If you are in sales and you are over 35 years old the web is probably not a primary source of your prospecting efforts. My recommendation is that no matter what your age is you learn to leverage the web. The web can be an incredible lead source for generating new business. below is a list of ways you can generate leads online. Its just a sampling...
1) Social Networking- Sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIN and even Twitter provide the most effective platform to stay in touch with past acquaintances possible. Remember, everyone you know could be in a position to buy what you are selling with their company in 2,5 or even 10 years. Spend 10 minutes a day expanding your social network. Be careful though, many sales professionals use social networking as an excuse to not do any real work, then they wonder why they haven't hit their sales goals.
1) B- To add onto the Social networking theme with a few specific examples. I find it quite productive to visit forums and blogs online regarding topics that relate to your products and answer questions regularly. Don't be the person who tries to sell what you do in forum response, but if you have good information that is helpful, people will send you emails asking for advice and eventually turn into customers. The bottom line is that you need to find out what your customers do online and what their habbits are and then put yourself in a position to win.
2) Blog- I know, I know, this is where you think we're going to Plug ourselves. Not at all, but if you like to write, creating a blog and writing on a regular basis online can lead to long-term business. Find out how to submit your site to a directory, or Google and Yahoo so that it can be found online. It won't be overnight, but after a years worth of content development, all it takes is a few great articles before you can be ranked high in search engines and attracting more leads.
3) Build a site- if you are a small business owner having a website to provide credibility is huge. Over 70% of your customers are going to your website in the sales process to learn more about your company. In many cases the aesthetics of your website are more important than your building.
We will be digging deeper into the web in future articles. The bottom line is that you must understand how it can benefit you and how it can hurt you if you are going to thrive in todays market.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Know When to Say No!
I remember when I was 19 and brand new in sales. I remember the excitement and anticipation of starting a new career. I also remember the unrealistic expectations of immediate success and glory I had set. The biggest problem in starting a sales career is learning who to listen to. Some times on occasion a rookie will find a veteran who takes him under his wing and teaches the rookie the ropes with the full intention of trying to help him or her be as successful as possible. Most of the time a rookie sales person has a difficult time finding a solid mentor and as a sales professional there are only two kinds of advice...
1) Advice that works
2) Advice that is detrimental to your career.
Notice I did not say advice that has no effect. Every piece of advice both given and taken has an end result and there is no status quo. That being said one of the worst pieces of advice I have ever been given, which is thrown around far too much from sales rep to sales rep is "say yes now and figure out how to do it later".
The most productive sales professionals are...
you guessed it productive. one of the biggest ways to waste time is to work with a prospect whose needs in business do not match up with how you deliver your product or service. I learned the tough way that the easiest way to maximize sales revenue with existing customers is not in your ability to provide great customer service after the sale. Although customer service is very important I would say it accounts for about 50% of your continued relationship's success. The other half is in the alignment of expectations with your company and the customer. To simplify- If you cannot provide what the customer wants within the price they are willing to pay just understand that there may be a company out there that can, and thats okay. Your goal should be to identify your company's strengths and stick with them. If you play in your sweet spot you are bound to produce more. If you are a baseball player and you are a great fastball hitter, but are not as good with off speed pitches. Chances are you aren't going to wait until an 0-2 count to get the bat off of your shoulders. you are going to be looking for that first pitch fastball. So find out what your first pitch fastball is and focus your efforts there. You can always learn to hit a curve later.
remember, if you can delivery what the customer want, when they want it and exceed those expectations you are destined for success. If you can't; walk away and save yourself the 100 extra hours you will have to spend to make the customer happy.
1) Advice that works
2) Advice that is detrimental to your career.
Notice I did not say advice that has no effect. Every piece of advice both given and taken has an end result and there is no status quo. That being said one of the worst pieces of advice I have ever been given, which is thrown around far too much from sales rep to sales rep is "say yes now and figure out how to do it later".
The most productive sales professionals are...
you guessed it productive. one of the biggest ways to waste time is to work with a prospect whose needs in business do not match up with how you deliver your product or service. I learned the tough way that the easiest way to maximize sales revenue with existing customers is not in your ability to provide great customer service after the sale. Although customer service is very important I would say it accounts for about 50% of your continued relationship's success. The other half is in the alignment of expectations with your company and the customer. To simplify- If you cannot provide what the customer wants within the price they are willing to pay just understand that there may be a company out there that can, and thats okay. Your goal should be to identify your company's strengths and stick with them. If you play in your sweet spot you are bound to produce more. If you are a baseball player and you are a great fastball hitter, but are not as good with off speed pitches. Chances are you aren't going to wait until an 0-2 count to get the bat off of your shoulders. you are going to be looking for that first pitch fastball. So find out what your first pitch fastball is and focus your efforts there. You can always learn to hit a curve later.
remember, if you can delivery what the customer want, when they want it and exceed those expectations you are destined for success. If you can't; walk away and save yourself the 100 extra hours you will have to spend to make the customer happy.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Increasing Sales Productivity
1) Do your least favorite things first and force yourself to be fake happy about them. This will spring board you to a productive day.
2) Plan ahead to ensure you eat healthy- If you haven't been eating healthy it can greatly affect you productivity and energy. Not eating healthy is usually a cause of not having any specific fitness goals.
3) Start the day off by telling someone that you love, that... you love them. I know a novel idea, but by putting others first you will put yourself in the right mindset to put others first for the rest of the day. It is difficult to be an effective listener if you are always focused on you.
4) Plan the day- Make sure you have a list of five things that you would like to accomplish today. Prioritize them from top to bottom. the most important should be relative to your long-term goals as well. Plan out your time effectively. try to manage your time in 30 minute increments. Race yourself to see how long it takes to complete a task. Small things like this can trick your mind into motivating your body to be more productive.
5) Dress for Success- The image of yourself to yourself is the most important image. Your self image. Most people are wrapped up in what others think of them. if you will only try to get right what you think of you the advantage in life is yours. You can never please everyone else, but there is only one you to please.
6) Do something to grow your pipeline today. I don't care how busy you are, how many proposals you have to write, how many customers you have to see. By building your pipeline daily you will never have to worry about dry spells with no sales.
7) Learn something today- Dedicate yourself to learn from your mistakes and others' mistakes as well. Find a resource to learn more about your trade. A blog like this one is a great idea. :)
2) Plan ahead to ensure you eat healthy- If you haven't been eating healthy it can greatly affect you productivity and energy. Not eating healthy is usually a cause of not having any specific fitness goals.
3) Start the day off by telling someone that you love, that... you love them. I know a novel idea, but by putting others first you will put yourself in the right mindset to put others first for the rest of the day. It is difficult to be an effective listener if you are always focused on you.
4) Plan the day- Make sure you have a list of five things that you would like to accomplish today. Prioritize them from top to bottom. the most important should be relative to your long-term goals as well. Plan out your time effectively. try to manage your time in 30 minute increments. Race yourself to see how long it takes to complete a task. Small things like this can trick your mind into motivating your body to be more productive.
5) Dress for Success- The image of yourself to yourself is the most important image. Your self image. Most people are wrapped up in what others think of them. if you will only try to get right what you think of you the advantage in life is yours. You can never please everyone else, but there is only one you to please.
6) Do something to grow your pipeline today. I don't care how busy you are, how many proposals you have to write, how many customers you have to see. By building your pipeline daily you will never have to worry about dry spells with no sales.
7) Learn something today- Dedicate yourself to learn from your mistakes and others' mistakes as well. Find a resource to learn more about your trade. A blog like this one is a great idea. :)
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Qualifying Opportunities
The lost art of maximizing sales productivity. Yes, that's the ability to qualify a sales opportunity properly. Most sales professionals who aren't where they want to be in their career are exactly where they deserve to be. If they would just go back and look at their calendar the truth shall set them free. What is the truth? The truth is that most sales people waste 75% of their time with people who never intend to buy anything, or buy anything specifically from them. Successful people in sales influence opportunities, poor sales people participate in opportunities. How can you better qualify a sales opportunity? Here is a quick checklist of items I look for prior to investing significant time with anyone, or any company regardless of who they are. Remember, its never a good idea to go whale hunting with a toothpick.
1)Finance- Do they have the funds approved and are you talking to the person in the organization that signs the check.
2) Business needs- Are you talking to the person who wrote the requirements and will use the product or service.
3) Legal- are you talking to the person who will sign the contract or review the contract.
4) Key Influences- Have you found the wild card yet. Do you know if anyone has the power to internally manipulate the decision.
5) How many companies are involved in the proposal process. If it's over three you better have a DANG good reason why you're still around. Justification for not wanting to go prospect to find a new opportunity doesn't count.
6) What are the criteria for the decision?
7)Who is the competition?
There are several more questions, but if you answer these honestly you will be able to measure your odds.
1)Finance- Do they have the funds approved and are you talking to the person in the organization that signs the check.
2) Business needs- Are you talking to the person who wrote the requirements and will use the product or service.
3) Legal- are you talking to the person who will sign the contract or review the contract.
4) Key Influences- Have you found the wild card yet. Do you know if anyone has the power to internally manipulate the decision.
5) How many companies are involved in the proposal process. If it's over three you better have a DANG good reason why you're still around. Justification for not wanting to go prospect to find a new opportunity doesn't count.
6) What are the criteria for the decision?
7)Who is the competition?
There are several more questions, but if you answer these honestly you will be able to measure your odds.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Perspective For a New Week
I took this story from the sports illustrated story by Rick Reilly- I challenge you to STOP and take 10 minutes and read this story and watch the video. This puts a great perspective on the week to come. We are all capable of more, but the agenda behind what we do our ability to be great.
Team Hoyt
Sports Illustrated, by Rick Reilly
(video at bottom of article - but read this first)
I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.
But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.
Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. ``He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''
But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.'' "Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.
Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two weeks.''
That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!'' And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon. ``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?'' How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-o! ld stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.
``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.'' And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.''
So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. ``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''
Team Hoyt
Sports Illustrated, by Rick Reilly
(video at bottom of article - but read this first)
I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.
But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.
Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. ``He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''
But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.'' "Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.
Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two weeks.''
That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!'' And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon. ``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?'' How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-o! ld stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.
``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.'' And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.''
So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. ``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Increase Closing Ratios Through Relationship
I once heard a great definition of the word Leadership from best selling author John Maxwell. He defined leadership as "being willing to do things others are not". This is also a key to increasing your sales numbers. Every industry is different, every sales environment is different, but one thing remains the same no matter what. If you can find a way to BE DIFFERENT while adding value to your customer you will get noticed and close more sales. Don't we all want to win sales based on value or filling the need the customer has the best and not on price? Well the word of the day is perspective. Take a step back, take a deep breath and put yourself in your prospects shoes. The sales professional who can think most like their customers will win every time.
Let me give you some examples. I have sold technology before, and while selling technology most of my competitors sales presence was engineers playing a sales persons role. If you're a sales engineer don't take this wrong, but learn from it. My number one goal in that job was to see customers face to face. Why? Because my competitors wanted to talk to the customer about a widget, or programming languages and I did more listening then talking and only talked to the customer about what ever he or she wanted to talk about. Most of the time it was a completely unrelated item and when it was related they didn't care about my products or services. They cared about getting rid of a specific problem that was hurting the way they were compensated and performance reviewed. When you can find out what your competitors do not know and apply that to your sales strategy you will win more times than not. It only needs to be one thing too, it doesn't have to be three or four things. How can you do this...
1) Listen and ask questions- go into a meeting with a client having spent at least 10 minutes thinking about their business, put yourself in their shoes and create 3-5 quality questions that will allow you to get to know them better and their business. It will also let them know you care about them and their problems.
2) Find a way to let them dominate the conversation. You have two ears, two eyes and one mouth, use them in that proportion. If you're talking you are not learning what your advantage is.
I will have more tips in future articles on this subject. Feel free and comment if you have any subjects you'd like to see covered or have any questions in general.
Let me give you some examples. I have sold technology before, and while selling technology most of my competitors sales presence was engineers playing a sales persons role. If you're a sales engineer don't take this wrong, but learn from it. My number one goal in that job was to see customers face to face. Why? Because my competitors wanted to talk to the customer about a widget, or programming languages and I did more listening then talking and only talked to the customer about what ever he or she wanted to talk about. Most of the time it was a completely unrelated item and when it was related they didn't care about my products or services. They cared about getting rid of a specific problem that was hurting the way they were compensated and performance reviewed. When you can find out what your competitors do not know and apply that to your sales strategy you will win more times than not. It only needs to be one thing too, it doesn't have to be three or four things. How can you do this...
1) Listen and ask questions- go into a meeting with a client having spent at least 10 minutes thinking about their business, put yourself in their shoes and create 3-5 quality questions that will allow you to get to know them better and their business. It will also let them know you care about them and their problems.
2) Find a way to let them dominate the conversation. You have two ears, two eyes and one mouth, use them in that proportion. If you're talking you are not learning what your advantage is.
I will have more tips in future articles on this subject. Feel free and comment if you have any subjects you'd like to see covered or have any questions in general.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Prospecting- Cold Calling Tips- Having a Plan
One of the biggest reasons that sales professionals don't hit quotas is that they have a small pipeline or an inflated/false pipeline. If you've been in sales for over a year you know what I'm talking about. The pipeline where you have a $70,000.00 dollar opportunity in the pipeline that was really dead 3 months ago so your boss doesn't hammer you about it. Yeah, that one.
So I wanted to help the people who are reading this that actually want to change. They want to move on and be a top performer in their organization, field and ultimately accomplish their life goals. If your sales aren't high enough it is an easy fix. Talk to more people and you will find more opportunities, when you find more opportunities you will sell more for two reasons.
1) You put less pressure on your prospects to buy.
2) You are more selective in properly qualifying your prospects, which leads to an increased value per sale.
Before I give you a simple formula to increase sales we've got to make sure our attitude is right about prospecting. You have to understand that NO is a great word. The more you fail the more you'll sell. I want you to say "that was awesome" in an enthusiastic voice every time you you get a voicemail, a rejection or a maybe. This will help to change the emotional response you have to a NO after you do this for a while. Once you master the ability to take No for an answer and understand it is a key to success you are ready.
Simple Goal Setting - I recommend that the metric we pay the most attention to is the amount of appointments booked. You need to define for you what your closing ratio is. A closing ratio to me is the percentage of qualified opportunities that you close. Also write down the characteristics of the least qualified lead you would consider to be qualified and counted towards your closing percentage. Take the time to do this or the goal setting process will not work. Do it and your sales will increase drastically.
Okay, so now you have established what a qualified lead looks like and your actual closing percentage. Defining your work habit is simple from here. You can now do some math to come up with how many leads it takes to hit your sales goals. Finally I recommend blocking off 1 day. On this day make nonstop calls, which you should be able to make 125-150 in an eight hour day if you are really hustling. Take the number of leads you booked up that day and now you can plan the amount of time you need to prospect moving forward. You will get a better understanding of how many calls it takes the more calls you make. The key is to be honest with yourself. Most people severely underestimate the calls required to produce enough qualified opportunities to hit their numbers
So I wanted to help the people who are reading this that actually want to change. They want to move on and be a top performer in their organization, field and ultimately accomplish their life goals. If your sales aren't high enough it is an easy fix. Talk to more people and you will find more opportunities, when you find more opportunities you will sell more for two reasons.
1) You put less pressure on your prospects to buy.
2) You are more selective in properly qualifying your prospects, which leads to an increased value per sale.
Before I give you a simple formula to increase sales we've got to make sure our attitude is right about prospecting. You have to understand that NO is a great word. The more you fail the more you'll sell. I want you to say "that was awesome" in an enthusiastic voice every time you you get a voicemail, a rejection or a maybe. This will help to change the emotional response you have to a NO after you do this for a while. Once you master the ability to take No for an answer and understand it is a key to success you are ready.
Simple Goal Setting - I recommend that the metric we pay the most attention to is the amount of appointments booked. You need to define for you what your closing ratio is. A closing ratio to me is the percentage of qualified opportunities that you close. Also write down the characteristics of the least qualified lead you would consider to be qualified and counted towards your closing percentage. Take the time to do this or the goal setting process will not work. Do it and your sales will increase drastically.
Okay, so now you have established what a qualified lead looks like and your actual closing percentage. Defining your work habit is simple from here. You can now do some math to come up with how many leads it takes to hit your sales goals. Finally I recommend blocking off 1 day. On this day make nonstop calls, which you should be able to make 125-150 in an eight hour day if you are really hustling. Take the number of leads you booked up that day and now you can plan the amount of time you need to prospect moving forward. You will get a better understanding of how many calls it takes the more calls you make. The key is to be honest with yourself. Most people severely underestimate the calls required to produce enough qualified opportunities to hit their numbers
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