Selling Tips

Times are tough for sales professionals everywhere. Customers are slashing budgets, shuffling business priorities, reorganizing internal responsibilities and avoiding almost every unnecessary risk. Today’s business climate has many prospects running scared and spending time with a salesperson is not exactly at the top of anyone’s list.

So what can you do to increase your chances of sales success in this turbulent economy?

Hint: The answer is right there in your mirror. That’s right. . . it’s YOU!

It’s easy to blame the weak financial markets, the relentless competition or even the boss’s unwillingness to negotiate as primary reasons for your lack of success. Hiding behind these excuses is simple and painless. But unfortunately it also creates the perfect environment to start losing your edge. Given enough time, you’ll find yourself turning into a serial deal killer.

Here’s a quick countdown of the four worst “selling” crimes being committed today and some practical advice on how you can avoid them.

Crime #4 – Assuming “no” when you really don’t “know”

Stop assuming they won’t take your call, agree to an appointment or do business with you. Too many reps simply give up because they don’t hear back from prospects right away. They throw proposal after proposal out the door and then lose interest in following up because they get distracted chasing the next opportunity.

Please understand that I’m not giving you license to become a pest, but I am encouraging you to become more persistent. Quit making decisions for your prospects and move forward the remainder of this year with a relentless “go for no” attitude. Sure you’ll face a little more rejection, but that helps clean out your funnel and forces you to focus on the right opportunities. I know it hurts to lose, but you can’t lose what you don’t have. And you just might be surprised how many times you’ll hear a “yes” if you’re willing to stay engaged.

Crime #3 – Talking too much

Many sales people get hired because the have the infamous “gift of gab.” There is a pretty good chance that you’ve worked with someone who loved nothing better than the sound of their voice. These reps are great at telling stories, but they struggle to connect and create deeper dialogue with prospects and customers.

Many customers are being asked to do more with less today. Spending time with an overly friendly (see all chatty) sales rep isn’t a priority, it’s a liability.

Being able to clearly and succinctly articulate a compelling story is vital to your success. Your goal is to be brief, be bright and then be gone.

Before you make your next call, ask yourself; why, given all of the competitive alternatives available, should this prospect want to do business with me right now?

Crime #2 – Failing to ask for commitment

One of the major reasons reps don’t get the business is because they hesitate to ask for it. Don’t focus on the outcome, focus on the process. If you’ve done the right things in the right way, it becomes your professional responsibility to be assertive.

When should you close? Early and often! Asking for little commitments along the way makes asking for the final commitment much easier. Plus you’ll quickly learn how realistic the opportunity is. Customers who are unwilling to make small commitments along the way are going to be even less enthusiastic about making a bigger commitment later on.

Crime #1 – Purposely (or mistakenly) using less than adequate skills

If you’re going to sell more every year, you need to get better every year. Sales people who think they’re done learning are usually just done. And that’s OK if your closing question is “Do you want fries with that?”

There is an abundance of sales books, tele-seminars, podcasts, webinars, and sales training programs available today. What are you waiting for?

So where should you focus? Start by honestly answering a few of these questions.

-How much preparation are you putting into each call?

-Are the questions you ask thought provoking or mind numbing?

-How valuable are your ideas (i.e. would prospects pay for them?)

-What are the top three obstacles that prevent deals from closing?

-How do you clearly and concisely address these obstacles?

-What are you doing every week to help build better relationships?

Make a commitment right now to sharpen some of your selling skills. I’m confident it will help you win more opportunities and create more success!

It takes courage to admit you could be a better sales rep and confidence to believe you can change; it takes nothing to create excuses.

Speaking of Sales is about finding, winning and keeping customers for life. If that’s part of your job, then you won’t want to miss the next issue.

EyesOnSales.com

Truely funny and worth sharing. We’ve all had to sit through endless and boring slide show presentations. They always seem to be the same: lame opening joke, long boring quote, wry comments. This awesome PSA is out to get you to forget the old boring slide shows and learn a new way to effectively communicate with your audience!

Making a presentation interesting is an art form, and unfortunately, very few people can do it right.  What are some of the worst presentations you’ve ever had to sit though?  What are some traits of the best? Have you ever felt like their presenter?

Great Job – Tripp and Tyler. http://habitudesforcommunicators.com
Created by Tripp and Tyler — @trippcrosby @tylerstanton

EyesOnSales.com

This week we’re taking a look at the National Association of Realtors’ sweeping statistical correction. If you can’t trust the NAR’s statistics on home sales, who can you trust?

Plenty of folks.

• First, mortgage market giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spin off bushels of statistics from their mortgage databases. They even offer a handy home-price calculator by metropolitan market (more than 300 of ‘em!) so you can see how your home value has changed. (This provides a useful tool for pricing your home and defending that price with appraisers and to buyers when negotiating.)  
• Second, mortgage-processing giant FNC also lists home-price data.  
• The Case-Shiller index tracks the monthly change in home values for 20 major metro areas.  
• Local property records – available through your county recorder of deeds or property records office – contain nuggest of data about what neighboring houses sold for, that provide context for the value of your own home. In fact, some real estate economists recommended that property records become the NAR’s ongoing source for its data.  
• It’s smart to take even local agent-generated results with a grain of salt. Last summer, an Illinois multiple listing service was caught with sloppy numbers.

Your best bet: rely on numbers from government and industry analyst sources. Key links are in the ForSaleByOwner.com Pricing Guide.

ForSaleByOwner.com: Blog

For years, the National Association of Realtors statistical reports had been drifting out of touch with reality. Finally, under increasing pressure from critics, on Dec. 21, the NAR released a sweeping statistical correction: from 2007 to 2010, an average of 14% fewer houses actually sold, compared to prior NAR reporting.

This week’s ForSaleByOwner.com blogs will parse some of the details in the NAR’s report, explored more fully in our Education section.
The NAR downplayed it statistical missteps by emphasizing the corrected statistics were national, and of course, real estate markets are local. But that overlooks one major point: local markets compare their strength to the national norm, and that directly affects the decisions made by homeowners as to whether or not they should sell. Critics around the country have called on the NAR to tidy up its statistical reports going forward.

The NAR managed to blame a supposed undercount of by-owner sales as one factor for its data headaches. But the real issue is that the NAR’s definition of a ‘by owner’ sale does not reflect what a ‘by owner’ sale really is. If you put your house on your local multiple listing service or on Realtor.com through ForSaleByOwner.com, and handled every other aspect of your sale on your own, the NAR still counts your sale as ‘by agent,’ because an agent was paid a small flat fee to pass through your listing to the MLS.

By the NAR’s definition, the only marketing options that are truly ‘by owner’ are yard signs and local classifieds. But as smart home sellers know, there is a wide spectrum of services that they can tap into while still steering their sale themselves – ‘by owner.’

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor alvimann.

ForSaleByOwner.com: Blog

When a sales team (or salesperson) is making quota, you don’t hear excuses like:

• “Cold calling doesn’t work”
• “Prospects don’t respond to voicemails”
• “Gatekeepers won’t let me speak to the decision maker”
• “No one has any money right now. Budgets are frozen”
• “Our pricing is too high / our competitors pricing is better”
• “The leads are old and have been called 100’s of times” etc.

But when we are failing to reach our goals, and the pressure to identify and correct the situation get’s turned up, its often all too easy to start making (and believing) excuses. And that is an unhealthy environment for everyone involved.

Excuses Keep You Where You Are. Solutions MOVE You to Where You Want to Be.

There are two options when dealing with failure:

1. We can make excuses to justify the reason for failure… Or…
2. We can look at the problem and use it as a “map” that will help lead us to the resolution for solving the roadblock that is keeping us from reaching our goals.

Example: Problem > Not Making Quota

Question: Why aren’t we hitting our numbers?

Answer: Well, for one, we leave lots of voicemails and get very few callbacks. It’s hard close deals when no one calls you back!

Choice:

Option 1: Excuse: “No one listens to or returns cold call messages anymore”

Option 2: Ask yourself “why aren’t my voicemails being returned and how can I solve that?”

Going with option 1 keeps us where we are: Unsatisfactory number of callbacks with no hope of improvement.

Where as option 2 would allow us to investigate how to solve the problem, which would help us get to where we want to go.

Example:

• Do I have a consistent message, designed to pique interest and entice a callback with a valid reason, prepared well in advance? Or do I put on the “Captain Wing It” cape and say whatever comes to mind or feels right at the moment?
• When was the last time I recorded my voicemail message and played it back?
• How can I change my message to improve my callback %?
• When was the last time I role-played with my peers in order to get constructive criticism?

Excuses rob us of happiness, pride and the ability to reach our potential. They also take away our accountability. And without accountability, destructive behaviors run rampant.

Definition of ex·cuse

VERB: Attempt to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offense); seek to defend or justify.

If we continue to justify our failings, how will we ever achieve our goals?

Don’t accept excuses from yourself (or anyone else for that matter). Only accept solutions and watch how quickly your situation goes from “failing” to “winning”.

Hope this helps.

EyesOnSales.com

I am often asked just what it is that makes a highly successful and effective sales team — what differentiates them from an average one?

Actually, the answer is simpler than you might imagine — all roads lead back to the leader!

The role of a sales leader is to translate the organisation’s vision, mission and values into a meaningful context that sales teams can relate to and feel excited by. If this is achieved then the sales leader will have created a sales team with a shared mental model. This transforms an ordinary sales team into a high performing one.

For clarity, here is a brief description of the following terms:

An organization’s vision is a guiding image of success formed in terms of a huge goal. It is a description in words that conjures up a picture of the organization’s destination. A compelling vision will stretch expectations, aspirations, and performance. Without that powerful, attractive, valuable vision, why bother?

A mission statement communicates the essence of an organisation to its stakeholders and customers, and failure to clearly state and communicate an organisation’s mission can have harmful consequences around its purpose.

As Lewis Caroll, through the words of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland says, “If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Guiding principles are the consequence of a mission statement that are intended to inform or shape all subsequent decision-making, which also provides normative criteria allowing policy-makers to accept, reject or modify policy interventions and activities. They are a guiding set of ideas that are articulated, understood and supported by the organisation’s workforce.

Values are beliefs which the organization’s workforce hold in common and endeavor to put into practice. The values guide their performance and the decisions that are taken. Ideally, an individual’s personal values will align with the spoken and unspoken values of the organization. By developing a written statement of the values of the organization, individuals have a chance to contribute to the articulation of these values, as well as to evaluate how well their personal values and motivation match those of the organization.

The “Human Capital Development Model,” created by Krauthammer International, is a logical process that can take top management concepts, and translate them into a context that has real meaning for staff at all levels.

The key to bringing this model to life is to answer the following questions:

• Do my team understand the organization’s vision and how their role moves the organization closer to achieving it?
• How can my sales team translate the organization’s mission into one that is relevant to them?
• How does the organization’s guiding principles impact on the day-to-day responsibilities of sales people?
• Which of the organization’s values does my sales team relate to?
• How can we interpret these values so they become compelling for each sales person?

An effective sales team understands the big picture and the context of their team’s work to the greatest degree possible. That includes understanding the relevance of their job and how it impacts the effectiveness of others and the overall team effort.

Too often, sales people are asked to work on an activity without being told how their role contributes to organization’s vision, much less how their efforts are impacting the ability of others to do their work. Understanding the organization’s vision promotes collaboration, increases commitment and improves quality.

An effective team works collaboratively and with a keen awareness of interdependency.

Collaboration and a solid sense of interdependency in a team will defuse blaming behavior and stimulate opportunities for learning and improvement.

Without this sense of interdependency in responsibility and reward, blaming behaviors can occur which will quickly erode team effectiveness and morale.

EyesOnSales.com

In 1776, the colonists in the British American Colonies were unhappy. So unhappy, that they formed a Continental Congress which suggested Declaring Independence from Great Britain. 56 men signed the document, and in doing so publicly announced that they were declaring treason on Great Britain.

That is bold.

Most of them lost their families and many lost their fortunes, largely because of that decision and the decisions that followed.

That is bold.

But none were bolder than John Hancock, who signed his name largely and proudly on that document — a signature that became so famous that his name is now used to denote a signature in the United States.

Bold. 

I could site other historical examples, but I cite Hancock because today is the anniversary of his birth.

Today, much is made, correctly I might add, of the leader who strives for consensus, who engages his employees, who, it could be said, leads from the group. There is great value in these leadership talents and behaviors, yet they led to a potential risk as well.

When all decisions are made or confirmed in meetings, when everyone has a say in every situation, you will almost always get safe, conventional, traditional decisions. You won’t get boldness.

Someone has to say, “Enough negotiating, we need to declare independence.”

Someone has to say, “We aren’t going to make a better horse carriage, we are going to make an automobile.”

Someone has to say, “People will want the internet on their phone.”

Someone has to say, “It is time for a new direction, a new vision, it’s time for something bold.”

This is a part of the leader’s role. If you aren’t willing or feel unable to make a bold statement of vision or to decide on a new course of action, you aren’t leading.

Does that mean the best leader is an autocrat, relying solely on their own vision, bombastically making bold decisions every day?

Not at all.

Salt makes your food taste better, but that doesn’t mean you keep putting more of it on (at least if you want to eat the food).

Boldness must be included in your leadership style and approach, and it will be most effective and valued when it is a balanced part of who you are as a leader.

Ways to exercise your boldness are for another day and another article. For today, consider these five questions:

What was my last bold act, decision or statement as a leader?

When was that?

How comfortable was I with that action?

What results came from it?

What do my answers to those questions teach me about my future?

And finally, for today, consider Mr. Hancock, who was not only willing to sign, but sign proudly, largely, and boldly.

What bold thing will you do today?

EyesOnSales.com

Last fall’s lift in home sales has just delivered an unexpected side effect: remodeling is off to a surprisingly strong start to 2012.

The Harvard Joint Center on Housing tracks remodeling activity, and today released its latest report, documenting the uptick. JCH attributes this to the high number of lower-end houses sold in late 2011. Those houses apparently needed work, and now. Investors, who have been buying distressed houses wholesale, aren’t wasting any time fixing up those properties so they can be rented or resold.

Here’s what that means for you:

• If you are thinking of buying a run down or foreclosed property (which may harbor nasty surprises that need to fixed pronto), you will probably be competing for the best contractors. That will add time to your schedule and money to your budget.
• If you want to do a bit of remodeling to your current house with the aim of selling it soon, higher costs will directly affect how much equity you will get out of the transaction. Consider ways to offset the remodeling costs, such as cutting back on the cost of the transaction itself.
• Prioritize your projects so you get the most return at resale.
• Organize your work so you have a short, clear to-do list. With more work lined up, contractors will be less likely to come back and tackle additional tasks you add to the original job.

ForSaleByOwner.com: Blog

In a perfect world, every email we send to a potential client would be read and responded to right away. Unfortunately, many of our prospects are too busy to even look at all the messages they receive, much less act on them.

By avoiding the most common mistakes other people make, savvy sellers like you can move their way to the top of the inbox, and fill their sales funnels with new leads.

In fact, Sheila, one of our clients, recently reported that she got a response from a top prospect after only 20 seconds — and this after she’d tried to reach him by cold calling for weeks! She was shocked by how only a few tweaks to her prospecting email got such a quick response.

You can get the same results simply by remembering the three biggest reasons prospects ignore your emails — and then avoiding them.

1. They never got your email in the first place.

   With the sheer number of unwanted email messages most of us receive, it’s no surprise that spam filters are becoming more and more aggressive. Messages with attachments (especially large ones), lots of links, extensive marketing graphics, and other gimmicks aren’t likely to make it to the recipient’s inbox in the first place. Keep your prospecting emails simple and image free, even in your email signature. They’ll have a lot easier time making it past SPAM traps and junk filters.

2. You didn’t give prospects a strong enough reason to take action.

   Hard as it is to believe, few people care that your company has a long track record of success. Prospects are too focused on their own problems and issues to bother with any of that. Keep this in mind and use your email message to emphasize common issues and triggering events you can solve that really matter to your customers and prospects. Make them want to engage with you! The point isn’t to tell them more about you. It’s to give them a strong enough reason to begin a sales conversation.

3. It seemed like too much to deal with at the moment.

   In “The Glimpse Factor”, I pointed out that you have three seconds — or less — to convince a prospect that they want to read your email, and that it won’t take up more time than they’ve got at the moment. Your goal is to make your email not just sound compelling, but also look easy to act on. The easier it is, the more likely your prospect will read the first sentence, and then dive in to continue and respond to yo

If your email is more than three paragraphs long, asks your prospect to fill out a lengthy registration form, or otherwise seems like something that’s going to take them away from what they were thinking about, then the chances are good they aren’t going to bother.

Your contacts are already too busy. Give them a clear specific call to action that you’d like them to take after they read your email. Reply. Call. Click here. Register.

Tell them what you want them to do using a simple sentence. Then make sure that what you’ve asked them to do doesn’t take more than a moment or two.

Even following these steps, you might never achieve a 100% response rate on your prospecting email campaigns. If you can take the time to incorporate these tips into what you do, however, I promise you’ll see an enormous improvement just like Sheila.

Derek, another seller who switched up his email approach using these steps, got a 61% response rate on his email lead generation campaign. In just a few days, his biggest problem went from needing more leads to finding the time to respond to all of them. Now that’s a problem many sales reps would like to have!

So take my advice and don’t fall for these three common email prospecting traps. Once you avoid them, you’ll start seeing significantly better results — both in your sales pipeline and your prospect’s attention.

EyesOnSales.com

Have you ever known anyone to simply wake up one morning, grab a cup of coffee and decide, “Today I am going to go spend $ 50,000 on a car, boat, stock, trip or home…”? No one in their right mind makes high value purchases like these spontaneously. They spend time researching and then look for a salesperson to help them with the selection process, and, finally, with price. Think about it, how long did it take to buy your first house?

Traditional sales methods have always focused on closing the sale, NOW. As a result, many opportunities feel pressured and uncomfortable with the salesperson, and by default, with the business or store, and they leave. Buyers become shoppers and the business loses opportunities to create long-term clientele who will return time and again. The question becomes, “is your business or store seeking to do business or simply to do business NOW?” What is the goal? The answer should be, “to build clientele that will return and shop repeatedly, not simply to close a quick sale NOW.” Keep in mind that if a client doesn’t do business with you NOW it doesn’t mean he won’t do business with you later.

A serious misconception in the sales world is that business must be transacted immediately – NOW. As a result, sales professionals – many of whom really know better – repel customers by peppering them with questions, ultimately ending with “What would it take to buy the product NOW?” No matter how hard the push is to buy NOW, the result is the same: if it is not the right product for the customer, nothing will make them buy, not even price. In the sales world, there is only one true definition of NOW. It’s when the customer is ready to buy and take the product home.

All successful sales are made up of three elements:

1. Helping customers select the right product that meets their needs, wants and desires
2. Earning their business by creating an experience that makes customers feel like they are at the right business and working with the right salesperson
3. The right price

Let’s apply this to customers shopping in a clothing store. If an outfit is appealing, a customer takes it to the fitting room and tries it on. If the look, feel and fit are right, then the customer considers price. Price often is the last consideration for something that fits right and looks good.

It is the same with virtually any sale: a customer is interested in the appropriate product, the right features and fit, and then the price. NOW, that artificial sense of immediacy has nothing to do with the sale. It has no place in the sales process and is an impediment more than an aid.

The question becomes: Is your business looking to do business or simply looking to do business NOW? When an opportunity walks in, the goal should be to develop, gain and then retain their business. Whether they buy today or NOW, next week or next month doesn’t matter. What matters is that they buy, that they buy from you and that they do so repeatedly.

If buyers choose to consider their purchase, it is imperative that the salesperson gain enough information before the buyer leaves to maintain contact, especially in the first 72 hours after the visit.

1. Minimally, the salesperson should collect and record standard, detailed data; find the right product for the customer and present the best possible deal before they leave.
2. Then, they must develop and execute a follow-up plan designed to bring the opportunity back to close the sale, as well as to extend sales opportunities and build the relationship. Not only does this approach enable the salesperson to get the sale, but it also positions him or her to convert a customer to a client and to generate additional revenue and referral sales.

Creating Lasting Relationships

Of lost sales opportunities that leave a business without completing a transaction, 91% never receive a follow-up call or letter from the business, according to a J.D. Power study. That’s nearly 100%, meaning salespeople are almost perfect at not following up. The biggest sales opportunity for every salesperson is picking up “lost” sales.

Smart sales teams view 100% of all opportunities that come to a business as buyers, even if they leave. Both the sales staff and store management must leverage established processes to develop follow-up plans for every opportunity based on their needs, wants, desires and other information gathered during their first visit. As new information becomes available that may help close a transaction based on collected information, sales teams should contact the opportunity and bring them back to the store.

Automated systems give management the ability to check the status of every opportunity at any time. This ability ensures that “hot” opportunities won’t turn cold. For example, it may be the store’s policy that each salesperson sends an e-mail and/or letter within 24-hours of the visit, the manager makes a follow-up call the next day, and the salesperson makes a confirmation call to set up a second visit within 48 hours. From the minute the opportunity leaves, the 72-hour clock begins to tick.

The Le Creuset cookware outlet store in the City of Industry, California has this process mastered – unfortunately, it is not commonplace throughout the chain. Within 24 hours of a visit, each opportunity receives a thank you note, whether or not they have purchased. When items go on sale, the salespeople email or call their customers and clients, offer to set aside specific pieces and arrange a time to personally help them make final selections. When opportunities return they are greeted by name and won over as customers. Often recipes are shared that work well with their previous or current purchases.

Once an opportunity is moved to a customer, the salesperson can develop a communication plan designed to build trust, convert him or her to a client and make incremental sales. Focusing on doing business and creating long-term clients can be a simple process if businesses and their sales teams adopt these basic practices:

1. Collect and record standardized, detailed data for every opportunity.
2. Present all the reasons why the opportunity should buy from the business.
3. Leverage technology to develop a follow-up action plan designed to bring the opportunity back and close the sale.
4. Focus on relationship building with existing customers with a goal of converting them to clients and generating additional revenue and referral sales.
5. Always leave the door open so that you can create a “Be-Back;” always give the customer a reason to return. Don’t “slam” the door.

EyesOnSales.com