the reason sales people engage in a "feature dump" is they believe it demonstrates their knowledge to the customer which builds their credibility. Although I believe a sales person needs to be "credible" I also know that demonstrating it through product knowledge is risky and has negative implications that will lower your winning and margin percentages. We need to find a lower risk way that demonstrates credibility without putting us at risk. Ou.r Value translation strategy accomplishes that

The change that you need to make is to create a new supportive belief. Change your thinking and decide that it is "the prospects job to educate me on why they need my product and how it will benefit their business." This new "supportive belief" will drive you to ask questions that will help you determine if the prospect qualifies for your knowledge. It is the beginning of building a "supportive sales belief" that gives you the edge.

In upcoming posts I'll use this blog as a forum to discuss this belief as well as many others that affect sales performance. Hopefully, as you continue to be exposed to this forum it will help you build your own "supportive sales beliefs" and drive your own personal success.

"Show me the money??"

Why would you ever want to go to the time, effort and trouble of preparing a proposal for a prospect who has no money to spend or is unwilling to spend the money they need for your product. A simple thought, yes, but how many times have you heard "we like the idea but just don't have the money/budget." In fact, I'll bet there is a sales person somewhere right now getting ready to make a presentation to a prospect that hasn't been "qualified" for money/budget.

Many sales people come to the business of selling burdened with what we call "non-supportive money beliefs". A belief is an idea or thought pattern that causes action or behavior, some are supportive and some are non-supportive or self sabotaging. Beliefs or "scripts" as they are often called create positive or negative behavior.

An example of a non supportive money belief would be "money is private and not something that is polite to talk about". Now, imagine how a sales person with that belief might respond when they ask their prospect about budgets. When the prospects says "that is not something I normally  discuss with a sales person" guess what happens. Because they believe "money is private and not something that is polite to talk about" they would quickly drop the subject and proceed with no knowledge of the prospects ability to pay.

Unfortunately, if you proceed in a sale with no idea about your prospects budget there are only three things that can happen and two of them are bad:

First, you're too high, and often times you will be told "sounds good", when in actuality you have already been disqualified. This situation also often generates the response "looks good , get back to me".

Second, you are too low and either leave money on the table or get disqualified for providing "low value". Again, people who doubt your value because of low price usuaully wont'tell you. Instead they say "I need more time to consider your offer".

The third circumstance is you happen to make an offer consistent with what they expected to spend. One chance in three are not good odds and not a good risk to take. Getting good at qualifying people for money will put you in a better position to eliminate the first two options and lower the chance that you will get a "money objection" at the end of the sale.

You need to have a supportive money beliefs that will create supportive sales behaviors. A supportive belief would be something like "I have a right to know whether or not my prospect can afford to buy what I sell". That belief needs to be driven by the fact that to engage in the process of selling costs you and your company money. If you are going to be asked to spend money and time (time is money) with a prospect, you have a right to know if they can afford to buy what you have.

With that thought process (belief) when you are told "my budget is not something I would normally  share with a sales person" you would naturally respond differently. Knowing that to engage in selling costs money you would know that unless the prospect will reveal their budget continuing in the process would be ill advised. Now, knowing what they can spend you can create an offer that matches their expectations and be more likely to get a positive response.

So now when you think about asking "show me the money", will your beliefs support your actions. Build supportive "money" beliefs and you'll sell a lot more! Stay tuned, we'll be providing more suggestions on how to discuss your clients financial resources!

Being a good "Sales Citizen"...

I've often been asked by sales people what they should focus on in order succeed within the structure of their company and in the mind of their sales manager. I've also been asked by sales managers to help learn to communicate better with their sales people on what their expectations are.

What it all boils down to is good communications skills on the part of both sides.
Being a good "sales citizen" requires many of the same communications skills that make good sales people; knowing the prospects "Motive and Pain" and creating a solution for it. Being a good "sales management citizen" requires many of the same habits as being a good "sales citizen".

Here are some suggestions on what you need to focus on as a Sales Person to be successful. Ironically, the list is the same in terms of what a good Sales Manager needs to communicate to his/her sales people that will allow them to achieve the success we are all looking for.

1. Know and support the companies goals. As a sales person, Align yourself with the goals and values of your boss' and the company's. Make your boss' priorities your priorities. As a sales manager you need to help your people know what the mission is and then set goals to support it.

2. Know how you'll be evaluated. As a sales person, know precisely which skills, behaviors and accomplishments you will be judged on and rewarded for. As a sales manager, identify areas of improvement for each of your reports and provide a training/development program to allow your staff to improve their skills.

3. Be dependable. As a sales manager, don't subscribe to the philosophy "do as I say not as I do!" Do what you say you're going to do. As a sales person, make it a habit to under-promise and over-deliver. Make sure you set expectations that you can fulfill!

4. Project positive energy. As a sales person don't be the one to whine or criticize the boss or company direction. Be positively inclined: the person everyone wants to be around. If you can't support the mission and be positive you may need to move on. For sales managers a negative influence will spoil everyone else... take corrective action or "change players".

5. Make your sales manager or sales people look good. As a sales person, finish your work on time and with a high level of professionalism. Bring your sales manager ideas that will help him/her and the department and offer to take charge and implement them. As a sales manager don't take credit for what you didn't do! Give credit to your people for their good work and ideas.

6. No Excuses!- Take responsibility for your mistakes by focusing on what you've learned rather than what you've done wrong. For example, "I think this deal could have been won if we'd gotten the real decision maker's buy-in early on," or "Next time I would talk more with the end-users up-front..."

7. Be organized, set priorities. As a sales person, plan your next day before you leave work. Rank your tasks by urgency and importance and make a point of doing at least the top two items on your list. As a sales manager, help your team plan and hold them accountable for getting it done.

8. Be on time. Arriving for work or meetings on time (even early) shows you're enthusiastic, dependable and able to manage your life effectively. Both parties need to have respect for each others time and make meetings and time spent together productive.

9. Help solve the problem. As a sales person, don't run to the boss with every question you have or setback you encounter. Think things through first. If you must report a problem to the boss, develop possible solutions to present. As a sales manager encourage your people to come to you with solutions and support their ideas. They can become problem solvers and will use less of your time.

10. Broaden your horizons.  As a sales person take advantage of company-sponsored training courses and volunteer for projects in areas outside your everyday expertise. As a sales manager make development programs available to your people.

11. Stay informed, know what's happening. Keep abreast of industry and company trends by reading trade journals and attending professional association events.

12. Stay Technically informed. As a sales person, stay current with technological, legal and knowledge advances in your area. Upgrade your skills and learn new ones. As a sales manager use technology to make your people more efficient.

13. Be courteous. Show respect and loyalty to your sales manager/sales people and speak well of her/them to others.

14. Be flexible. Change is inevitable. Companies need people who can adapt and go with the flow. Resisting change defends the status quo which most of the time will not work!

15. Take care of your health. When you're run-down, productivity and ambition suffer -- as does your image.

16. Leave your personal life at the door. Using your co-workers as therapists not only hurts productivity; it damages your credibility and can contaminate your work relationships (even if people seem sympathetic). Sales managers need to have outside confidants or coaches to discuss their problems with and not with their people!

17. Go beyond the call of duty. Take on added challenges, put in extra hours, and never use the phrase, "That's not in my job description."

18. Be a team player. Show your sales people and sales manager that you have their best interests at heart by being empathetic and offering to help out when they need it. As a manager don't just criticize but offer solutions.

19. Take a break now and then. A clear head and balanced life can give you energy and perspective.

20. Look and act promotable. Don't let anyone think you work because you have to.

21. Find a mentor. Most successful people find both a mentor and a support group. Seek out help from others and don't ever be afraid to admit that you "may not know it all"!

This is a good starting point and will help to build "good sales citizenship" for all!

Action Step: Evaluate your self on the preceeding 20 items and make plans on how to improve each of them. Establish 5 "to do" items that you can do immediatly to be a better "Sales Citizen".

Customer or Prospect?

I was working with a client preparing the contents of a presentation that I would be delivering to their inside sales/customer service organization at their National Sales Summit. During our meeting, I made reference to calling on "prospects" and my client suggested that "I'm not sure you should use the term prospect with this group, because our inside people only work with existing customers in established relationships". The comment made me think and I asked "does that mean that you don't want them to cultivate new or add on business with your current customers?" Of course the response was "No, we need them to sell new items as well as increase sales with existing product lines".

I suggested that for that very reason we need to use the term "prospect" when talking with your sales team about their "customers". I went on to explain that too often in business/sales relationships sales people get comfortable with customers and come to "expect" the business. Rather than treating them like prospects, asking good questions and working to "earn" their business they can sometimes become to casual and give the customer the impression that they take them for granted.

I suggested that we should explain that every time we are trying to sell more of an existing product line or new products to a "customer", that we must understand that our customer has just become our "prospect". All customers become your prospects when they are buying more of what they currently buy or looking to buy a new product or item.

So, when the "prospect" asks if you have ________ and how much do you charge for it, resist the temptation to take the easy way out and answer the question. Instead, you might say "while I'm looking that up, is this a product you are currently using or something new that you were hoping would solve a problem?" You'll get more information that will ultimately help you serve your "customer" better.

Customer or prospect, you be the judge. Splitting hairs, maybe... but treat your customer like a prospect and they are much more likely to remain your customer!

"Are you Process Driven?"

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal identified the fact that most successful companies create and define processes within their varying business functions that help their people to be more successful. Companies that are "process driven" tend to have more predictable results and higher performance. Processes create competencies, minimize errors and allow people to learn new positions and responsibilities faster. As I read the article it reinforced my belief in one of the most basic tenants of sales success: "Masters of selling never "wing it" and sell with a process". Are your selling efforts "process driven?".

Too often sales people and the companies they work for sell without a well defined process. Not only can this limit the success of individual sales people but it makes the job of Sales Management time consuming and ineffective. Without a sales process, which helps to create a common "selling language" within a company, communicating results or identifying lack of results is difficult. Also, without a well defined sales process it is hard to identify factors that cause success or failure.

A "well defined sales process" includes specific steps or "instructions" on how to handle situations that will occur in selling the products or services you are involved with. Because most situations or problems in sales re-occur with frequency,  a process allows you to take advantage of the greatest teacher of all, "repetition". Learning how to successfully function and then repeating it over and over builds competency and reduces error. It also makes your job easier and creates a higher level of satisfaction in people that can perform a task with a higher level of consistency. This consistency creates a feeling of confidence which can dramatically influence your level of success.

Part of a "well defined selling process" is developing a list of questions that you consistently ask that will reduce your chances of not getting complete information. If you are good at consistently getting complete information from your customers/prospects there is a lower likelihood that you will deliver solutions that won't meet expectations.

Action Step: Take a minute and make a list of all of the information questions that you need to ask to eliminate the chances of not delivering what your prospect really needs. Don't be afraid to duplicate the list and use it on sales calls, you'll look thorough, professional and well prepared!

Stop "getting ready..."

In a coaching session with a sales person from one of our clients the other day, they shared their excitement over receiving a lead from an excellent prospect with great potential. I asked if they had followed up yet and they responded, no, "It's a great opportunity so I want to make sure that I make a great call, I'm still in the process of "getting ready" to make sure I have everything right".

Sales people often avoid taking action and can form a bad habit of always "getting ready". In fact, I like to refer to this as the "getting ready disease". You 've heard some form of it before, or maybe have even been a victim of it. Some common "getting ready" traps are:

        I'm getting ready to make calls...

        I'm getting ready to write that proposal...

        I'm getting ready to follow up on that great lead...

        I'm getting ready to make that tough phone call...

Sadly, companies often perpetuate and foster the "getting ready" disease. I can't tell you how many times I have seen companies hire sales people and not allow them to make calls because they need to "get ready". You know, they need to "get ready" to sell by learning  product knowledge, researching their customers and the market, or "boning up" on the competition. I've even heard sales managers tell new sales people "we really don't expect you to sell anything for the first six months, you're just not ready". Can you guess what happens? They don't sell anything for six months!!... proof again of the self fulfilling prophesy!

The getting ready disease is just a synonym for "procrastination", the root cause of which is the "fear of failure". We procrastinate, stall or put off what needs to be done because we are afraid that we might not be able to do things "right" or "perfect". Not being able to do things right will cause failure and so we avoid acting for fear that we might "fail". Our fear "paralyzes" us and creates in-action, which in the sales business (and many other vocations) will guarantee the failure we fear so much! It is a "negative spiral", causing us to engage in non-productive behavior.

The next time you find yourself getting ready, ask yourself will delaying the call to "get ready" actually lower the chances of having a successful outcome? You might just find that waiting may have a more detrimental affect than not "being perfect". More often than not "a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow!".

Action Step: The next time you find yourself "getting ready" take action.

Clear out your "locker"...

...psychological locker that is. Remember in high school when you used to leave your gym uniform  in your locker for a couple of weeks without washing it and how things started to stink. Well, just like dirty laundry in your gym locker we collect dirty laundry in our "psychological locker" too. However, instead of a dirty gym uniform our "psychological locker" gets clogged with negative thoughts that tend to weigh us down and impact our "outlook".

A sales persons "outlook" (self esteem) is their own general sense of how things are going in their career and life. Negative events in our lives have a tendency to negatively impact our self esteem, which limits our ability to do the tough things we need to do in sales. It impacts "bravery" a critical strength in determining  sales performance. Until problems or negative events in our lives are resolved they will continue to have a negative effect on our self esteem and performance.

Sorry, your personal life you'll need to deal with by yourself, but there are a lot of "problems" in our day to day selling activities that end up filling the locker. An example: as you sit and read this post there is probably a call you need to make that you have been putting off. You know... a customer who is upset about something that happened, or you need to make a call to a customer about something you know they are going to be unhappy about. As long as you delay the call, it stays in your "locker" and will negatively impact your outlook and bravery. Not doing what is tough is a condition commonly called procrastination,  and is driven by fear of failure. Ironically, putting off what we need to do increases the likelyhood of failure!

So, make a habit of making the tough calls you need to make at the beginning of the day. That's what "clear out your locker" means. If you do the tough things first, the rest of the day will be a lot easier and with the locker "cleared" those negative issues will not affect you. You'll also find that tackling the tough issues up front will give you a great sense of accomplishment and enhance your personal sense of self value and improve your outlook. Implement this strategy daily, "clear out your locker" and you'll have more productive days!

Think like an entrepreneur...

A sales person was lamenting the other day that their company wouldn't buy them a new laptop computer. I was curious and asked "why not". They said "because they don't think it's worth the money". I asked "is it?". The response was a resounding "YES, It will make me a lot more efficient and definitely help me make more sales!"

Then I asked "if you make more sales will you make more money"? To which the salesperson responded "well of course, I'm on commission." Then if getting a new laptop will make you more money and if you are sure it will pay off, think like an entrepreneur and buy it yourself! You can imagine the look of profound and utter disbelief! Suddenly, when it was his money he wasn't so sure!

Sales people would be much better off if they thought like entrepreneurs...every time someone asked them to do something would they be so quick to act if they were spending their own money? I don't think so... would you send all the samples that you send, or spend time writing all the proposals you write that never close?  Would you send that package over night express or offer your design services hoping it would land you a deal? Just because it's the companies money doesn't mean it's there to waste. Maybe more importantly for the sales person, using company assets indiscriminately can keep you from having what you need to sell when a real prospect shows up.

One of our clients is in the commercial interior design business. Wallpaper swatch books, carpet samples, molding and trim strips always seem to be in short supply. Sales people lament about how the company doesn't invest enough money in selling material and samples. And yet how often do samples go out and not get returned, or when they are returned yield no results other than "wow, you have nice looking stuff!" How many times have you needed samples or internal support only to find out there aren't any available?? It's probably already cost you money that you never knew you spent!

Another client sold it's products to commercial printers. They were often asked for samples which the sales people were often willing to ship overnight (60lb packages are expensive to send!). And then, when they would follow up and ask how the sample ran, they would often hear "I'm not sure what job it ran on could you send another?" Amazing you say, if I named the company you would know them immediately. Before you say "I would never do that" think hard and try to see how this affects you in your business.

Thinking like an entrepreneur is the only way to function when you're in sales... even if you have to pay for it!

How do I get around purchasing?

Now that's a great question, and the right way to think! Not always, but more often than not, the purchasing department might better be described as the "sales prevention department". Ironically, many sales people fall into the trap of "believing" that they must call on purchasing first to be able to get into new accounts.

Following this course of action is often flawed because many purchasing departments are just part of the strategy companies use to keep sales people out. Or, at a minimum, to get them to think that a "low price is the only way to get the business". As long as you continue to call on purchasing, and be controlled by their buying process, you will be functioning in a system that is designed to defeat you.

First, in order to develop a new behavior that will get better results we need to establish a new way of thinking. That includes changing the way we think about purchasing departments. The reality of the situation and the new belief you must adopt is the following: Purchasing departments do not make decisions, they implement decisions that are made by other people.

I frequently get "push back" when I make this statement in programs, but I would ask you to think about it. Most of the time purchasing gets a directive from some other department in the company on what to buy and then they go out into the market and implement the decision that was handed down to them. If you ask them "are you the decision maker (bad question BTW)" they will always say yes. However, they are usually carrying out an order they were given. This in no way recommends that you should "never" call on purchasing, but asks that you change the way you look at how decisions are really made within the companies you call on.

So, now that we understand the need to get around purchasing (oh, I can hear people freaking out), how can we make that happen? In future posts I will reveal what really drives purchasing and what to talk about with purchasing departments/managers. However, today I would like to reveal a strategy that will help you get to the real decision makers. Most of the time, when you ask purchasing who you need to call on in Engineering, Information Systems, Marketing, Human Resources, Brand Management, etc. you will be "stiff armed" and told to "just call on us". We already know that is a dead end strategy.

So, where do we go and how do we find out who to call on? Do you know, that in every company you call on there is a department that you will never be screened from and will welcome you with open arms? Yep, there is,it's called the  "the sales department". Any company you will ever call, if you ask for "sales", you will never hear "are they expecting your call" and will never be screened out. You will always be put through, immediately.

Now, once connected to sales, who will you be confronted by? Some surly gate keeper or purchasing agent... of course not. You"ll be connected to a sales person just like you, who can help you find out who to contact. Tell them you're in sales just like they are and ask them "if they ever find it difficult to get through purchasing departments to the people they really need to talk to". They will say "of course" and then tell them if they would be willing to give you a little help, you will help them overcome that problem forever! When they ask you how, first ask them the name of the people you need to contact... most of the time they will tell you. Then tell them, t"o get rid of the problem do exactly what I just did and call on sales".  In essence, you have just demonstrated the tactic and  created for yourself the results they are looking for.

Unorthodox-ed, yes, scary, maybe but productive...absolutely. Will it always work, no, and it doesn't have to. If it works 20% of the time I just got you 20% more quality contacts and  what would that mean. If if you are calling on more quality contacts you will get more business. Try it... what have you got to lose?

How do you get through purchasing... stop calling on them!