"The Navigator" News Blog

Monthly Archives: February 2015

“The Sales Detective – Asking Great Sales Questions” Teleseminar – March 26

Sales Blog

There is no more important element in selling – NONE – than the ability to ask good questions.

Do YOU know your customers as well as you should?

Are YOU losing sales to salespeople who do ask better questions?

Or worse, do YOU know why you’re winning or losing?

You can get help in this teleseminar!

In “The Sales Detective – Asking Great Sales Questions,” Troy Harrison lays bare the keys to asking the questions that will HELP THE CUSTOMERS TELL YOU HOW TO SELL THEM.  Customers will tell you how – IF you give them the opportunity!  You’ll learn:

  • The two types of questions that you MUST ask
  • The most important objective that drives great questions
  • How what you don’t know can hurt you
  • How to organize questions for maximum effectiveness
  • How to Drill Down
  • The very important “Catch All Question”
  • And more!

This Teleseminar will help you have incredibly productive sales conversations!  If you would like to improve your results by knowing your customers better, you need to register for this Teleseminar!  http://troyharrison.wpengine.com/products-page/events/sales-detective-asking-great-sales-questions-teleseminar-march-26/

Four “Tools” That Give a Salesperson Comfort – But Don’t Help

The Navigator News, ,

My first “outside sales” job was for a company that sold bearings and power transmission products. I loved that job, because I’m mechanically inclined and I got to work with a lot of machinery on that job. Plus, to add to the fun factor, I got to get plant tours from many of my customers. To this day, there are few things I enjoy more than touring a manufacturing plant and seeing how things are made. (And to this day, when I walk around a place with a lot of machinery, I think, “I bet it’s fun to be the guy who sells the bearings here” – residuial occupational hazard.)

One of the first things I did was go and buy a large file crate for my trunk and hanging folders. I then filled the crate with every brochure and catalog I could access. I was going to be the most prepared bearing salesperson in my market. In fact, in terms of paper, I probably was. And you know what? When I left that job, three years later, most of that literature came back out of the file crate and ended up back on the shelf at the company – or if it was outdated, in the trash.

On my next job, however, I did the same thing. Same file crate, same folders, new labels. And when I left that job, I repeated the ‘return and throw out’ routine. In fact, in neither job did I ever use more than ten percent of the materials that I had in my trunk. So, why did I carry them? Because they gave me comfort, and helped me feel like I was prepared. The problem was that very little of that materia would actually sell or aid a sale. To this day, I see salespeople spending inordinate amounts of time on things like that – things that make us comfortable but don’t really aid a sale. Here are the four most common:

Brochures. To be honest, brochures probably rank 1, 2, 3, and 4 on this list. We all know the routine, don’t we? You make a first call, and then you leave behind the all-powerful, well designed brochure, because you just know that it’s going to push the customer over the edge to buy. When you return, the brochure is probably gone – to the same place that all my brochures and catalogs went. That’s because leaving it behind was for YOU, not for the customer. The right reason for a brochure: The right reason for a brochure is that it can offer backup and documentation to your presentation, DURING THE SALES CONVERSATION. Use it as a prop, not a leave-behind.
Fancy Proposals. I love some of the proposals that I see. It’s amazing how many pages, and how complex, a proposal can be for even the simplest offerings of product or service. I once got a piece of training business, and afterward the client showed me the proposal that they had received from my competitor. It was in a three-ring binder, full color, and had nearly 100 pages. My proposal that won the business was a two-page letter. Of course, the more complicated the offering, the more verbiage you’ll need – but at the end of the day, the proposal should cover the need, the solution, and the price and terms. Anything else is extraneous unless requested. The right reason for a big proposal: Your offering is complex, requiring a lot of verbiage to explain. Even so, it should be PRESENTED in person, not simply sent over.
“Send information.” I was working with a sales rep last year who proudly reported, after a prospecting session, that he had ten prospects that requested ‘more information.’ I asked him to do a little test. Send the information, then after a week, call the prospect again and ask a couple of specific questions about the information. He did. None of the prospects could answer – they ‘hadn’t gotten to it yet,’ or something of the sort. The reality is that his e-mail had gotten buried in their inboxes, unopened, and there it sat until they cleaned out their old emails. Sad but true. “Send info” is, almost always, a prospect’s way of brushing you off without entering a sales process. The right reason to send information: There is something timely and actionable – for instance, you’re having an open house or seminar and you’ve invited the prospect to come.

Letter Before Calling. Oftentimes, I am asked if it’s better to send a letter or email to prospects before making a call for an appointment. My response is always the same: “Sure, if it makes you feel better, go ahead and do it.” Reality is that few of these letters will be read. That’s okay, and it doesn’t hurt you in the call – UNLESS your opener is, “Did you get my letter?” The answer is always, “no.” You may guess that I’m not a big fan of direct mail to prospects. You’re right and wrong. You’re right in that I don’t see a pre-letter as a door opener for a phone call. HOWEVER, a well written direct response letter with a clear call to action will still bring a 1% to 2% response rate (or sometimes better nowadays, since there is a smaller amount of direct mail). The right reason to send a letter: You’re sending it as a direct response lead generation tool, not as a door opener. This letter should NOT say, “I will call you,” but instead should say, “Call me.”

Here’s your yardstick. The sale happens in the conversation that you have with your buyer. If an outside tool aids, abets, and moves the conversation forward, it’s a worthwhile tool. If not, not. My car would have been a lot lighter, and gotten better gas mileage, if I’d known that 20 years ago.

How to Avoid “Scorpions Syndrome”

The Navigator News

I’m a child of the 80s, and in the 80s, we basically had two types of acceptable music – hair bands and new wave. I enjoyed both, and one of my favorite hair bands was the Scorpions. The Scorpions was (in my opinion) a great band with some great songs. They were also German. More to the point, they were Germans who understood not a word of English. Hence, when they recorded those great songs like “The Zoo,” they pronounced them phonetically, not with understanding of the words. That was fine – in the studio.

In concert, it was a little different. I saw them live a number of years ago, and, well…the pronunciation broke down. Because they didn’t understand the language, they’d emphasize the wrong words and syllables. Some songs were partially in German. In the audience, we were stuck between rocking out and laughing uproariously. This memory has caused me to coin a term, and it’s one you’ll want to avoid. I call it “Scorpions Syndrome.” That’s where a salesperson knows the words, but not the meaning. Allow me to explain.

I was speaking with a client recently and he told me of a salesperson whom he had trained. He drilled this salesperson relentlessly on the company’s presentation – and she’d do a great job of delivering it. However, she didn’t know or understand the technicalities of what was behind the presentation, nor did she really know how to answer questions. She had “Scorpions Syndrome,” and retraining is the best option.

Here are some ways you can avoid “Scorpions Syndrome,” whether you are a salesperson or a manager.

Learn concepts, not questionnaires: I’m a big fan of having a game plan for a sales call (in fact, my Teleseminar on February 25 is about that very thing – get more info here). A good game plan includes the information you want to GET through the questions you ask, the information you want to GIVE through the presentations you make (which should depend on the answers to your questions), and a COMMITMENT for a next step.

The problem is that too many salespeople rely on rote questionnaires for their game plans – without ever learning the meaning behind the questions, or what to do with the answers they get. You need to make sure that you understand not only what questions are good to ask, but what the reasons are behind the questions and what to do with the answers.

Learn real benefits, not rote presentations: Many years ago, on my college debate team, I was assigned a debate partner that, to put it gently, really didn’t understand what was going on. My coach advised me to ‘can her up’ because she was a decent speaker, and we’d be OK. “Canning her up” meant providing her with evidence to read and the order in which to read it. There was only one problem – after every speech, the opponent got to cross-examine her. Since she didn’t really understand what was going on (and frankly, wasn’t all that teachable), everything she did in her speech fell apart in cross-examination because she couldn’t explain the logic behind the points.

The same thing happens when a salesperson gives a rote, formatted presentation without understanding the real effects that their product or service has on the customer or its environment. The presentation sounds great and convincing – but invariably, the customer has questions that the salesperson can’t answer. The salesperson’s credibility is destroyed, and so is the opportunity.

Learning the concepts and ideas before learning the questions and presentations takes longer, but it’s a good investment of time – for you and for your company. Don’t shortcut. The Scorpions Syndrome is real, and if you don’t learn your company’s “language,” you might get laughed at, too.

Five Ways to Kill a Sales Call

The Navigator News

It seems like inspiration for this column hits me every day. Yesterday, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Just to set the stage, I had accepted an appointment from a salesperson who was selling a particular item I had considered purchasing. It’s something that I don’t necessarily need now, but it is something that I will probably eventually need to buy. In short, I was a willing audience, and he had done a decent job of making the phone call to set the appointment.

To make a long story short – well, come to think of it, a potentially long sales call was made short by a few factors. The guy was just plain WRONG in nearly everything he did, and he was out of my office in ten minutes. Thus inspired, here are his five ways to kill a sales call:

  1. Dress UNlike a professional. When this guy showed up in my office to sell a not-inexpensive piece of equipment, I was amazed by his appearance. A shirt that was both unironed and untucked on one side was accompanied by an equally unironed pair of pants, no tie, and shoes that were glorified tennis shoes. Clearly this was a person who did not particularly care about his appearance. Like it or not, folks, professional appearance is part of professional presentation, and it’s hard for me to buy into your credibility selling a $10,000 piece of equipment when your wardrobe could be bought for 15 bucks. I know it’s summer in Kansas City; I don’t expect a banker’s suit and tie, but I do expect that your presentation shows respect for me and my professionalism. If you are dressed more for a 50 Cent concert than a sales call, you’re toast.
  2. Marinate in cologne. Oddly enough, this guy WAS concerned about how he smelled. I was too, but in the wrong way. After a couple of minutes in my office, his cologne permeated every nook, cranny, and crevice to the point that I was looking for a gas mask. After five minutes, I felt the first stirrings of a headache. I know there are people who read this that slather that stuff on in the mornings. DON’T. That goes for you women out there, too – some of your perfume can be just as toxic. Look, this is a sales call. You’re trying to make a sale, not meet a mate. Leave that crap for the evenings, huh? I had to open a window and run a fan after he left to clear the air.
  3. Take liberties with your customer’s stuff. So, this guy gets there, dresses unprofessionally, and stinks up my office. That’s bad. Worse was when, in the initial small-talk phase of the call, he REACHED ACROSS MY DESK AND GRABBED A MAGAZINE I HAD BEEN READING. This is one I had honestly never seen on a first call before; messing around with my stuff. Here’s a clue – if it’s on your customer’s desk and you didn’t put it there, leave it be. I was very close to grabbing the magazine back, rolling it up, and whacking him across the nose with it. Fortunately, the call was about over.
  4. Be unprepared. At this point, about 10 minutes into the meeting, I saw an out. See, this guy had come into my office with a legal pad, pen, and nothing else. No briefcase. So I took a shot. I asked him for a brochure on his products, guessing that there was not one in his padfolio. I was right. He responded, “I have one in the car – let me get it.” Instead, I told him to get in his car and just keep going; I didn’t have the time. For the rest of you, when you go into a sales call, be prepared to carry the sales process through. Going out to your car is a call- killer.
  5. Take the best parking spot. I should first point out that this guy didn’t do this, at least as far as I saw – but it’s so frequent a mistake that I have to point it out. Those great spots right next to the door are for customers, NOT for you. Take them at your own risk. I’ve seen salespeople tossed out of a building for doing this. Why not park in the south 40 and walk? The exercise will do you good.

Hopefully, most of the people reading this know by now NOT to do these things, but they’re still so common that they have to be pointed out. The reason that all of these are call-killers is that they force your customers to make YOU the center of attention in a negative way. Go your way, and kill calls no more!