Love to Sell?

Professional Sales is not for everyone. It’s definitely not easy. It’s tough, demanding, depressing, full of rejection, full of stress, and many other negatives. Wonder why sooo many people try it…
Because it’s also incredibly rewarding, both financially and personally. There is nothing like competing and winning new business. The rush of acquiring a new account makes it all worthwhile. All the rejections- door slams and phone hang ups, all the long hours, all the demands from superiors to produce vanish for a brief time with a big win. Where else can you see the fruit of your efforts and be rewarded fairly quickly? It’s a great profession if you love people, love solving problems, love controlling your destiny and love to compete!
The need to compete, to bring in new business and beat the other guy, is only one of the keys. Motivation without capability just means you work your tail off. A baseball player who works hard and is motivated but lacks the raw talent and subsequent refined talent to take it to another level will eventually fail. Likewise, the player who really works on his mechanics and continually looks for ways to leverage his strengths to produce (improves capability) will probably win.
Switching sports, in football, most people would agree that Jerry Rice, the all time leader in the NFL receiving and touchdowns, had tremendous talent. People who follow football closely know that no one outworked Jerry Rice on the practice field or in training. He’s the best because he was super motivated and always working on improving his capability.To be good in sales, you have to be continually learning and refining your craft. You cannot rely on motivation or the need to compete alone.

I’m looking forward to Tuesday and Thursday this week, as I’ll be presenting tips and techniques for sales growth at the Seattle Chamber of Commerce business conference and at
the University of Washington in the entrepreneurship class. I’m sure that I’ll learn some valuable things from the people I engage with- it’s a two way street.

What I learned this week

I don’t do this often enough- take time to review my week. What did I get accomplished, what did I learn? Well, basically, a few things:
One, it sure is gratifying to do good work and people recognize the your value. I received some really great compliments and feedback this week and boy, did it feel good! Even if you’re an egotistical sort, it’s always good to get great feedback.
Two, I learned how to use the new version of Microsoft Powerpoint 2007- very cool, intuitive and a nice upgrade over the past version. I’m pretty clear about “Death By Powerpoint” so I try to incorporate a number of elements that spice things up and not overwhelm the viewer(s) with bullets. The new version makes it easy to bring in all kinds of good stuff. I do use bullets, but I’m more sensitive about the number per page and the number of words per bullet. Too many bullets and your audience will look like they were shot…ahh, that glazed eye, dead stare. Really good to see when you’re presenting… My next presentations in the coming week will be a challenge with material to be covered and the time allotment. So, people better be ready to be engaged and move fast!
Three, google is difficult to work with at times. When you sign up for a google account and add features it is really difficult to delete features that you no longer want or that you don’t use. They lock you in and their help section is not helpful. If you want to delete things, you have to close out your entire account, which for me would not be good. My sense is, that at some point as they continue to grow in influence and domination on the web, they’re going to get the same scrutiny that came upon Microsoft, but for different reasons.
Four, I got a lot of stuff done this week. Really productive on a lot of fronts. It always feels good to have a sense of accomplishment regardless of your age or position in life and business.

A few newsworthy items:
The presentations coming up: I’ll be a workshop presenter at the Seattle Chamber of Commerce Annual Half Day Small Business Conference (wow, that’s a mouthful) and will be a guest presenter at the UW School of Business Entrepreneurship program, under John Castle. Both topics will be on how to sell, grow sales, etc.
And my teleseminar series kicked off last week. I covered marketing plan basics and may do it one more time for free before my next one on building a business, with guest Mike Langhout. These are fun!
I still have seats open for my February 7th one day sales training: The Sales Conversation Process- How To Engage Prospects and Customers to Win or Walk (and not Lose); $499 investment in a power packed day.
Enjoy your weekend!

The Sales Dilemma Pt. 2

To go back to last week’s posting, let’s start with the definition of Dilemma: it’s a situation requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives. Last week I wrote about three sales dilemmas that don’t pan out, using the Win-Lose scenarios: I Win – You Lose, I Lose – You Win, and I Lose – You Lose.
The way to avoid being in a sales dilemma is to start your engagements with a Win – Win attitude. It is definitely an intentional frame of mind to go into meetings with new prospects and current customers thinking Win – Win: how can we both benefit from our work together? How can we solve a problem or develop an opportunity where we both win? This takes maturity and while it would be great that both parties have this mindset, it only takes one to get it started. So many people do not think this way that sometimes they are thrown off when you come in thinking Win – Win. “What? You mean you’re not here to screw me?” That’s just not normal in today’s world so you have to be genuinely sincere and transparent in this. The other party really has to get it that this is the real you. And, you can literally state this is your intention.
I’m a big Stephen Covey 7 Habits fan and he outlines the two Win – Win scenarios as:
(1) Win – Win: here agreements and deals are in the best interest of both parties; no one gets hurt, everyone gets the benefits they want in the relationship and trust is built. The pie is there for both of us to eat, and guess what- we might even bake more and bigger pies together.
(2) Win – Win, or No Deal: the No Deal “means that if we can’t find a solution that would benefit us both, we agree to disagree agreeably.” You both win by not doing anything, by not pursuing a deal that in the end could produce a lose for one of the parties. You walk away with trust and integrity.
So, step it up in a skeptical world and be the initiator of a Win – Win mindset. In the long run, you’ll be better for it.

The Sales Dilemma

Here’s one definition of Dilemma: it’s a situation requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives. What are three sales dilemmas that you can find yourself in? Ah, we go straight to the Win vs. Lose scenarios and that’s where you find them:
1) Win-Lose: this may seem good if you’re the Win side of the equation, because you’re going to get your sale, earn your commission and add to your own pocketbook. But, ultimately it breeds contempt and resentment on the side of the Lose person who feels they had to make a deal or make a choice and it’s not ideal. In fact, it could be downright devastating. This is akin to winning is everything, especially at the expense of the other person. One example of this is when the buyer has no choice- they’re in trouble, they must buy your product/service, and you ream them (higher price than normal, extra fees, service charges, etc.). Not really a good thing in the long run is it? Especially since buyers have long memories…
2) Lose-Win: just the opposite, only this time as the sales person you are on the wrong end of the stick. The pressure is on, you have to make a sale, you make a great presentation and you get used or even abused. The buyer takes all of your good ideas, your best thinking and prices and deliberately farms it out to your competitors. You’re quoting a fair price and yet to get the deal you have to give away more and do it for less. Now you feel resentful and just maybe, you won’t do all the little things or anything extra to make certain the product or service delivery is perfect. If the buyer missed a point or two you won’t be so inclined to help them out- after all, you got used. Again, this is not good…for anyone, in the short run or long run.
3) Lose-Lose: and last but not least, you both lose. Oh, great, no one wins here and everyone is tee’d off. This can happen when both parties lose trust in the other’s ability to do something they thought they’d agreed on. One example would be a contract to provide services for a complicated project with a large major account. You bust your butt and try do everything right but the client keeps changing his mind or others on the client’s team step in and change the ground rules (hey, this is called internal politics- just love it….NOT) or they keep losing sight of what is to be accomplished. Whatever, your finished project, which you diligently moved forward on fails to meet their needs. They don’t pay, they’re unhappy, you’re unhappy, both of you will never recommend the other. No trust, no endorsements, hughe waste of time. Definitely not good.
The way out: WIN-WIN or WIN-WIN-OR NO DEAL. I’ll address that next time.

The Business of Business- simple

Sometimes I get a real kick out of people who try to make a mountain out of a molehill. Take business, for example. I’m not sure of the exact statistics, but here are some that are close enough for this commentary: 60% of all businesses in the U.S. are small business and probably 70% or more are privately held. These businesses contribute at least 40% of the GDP. So, small businesses are pretty important and they are very relevant. Most are also very uncomplicated. In fact, there are a lot of ‘larger’ small businesses and mid-cap businesses that are not complicated and are straightforward in their business models.

So, what do countless books and consultants(of which I am one) often do? They introduce all kinds of grand concepts and complicated models for businesses to implement and adhere to. I think they actually cloud the simplicity of most businesses. I went to a marketing talk today- a nice noon hour session on marketing by a creditable person. In general, this person kept things pretty simple, but there were the usual charts and graphs and bullet points which taken together didn’t really bring forth any new thinking and for many of the people probably confused them- too much info!

Business, whether for profit or non-profit, is pretty simple: produce a product or service and sell it for more than it costs you to make. Control your sales revenues, keep an eye on product and/or service costs related to the product or service you sell, look for ways to decrease your other costs- your overhead. People are going to buy your product or service if they perceive it to solve their problem at a price point (value) they can justify. That means it has to be a quality product as defined by them. You have to help other people’s businesses with solutions that drive their top line sales revenues or eliminate costs in their organization. Your job is to get really good at promoting your business, prospecting to a target market and the closing a sale through high sales competency. That’s it. Basic stuff. Increase sales, cut costs. No charts and graphs needed.

For sure, the more complicated a business is, the more detail is needed into how to do all this. But, for the majority of businesses in this country, good old blocking and tackling is what is needed.