"The Navigator" News Blog

Monthly Archives: January 2015

How To Be Your Own Best Sales Manager

The Navigator News,

I just reconfigured my home office. Yes, I work out of my house. My business evolution has been different than most; I began with a home office and then moved into a dedicated office in an office building. Then, as my business went national and grew exponentially…..I moved back into a home office. I never said that I did things like everyone else!

My home office remodel included something very important – an 18×24 white board. Not just any white board, mind you, but a white board lined and lettered to track sales metrics. Not my clients’, MINE. For years I’ve been advising my clients that visibly posting the key metrics and goals of your business motivated people to achieve and surpass them – but (consultant, consult with thyself), I’ve never done it. Now I have, and I’m going to tell you what my key metrics are – and how you can adapt them to your situation.

One reason I stopped setting activity metrics for myself is that, when I went national, the conventional “calls/appointments/proposals” numbers didn’t work anymore. So, as part of my business plan for 2015, I had to design new ones. 2014 was my best year ever (thank you for that, by the way), and if 2015 is to surpass 2014, good metrics are essential. They are for you, as well. So, with no further ado, here are my monthly tracking numbers:

Monthly sales: This one is obvious, I know, but I still talk to otherwise savvy businesspeople who cannot tell me, off the top of their head, what a monthly run rate should be for a successful salesperson. I have my monthly target, and if I hit it, I write the number in green; if I miss, I write it in red. To answer a question I’m often asked, yes, it’s okay to seasonally adjust your goals if your business fluctuates. I didn’t do that myself, even though I know that there are some fluctuations. I kept mine simple.

MSA to Reach Annual Goal: MSA is “Monthly Sales Average,” so this measurement is “Monthly Sales Average Needed to Reach Goal.” It’s pretty simple; I subtract the year to date actual sales number from the goal, divide by the number of months left, and there’s my number. At the top of the column is also the target MSA, which is just the goal divided by 12. Again, if the MSA needed is below the goal MSA (in other words, I’m ahead of my goal), I write the number in green. If not, I write it in red.

Number of National Speaking Engagements Scheduled/Completed: This is an important one for me, and would correlate nicely to a “First Appointment” metric that I recommend to my clients. For many if not most of my clients, a speaking engagement is their introduction to me and what I can do for their business. I have a target number of what I call “National” speaking engagements. “National” is a large conference, either in Kansas City or elsewhere, that draws a significant amount of my target audience. I use the same red/green criteria as before.

Target Accounts Won: I have a criteria for a “target account,” in terms of annual revenue, and a goal for the number of these accounts in 2015. I’m simply going to list them line-by-line, individually, as they happen.

Top Five Prospects: In my vernacular, a “Prospect” is someone who has not bought from me within the past three years, or ever. As opportunities come up, I’ll list my top ones in this space.

Monthly New Wins: I’ll just list out the new accounts that I win monthly.

So, what do I expect this to do for me? I expect it to help keep me focused. Some of the more technical members of this audience are saying, “But, Troy, why go to all this trouble when all you really need is an Excel spreadsheet to track this data, put it in the form that you want it, and it could even be a dashboard on your laptop when you open it?” That is a correct take. However, I know myself. I want this slapping me in the face every day when I enter my home office. And, of course, being up on the wall means that it’s visible to my most important boss – my wife. I don’t want her seeing red on the board.

Yes, I do believe it will keep me focused. More importantly, and this is why I’ve written this article, doing the same will keep YOU focused. If you’re a sales manager, a “Key Metrics” board that’s visible should be part of your sales management strategy. Your metrics might differ from mine, and that’s OK. If you’re a sales rep, or even a business owner who does his or her own selling, invest in one of these for YOUR wall. Keep it up. There is power in numbers, and there is power in visibility – and in visible numbers, there is the power to help you have a better 2015. I think it’ll work for me, and I know it will work for you.

The Most Valuable Commodity You Can Market

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From time to time, I enjoy engaging practiced salespeople and sales managers in conversation about selling on a deeper level. One such conversation that happened this week centered around the question, “what is the most valuable quality salespeople can bring to the table?” Answers ranged from “product knowledge” to “likeability” to “good communication,” and on into “expert questioning” before one of the salespeople hit the correct answer – the answer that trumps all of the above.

That answer is trustworthiness. The reason it is the trump card is simple; if the customer doesn’t believe what you say, it doesn’t matter how well you know your subject matter, and if the customer doesn’t trust you, they won’t answer questions honestly. Trust, then, is a prerequisite for all activities that center on communication – selling in particular. In that spirit, this week I’ll share a few methods for building trust with customers, but first I have to share one of the most outrageous stories of a salesperson ruining his customer’s trust in him. It’s too good a story not to share.

It seems that this salesperson was employed by a cleaning company that was providing janitorial services to a group of hospitals. The hospital management liked him a lot, and liked the service provided. They believed in him and the quality and integrity of his company. Then came a charity golf tournament.

As a friend of mine (who happened to be in the same fivesome as this salesperson) explained, “It was a typical five-man scramble; one guy would hit into the sand, one into the woods, one way into the rough, one guy would dunk a ball and one would get stuck in a tree somewhere (sounds like my own lack of a golf game wouldn’t have been out of place – but I digress). The salesman would hit first on each hole, then drive the cart down the fairway to ‘spot’ for the team. When the rest of the group had hit and went down the fairway, a ball would have magically appeared in the middle of the fairway with the salesman explaining that one of the shots ‘kicked’ into the fairway.” Yep – he was cheating in a charity golf tournament. But wait – it gets better.

It seems that the key decision maker for the hospital account was also in this same fivesome, and what was happening wasn’t escaping him. In fact, immediately after the 18th hole, the manager left in disgust, skipping the post-tournament party. Slick Salesman wasn’t done, however. He did the same thing a month later – at a tournament sponsored by the hospital. After getting a feel for this guy’s character, the hospital management began watching everything that the janitorial company did, and lo and behold, they found bad billing, cleaning that was supposed to be done that wasn’t, and other problems. Long story short, the salesman is no longer employed by the company, and the company no longer has the account. The moral of the story? Some salespeople believe that trust is solely generated by work habits and activities; the truth is that anything you do that shows a lack of integrity can ruin your trust. In that spirit, here are some ways that you can build trust with your customers:

Do what you say, and say what you will do: This is so painfully obvious that I hate to even say it, but I encounter salespeople on a daily basis who think nothing of not fulfilling promises in a timely fashion. When you make a promise to a customer, they remember it. When you fail to fulfill that promise, they remember it FOREVER. It’s not that tough; only promise what you can actually do, then DO IT.

Do the right thing, even when you think no one is looking: Someone once said that this was the very definition of integrity. Sometimes, you’ll be tempted to behave in ways that you would never think of doing if you knew a customer was watching; guess what? They might be. Several years ago, I was in Minneapolis making calls with a salesperson as a favor to a branch manager of the company I worked for. On our second call, the customer got a look at my salesman and immediately threw us out. It turns out that, the night before, the salesman had been out at a bar, got a few drinks in him, and started a conflict with another patron over a particular seat at the bar. Huge stuff, right? Well, it turned out to be. The other patron turned out to be the person he wanted to sell to the next morning. Behave like a jackass in public at your own peril; you never know who is watching.

Keep your big yap shut when it needs to be: These days, customer confidentiality is huge. Salespeople are regularly trusted with company secrets of their customers. Unfortunately, many salespeople are “Instant babbler, just add beer.” I’ve seen salespeople who think nothing of telling me incredibly confidential details about their customers – stuff that their customers would probably have a heart attack if they knew the salesperson was repeating indiscriminately. If you want to continue to have your customers confide in you, you must respect and value that confidence by keeping it.

Respect your customer’s boundaries: Sometimes, there are pieces of information that your customer doesn’t want to give, or places they are unwilling to take you. If that’s the case, consider it a measure of the increasing bond of trust when your customer eventually gives you those pieces of information or takes you those places. Continue pressing immediately for them and your customer will back off.

Of course, because trust is such a huge subject, there are many more ways to build it. However, this has hopefully given you some things to look for in conducting yourself and building trust in your customer base.

Are You a Profit Center or a Profit Drain?

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When I consult with customers, or give sales management seminars, one of the things that I urge sales managers or company owners to do is to start thinking of their salespeople not as revenue generators, but profit generators. Think about it – the only thing we (business owners) can actually spend is the dollars generates as profit from our business operations.

Invariably, salespeople are either profit generators or profit drains. For some reason, “break even” salespeople have been very rare in my career. There’s a deeper level for us salespeople, though. The two questions we must ask ourselves are: Is our employer better off for having us represent them? And… Are our customers better off for doing business with us?

Whenever I’ve met a truly successful salesperson, the real answer to both those questions is, “yes.” Unfortunately, a lot of salespeople either don’t know the answers or don’t understand the concept. Several years ago, I was in Dallas interviewing a salesperson who proudly told me that his territory generated just over $300,000 per year in revenue. Sure, $300K sounded like a lot of money, until we started talking profits.

I knew a little about his business, and that it had small margins. Sure enough, he said his average gross margin was about 15%, so I knew that he was generating about $45,000 annually in gross margin dollars. Without mentioning his GM dollars, I asked what he was making. He proudly told me that he made $55,000 annually! That meant that, just subtracting his income from gross margin dollars (not thinking about benefit costs, delivery, overhead, or any one of a dozen other things that eat into gross margin), he was a $10,000 annual profit drain for his company – and he didn’t realize it.

If you’re trying to decide whether you’re a profit center for your company, you need to have an understanding of how your company makes money. Sometimes that’s tough, because companies don’t share that information. HINT to company owners and sales managers – if you want the best out of your salespeople, share with them how the company makes its money. It’s a little scary the first time you do it, but your salespeople really do have a better understanding of how their duties fit into the big picture – and they perform better.

I usually coach business owners that, as a rough guideline, sales compensation should be between 25% and 50% of the profit dollars generated by that salesperson. Depending on gross margins and company expenses, some companies may be less than 25% in order to generate net profit, and some may be more than 50%. What’s important for both company owners and salespeople is that there is a mutual expectation of what is appropriate.

With knowledge comes power, and with power comes responsibility. Salespeople, if your company shares this information, it’s now your responsibility to self-evaluate and make corrections to be a profit center and not a profit drain. What separates the winners from the whiners is this: The winners have the ability to see themselves as a valued resource for their company and customers, and the whiners see sales as a series of activities that fill up time in a work week. I don’t have to tell you which is more successful.

For now, start thinking about your own profitability to your company, and decide if you’re a profit center or a drain. Come up with some ways to either become profitable, or to increase your profit.

The Five Behaviors You Must Have in 2015

The Navigator News

Happy New Year! Isn’t that what we’re supposed to say at this time? Some of you are saying, “Gee, Troy, we said it a week ago.” Yes, I know….but this is the first Navigator News of 2015, so it seems appropriate. How happy will your 2015 be? That might depend on your approach.

This is the time of the year that people make New Year’s resolutions. Statistic – only 8% of people who make New Year’s resolutions actually keep them. So let’s forget New Year’s resolutions, and instead focus on the five behaviors that will drive your sales success in 2015.

Behavior Number One: Every sales call is a meaningful sales call. This behavior is number one for a reason; in fact, it’s Number One with a bullet. The time you get to spend eyeball to eyeball (or voice to voice for those of you who are inside salespeople) is your most valuable time. How do you plan to spend that? If your answer is “talkin’ about fishin’,” welcome to 1975. Today’s customer demands more from you. If you commit to nothing else, commit to this: each and every sales call you make this year has a purpose. It moves a sales process forward, it brings benefit to your customer, etc.

Behavior Number Two: Prospecting is your habit. In sales, the truly big bucks go to those salespeople who can consistently and repeatedly bring in new business, while retaining current business. You can’t bring in new business without prospecting. Want to be successful at prospecting? Make it a consistent habit. Define your prospecting needs, and the hours that it takes to fulfill your targets. Then break it up into two-hour segments (I find that calling effectiveness goes down after two hours), and make appointments with yourself to get it done. Want to know more about this one? Attend my Teleseminar, 21st Century Prospecting, at the end of this month.

Behavior Number Three: Work the Hard Forty. I’ve used the term “Hard Forty” for years now to refer to the work habits that salespeople should adopt. The vast majority of sales jobs can be done successfully in forty good hours per week. You might “work” fifty or sixty hours per week, but how many of those hours are really devoted to 100% working at your job? Too many salespeople use valuable prime time (the hours that your customers are available to meet with you) on personal fluff – picking up dry cleaning, shopping, or other non-selling activities. Don’t be that guy or gal. Work hard, then play hard.

Behavior Number Four: Remember that Comfortable Customers Buy! Yes, I know, it’s my tag line, but it’s true. Comfortable Customers Buy! Great salespeople know that customer discomfort is the biggest obstacle to successful selling. Is there tension in the sales call? That tension can keep you from making a sale, getting a referral, forming a relationship, or winning a recommendation. Remove the tension by focusing on the customer, the customer’s needs, and respecting the customer’s buying process and your stage within it.

Behavior Number Five: Use Technology, But Don’t Let It Use You. The world of selling has changed significantly in the last decade, and most of that change has been driven by techology. Too many salespeople are finding themselves wrapped completely up in technology, spending hours each day Tweeting, posting on Facebook, and making endless posts on LinkedIn, hoping that the world will beat a path to their door. It seldom happens. Technology should be another tool for your sales efforts, not the effort itself. Want to be successful with technology? Focus on one platform. For most salespeople, LinkedIn is the best. Build your network on LinkedIn, use it to get introductions, and use it as part of your teleprospecting efforts.

Bonus Behavior Number Six: Always Be Aware of Your Sales Process. I’m calling this a “bonus behavior,” but it’s as important as any of the others. You should always be aware of your sales process, and which stage your customer is in as you meet with them (and of course, having an eye toward moving the customer forward on each call – remember Behavior Number One). Noting the sales stage should be part of your pre-call prep for each sales call.

The question of the moment is this: How successful will your 2015 be? Will it be better than 2014? If you focus on these behaviors, it will be better.

21st Century Prospecting Teleseminar – January 29, 2015

Sales Blog

Are YOU not getting enough new prospects and customers?

Do YOU need help understanding how to approach new prospects?

Do YOU understand how prospecting has changed in the last decade?

And most importantly….

Do YOU want a system of generating new prospects that YOU can control?

If the answers to any of the above questions was “yes,” then YOU need to attend this Teleseminar!

On Thursday, January 29, I will be presenting “21st Century Prospecting” in my first ever hosted Teleseminar.  This gives me a change to reach YOU, wherever you are in the country (or the world)!  This teleseminar will be approximately one hour of power-packed content!

Prospecting is, for most salespeople, one of the most important parts of the sales process.  Moreover, it’s the most highly compensated sales skill.  The big bucks in sales go to salespeople who can consistently and repeatedly bring in new business, while of course retaining current customers.  That salesperson can be YOU!

Do you struggle with one of these issues?

  • Understanding how prospecting has changed
  • The discipline of consistent prospecting
  • How to find your target customers
  • How to quickly and efficiently grab a prospect’s attention
  • How to use new social media tools in prospecting
  • How to get appointments

If you do, the answers to your questions, and the tools to solve your problems, will be in this teleseminar!  You’ll receive my methods and tools to consistently generate appointments with new prospects!  Attend this Teleseminar.

Time:  10:00 AM CENTRAL TIME (11:00 AM Eastern, 8:00 AM Pacific), Thursday, January 29, 2015

Place: Your desk (the Teleseminar login information will be sent after your registration)

Registration: $39.95 per person

Registration Deadline:  5 PM Central, Wednesday, January 28, 2015

How To Register:  CLICK HERE to add this to your shopping cart, check out, and you’ll receive the login information in an e-mail.

Thanks, and I’ll see you on the 29th!