6 Steps to Closing the Sale

When it comes to closing the sale do you really know how to close? Do you freeze up afraid to close or don't know what to say? Do you know how and when to close the sale or even if the prospect is interested in your product? Well, read on and I'll share with you six ways to overcome these common challenges and increase your closing ratio. Your Attitude Makes a Huge Difference Before going to any appointment get yourself in the right frame of mind. Go in with the attitude that you will close the sale. When I'm driving to an a appointment I'm not listening to the radio, I'm imagining how the sale is going to end up, me closing the sale. When I arrive at the appointment I sit in my car for a few minutes, close my eyes and visualize every thing happening just as I want it to. I see the prospect approving the contract, giving me the check and us shaking hands and smiling. If your attitude going in is negative you might as well get back in your car and go home. ABC - Always be Closing Be prepared to close the sale at any time. Be ready to close when you walk in the door. The sales process doesn't have to continue through all the steps. You can close the sale at any time. I have seen many salespeople with a prospect who is ready to buy, money in hand, waving it in the air, however, the salesperson stops them and says wait, I haven't finished my presentation yet, let me tell you how great I am. They've been taught to go through all the steps so they keep talking and many times talk themselves out of a sale. At any point during the sales process the prospect is ready to buy...close the sale. Understanding What They Want and Need "Closing is the process of helping people make decisions that are good for them" Closing the sale begins when you qualify the prospect. Make sure you are qualifying every prospect thoroughly. Determine their emotional wants and their motives. It's at this stage the prospect will tell you their hot buttons and give you the road map to close them. Also they will become comfortable with you and by showing an interest in their needs you will set your self apart from all the other salespeople. How to Recognize Buying Signs Buyers will often give you signs they want what you're selling. These signs can either be verbal or visual. Let's start with the verbal. A buyer may start asking more questions. They nod their head in agreement. They require more in depth information. They start talking about how things will be when they own the product. Some visual signs to watch for are a smile, a raising of the eyebrows or moving closer to you so they can see better. If it's a couple they may show more affection or they may look at each other in a certain way. When you have memorized your presentation you can be more aware of these buying signs and your closing ratio will increase dramatically. When you know what you are going to say and don't need to think about it, your sales will increase dramatically because you can sit back and watch their body language and buying signals and you'll know when they're ready to buy. How to Make the Decision to Close The Sale When you have qualified the prospect properly, the buying signs are there and you know they want to buy, make the decision that the best thing for them is to buy. Then focus your attention on talking about the things they like or feel are important as you close the sale. Put your personal feelings about your product or service aside and focus on the buyer. Assume the Sale If you've done everything right and the buying signs are there, assume the sale and begin filling out the order or what ever the next step is. Keep moving ahead until they stop you. If you did your job and your closing the sale at the right time, they won't stop you. I have given you an overview of the closing process, however there is much more to closing the sale. Far to many details to discuss in this article. So I have created a free 4 day e-course to give you more indepth strategies and closes. Do you have only one or two closes in your arsenal? Is your best close, well, what do you think? or the real powerhouse, can I put you down for one? Or do you just want to master the closing process so you can increase your sales? Then take my free four part mini course where I go deeper in to the process of closing the sale.

Business Sales Leads

When talking about business sales leads, it is important to understand the buyer, and to create a customer through this understanding. Buyer behavior studies can play a pivotal part in this regard. A lot of time and effort have been spent on this relatively new discipline. And every buyer-study has unfolded some new dimension of this discipline. The subject has been approached and analyzed from different angles and under different premises. Different inferences have been formulated. But the subject, too complex to beat, still remains a theorem without a proof.

What motivates the buyer? What induces him to buy? Why does he buy a specific brand from a particular shop? Why does he shift his preferences from one shop to another or from one brand to another? How does he react to a new product introduced to the market, or a piece of information addressed to him? What are the stages he travels through before he makes the decision to buy?

These are some of the questions that are of perennial interest to business firms regarding the sale of their products. It is around these questions that the product and promotion strategies of the business firm ultimately revolve. In all of their strategies and plans, firms make assumptions as to how the buyers would behave and respond to marketing programs. Knowledge of the buyer and his buying motives and habits is thus a fundamental necessity for getting business sales leads.

It needs to be emphasized at the very outset that there is no unified, well-defined, tested and universally established theory of buyer behavior. What we have, today, are certain ideas on buyer behavior. Some of these ideas have taken their cue from economics, others from psychology and yet others have drawn cues from several of the social sciences simultaneously.

Business Leads provides detailed information on Business Lead Lists, Business Leads, Business Sales Leads, Free Business Leads and more. Business Leads is affiliated with Sales Lead Management. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ken_Marlborough

Let's Take the Fear and Mystique Out of Selling!

Face it â€" nobody likes cold calling. Most of us cringe when we hear these words â€" we tend to conjure up visions of a vacuum cleaner salesman reaching in and pouring cigarette ashes on the rug before we can get the front door closed.

In recent years, many small businesses have been founded on the premise that the World Wide Web will make personal selling obsolete and unnecessary. The truth is: unless your product or service is cutting-edge with few competitors, you will have to sell it! And by selling it, I am not referring to impersonal Website selling; we’re talking belly-to-belly, folks!

Listen, I realize that some of you get nervous at the mere thought of having to “cold-call” strangers. But wait - this isn’t so scary as you might imagine. Let’s evaluate a somewhat “softer” side of selling from a systems perspective.

The plain truth about selling is: we all do it. You do it. I do it. Your significant other does it. And believe it or not your kids use selling techniques on you all the time. Anyone who has accomplished anything in his or her life has had to sell people on an idea or the value of a project in order to get there. That’s right â€" they sold someone on the idea of helping him or her. The problem is that in our society we have a skewed idea of the true value of something that in reality we use all the time! The truth is: selling is an accepted and necessary social activity, when conducted in an honest, straightforward way.

Before we can begin to develop a systematic approach to selling, we must come to terms with the following truths:
1.Selling is a necessary activity that creates value for both seller and buyer.
2.You should not try to sell to someone who doesn’t yet see need or value in your product or service.
3.Trust and confidence are the most important components of the selling relationship. They are a challenge to obtain and remarkably easy to lose.

Let’s take a look at each of these in turn. To begin with, you must believe in the value you and your product or service can provide to your clients. If you don’t believe in your own value, you won’t come across as sincere when you talk to people about it. People don’t buy anything from insincere people. So if you feel that salespeople in general are simply devious predators, get over it! The truth is, selling is a necessary and vital activity that brings solutions together with problems to the benefit of all concerned. You are an expert in your field â€" a problem solver. Think of yourself as a vital component of your potential clients’ chain of success. Doesn’t knowing this foster a more positive self-image than that of a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman with a can of ashes? (My apologies to vacuum cleaner salespeople everywhere!)

Now that you see yourself as a problem-solver rather than a salesperson, let’s look at truth number two. We’ve all heard sales trainers stress that you must convince prospective customers that they need your product or service. While it is true that most people have problems that require solutions, it’s also true that folks simply don’t like other people they don’t know telling them what the right solution is. I stress the phrase, “people they don’t know.” This is key, and an important component of truth number three, which I’ll address in a moment. So how do you get prospects to see the value in your offering? Answer - try a more collaborative approach. Begin by striking up conversations with potential clients in neutral situations. Examples of neutral situations include meetings of fraternal (Rotary, Kiwanis, Jaycees) and trade organizations (your industry or professional specialty probably has several of these, possibly with local chapters), which you should join if you are truly serious about growing your business; business “meet & greets”; community volunteering opportunities; and certain family events like your kids’ sports and extracurricular activities. These are all opportunities to meet local business people who have problems that will benefit from your solutions.

I know â€" you don’t want these new acquaintances to think of you as one of those (see “can of ashes”) people. However â€" and this is important â€" if you want to be successful, you must be continuously promoting your business. No one will do that for you, unless you can afford a public relations officer and an expensive ad agency. Accept this as a fact of business life.

So how should you approach someone in a neutral environment? First of all, get to know the person personally. Try to find a common personal interest you can discuss together. After all, you’re both at this event, right? So you may have more in common than you think. Next, ask the other person what they do for a living. Try to draw them out and get them to be specific. Asking leading questions and listening actively will help you determine if your product or service is applicable to their situation. If it isn’t â€" well, you’ve at least possibly made a new friend and confidant, and what’s wrong with that? If you do find that your new contact might be a problem you can solve, don’t jump on them with anything that smacks of “sales pitch” at this point â€" you’ll just turn them off. Instead, explain briefly what you do and take this approach: ask the new contact if you can meet them (over lunch, golf, tennis, in their office, racquetball, dinner, or whatever works) for a few minutes to get their thoughts on what they think of your business and your approach. Don’t sell- instead ask for a little consulting help. Make them feel that you genuinely value their advice.

Once you have set up the meeting, show up intending to involve the other person in your business. Let them get to know you personally first by sharing personal information about yourself. This begins the process that is brought to light in truth number three: trust and confidence are what get you new business â€" not hard selling skills. Whether you know it or not, by allowing the prospect to get to know you a little, you’ve already begun the selling process. Keep it soft â€" don’t pressure your prospect too much. At the same time, be listening for opportunities to show him or her what your capabilities are. Be ready with testimonials: stories of projects you’ve worked successfully that mirror your prospect’s situation. People like stories; they add credibility and make it easier to relate problems to solutions. Draw out the prospect â€" remember this rule: if you’re talking, you’re not selling. Become an active listener. Successful salespeople only do 25 percent of the talking in a sales interview. Now that you have established rapport and begun to develop a personal relationship, it’s much easier to discuss the solutions you are selling and relate them to problems your new acquaintance may be experiencing. This is not so scary, is it? Here’s a recap of this client-generating “system”:
1.Join business and professional organizations and get involved in their activities. In addition, be aware of the potential for making contacts in other social situations.
2.Approach the people you meet as a person who is worth knowing personally first. Invite them to get together socially in a neutral place.
3.During the meeting, strengthen your personal relationship before getting to business.
4.Next, ask them what they think of your business; ask the prospect to act as a casual “consultant” to your business.
5.Once you’ve established a personal relationship, the trust you’ve nurtured makes it much easier to talk with them about the business solutions you are prepared to offer.

For small business owners, new business development can be a daunting task. Taking a low pressure/ non-aggressive approach toward developing new clients can be quite rewarding; it certainly is considerably less threatening for both you and your potential clients. It also makes more sense than the hard sell, “ashes on the rug” approach we all know and dread. Next time, try the friendly approach â€" I think you’ll be surprised how effective it can be.

Brian Cushing is a sales trainer, college professor, and author; his firm, Peddlesmarter.com, helps small businesses develop and manage new customer relationships through promotional and sales training activities. Contact him at: boxstep052@sbcglobal.net

Choose a price that sells! (Part I)

The best price is that price that maximizes your profits while building a lifetime customer through value satisfaction. On the Internet, time waits for no company. Your customer has access to tons of information through the Web. Your competitor is a mere mouse click away. You have to get the best price right... the first time. In the digital market scene, there are very few second chances. Pricing is risky. What price is too high? What price is too low? Will a certain price work three months from now? Do you know? Do you know for sure? Pricing is the single most important marketing decision you'll ever make. You have to know what price you should charge so that you can promote it effectively and place it into the hands of your customer. It's the marketing guide to success! Ken Evoy from SiteSell priced their first e-book, Make Your Site Sell! (MYSS!) at: http://newsletter.easy-home-business.com/hts/myss.html at the ridiculously low price of US $17 to penetrate a competitive marketplace. They wanted to overwhelm their customer with high-quality information at a price that anyone with *any* interest at all in selling on the Net could not reasonably refuse. The result? Huge sales, delighted readers and MYSS! is known as the BIBLE of how to sell on the Net... While they knew the general strategy for MYSS!... Did they know the right price before starting out? No way! Did they know what effect $5 more or less would have on the bottom line? Nope. Did they like that lack of confidence? Strike three. Take a minute or a few more... go back to the computer and do a search on the Net for the keywords "pricing" or "pricing software". I'll wait right here.... :-) ... No surprise that you're back so soon! There's not much out there to help anyone, small or large business owner, to price perfectly. If you are selling a commodity, you already know that your profit margins have to be razor-thin. You are forced to compete on price. It's sometimes the only thing that sets you apart from the field. Your business operation has to be seamless. Gaps are too costly. If you have a proprietary product, its uniqueness and benefits have to be recognized as such by the market. You have to know if your product has enough original features to warrant a higher price than the cookie-cutters around it. What are the usual approaches for pricing? The traditional "bottom up" salad bowl approach... direct and overhead costs tossed together with market pressures before being "dressed" by the price A chat with your salespeople A look at the competition's markup I think we agree that pricing is critical to our businesses. It's the only part of our operating equation that brings money into the company and into our individual pockets. It's the P that "extracts the value" out of the perceived value that you create through the product itself, and through your promotion of it. Because of that, the price for a product or service has to be a top priority. The perfect price maximizes profits... and income is what it's all about at the end of a business day. Luckily for you, but definitely not for your competition, you're on your way to success. After reading this web page, you will know how to determine the right price. You will know how to *find* the Perfect price. THE 4 P OF MARKETING First of all examine your business using the 4 P of marketing magnifying glass. Look at your Product. What do you sell? What does your customer buy? What are its major benefits? How important and unique are they? Look at your Promotion. How do you promote your product or service? Look at your Place. How do you ship from place A to place B? Look at your Price. How do you decide on which price to charge? How did you decide on your "macro" pricing model (ex., penetration-pricing or priced model) and how did you choose the exact number? Write down your answers. You need a strategy for every part of your business operation to guarantee success -- the pieces of the e-commerce puzzle have to fit together. You need to be able to set the best price of your product or service with clarity. And you want to see the results of that decision *increase* the income side of your ledger. PRICING MODELS PRICING TO PENETRATE: Your objective here is to penetrate the market fast and deep. In other words, sell as many units of the your product as possible. So, you set your price low. Use this strategy to establish a powerful position in the market quickly. Why? The basic goal is to acquire as many customers as quickly as possible. In other words, you are "buying market share" to establish dominance. You may also be sensing that more competition is on the way. Market dominance is particularly relevant when you consider that shopping (and buying!) on the Internet is about to explode over the next two years... all over the world, not just in your neck of the woods. You want to have a well-established online presence before the throngs of new customers are grabbed by other businesses. The best price to penetrate was the model for Make Your Site Sell (MYSS!), the BIBLE for making a site that sells. SKIMMING THE CREAM: This is the opposite pricing strategy to penetration. Here, the best price is deliberately set high, in order to reap large profit margins. This is usually at the cost of losing a large number of customers. High price tactics are also known as "selling off market share." You gain income from those high profit margins, in exchange for having a smaller and smaller percentage of the market buying your product. This model works well if you have a proprietary product. Some customers will pay more for uniqueness, especially if good value is perceived as part of the equation. Typically, two scenarios work with high-pricing... When you first launch a product and want to recoup all the R&D quickly. Good examples are consumer electronics "Prestige pricing" -- Mercedes-Benz, Tiffany's. Sometimes an example is worth 1,000 words. :-) "Skimming" carries some important risks... Big profit margins attract competitors who want a piece of the same pie. The only difference though... they are willing to shave dollar signs off to get the eye of that Web customer with the open wallet. The second "speed bump" has to do with public relations. Your business will not survive if customers feel that they have been "taken for a ride" BEST PRICE TO KILL: Here, profit is definitely not the objective. No competition is the goal, at whatever cost it takes. It's *not* for the faint of heart. In many cases, it is not even legal. OK. Three distinct business/pricing models. Which one matches yours? For small-to-mid-sized businesses, your choice is usually between penetration pricing and high- pricing. Don't make the mistake of doing a "little of each" -- you'll end up in a fatal valley between the two. Ask yourself these four questions... What was my goal when I chose my model? Knowing where I am now with my business, would I have chosen a different approach? What are the pros and cons of my pricing strategy? Which model do I see myself using three months from now? With confidence? THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRICING Let's consider the power of the following selling techniques... The arranged smell of fresh-baked bread in a house to ignite childhood memories of food or family in the prospective home-buyer. Fresh flowers/produce near the grocery store's entrance to encourage impulse buying --something that's not "on the list". Big sale signs at the back of the boutique to force the customer to walk by all this season's clothing styles. The offer of free money or big prizes on the Web site in order to get the visitor's click and cookie. All four strategies above involve pyschology. It's a reality in the business world today. You've got to be able to get inside your customer's head. And not leave one empty space for your competitor! It's a race for "share of mind." Pricing is no exception. Reflect on the psychology in our guiding e-commerce statement... The perfect price is that price that maximizes your profits while building a lifetime customer through value satisfaction How do you define "value satisfaction"? By putting yourself into your customers' shoes -- simple but often ignored advice. Sometimes a vendor thinks that s/he knows what's best for the customer. Let's call it the "mothering-smothering effect." If you reverse your viewpoint by coming at it from your customer's angle, then you start to look at your product differently. (That's the funny thing about pyschology, it works on both sides of the business fence.) Price to attract those first-time customers and let the value of your product "keep" them with you for a lifetime. So where do you start? That's as easy as counting... ONE) The most common pyschological technique is to use a price that ends in any number but 0 or 1. We all know how much better 99 cents sounds than $1.00 -- and $997 in comparison to $1000. How W-I-D-E that narrow gap is to our buying ear. The customer feels like the saving is MUCH more than 3 dollars... And s/he credits that "good feeling" to you, the vendor. This effect happens even more so with the next method. TWO) "Value-bundling" gives the customer the great feeling of getting something for nothing. Here products that have a logical association with one another are grouped together and a better price is set for the combination. Value-bundling is a powerful method if the price of your bundle equals the price of the most expensive component. Yup, you know,the refrain... "I would've paid that much just for the... " Want an example? SiteSell.com value-bundled Make Your Knowledge Sell! (MYKS!) http://newsletter.easy-home-business.com/hts/myks.html to the extreme. MYKS! shows you how to find "the infoproduct within," how to create and publish it, and how to market and sell it. It's under one single "MYKS!" roof. You need *absolutely* nothing else to succeed at selling what's in your brain. If they had stopped there, the value alone would be terrific. But they didn't stop there... They added 7 more indispensable tools so MYKS! is actually "The Complete Infopreneur's Toolkit" and not just a book. THREE) 15%, 25%, 40%... how much louder that price tag seems to scream as the percentage grows. You bet, it catches the ear and eye of the customer. Use discounting to... Build existing customer loyalty. This is so easy on the Net. You can reach previous customers with a quick e-mail and offer them a price reduction on your new product. To emphasize the point, set up a special discount url for this select group (which, of course, should include your deserving affiliates.) Show your appreciation concretely. Encourage or reward bulk buying. Go beyond the obvious reduced "per unit shipping charge"... offer "three for $20" (or better, $19.95) for that $7 bottle of wine. Sure, the margin is a bit less... but your gross is much better. Your customer saves on shipping, product cost, and gets that Runder $20 psychological boost. Compete with your competitors as in the case of seasonal deals or for special markets like seniors and students. Who can turn down a good deal? Not me (at least that's what my wife says!). Discounting can be a strong tool. But it's not without its own Achilles' heel... Define your goal clearly, before you discount. Otherwise, you're just giving money away. Who can afford that? -- FOUR) The third pricing approach uses the pyschology of perception. You know that truism... Quality is in the eye of the beholder. And where does "the eye" land on the Net? That's right. On your Web site. If your site makes a great sales effort, you will be able to build a higher perceived value. And that will support a higher price for your product. It's *worth* it to the customer. This is IMPORTANT -- if you sell via the Web, one of your site's most important functions is to build perceived value. Whatever that value is, when it comes to selling on the Net... Never price beyond the value that your Web site creates and that your product supports. Not if you want to build a successful, growing, long-term business, that is. FIVE) The final strategy examines the price-sensitivity. I call it "rubber band" pyschology. Customer perception comes into play again, as well as competition on the market. If demand for your product drops when you increase the price by only 1%, you have a product that is very price-sensitive or price-elastic. If on the other hand, doubling the price only causes a slight drop, you have a price-inelastic product -- that means that it almost doesn't matter what price you charge because people will still buy it... within limits, of course. Make Your Price Sell! http://newsletter.easy-home-business.com/hts/myps.html can let you finds those limits, plus the perceived value of your product, you will be able to use a line graph to see how your product reacts to changes in the price. OK. That's it for the psychology of pricing. What's the key point? No matter what approach you use, it has to "ring true" to the customer. S/he will only be attracted to your price and product, if it's *worth* it. Written by Dr. Roberto A. Bonomi

Remember High Tech can equal High Touch

Do you remember the commercial where the sales manager handed out airline tickets because the sales staff was loosing touch with their customers? That impactful commercial typifies the fear many corporate executives have when approaching the natural extension of e-business. I believe high tech equals high touch. Here are some essential concerns to keep in mind when approaching e-business. These questions can help you focus your electronic growth so that you will humanize your e-business strategies. 1.)Today, how do you communicate on a daily with your customers? Look at your current business model and consider how you take orders. By building an online order taking process, you can offer your customers the best of both worlds with traditional and online ordering. This online extension of order taking will save your customers time and create good will toward your company. Technology can extend order taking by linking with your existing inventory control and accounting systems therefore streamlining your processes. The streamlining will reduce your customers' paperwork and cost per transaction as well as making it easier to interact with your company. 2.)What are the repeat questions your customers ask? A simple, focused web presence can head off those repetitive questions from potential customers. Yes, your are right in that you can turn face-to-face questions into a sale. You need to remember today's customers are using email and the Internet to scout potential vendors. Today buyers do their research before picking up the telephone. Online FAQ's will provide the background they are seeking so they are more informed when they contact you. This gives your sales associates an advantage. They can turn that potential call into a personal, human interaction if sales associates do not have to repeat FAQ's. 3.)How many of your customers are online and actively using e-mail? Ignore your customers and they will go away. This common phrase is a lesson in how not treat your customers. A recent study by Jupiter communications revealed that 42 percent of companies tested didn't respond to relevant email inquiries and took more than five days. If your customers are using email (and they are) then you must be ready to respond. Consider your business model. Who responds to customer inquiry? How will you handle email requests? How will they be delivered? Should you outsource? How will you track? Can you capture email for future marketing purposes? 4.)Is your product developed to customers' specifications with periodic approval? A majority of business on the Internet is conducted within an Extranet. This is a closed environment protected from general Internet traffic designed for communication with buyers. If your company is in frequent contact with the customer asking for approval at various points of product development, then an Extranet must be a consideration. You can design a system that allows your customer to view the product and give check off approval. They can view architectural designs, CAD drawings, photographs, detailed specifications, or work-in-progress. The added, and personalized bonus, is that your customer can do this at their convenience. You can call or visit but the time during that visit is spent working on the customer relationship - not order specifications. 5.)Do you cross sell or up sell when taking an order? New designs in web interfaces can deliver with the same selling dynamic. You can suggest other products during a customer search. New software even allows you to save the search. You can capture your prospects email and categorize it for future marketing efforts. For a truly personalized touch, follow up inquiries with a telephone call - or personalized email. You can ask your customers if they would like this feature - taking service to all time high. 6.)Let your customers know you are online. If you build it, they will not come. The old thought that if 'I go online, new customers will come running' is false. You need to employ new and traditional methods of marketing in order to let potential customers that you are online. A recent online company sent a simple postcard announcing their new online service - within three days of the mailing, they noticed a 65% increase in traffic. You may not see this type of increase but you need to consider all avenues of marketing to notify customers of your new service. Moving into e-business should not replace traditional methods of selling. Approach the process as an extension of your current model and look for additional opportunities to communicate to your customer. Finally, keep your customers in mind when you develop your model. As we said in the beginning, keep that concern in front and you will develop a profitable, humanized e-business.

Blame The Salesman!

As I was enjoying a beer with a longstanding friend recently, we got to reminiscing over the many good sales people (and some not so good) that we had known, individually and collectively over our long and varied sales careers.

Apart from the “Where is he now? Wonder what he’s doing?” theme that threaded its way through our conversation, we somehow alighted on the rhetorical question, “Why do some excellent sales people fail to perform with certain employers, and conversely, why do some apparently mediocre sales people achieve noteworthy success at certain times in their career?”

I’m sure the question crosses the mind of every sales manager or director at least once a day. We didn’t have a clear cut and agreed answer, of course.

We looked at each other, deep frowns on our middle aged foreheads, and attempted to answer this conundrum, dredging up all of our accumulated knowledge on the subject.

Pros and Cons
“Not enough or inappropriate training?”
“Poor motivation?”
“No aptitude?”
“Doesn’t smile enough?”
“Good listener?”
“Great closer?”
“Gets to the bottom of the customer’s needs?”
“Can’t articulate the USP?”
“Sticks to the sales process?”

As we droned on a light began to dawn as we thought deeper about our puzzle. Not a blinding flash of light, more like the gradual cranking up of a dimmer switch.

Perhaps we had been looking at the problem from the wrong point of view. It had been hardwired into our psyche. We had been indoctrinated to believe that any fault in failing to meet a sales target was singularly down to the sales person.

It must be, surely? If you failed wasn’t it a matter of attitude (must always be positive, regardless of the fact that your dearest aunt had popped her clogs that very morning), or circumstances (why, oh, why did Superspeed Logistics have to be taken over by Global Dropshippers), or territory (why did they give me Grimsby), or target (what planet are they on? This is 20% up on last year and I worked my backside off to make that) or longevity in post (Ron’s been here forever, knows all the wrinkles, and plays the system), or plain old cronyism (Ben’s always sucking up to the boss, even goes out socially with him and his missus; he gets given all the plum prospects).

They all seemed logical. They all seemed plausible. They are all only part of the story.

They are all only part of the story because we know (and you do to) that there are many exceptions to such obvious causes.

The normal process in our experience goes something like this:

Chief Executive: “We promised the market to improve our shareholder returns this coming year. Now chaps, what this means is that we have to sell more. As we all know margins on our current product range are reducing, and it will be some time before we get the new stuff on to the streets. So we need more sales of what we have. Correct, Charles?”

Finance Director: “Spot on Robert. All the projections show that we need a 20% increase over last year’s sales. That should do the trick.”

Chief Executive (looking menacingly at the Sales Director): “Any problem with that, Richard?”

Sales Director (sheepishly, fingers crossed behind his back): “Er, no. I think we can manage that.”

An over simplification, naturally. But you get the gist. Of course, for those of us sales people who have been around this particular block many times, and putting power politics aside for the moment, we all know what the problem is.

It isn’t the Chairman. He’s from a legal background and the world of selling is a complete mystery to him. But he does know that he and the business won’t survive without sales. It isn’t the Finance Director. Sales belong to that line on his spreadsheet that simply makes everything look good, or bad.

Then it must be the Sales Director (a 'he' in this case). It’s his job to ‘make the numbers’ so if he fails to do so, it’s as plain as a pikestaff where the blame lies. Plus he’s got a wife and kids and a huge mortgage to support (after all, he is a salesman). This seems like the situation on a plate of bacon and eggs - the chicken is involved but the pig is committed.

Let me explain. When businesses (either newly founded or setting their forward goals) do their business planning, the Sales Director is usually a party, but in many instances as a bit player. At some point he will be handed a figure, cast in stone, not dissimilar to the manner in which Moses received the Tablet on Mount Sinai. Except there will only be one, very visible commandment. And he won’t, I stress won’t, argue with his particular boss over whether it’s right or wrong. Trust me on this. So, he is the involved chicken in this situation.

He’ll then decide that in order to make this number he’ll need a plan. Now, our Sales Director is a very well educated and savvy man and he knows he will need a strategy in order to convince his people to climb yet another massive obstacle, higher even than the previous one which left him with a surprising number of casualties. So he has his number, he knows how many sales people he has, and he knows that his resellers can hardly be asked to provide more than a nominal increase in contribution. So his maths in theory is simple. Take the figure handed to him from on high, subtract what he feels can be contributed by his resellers, and then divide by the number of sales people. Easy! Everybody’s happy! Until a reseller goes bust, or his best sales person leaves to go to the competition, or his products are in the declining part of their lifecycle. Or motivation levels hit an all time low.

Now consider his involvement as the pig, metaphorically speaking of course. Maybe, just maybe he can get his own number accepted first. He will need to present a thoroughly researched and substantiated plan to succeed. So he builds his strategy house, but this time from the foundations up. He asks himself some telling questions, the answers to which remarkably, are often absent from the business plan.

1. Do I have an agreed, documented sales strategy? If not, why not? And if I have, is it truly connected to the organisation’s business plan and will it stay that way?

2. How well does the Management Team understand my strategy? Have I explained it to them fully?

3. Do I know what our target markets are? Have I focused my people in the most profitable areas?

4. How well does the Management Team understand our unique selling propositions in each market?

5. How is our sales revenue performing in each market? Do I know why the French love our products and the Germans won’t touch them?

6. How are our distributors/resellers/agents sales revenues performing? Are they motivated to sell our products?

7. Do I have a consistent and well understood method for setting sales targets? Do my team buy into the way I set targets?

He wisely decides to become connected to the rest of the organisation and marshal his thoughts around what will be required to impress his boss.

The problem is he is too busy with the day to day operations to do it alone.

So what is the solution?

The real person that this story is based on hired a sales improvement specialist to assist him and his Management Team. Their brief was to develop a strategic sales plan; to assess his organisation’s capability to carry out that plan; and to develop or confirm his Go To Market strategy.

So now there is science behind his number and buy in from the board (who have been actively involved in developing the plan). The Sales Director in this story now has a detailed plan to measure progress against. If things don't proceed as expected he will have an early warning, in time to identify the cause and make the necessary adjustments. Now, sales scapegoats should be the only redundancies.

Contributor Paul Chiswick FInstSMM is MD of sales improvement specialists B46 Consulting. Tel: +44 121 748 4138 paul@b46.org http://www.b46.org

Your Timing Couldn't Be Better!

Suddenly gripped with a vision of what I wanted from his company, I seized control of the conversation and asked the salesman whom I should talk to about my idea. He was startled, of course, that I was turning the tables in the middle of his presentation, but he complied.

A few calls later, I was speaking to, and pitching a guy, who after hearing my idea volunteered, “Your timing couldn’t be better!”

I love that phrase, because it symbolizes what is tremendous about selling, especially when you’re doing it, unconventionally.

When you take the initiative you literally make things happen. You create something where there was nothing. You amalgamate the most intangible things we know, a goal, a concept, your words, a telephone connection, and the next thing you know, you’re doing business with a person who was a stranger, mere seconds before.

What can be more exciting than this?

An artist, who rummages for discards and then assembles this erstwhile junk into something interesting or beautiful, is no more creative than you are, at such a moment.

The key to all of this joy and success is to be prepared to pitch anybody, at anytime.

I’m really fond of taking calls that are made to me, and injecting into them my own agendas.

There are several advantages:

(1) You can find out a lot about the company that the caller represents because salespeople are talkers and you have one on the line;

(2) As the caller’s perceived “customer,” he’s going to be more polite and patient with you as you do the Vulcan Mind Meld with him than he would be if you had actually phoned him;

(3) If you’re really persuasive, he’ll do a hot transfer on the spot, connecting you with someone who can provide even better information as well as tips for selling to the firm; and

(4) You’ll sound loose and relaxed, because you’re sailing in their wind, and you know it.

Win, lose, or draw, turning the tables is great practice, and it pumps you up.

You’ll know you’re getting pretty good at it when you start hearing, “Your timing couldn’t be better!”

Dr. Gary S. Goodman © 2006

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC's Annenberg School, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.