training

From The Red Book

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I carry a little red book around with me.  I write things in there that I like, I hate, I worry about or get excited about.  I bet you all have a little book or notepad too.

I looked through it over the weekend.   These strike me as things I want to write more about, support or rail against, or just plain share and do something more with. 

How about you?

  • I hate that human condition that drives online business reviews. Have a problem and you rant online no matter how little the issue.  Skews everything. Totally unfair.

 

  • I doesn’t matter much if you have the newest tools or software on your desk (like a new CRM for example) if you have no desire to change your routine or results to begin with. 

 

  • Listening is cool.  But If you can’t get your client to talk to you, what the heck is there to listen to?

 

  • Coaching is hard.  Coaching to stats, processes and order entry is easy vs. coaching to communication, selling and service skills.  That latter will grow the business and former will give you the chance to do it.   

 

  • It’s only a matter of time before what’s credible on the internet matters more than that something is in fact, on the internet.  And that time is very soon.

 

  • Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN and all the rest haven’t changed us.  We have always loved, and needed a network of engaged, trusted friends and colleagues.   That need has always been there; it’s the tools that keep changing.

 

  • Glen Garry Glen Ross is simply the greatest sales movie ever and is Jack Lemmon’s best performance. The language is rough but the Mamet writing is priceless.

 

  • Ever notice on Mad Men how they have to sit the prospects down in the 60’s and explain in detail what marketing and advertising is in order to sell it?  Well we gotta do the same thing somehow these days when we sell online marketing.  It’s still kinda foreign to people.

 

  • Service Reps have the most satisfying job in the world.  You pros here know what I am talking about.

 

  • Open ended questions are so overrated unless you have some trust established; otherwise it’s just offensive. 

 

  • Adult learning theory continues to be disproved over and over again as weak.  It’s about “what” is being trained that matters, not the learning “style” of folks. ( Just as I suspected :))

 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

An Heartfelt Letter From Your Headset

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Dear Sweetie,

It’s about to get real busy again, so I wanted to write you this letter now.  

You and I don’t talk as much as we used to (at least not to each other).  Maybe it’s because I get up into your hair sometimes and am literally in your face all day, but our love feels like it’s waning.

I’ve been noticing some things and just need to get them off my padding before we settle in for our next push together to grow our business.  We’ve had great run together so far this year baby and I want it to continue.

I feel like I am in one ear and not the other.  And I’m not liking this trend.   A lot of the time I’m just hugging your right ear while the rest of me that should be on your left ear,  is dangling in your split ends.    I guess you do that so you can hear better the conversations of your friends or the Twitter feed or whatever.   But I like hugging you baby.   All of you.   Put me back on both of your ears and I think you’ll do better at your job too.   I can help you focus.

I’ve noticed your wandering eye.   Resist the One Eared ones dear.  Those headsets are trouble.  Oh sure, they dance around looking all sleek and sporty with that single ear “come hither” look.  I’ve seen some too that prance around without cords going brazenly wireless but they are bad news.  Don’t dump me for one of those honey, that just sends the wrong message all around.  You have got to listen and listen real good when talking with folks on the phone; that’s how we’re going to grow the business.  I’ve seen you staring at those One Eared ones though.  And while you can look; you cannot touch. 

You don’t show me a good time so much anymore.   My microphone has hit the monitors at least six times this year and you must remember the two times I got caught in the keyboard your head was so smashed up against the displays.   There used to be a time when talking to folks that you’d spin us around and look out the window or at the plants nearby.  Good times.    Seems you always had better and smarter conversations too when you weren’t obsessing with what’s on that darn desktop.   I want those days back love muffin, I really do.

You don’t smile at me as much lately.  When we first met you smiled and laughed a lot.   Sure, the job is hard but I miss your smile schnookems.  Smile on purpose and keep it fresh.  Heck, I’ve got hair gel, food crumbs and who knows what else encrusted on me ( which reminds me I could use a good cleaning) but everyday I try and make my sounds as fresh and clear as a daisy for you.    You have great smile and a great laugh and it may be the 50th person we’ve talked to today and we’re both tired, but heck,  being happy and positive is why I fell for you in the first place.

I don’t mean to sound all negative.  I don’t.   I feel so connected to you sweetie.  We are a great team.  Let’s buckle in.   The closer we get the stronger we’ll be.  Let’s work hard on keeping the magic alive.

With all my love,

Headset

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Assume He’s Earned It

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That moment stayed with me all week while vacationing in Maine for a few days last week. 

He shuffled slowly, eyes riveted on the beach, his elbow tended by his middle aged daughter as he made his way to a table at the ocean front restaurant. 

He looked well into his 80’s or even into his 90’s, and I had a passing thought that maybe this beach was just one of many he’d seen in a lifetime as a civilian and perhaps as a Serviceman.

But it was what the younger gentleman dining alone said that struck me.  He broke from eating, stood and pulled out a chair for the elderly man and when the daughter mouthed “Thank you” the single diner said  “He’s earned it.”

“He sure has” the daughter beamed. 

The lone diner had no idea what this man had done to “earn it” and nor did I.  But the point is that there was an assumption that he had.

Giving help this lone diner so simply reminded me, was something not given out of pity or helplessness or ignorance or obligation but rather, out of assumed respect for the person. 

That’s a lesson we need to hear more of it seems to me.  There are some assumptions we need to change.

I grow worried that in business (and elsewhere in our lives) there’s a “prove to me” perspective too many of us take when meeting or working with people for the first time.  That we as sales people and managers and trainers sometimes approach prospects and existing customers, as well as new and veteran employees,  as people that need to earn the chance to be “worthy” of our time, our work, our humbleness and our help. That the help we give is a magnanimous gift on our part vs. help being given simply because it has already been earned.

It’s not that the old man in Maine may have served our country or done something great to “earn it”. Who the heck knows what he’s done but the presumption should be more often than not, that we are privileged to help people vs. the other way around.

  • Assume before calling on this prospect that she isn’t inexperienced just because her business is new but rather that she’s a 20 year business veteran now branching out on her own.   Assume that and you’ll do all the research required before you visit or call and be in a far better position to provide real help.
  •  Assume that this new hire class has collective sales experience like no other class before (as in this economy without a doubt they do).  Assume that and giving the “What Sales is Really All About” speech might change to real help in the form of a selling workshop fostering discussion about how to sell in a sketchy economy.
  •  Assume that the owner you are talking to also does most of the selling for his company.  Assume that and slamming in 4 product pitches or 3 trail closes isn’t the help you’ll give today. 

 

You can add your own new assumptions about each member of your staff or the customers in the territory you just inherited or the leader you now report to.  Just make sure the assumptions are that they’ve already “earned it” because chances are they have.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Know Surprise

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Surprises are cool. Surprises stick. Surprises set you apart.

You know the value of surprises don’t you?  I’ve seen a few cool surprises recently.

  • When this doctor’s office gets your call that you’ll miss your appt but then sends an employee out to you (and your broken down car) a mile from the office just to keep you company while you wait for a tow truck and then drives you home; that’s a surprise.

 

  • When the Tweet comes out with “Here’s a free e-book with 50 ways to build a social network” and the next day,  “Here’s 50 ways to be a sales rock star” and this is all good stuff with no strings attached and there is nothing you could even buy from this guy if you wanted to, that’s a surprise.

 

  • When Sal, the Nashua, NH  furniture sales rep here, sends you a handwritten note a week after a sale stating it was “nice to meet you and Mary and little Billy”, even that’s a surprise.

 

These surprises happened to real people I know personally just over the last two weeks.  Surprises are powerful. Surprises get your attention. How are you surprising your customers?

Here are 5 surprises I bet small businesses would love:

  • Send a Thanksgiving card to 50 of your best customers. Whether you work for a big company or for yourself, do it on your dime and on your time.  Nobody expects Thanksgiving cards in business but be thankful; these customers help you feed your kids.

 

  • 4 hours after a small business places an order with you, call back and say “I had a minute and wanted to say thank you again for your business today, we really appreciate it”.  And then, hang up.

 

  • Send training or sales or marketing tips to your clients.  They train, they sell, and they market too so they’ll appreciate it even if they only buy widgets from you.

 

  • Give your last name right at the start of any interaction and spell it for the client, prospect or dissatisfied customer. You’d be surprised how surprisingly welcome that is for folks and how rarely it really happens.

 

  • Connect via video when talking with a client, or arrange for a Saturday or Sunday presentation when the owner is in office and things are a little quieter, or just text everything back and forth cuz’ you know she does not want to take up the business phone line while talking with you.

 
Some surprises are surprisingly easy to do, others take a little more work but you get the idea; Surprises rock. Surprises differentiate. Surprises grow the business.

Get to know surprises well.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Going Soft

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Soft data gets a bad rap.

 

“I’m not so sure, that report is full of soft data.”

“That Training is soft skills training; I need Training that is going to make a difference”.

I’ve heard those two phrases more times than I care to remember (including hearing myself say them a few times over the years).

The problem with the word “soft” is that in some cases it’s perceived as negative; that “soft” stuff is less important than some of the “harder” stuff. 

The longer I look around though, the more I realize I haven’t always thought of that right.

  • Hard data is great, except when you missed the soft data that is often customer opinion, employee engagement, social media perceptions and the next cable network pundit’s nasty opinion about your brand.
  •  Hard skills like system knowledge, order entry, product knowledge and compliance training are great, except when the soft skills like negotiation skills, engagement skills, sales skills, coaching skills and customer service skills disappear or take such a back seat,  that they never get trained.

We are all guilty of trying to make soft data and soft skills “harder” by trying to quantify them; assigning numbers, equations and decimal points to “soft” stuff in an effort to make it more like the hard stuff.

Problem might be that we are just not comfortable or confident with “gray”; and that we want, like the hard skills and hard data, for things to be more easily measurable and more black and white.  

But there are few wildly successful sales people whose soft skills are not often the differentiator in customer relationships.  And there are fewer superstar entrepreneurs, consultants, customer service reps, managers, teachers & marketers who don’t absolutely rock with soft skills or even in the use of soft data to get the job done.

So maybe, just maybe, the next time someone says to you “You’re going soft”, you should just say “Thank you”.

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 

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

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