Can a networking group help build your business?  Probably – if you do it right.

One of the biggest opportunities – and one of the biggest challenges – to salespeople is the networking club (or referral group, or whatever yours chooses to call itself).  It’s a great opportunity because, structured correctly, a networking group can be a great source of leads, referrals, and even new customers.  It’s a challenge because each networking group can be its own little minefield of do’s, don’ts, and cultures that predate you and are likely to post-date you.

Have no fear.  Most networking groups can be a great source of business, referrals, and even knowledge. I’ve been a member of one for over six years now, and the membership of this club greatly aided me in the critical first few years of the startup phase.  Still, even in this club, I see members who waste opportunities and leave disillusioned.  So, the purpose of this article is to help you maximize the opportunities inherent in your networking clubs – or know when it’s time to leave.

Assess the culture:  Every networking group has its own culture.  Fortunately, nearly every networking group will allow you to attend at least one meeting (most will allow two or three) before you must either join or exit.  Use those “try out” meetings to get to know as many members as you can.  Ask good questions about how the club views pursuing referrals and selling to other members (business reciprocity).  Some groups (for instance, some Rotary clubs) frown on overt business networking within membership; others are formed specifically for that purpose.  And yes, I know that Rotary was originally formed for that purpose as well, but some clubs have gotten away from it.  You should also understand the membership makeup – is it primarily owners, managers, and decision makers, or is it primarily other salespeople?  That will greatly impact your ability to do business with the companies represented.  Salespeople tend to be great at referring anyone but their own companies (though there are exceptions).

Reach out when you join:  One of the best things I did when I joined my breakfast club was that I sat down and created a letter to each of the members describing what I do, and then sent it out.  My phone didn’t exactly ring off the hook, but it did ring – and two of those rings led to checks in hand.  That wouldn’t have happened had I not sent the letters, making it well worth the effort.  Somehow, when you join a club, I encourage you to broadcast to each member who you are, what you do, and how you help your customers.  You may not get any response, but you will plant a seed.  Additionally, some clubs allow new members to speak to the group about their business for an extended period of time.  Always take advantage of this!  I got three more clients from my first talk to the group, and have always gotten more clients with every talk (which reminds me that it’s about time to schedule another).

Target Members:  Let’s face it; not every member will be a great referral partner or even customer for you.  Get a membership guide as soon as you can (if you can get it before joining, do; this will help you assess the group), and pick out those members that have the right synergies.  In the early stages, focus your energies on developing relationships with those members and pursuing referral opportunities.  In my experience, early success within clubs is critical to long term membership success, so work to make the most of early opportunities.

Be there:  If there’s any step that separates the winners from the losers in the networking club sweepstakes, it’s simple attendance and visibility.  If you don’t go to the meetings and functions, the other members can’t get to know you, and if they can’t get to know you, they won’t do business with you.  Go to as many functions as possible.  Another tip – in some clubs, people end up sitting at the same tables each week with the same people.  Don’t be that guy, at least not in the early stages of your membership.  Move around the room and get to know as many people as possible.

Understand what a networking club really does:  I see a lot of people who leave various clubs frustrated and unfulfilled.  Much of the time, this is due to a basic misunderstanding of the nature of networking clubs.  Networking clubs exist to create relationships and opportunities.  It’s your job to capitalize on them.  For instance, my networking club has “business reciprocity” as one of its missions. Nowhere does it say “mandatory business reciprocity.”  Sometimes a member will throw a tantrum and leave because a member bought from a competitor outside the club.  It happens.  It’s happened to me, in fact, and yes, it’s frustrating.  Ultimately, however, a customer made a determination that another service provider was a better “fit,” and that will happen regardless.  Think of the networking club like the table-setters at a buffet dinner.  They’ll put the plates and silverware out, but it’s your job to go get the food.

Know when to leave and why:  Sometimes, it just doesn’t work out.  I’ve been in clubs where everyone had the best of intentions and the opportunities still didn’t happen.  That’s life and that’s selling.  My recommendation is that, when you join a club, you should commit to being a very active and engaged member for at least six months before making a determination regarding its usefulness to you.  You might still leave the club – I’ve left clubs before – but you’ll at least make an educated decision and know that you gave it your best shot.  And hopefully you’ll at least end up with lasting friendships along the way.

Are you putting things in the way of your relationship with your customer?

I don’t have a ghostwriter.  Until I listened to another author’s Webinar yesterday, I didn’t know how uncommon that is; an incredible amount of well-known authors (Tom Clancy was mentioned, for instance) have ghostwriters.  Even more have ghost bloggers, Tweeters, etc.  I suppose my Twitter account would have a lot more activity if I did, but I don’t, and there’s one simple reason.  I don’t want anyone else getting in the way of the relationship I have with you.  My words, my thoughts, my ideas, straight from me to you. That may not always be pretty, but rest assured that when you read something with my name on it, I wrote it.

I feel the same way about what I call “Sales words.”  Sales words are words, or phrases, that you never hear outside of the sales conversation, that are usually spoken by salespeople who don’t know anything else to say, and that can come between you and your customer – just like a ghostwriter could come between you and me.  They come between you and your customer because a good sales call feels like a normal conversation with a friend – and then the sales words jump in and remind the customer, “Hey, you’re dealing with a salesperson here!”  I’ll never forget the first time I learned this lesson.

I was 22 years old and selling cars.  I had a customer come in looking at new Thunderbirds.  He was a car guy, I was a car guy, and we immediately established a great rapport.  The sale was going great – he test drove the car, loved it.  We got back to the dealership and I whipped out one of those handy-dandy phrases I’d been taught in car selling school:  “So, Mr. Customer, how can I earn your business today?”

The customer looked like I’d just whacked him with a wet towel.  He said, “Thanks.”  I asked him what for, and he said, “For reminding me that I was dealing with a car salesman.  I thought I was just talking to a regular guy like me.”  His defenses went up, and he girded for a fight in the closing office.  Well, a fight it was, and it ended without a victory – he went away without buying, and I lost the sale.  To this day, I’m convinced that if I’d just asked him to buy the damn car, he’d have bought easily.

You see, “earn your business” is one of those cheesy phrases that is essentially meaningless, is only heard in conversation with salespeople, and is designed to mask the real meaning – “do you want to buy?” It’s a fear based phrase used when salespeople are scared to ask the real question.  And customers have been trained to recognize it.  The only times I’ve used that phrase since are when I’m training people on what NOT to do.  But it’s far from the only “sales word” combination that is used in selling – and take it from me, if you’re using them, they’re hurting you.

Earn Your Business means that I want you to buy, I’m probably willing to discount to beat the band, and I’m too chicken to ask you to buy.

Substituting Paperwork or Agreement for Contract means that I’m just insulting my customer’s intelligence.  They know a contract when they see it.

Same with substituting Investment for Cost or Price.  That’s not just cheese; that’s moldy Cheez Whiz.

I want the last shot at the price means that the price I just gave you means nothing; it also calls into question the credibility of everything that I’ve just said.

Bid means that I expect you to have multiple vendors, even if you haven’t thought of that.

All of these phrases interrupt, and worse, get between, a natural comfortable dialogue between you and your customer.  That’s bad.  There are more, of course; I covered a lot of them in my book, Sell Like You Mean It!, and I’ll be covering a bunch more in my new book.  Here are a couple of general rules, though, if you want to eliminate sales words from your vocabulary:

Any word or phrase designed to disguise the true meaning of what you’re saying is something you shouldn’t say.  Euphemisms are deadly in sales.

Any word or phrase that doesn’t feel like part of natural conversation should be eliminated.  If it doesn’t feel natural to you, it won’t feel natural to the customer.

Once upon a time, in the industrial laundry business, I had a sales manager who was convinced that there was a magic list of words that, if he taught them to us, would win every sale.  Debriefs with this guy were frustrating because if you lost the sale, you first had to go through the ‘word interrogation’ – “Did you say this?  Did you say that?”

The truth is that there are no magic words in sales that will win the sale, and don’t let anyone tell you that there are.  Learning the customer’s needs, matching your products with those needs in a comfortable and natural dialogue, and asking (and yes, even persuading) the customer to buy, are the things that lead to sales success.

Do you really know who your toughest competitor is?

They say, “Pride Goeth Before a Fall.”  Well, in business, the statement that most often “goeth” before failure is, “I don’t have any competition.”  I heard that statement just the other night.

I was exhibiting at the Greater Kansas City Small Business Candidates’ Expo (I’ve been nominated for Small Business of the Year for the fifth straight year) on Thursday evening, and a woman came up to my table and remarked on my book title:  Sell Like You Mean It: Outselling Your Competitors by Understanding Your Customers.  “I guess I don’t need that, because I don’t have any competitors,” she said.  “Of course you do,” I replied.  While she was momentarily taken aback, she went on to explain the uniqueness of her product.  Her problem was obvious.  She had confused uniqueness in her market spacewith lack of competition.  The truth is that even uniqueness in your market space doesn’t help you with your toughest competitor – but I will.

Your toughest competition – in any business, with any set of customers – is the status quo.  In other words, doing nothing.  I asked the lady that approached my table if her product was mandated amongst her targeted customer base.  “No, of course not,” she replied.  I then explained that her toughest competition was for her customers to simply not buy her product; i.e. to do nothing.  I then smiled and told her that my book might do her some good after all.

The status quo is the first bridge we all have to cross as salespeople, and most often the toughest. There’s a simple reason why:  Sticking with the status quo requires nothing from your prospect, and entails no risk.  This is also why the power to say “no” is virtually unlimited within most companies, but the power to say “yes” is closely held.  “No” is perceived as an effortless and risk-free answer – even when it’s really not.

Although I’m representing the status quo as a single force, it can actually take three forms in your prospect’s mind:

The current service or product provider:  If you’re selling a product that your customer is already buying from someone else, the current provider represents the status quo.  Their desire is simple:  They want to keep the business (the same business you’re trying to take away).  To do so, they will be assuring your prospect that they are doing everything that is needed by the customer – and if not, they’re willing to add functions.

To win this sale, you have to do one of two things:  Either prove (and by proving, I mean gain agreement from the prospect) that there are significant weaknesses and issues in the current program – or prove (ditto) that even though there aren’t significant weaknesses, that your offering has enough advantages over the current system to justify the work involved with change.

Internal Personnel:  This comes up most often if you’re trying to sell outsourcing of a service that the prospect is currently handling themselves.  One of the biggest fears of the decision maker is that internal employees will be displaced.  This can be a very powerful force – do not underestimate it.  Loyalty to internal employees can overcome significant potential advantages of outsourcing.  Meanwhile, the internal personnel are working to persuade your decision maker that they can handle everything more efficiently and cheaper in-house.

Winning this sale takes some significant salesmanship.  First, (as with the first example) you must demonstrate significant advantages to outsourcing.  Second, you may even have to work to prevent internal job loss by helping your prospect find other – and better – uses for those employees.  This is where a lot of salespeople will say, “Hey, that’s not my job!”  No problem – then it’s not your sale.

Finally, the biggest and strongest component of the status quo is the Decision Maker’s Resistance to Change.  This is a very human quality, and we all have it.  How strong it is depends on the individual, and is something that you should be figuring out as the sale progresses.  How married, mentally, is the decision maker to the current system?  More importantly, was the decision maker the person who chose the current system, or did he/she inherit it?  This can have big implications for your ability to sell. Essentially, the decision maker will be telling himself, “Everything is fine as is.  Or if there are problems, they are not so significant as to require a new purchase.”

Winning this sale means overcoming this resistance to change by helping the customer live in the new and better world of your solution.  Your questions and statements should focus on the advantages of your purchase, and be geared to showing your decision maker what his/her life would be like after the purchase.  You should not, however, focus on making the current system seem like a bad decision; you’ll be insulting the decision maker.

Understanding that option #1 for your customer is simply to do nothing is key to being able to sell successfully, even when you are unique in your marketplace.  The truth is that the only companies that have no competition are governments and tax agencies – other than that, we all compete.  And if you’re not prepared to do so, you have a high chance of failure.

If Facebook can’t get a handle on social media business, what can we do?

Look, I really hate to seem like a stick in the mud.  I really do.  But I guess sometimes I can’t help it.  And I guess that’s my image on social media.  Unlike a lot of other sales consultants, I’m not in love with social media as a prospect generation tool, particularly for B2B applications.  There are a lot of reasons why, but I think my viewpoint has just been reinforced.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks (cue the Geico commercial), you’ve heard about the Facebook IPO fiasco.  Perhaps the most hyped IPO in years hit with a big thud – early investors that bought at the $38 per share IPO price took a loss.  They’re still losing, too; the stock dropped another 2.25% today to close at $28.19 per share.  Everyone is running wild blaming Morgan Stanley, Wall Street in general, the media, Facebook, and perhaps even Justin Timberlake.  But there’s a more fundamental problem that tells us a lot about social media’s role in our businesses.

That fundamental problem was discovered by General Motors, who withdrew a $10 million per year advertising program the week before the IPO, saying that it “had not generated results.”  Frankly, this is what I hear from the majority of people who participate heavily in social media; they are unable to trace significant results to their efforts.

Ultimately, the Facebook IPO crashed because even Facebook hasn’t figured out how to make money on Facebook.  GM’s decision meant the removal of a significant revenue stream; it was one of their top customers if not their top customer overall.  And if Facebook can’t make money on Facebook, do the rest of us stand a chance?  Maybe…and maybe not.  For those of us who would like to use social media platforms like Facebook as well as Twitter and LinkedIn to generate new prospects, there are some potentially big issues.

The biggest issue for those of us in B2B selling is that the people to whom we need to sell, and the biggest consumers of social media, are often not the same people.  Virtually every sales trainer will tell you that your role is to sell to the decision maker.  Typically that’s the person in the corner office.  But how many corner-office occupants are watching Facebook or Twitter to select their vendors?  If you’re having a hard time imagining that, so am I.

Compounding this is the fact that social media is a proactive-opt-in platform; i.e. prospects need to make a conscious decision to follow, friend, link, or like you.  To do so, they must become aware of you.  How do you target your social media efforts to reach the right people?  Outside of LinkedIn, there’s no platform that allows for this.

Further, there may be a deeper problem with using social media for business.  Social media is inherentlysocial; meaning that most people use it for personal enjoyment and developing their social relationships. There are some analysts – it was referred to in the GM announcement – that suggest that social media consumers actively reject commercial messages in their Facebook or Twitter feeds.

Here’s the truth:  I’m aware of a lot of people who claim to be able to tell you how to make money on social media.  However, I don’t know of any business owner who claims to make good money from social media – other than the people teaching it.  Even Jeffrey Gitomer began 2011 saying that he was going to figure out how to monetize social media, and tell his readers.  He opened 2012 saying that he had retained a consultant to help him figure out how to monetize social media.

I’m not saying not to use social media – I’m saying, as I’ve said for two years, that if you want to be successful, don’t replace your conventional prospecting methods yet.  That’s a path to failure.  Instead, use social media as an augmentation and an image-builder.

And let’s see if Facebook figures out the business side of social media, shall we?

Are you important to your customer – or are you just a time waster?

I spend a lot of time talking about what is important to the customer.  Today, I’d like to shift gears and talk about who is important to your customer.  Is it you?  Or is it your boss?  The engineers?  Technical staff? Production?  Or someone else?

This came to mind as I was working with a client last week.  The client had a fairly new salesperson who had to fire an unprofitable customer, and was having trouble doing so.  The owner of the company, with the best of intentions, told the salesperson (who was not exactly brimming with self-confidence) to tell the customer that it was his decision to fire them, and not hers.  Now the customer doesn’t seem to believe that they have actually been fired.  Why not?  It’s simple, and I’ll tell you.

The customer won’t accept the decision because he didn’t get to talk to the admitted decision maker.  By telling the customer that the ‘boss’ made the decision, the salesperson completely disempowered herself and made herself look small and unimportant to the customer.  The decision to fire the customer was the right one; the circumstances made them not only unprofitable but difficult.  But the decision not to have the salesperson ‘own’ the decision made it so that the customer didn’t accept the firing.

I’ve been there before.  I once had to fire a customer in an industrial sales job that I had.  I had to do so because they were unprofitable and weren’t making my company any money – which is to say that they weren’t making ME any money for the inordinate amount of time I spent with them.  My boss made the same offer to me (blame him).  Instead, I looked the customer in the eye and explained that my company was not profiting from their business, and neither was I.  Either the pricing had to change or we couldn’t serve their needs any more.  They went elsewhere for six months and then returned at a profitable price.

Look, I get it.  Salespeople are trained to push off decisions on “the boss” all the time.  When I first started selling cars, I worked at a dealership that used the old system of ‘taking the offer to the boss’ and seeing what he said.  The salespeople weren’t perceived to be the negotiators, nor were they empowered to really negotiate.  Ultimately the customer ended up wanting to talk to ‘the boss’ most of the time, and ‘the boss’ had to get involved in the sale about half the time.

When I left that dealership, I went to another one that had a radically different stance.  At this one, my manager would ask me what car I was working, and if there was a trade in, he’d go look at it.  Then he’d tell me, “OK, this is where we have to be at a minimum.  You know you get paid on profit, get what you can get.”  It was a revelation.  I sold more cars at that dealership, achieved higher profits and commissions, and rarely did my customers even consider asking to speak to ‘the boss.’  Why?

Because they already felt they were dealing with someone important.  And we achieved better results. Like I said, the owner’s ‘blame me’ idea came from a very good place; he was trying to ease the blow for his salesperson.  But there were unintended consequences.  Much of the time, however, the consequences aren’t unintended.  Companies like to keep salespeople in the dark, and in truth, too many salespeople simply lack the courage to stand up to the customer.  Neither is helpful.  Here’s what the customer wants from you:

They want to believe that you (the salesperson) have the power to make decisions that affect them. Not just discounts, but service levels, timing, etc.

They want to believe that you can create positive outcomes for them.

They want to trust that you have their best interests at heart.

They realize that you need to make a profit to stay in business.  If they don’t, find another customer.

They want to believe that you can help them solve their problems – or can and will connect them with the resources to do so.  If you’re selling a technical product, you don’t need to be an engineer-level expert.  You do, however, need to have a basic level of competence, and you need to know when to get out of the way.

Customers can buy almost anything these days without the intervention of salespeople.  Hence, the only reason for salespeople to be involved is to make the buying experience more positive.   By doing so, you earn the time and energy they spend with you.  The only way to do that is to make yourself the ‘important person’ in the relationship.

You can know too many sales tactics – here’s why.

Sometimes, what you DON’T take into a sales call is more important than what you do take in. Sometimes the stuff that you take into a call is nothing but extraneous head-trash that gets in your way – and more importantly, gets into your customer’s way when they want to talk to you, and to buy.

What brought this to mind was a conversation I had with a young salesperson recently.  This person had been through sales training that was not mine, but is of the type that focuses on heavy techniques and word games.  What resulted, in her case, was probably the worst case of training malpractice I’d ever seen.  She was so focused on remembering what technique to use at what time (and what the names of the techniques were) that she was unable to have a reasonable conversation with a customer.  Like a bodybuilder who trains so much that he becomes musclebound and has difficulty functioning, she was so technique-bound that she couldn’t just talk with her customers.  There’s a fix for this, though.

You see, I’ve always preached that sales should flow as a focused conversation.  The focus comes from your questioning and comments; the conversational nature comes from never forgetting that you’re talking to another human being, and that your job is to learn more about him/her and help solve problems.  If you’re remembering when to use your Double Inverse Outward Question with a Half Twist, that probably isn’t going to happen!

You see, we (salespeople) have trained our customers over the years to spot cheap tactics.  Use the Take-Away, the Firing Horace, or the Sharp Angle (yep, those all exist) on someone, and they can spot it a mile away.  The problem is that once you do that, you cease to be a person.  Customers trust people; they don’t trust cheap tactics – or the people that use them.

The other problem with the tactics is that, like a movie script, they only work if customers know their lines as well as you know yours!  For instance, let’s look at the Take-Away.  This is a technique designed to ‘reverse’ the sales dynamic by forcing the customer to ‘prove that they are worthy’ of buying.  It’s simple; you tell the customer that you don’t think your product is right for them, and they then want to buy so badly that they will sell you on buying.  The trouble is that it doesn’t work, for several reasons.

First, the customer doesn’t know that they are supposed to be selling you, so many times they will simply say, “OK, I understand, thanks.”  Then if you want the sale, you have to backtrack into selling mode – which makes a liar out of you. It’s the ultimate Catch-22.  Either the customer trusts you based on what you’ve done up until that point, which means that they trust your judgment that they shouldn’t buy – which means no sale.  Or, they are a bit skeptical of you, spot the cheap tactic for what it is, and it reinforces their decision not to trust you – which means no sale.

The second reason it doesn’t work is that, if you are telling someone that they shouldn’t buy something when you really believe that they should, you are a liar.  There’s no way to come back from that.  Once you’ve lied to your customer – and believe me, they will know it – you are forever branded as someone not to be trusted.  Of course, that’s just an example of these kinds of tactics; customers spot them all.

So, let’s talk about unpacking.  In the case of the salesperson I’m discussing, my advice to her was to forget about all those named tactics, forget about trying to remember what to say when, and to establish a few simple objectives for the call. Then ask questions that help you achieve those goals, and present the right products and services.  Have conversations with people!

The best thing to unpack from your head is pretty much any sales tactic with a name (like the ones I’ve mentioned earlier; there are many more).  Named sales tactics are more designed to sell sales training(because the trainer is ‘an authority’ if they know the tactic and you don’t) than they are designed to help you sell.  Skills (questioning, presentation, prospecting, etc.) are important – tactics and techniques just get in your way.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that, if you want to learn more about this, you should attend my Sales Boot Camp on July 26.  We’ll focus on helping you have those natural, focused conversations that will help YOU sell more.  Click here for more information.

I re-learned the value of training and coaching last weekend.  Read how.

Warning:  this column represents a peek ‘behind the curtain’ at me.  If you don’t want that, don’t read this! I’ve been in business now as a professional sales trainer, speaker, and consultant for a long time.  Nearly eight years now, in fact; my eighth anniversary will be on September 1.  That’s nearly one-fifth of my life, and just over one-third of my career.  That’s a long time to be “the expert.”  Being “the expert” is a very heady thing, and as those of you who know me know well, modesty and humility have never been my most prominent personal characteristics.

That’s why it took me several years to decide that I wanted and needed help with part of my skill set.  I have been doing public speaking since junior high school, and I’ve always gotten good marks and reviews. Still…..I felt that there was a level I wasn’t getting to.  I’ve been telling you for nearly eight years that the biggest obstacle in sales is fear.  Guess what? Fear was my biggest obstacle to overcome as well.  With the help of two of the best speaking coaches in the world, Patricia Fripp (fripp.com) and Darren LaCroix, (darrenlacroix.com) I overcame my fears.  There’s a lesson here for you, too, if you keep reading.

To make a long story short, I finally decided to take the proverbial plunge and attend a two-day coaching program for speakers like myself.  The fact that the program was in Las Vegas didn’t hurt, to be frank. When I arrived and got to know my fellow coachees, I felt a bit out of place; most were Toastmasters and working on pure motivational speeches, while mine was very focused on selling skills.  Moreover, aside from Fripp and LaCroix, I was the only professional speaker in the room.

When it was my turn to go, I got up and gave my 10 minute speech in my typical high-energy, rapid-fire style – and I got hammered.  Well, maybe not hammered – Darren and Patricia were kind – but they definitely showed me numerous ways to communicate my message in a more audience-friendly fashion. As they talked, and as we ran through several segments of my program, I saw ways that I could improve. Change my message or my take on selling? No way.  And they didn’t ask me to.  Instead, they found ways that I could refine both the message and the way I communicated it to be more impactful.

As I went through the program and got to know the other speakers, I saw that each of us had to overcome our own fears and obstacles to get there.  There was Erik, paralyzed from the chest down for the last 15 years.  Erik was in a wheelchair (of course) and was traveling on his own for the first time in 16 years.  For a man who once bought a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia with no real idea of where he was going and how to get back, this was a tremendous lifestyle change.  One thing that Erik still had was a rapier wit and he spared no one.  For instance, his advice to me before I went up for my last turn at the podium was, “Try to find some self-confidence, huh?”

There was LouAnn, who had been in a 20 year abusive marriage and rebuilt her life to be happily remarried, professionally successful, financially independent, and wanted to help other women like herself.  There was Dan, who had been stigmatized as a ‘loser’ in childhood through a variety of aberrant activities including a game he invented called “dog poop golf” (want to know that story?  Come to one of my programs and I’ll tell it), and has built a successful lean manufacturing consulting business.  In fact, all of us had our own fears or obstacles to overcome in order to humble ourselves and submit to coaching.

Without belaboring the details, I’ll just say this:  I’m one heck of a lot better speaker now.  My thought process has been refined, my visual and verbal communication improved, and the ultimate beneficiaries will be YOU – at least those of you who see me speak live.  More importantly, perhaps, I’ve been reminded of what you go through every time you enter the door to one of my workshops.  It’s a humbling experience, and I won’t soon forget that lesson.

Will this be the last program like this I attend?  No.  Now that I’ve restarted my professional development, I’m not stopping.

Have I changed my philosophy on sales and selling?  Not in the slightest.  In fact, that message has been clarified, honed, and polished.

So, I go forward excited, enthusiastic, and frankly, with a heck of a lot of work to do.  Thank you to Darren, to Patricia, to LouAnn, to Erik, to Dan, to Elaine, Jerry, Tom, and everyone else in the group that I didn’t thank in this article.  I’m better at my job now.  Good training and coaching does that for all of us.  So, if you need help – whether I can provide it or not – I encourage you to reach out, get the help, and humble yourself.  The real winner will be you.

You’re probably already calling on your best customers.

This week, you’re going to read about how you can find your most profitable sales opportunities.  They’re characterized by two things:  First, you’re probably ignoring them.  Second, they are already used to cutting checks to you.  They’re your current customers, and I’m betting that you’re ignoring them in the quest to find new customers.

Let’s get the “but, wait, Troy” out of the way.  “But wait, Troy, I already sell to my current customers!”  Do you really?  Or do you just make routine calls and take routine orders?  Or, “But wait, Troy, you always say that the big bucks go to the people who can generate new business!”  True – but that’s only because most of the people that sell to current customers don’t really sell to them; they just make the calls and take the orders.  Let’s talk about how to really generate new business from your current customers.

First of all, we need to differentiate between calling on customers and selling to customers.  Calling on customers is easy; particularly in repetitive sale environments, the sales call becomes like a milk route, or what I like to call the “donut call:”  “Hi, I brought donuts!  Do you have this week’s order?”  For too many salespeople, this is the order of business.

Selling to current customers is different.  Think about the things you do when you sell to a new customer. First, you must prospect and qualify, then you have to discover needs, then you present solutions, youpropose, and then you close.  All these steps still happen in a development sale (an upsell).  Here’s what those steps look like in development selling:

• Prospecting and qualifying:  All of your products probably aren’t right for all of your customers; hence, you must select those customers to whom you plan to sell different products or services.  The good news is that you can base this not on a cold call approach, but on a base of customer knowledge from doing business with them.
• Needs discovery:  You still must set a meeting with the decision maker.  When you do, you should do a quality needs discovery and questioning program.  Is the new product right for them?  While you’re at it, has anything changed in their environment that might impact your selling of your current products?  Don’t skimp on this step; you should always be asking good questions of your customers.
• Presentation:  Just as selling new customers requires matching needs with solutions, so does cross-selling or upselling.  Sell the fit, with benefit statements.
• Proposal:  This goes without saying; you still have to offer price and terms.
• Closing:  Do not be afraid of this step! Ask for the new product sale just as you would a brand new customer; customers that aren’t asked to buy probably won’t.  If you’re worried that the ‘close’ will damage the current relationship, the problem isn’t the close – it’s your relationship.

There’s a hidden bonus here.  Customer retention is more important every day.  The best way to retain your customers is to talk to them; the best way to make sure that you’re talking to your customers is to keep selling to them.  Plus, if there are any difficulties with the relationship, there’s no better way to find them than try to sell them more of your products and services.  And wouldn’t you rather hear about them than your competitors?

Good development selling requires commitment and planning.  This isn’t something that you wing; it’s something that you build into your sales program.  But if you do, your profits and growth will show it.

To Prospect or Not to Prospect?

Well….Jeffrey is at it again.  By “Jeffrey,” I mean Jeffrey Gitomer.  Now, I like Jeffrey Gitomer.  I think that Jeffrey, at one time, was the dean of sales trainers in this country.  Now?  Well….let’s just say I’m disappointed in him lately.  I feel that it’s vital, as a trainer, speaker, and writer, to be in touch with the challenges and opportunities that my readers and attendees are facing.  I’m not sure that all of my counterparts feel the same way.

My specific disagreement with Jeffrey comes in terms of prospecting.  Jeffrey has changed his stance on prospecting; his recent column in a local magazine here says that “Prospecting is a waste of time.  You’ll fail on 98 out of 100 cold calls that you make.”  Well…he’s probably pretty close, in terms of the numerical ratios.  And that is precisely why you should prospect.  Let’s talk about that…and about why sales trainers tell salespeople they don’t have to prospect.

Looking at Jeffrey’s numbers, he’s probably pretty close.  Let’s say that you sit down to make prospecting calls.  You’ve got a good call list (no ‘person who’ calls), and you’re going to make calls in sequence. You’ll commit to making 100 dials.

In typical B2B selling, you’ll talk to someone on about one out of every four calls.  By “talk to someone,” I mean that you will talk to a potential decision maker on every fourth call, roughly.  So you’ve gained the opportunity to talk to about 25 people who might be able to buy from you.

If you’re doing your calling well, communicating good value, and establishing interest, you’ll win an appointment on one out of every 3-4 calls.  Let’s call it four to be pessimistic, and we’ll round.  So out of 25 conversations, you’ll have six initial appointments with decision makers.

Once you have that appointment, your chances of generating a viable proposal are about one in two. That’s three viable proposals (a viable proposal is a proposal that has a strong likelihood of turning into a sale).

Your close ratio on a viable proposal should be anywhere between 1 in 2 and 1 in 3.  So, you’ll make 1-2 sales on that group of three proposals.

So, on your 100 calls, the ratios indicate that you’ll make 1-2 sales.  There’s Jeffrey’s “fail 98 times out of 100” statement validated.  But here’s the kicker:

A competent salesperson, calling in the proper fashion, can do 15-20 dials per hour.  So those 100 calls will take you anywhere between 5 and 6-1/2 hours to complete.  What other activity do you know of, performed competently, will predictably and reliably generate a sales funnel to produce 1-2 sales in that amount of time?  Me neither.

Don’t get me wrong; the things that Jeffrey suggests as funnel-fillers are all good ones.  Networking, referrals, writing articles, building a reputation – those are excellent ideas, and they’re all part of an integrated prospecting strategy.  But they are neither controllable nor predictable.  You can be the greatest networker in the world, and still go weeks and even months without referral business.  I’ve seen numerous salespeople fail while trying to network their way to success.

And also to be fair, he’s far from the only trainer telling salespeople not to prospect.  But if prospecting is so successful, why tell customers not to do it?  The reason, in my opinion, is simple.  There is no easier sell than telling salespeople that they don’t have to prospect anymore.  Salespeople typically dislike prospecting, so if you tell them they don’t have to, they love you.  But that’s doing a disservice to readers, in my opinion.

Recently I’ve had consultations with two entrepreneurs who were resistant to prospecting because they were ‘too busy.’  In each case, I was able to drill down on what made them ‘busy.’  Based on the information they gave me, their actual productive time (the time that they were working on projects) was less than 8 hours per week.  My advice to them?  Discipline yourself to do what you need to do – at least until you can afford to pay someone else to do it.

It’s called “discipline” because it’s not the favorite thing of most people; if it were, it would just be called “the stuff you like to do anyway.”  But, like any discipline, at the root of it is a behavior that produces positive change.

In today’s environment, salespeople must earn their place in the customer’s buying process.

I was interviewing a salesperson recently who was looking to change industries.  When I asked her why, she said, “Oh, because everybody buys their stuff on the Internet nowadays, there’s really no use for salespeople in this industry anymore.”  Well, there are a couple of problems with this.  First of all, I have clients in her industry.  They have successful salespeople that work for them.

The second problem is that, when I asked her what she had done to combat the Internet, I was greeted with a blank stare.  “Oh, you know, uh, price…”  That’s the sign of a weak salesperson.  Interview over. What I find is that salespeople complain and whine about price and the Internet without considering the most important aspect in the customer’s mind – a positive buying experience!  A new hobby of mine (or maybe a new twist on an old hobby) perfectly illustrates this.

I’ve just gotten into motorcycles.  Some of you who have read this space for years know that I’ve restored and customized cars for years, but bikes are new to me.  Between me and my wife, we own a grand total of four vintage Honda bikes (it wasn’t planned that way, just sort of worked out that way).  All of them need parts and work.  And wonder of wonders, there is a Honda dealership near my house.  When I say “near my house,” I mean that it’s closer than my closest grocery store.  3 minutes in the car and I’m there.

Not long after buying my first Honda (my wife already had two), I walked in to check the place out, drool a bit over the new bikes, and maybe find a resource for parts.  After walking around the showroom a few minutes, a salesperson came up and said hello.  He asked me if he could help me, and I told him that my wife and I owned three vintage Hondas, they all needed some restoration work, and I was also just wanting to look at the new bikes while I was there.  His response went something like, “Wow, those are old bikes (note – the model years are between ’75 and ’82 – it’s not like they run on wood wheels or anything)!  We don’t really do much with those old bikes, sorry we probably won’t be able to help you.”  And then he walked away.

Now, I’ve told this guy, who sells for a Honda dealership, that I’m a new rider and I already own THREE products made by his company.  Do you think that maybe, just maybe, I might be a prospect for a new Honda down the road (or Yamaha or Kawasaki, which they also sell)?  Or that even if his people couldn’t sell me parts, that I might be able to buy gear there like helmets, saddlebags, etc.?  I turned and walked out…quickly.  That might have been the end of my local dealer experience, except that my wife wanted to check out some other dealers.  So, we visited some others.  At one, which is the exact farthest from us in the Metro area, we had a great experience.

When we walked in, the salesperson greeted us and we told him the same story.  His response was, “Wow – those are some great old bikes!  Before you leave, make sure you meet Jay in the parts department. He’s kind of our classic Honda expert, and if we don’t have what you need, he can probably find it for you. Meanwhile, if you want to see the new lines, I can show you what they’re making now in case you ever want to step up to a new one.”  Result – we spent half an hour in the showroom talking with Mike, and between the two of us we spent around $500 with Jay in the parts department before we left.  And we’ve spent more since then.  I drive past three other dealers to get to this dealer to buy parts, and I’ve done so several times.

The point is that the second dealer treated us with respect, with consideration, applied expertise, and created a positive buying experience for us.  That positive buying experience means that I’ll check with Jay before I buy parts on the Internet, and you can bet that if I do step up to a new or newer bike, I’ll shop there.  They made a CUSTOMER, and formed a RELATIONSHIP.

When you’re competing against the Internet (or anyone else for that matter), you must ADD VALUE to the experience for the customer – if buying off a web page is as easy, convenient and pleasant as buying from you (or perhaps more so), then they’ll buy off the web.  So before you complain about “Internet buyers,” ask yourself – or better yet, your customers – what the buying experience is really like.  In the current time, salespeople must EARN their place in the supply chain.  It’s not just given to us anymore.