marketing

You Wouldn’t Think…

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You wouldn’t think you’d get farther by doing things that feel weird or counterintuitive to sales, but you will.

  • You wouldn’t think you’d get farther by asking “Can you help me?” vs. “Can you tell me?” but you will.  People like to help people more than they like to serve people.

 

  • You wouldn’t think you’d get farther by fumbling your voicemail message than by delivering it perfectly, but you will.  People like real imperfect people more than real perfect people.

 

  • You wouldn’t think you’d get farther by not trying to close on every call vs. saying “Let me walk away and think about this” but you will.  People like people who listen and think more than they like people who just listen and solve.

 

  • You wouldn’t think you’d get farther by saying “Thank you for your business” vs. “Is there anything else I can help you with today?” but you will.  People more than ever; remember being appreciated rather than the check to see if their wallet was still open.

 

  • You wouldn’t think you’d get farther having a catalogue, a brochure or a handwritten letter in your tool belt vs. just landing pages, links and emails, but you will.  People like to do more than just surf sometimes; people also like to swim.

 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

A New Sales Model

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Have a new sales model for you.  Don’t fall asleep just yet, you should care about this.  It’s simple but different.   Different is good.  

A sales model for our purposes here is the process or the steps you take to make a sale.   The process you trust, the process you live by.   Sales models are important; they are a roadmap so to speak, of how to do what you want to do, which is of course, to grow the business.  

You use sales models all the time.  Want to go out on a date with someone?  Here is an age old popular model to get that done.

Prepare / Search / Impress / Close

First you go and Prepare (look sharp, take a shower that day (you can do it!) then go Search ( scope out the lounge, the beach, the bake sale – whatever) then Impress ( sound wicked funny/ smart/ nice and get your favorite pick up lines ready like “Excuse me do you have a tissue? I was just listening to Susan Boyle on my IPod“) and finally the Close (“I have a hankering to watch The Notebook again, would you like to join me?”)

Traditional Sales models have been around forever too.  A typical sales model is something like:

Rapport /Discovery / Present / Close.

That is to develop a connection, ask good questions, make a product offer and then close the sale.  You get it. 

I don’t much like the traditional sales models.  Not for us.  Not for anyone really, but especially not for us. 

Here is a new sales model

Time / Trust / Create Need / Discover / Advocate / Close / Support 

Looks complicated?  It’s not.  Don’t worry about the last 4 here (discovery, advocate, close, support), those are traditional and something to detail another day.  Just think about the first 3; Time, Trust & Create Need, those are the “New” in this sales model versus traditional ones.  

The New Sales Model is front loaded like never before.  It needs to be. 

The very beginning of any sales process has been underwritten and underplayed for 50 years.  Getting attention, earning the right to talk with or market to folks wasn’t like then what it is today.  It’s different now; how you really start or really begin is the most important part of the sales process.  Do that well, superbly well and the rest of the sales process is easy.   That’s why we need to change the traditional model.

Dig up any sales training or sales models from today or yesteryear and you’ll find almost nothing on getting salespeople to see TIME as a critical commodity that must be purchased from the prospect before anything happens.

Search Google and look for all the TRUST training and theory out there for sales forces of the world; you’ll find some for sure, but mostly you’ll find a lot of superficial blather about “building rapport” or “forming relationships”.  Used to be a hearty handshake or some smart product knowledge or “my office is down the street” was trust enough to get the sales process started.  No more.  Nobody’s company has that kind of infallibility anymore.   It’s take a lot more and a lot different now to earn the Trust you need today.

Instead of CREATE NEED help, you’ll find a gazillion sales theories and courseware around “finding needs” or “finding pain points”.  It’s as if the prospects and customers of the world are walking about “injured”, “lost” or “clueless” about themselves anxiously waiting for a company or sales rep to come in diagnose and prescribe medication to fix the pain.   I don’t think so. 

Sales Theory in large part is not keeping up with the times.    Much else is different in the marketplace than when some of the biggies rolled out their iconic sales models (companies like Wilson Learning, Dale Carnegie, Huthwaite and the like).  What’s changed?

    Everybody has gotten smarter; your customers in a couple of clicks can get a lot more info and now need a sales rep to be smarter than them in different places, in more Trusted places.

    It’s harder to be unique.  Companies are changing and entering new spaces but consumers still have lots of choices (more than ever) for a provider.  It’s like Malcolm Gladwell in his book Blink who said essentially that “if given too many choices, then nothing happens”.   Create Need my friends.

    Used to be you could be assured your customer “listened” to you, now they are in control.  Their Time and attention is precious and they know it- YOU know it.   Marketing is changing radically to respect this; Salespeople need to too.

This model is your map to better success.    This model needs our attention, our rallying around, our design and planning around.

Old sales models are for old companies and old sales reps in old marketplaces.   Don’t believe for a minute we are old.  Nope, we’re new, brand new.   We have to be. 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Want more fodder for thinking about the new model?   Take note..

  • Seth Godin gets totally the “time” piece of the model; so read his book Permission Marketing. 
  • Gitomer and Steven Covey Jr. (the son, not that father) get the “trust” piece fairly well so have a gander at Trust by Gitomer and Speed of Trust by Covey Jr. 
  • Lastly go here  http://www.icrinc.com/web/videoportfolio.php  Scroll down to Easton Bell Sports who essentially base their sales philosophy on “creating need”.  Love it 

Forest Quandaries

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“If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it really make a sound?”

I get the riddle, I really do.  But I honestly don’t care much about the darned tree and if it makes even so much as a peep.

I do have some things in that forest I do care about though.  You should too. 

  • If you completely rebrand yourself but there is no one there to notice, does it really make a difference?  Think hard about inviting more people into the forest.

 

  • If you spend hours learning about a product but no customer ever asks you a question about it, will you ever sell anything? Grab some stump and tell somebody what you know in an interesting way.  

 

  • If you spend time to get smarter or stronger but never feel a bit stretched or sore, will you ever be either smarter or stronger?  Lift some heavier deadwood.

 

  • If you want to live in the best tree in the forest but never have a plan to find it, will you ever be so lucky to stumble upon it?  Get a knife and carve out a plan.

 

  • If you post a blog in the forest and there is no one there to read it, does it really matter?  Write something so interesting that people care to hike in once in a while. 

 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

These Bags Should Not Fly Free

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The airlines have a message for you.  Just leave your bags at home or you’re going to feel some pain.  And I think they got this one right.  Maybe we should start charging for bringing bags to work.

Better still, here are 5 bags Sales and Marketing Leaders should just leave at home.

  1. The bag of Costumes:  Too often sales and marketing leaders cover themselves with consultants or brand names to hide inadequacies or lack of confidence.  Work hard on finding the right answers, not buying them and then hiding behind them.
  2. The bag of Old Shoes:  Sorry, but your experience in closing techniques or dealing with objections is pretty worthless today. It’s the beginning of the sales process that is woefully under focused on today.   Leave that 80’s leather at home.
  3. The bag of “Best Employee / Best Practices” Manuals:   Problem with this belief is that the best employees of today are often great at Interruption Selling or Interruption Marketing which will be dead in about 5 years.  Bury that in the yard.
  4. The bag of Infinite Prospects:  The world is smaller now and if you try to bring the bag of dreams that there are thousands or millions of untouched virgin prospects; you’re wrong.  Pay your $25 dollars and bring the bag of Investing Differently in Current Customers.
  5. The bag that Won’t Fit:  You might be brilliant, you might be the answer.  But if you never take a moment to embrace a culture, a department, a division or a team ( even for just a few weeks),  before you try and change it, you’ll never quite fit.

 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Easy Still Needs To Get Easier

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Fax machines ain’t dead yet.   Especially in small businesses.  But of course it’s not the machine itself that matters; it’s what it still does really well that does.   I got a neat lesson about that not long ago.  

Last month I had the luck of sharing lunch with one of our operations leaders while on a visit to our Canadian facility.    He had just conducted a tour of his area that morning and was animatedly recounting the response he gave to the question about why there is still a healthy volume of faxed orders from small businesses.

“Here’s why…” he said and deftly picked up an imaginary order form, proceeded to circle an imaginary box, write in an imaginary quantity and then stick it into an imaginary fax machine. Done.

Sweet.  Simple.  Quaint even.  So Easy.

And that is the point.   For a small business, it is easier (and sometimes a heck of a lot easier) to stick with the old than go with the new “Easier Ways”.

Let’s take an online reorder of a product.  Maybe it’s new name plates, or business cards or truck parts or whatever.   And think about the online ordering process experience from just about any company.

In this typical small business you’ve got to find a computer you can use to place this order (it’s not like everyone at a small business has one readily available)…. open up a Browser….find the Vendor…. get past the “Sell” area landing page and find the Existing Customer area (you know up at the top right somewhere…. in the tiny print)….. find that Sign in button….. Enter Email address…. Login name… remember or dig for, the darned Password….. Place the order…. Verify…. Validate…. etc etc.  Is it simple? Yes, for some.

But some find it “easier” to grab the reorder form that was mailed to them, circle a spot, write in the quantity and fax it. 

Others find it easier still, to remember nothing at all other than the bloody company name, pick up the phone, talk to a human and place a reorder.  

This isn’t a knock on web plays for small business; this is a reminder that “Making it Easier” is a critical factor for small businesses.  And always will be.

Warrilow (a leading researcher of small business) often reminds us that the majority of small businesses are not early adopters of technology but I’d contend that is as much about how easy (or not)  something new is to do versus how easy it is to do today as anything else- especially for small business.

So two easy questions to ask yourself when you are trying to provide support and solutions for your small business customer;

  • How can your recommendation “make things easier” than the current product and/or supplier in use today?  Write down those answers for your favorite products and embed them in your contacts and conversations.

 

  • Is the reason a SB won’t budge or buy really because the solution will require “more work” on the clients’ part than they do today? (Even if just in the transition?)  If yes, remove the work!   Invest in whatever it takes to do this; the return you get versus price obsession or proving ROI will be significant.

 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Quit Worrying About Sales

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Quit worrying about making sales, sales people.

Quit worrying about the sales results, marketing people.

Quit worrying about sales performance at all, leaders of any type.

Just stop.   

Sales are not the issue here.  Meaningful Conversations are the issue.  We don’t have enough of them.

  • Worry more about that in the 81 customers you spoke with today, you only had 9 meaningful conversations; conversations about helping them solve a problem or to make things better or something.  Move that meaningful conversation number to 19 a day and more sales will follow.
  • Worry more about the 43  Voicemail messages you leave everyday and that maybe just 3 customers on average ever returns your darn call.   Work on making those voicemails more compelling and interesting and get those returned calls to 10 and more sales will follow. 
  • Worry more about how to entice a customer to hear (just hear! not buy anything) about how your company is different or better or smarter than the competition.  Worry about that and worry hard, and more sales will follow.
  • Worry more about how and which ways to get meaningful conversations going customers than worrying about all the tracking sheets, the coaching conversations, the sales huddles, the campaigns, the contact plans and the emails largely focused on you and “where you are with the numbers” and “where you need to be”.  Instead of worrying about the what, worry about the how and sales will follow.
  • Worry more about fixing “the wrong problem” for if you do fix it –  it is the absolute worst thing any person or organization can do.  Fixing the wrong problem ( “I need sales!”) results in sales that cancel in a month and litter the prospecting landscape with your bad name and arm twisting tactics.   Sales is the “wrong problem” to worry about people, it really is.  

Meaningful Conversations on the contrary, are well worth your worry and mine.  

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

6 To Ponder

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These 6 questions are rarely ever posed as questions.  Everyone just presumes what the answers are.   That in itself is questionable.

Bring these questions into your next staff meeting or into your next business building brainstorming session or hell, just print em’ off and bring them to bar after work with some of your colleagues.

Discuss these questions.   Questionable stuff these questions are and they need some good answers.   Take your time, they’re biggies.

  1. Almost everyone says the key to Sales is “Listening”.   But what good is being a great listener if you can’t get your customer to truly talk to you?  And really, isn’t that the bigger problem these days? 
  2. If your Mantra is “Sell, Sell, Sell!” but you spend 90% of your day teaching and preaching only to efficiencies and work habits, should you change your Mantra or change your approach?  
  3. Isn’t it true that overcoming customer objections is the least of our worries compared to not having enough true customer objections to begin with?  
  4. When will the Content quality of Social Media become more important than the fact that media has become more social? 
  5. Instead of leaders trying to get people to be really good at 5 different skills at work; what if we created just more opportunities for them to do what they do well?  Wouldn’t we all be more successful?  
  6. Do we really think we can train tone, empathy, enthusiasm and sincerity in a training class?  Isn’t that like trying to train someone to be intelligent?

You’ve got some strong feelings on the answers or have more questions to ponder I bet.  We’re all ears.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

10 Bold Sales Predictions

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I keep having these visions of the very near future.   And if you want to rule the sales world, it would help if you knew what was coming.

Get ready. 

 

  1. Knowledgeable sales people will be less valuable:  Instead the sales people whose expertise in communication skills and customer experience skills will rule the sales world.   It won’t be what or how much a sales person knows that matters much anymore.   Customers and prospects can get so much product knowledge and specs with a wee bit of research online so when they talk to you and work with you in the future, you’ve got to blow them away. 
  2. Salesperson Reputation Management will be a must.  That CEO will Google a lot more than your company and will look for you on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn before she agrees to meet with you.  Best to remove the silly ball cap off your head in the photo next to your posts.  Cold calling?  Got thru to the decision maker?  Well in the future, he’s reading your twitter posts inside a minute while you’re trying to set an appointment with him.  Best to make sure he’s not reading your opinion of Miley Cyrus.
  3. The DIY (Do It Yourself) play will be DOA.  In B2B selling, Do It For Me (DIFM) will be the lead story again.  Businesses who early adopted the DIY way ranging from services like do it yourself online marketing products to HR software products are not near the bulk of the populace.  Sales organizations who get that a customer wants a “Help me get this done from A to Z” approach will be sales organizations that do the best. 
  4. Research Customer history? Not so much. Knowing a single customer’s history with you will be less and less valuable.  If we are honest, a client’s individual history has been a poor predictor of future tastes and buying motives anyway, so don’t obsess over CRM enhancements.   Instead, get obsessed with tapping into like customer industry market trends and as Wayne Gretzky says, make sure you “skate to where the puck will be”, not where it is, (or worse, where it was). 
  5. Readers Wanted:  Hiring sales people who don’t spend any of their own time self developing or let’s face it even reading will be over.  The sales arena methods, processes and tools are more fluid than ever.  Sales folks who wait to be spoon fed development just won’t make it anymore. 
  6. Hunters and Farmers will fade away:  But there will be Builders.  Client loyalty continues to wane.  Nothing like the worst recession since the 30’s to shake customer trust too with everyone including suppliers.  The Builder sales person will scout new locations to drive leads in new and different ways for sure but they also need to lay the foundations and stick around long enough to cultivate the clients.   Do It For Me lasts well past signing on the dotted line and hand offs in a low trust world will be sales killers. 
  7. Micro Networking will be your edge.  Associations, BNI and Trade Shows will still be around but it’ll be a mention of you in a blog or a connection in LinkedIn that will get you that meeting with the CEO.   These micro networks are a direct response of low levels of trust in the marketplace and it’s in these relatively tiny networks that sales people will flourish.
  8. Trust and Credibility training will grow.  Sales people and sales organizations will heavily invest in content that will focus on building trust.  Dollars will be siphoned away from negotiation skills, discovery skills, questioning skills and closing skills.  Good.  The sales challenges of the future will be creating enough credibility to first be heard. 
  9. Pay to Play Appointments will be the norm.   It’s happening already.  Used to be incentives were the tools to close sales.  In the future it will be just as common to use incentives to get appointments: to be heard.  Customers know in media drenched world; that their time is valuable; their attention is valuable and you’ll need to pay for it. 
  10.  The Gap between Sales and Marketing will close.  Company brand, integration, integrity and touch points are growing in importance and volume.  Sales will need to become a consistent extension of Marketing and Marketing will need to rely more heavily on the humans to create and manage the brand.

 

That’s what I’m seeing.  What do you see?

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

WWSBD?

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What Would Small Business Do? 

Sometimes the best advice to get more sales comes from the very customers you sell to.  

And I bet some of us sell and support Small Businesses.   Small Businesses are great teachers.

Let’s say a small business has a chance to have a very strong sales finish to this month, a chance to deliver results like never before.   Maybe you or your sales folks are in the same boat.

And let’s say it’s a big deal for this small business. The pressure is on.   Maybe their bank needs to see some strong performance before they’ll agree to extend more credit the business needs.  Maybe this small business is trying to attract investors as the owner knows he wants to open 2 more locations.  Maybe this small business is just trying to prove to itself and its employees that they are going to make it out of this recession healthy and strong.

We could learn a lot from what a small business would do with this opportunity.  Heck we have a business to run and sales to make this month too.

What Would Small Business Do? 

All Hands on Deck:  Grandma made the trip down from Maine to work the prep tables.  The high school kids got out of school last week (thank god) so they are both here to help at the lunch counter.  For us it’s simple; Be here.  Be present.  If you have folks who do the training, the accounting and the marketing, whatever- get them out and into the store and on the floor or in the field: everyone needs to focus on getting the cash register to ring.  Do whatever you can do.

Be Extra Nice and Extra Helpful:  “Pay attention to everyone that walks in today!  Smile, offer to help, make eye contact!  Don’t let anyone back out that door without saying hello!” the owner said before the small men’s clothing store opened.  You see he knows this week is a week you can’t just “wait” for sales to come to you, you have to make them happen.  For us, it’s the same.   Smile on that phone.  Listen real closely.  Get those calls before they sit for even a second in queue and don’t you dare let a voicemail go unreturned for more than an hour!   Amp up your “thank you’s”, your apologies, your energy, your tone and your passion.  Make it happen; don’t wait for it.

Have a Special:  Cousin Billy always has the good ideas so he went out front and changed the sidewalk sign to an auto detailing offer good for only this week.   That’ll draw them in!   You have to get creative and get attention sometimes to nail those dollars late in the game.  For us at we have those “specials” all the time; – tons of them.  It’s up to us though to get that sense of urgency out about them. “The month is almost over for this one so I’d recommend….”, “I don’t usually see this kind of offer, so my advice is to take advantage of it…”.  You get the idea; make this week, this month, a big deal for the specials you have going. 

Work Harder:  This family owned shop knows a lot about this already but this week they know it’s going to have to be at another level.  They’ll stay later and restock the shelves of this little grocery outlet every night instead of every other.  They’ll get in earlier and rather than wait till July, set up the outside produce display this week and maybe attract a few more folks to stop in.   For us at  working hard isn’t new but this week we know that that 40th  incoming call has to sound to the customer, like it’s your first call if you want to make a difference.  We know making 10 more outbound calls from 4:30-5:30pm than usually do or 3 more customer visits per day this week could make the difference.  We understand it’s a full court press of effort and yeah, it’s gonna be exhausting.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

The Devil’s Claw

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I was shocked.  I was thrilled.   And then, I was completely ticked off. 

I’ve had this puzzle for almost a year.   It’s called the Devil’s Claw.  

You can get these at any Barnes and Noble and this one is rated “Challenging”.   The key is to get the darned thing apart into the two pieces.  I’ve tried.  My wife has tried, my daughter has tried,  my son had tried, my son’s friend has tried, unsuspecting party goers and holiday revelers have tried as I’ve begged many to just “ give it a go” and figure out a way to get the Devil’s claw apart.   

I like the puzzle.

It represents something too, this puzzle.  It must be defeated because well, it just has to be.  Hanayama, the company that makes the puzzle, specializes in recreating these puzzles from the 19th century and knows that there are thousands of people like you and me who need this type of challenge.     We tackle puzzles every day at work, but we sometimes want  more.  

At exactly 9:47 pm, I was sitting in the Man Cave (yep, I got one of those).   The Discovery channel was on (something about submarines), the laptop open and email up, a Bud Lite nearby too close to empty and as I was apt to have,  the Devil’s Claw was in my hands.

And……then…..

It came apart.  One piece in my left hand ….and one piece in my right hand. 

I was shocked.  I was thrilled.   And then, I was completely ticked off.   

I jumped to my feet.   Finally, after so much time had passed, I had defeated the Devil’s Claw.    The only problem was, as I began to head upstairs to exclaim to my wife that I had conquered the devil himself,  I realized that I had no idea how I did it.   I had taken it apart but had no idea how.  None. 

That was not good.  That was really not good.  That made me angry.  And then as I paused, it made me realize how often this happens.

I wanted to share how had succeeded.  I needed to share how I succeeded.  I actually needed to know how I did it.

When you succeed today at work, perhaps landing a colossal sale, are you absolutely sure how you did it?   Do you know exactly what steps you took, what process, what angles, what words, what perspective you took to make that success happen?

What exactly was the way in which you were able to take your Devil’s Claw apart?  When your colleagues, boss or spouse ask “How did you do it?”   Can you respond in a specific way?

You need to.  And often, too often, it isn’t easily explained.

Over the years, I have heard many success stories, so many difficult yet successful stories in which a sale was made, a solution solved, a customer indebted for life to you because of what you did.   And over the years, the how is often lost.

The how gets buried in the “It was magical, they ended up buying the whole suite!” or the “I just went with it” or the dreaded “because I’m a good salesperson.”  The how is forgotten.

Even the “I kept probing until I discovered” or “I wouldn’t take “no” for and answer” or the “I just knew we had what they needed” is akin to that playing mindlessly as I did with the Devil’s Claw in my lap and having it fall apart in my hands.

Success without knowing how, is not success, it is Random Achievement.  Random Achievement isn’t something you or I want.  What we want is success that we can understand and explain.  Success that is understood in minute detail is repeatable and wonderful.

Every manager, sales leader or marketer out there should be asking the questions of the successful salesperson about that successful sale and exactly what happened.   Don’t settle for the vague answers or the generalizations.  Salespeople who are successful may or may not be aware of how they accomplished the feat; (I know that years ago as a salesperson, it took me time before I was consciously aware of how I succeeded).  Your job as a leader is to delve deep into that space and “CSI” the event giving the salesperson and the respective populace the recipe for achieving this specific success. 

Random Achievement is great at the time, but it is no longer random when it falls identifiably upon people with some consistency.   The Devil’s Claw for me was a Random Achievement.   It did not have to be.  I’ve been working on that puzzle for nearly a year. 

Watch closely.  Watch how.   

I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday and got two more puzzles, both more difficult supposedly than the one I unknowingly conquered.  

The devil made me do it.   But this time, I’ll be watching. 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark