Sales Archives - Pick a DirectionPick a Direction

Be Your Sales Team’s Biggest Cheerleader

SalesHacker

Conferences are exciting experiences.

You’re with people who share a similar mindset, dynamic speakers are teaching you neat things, and the energy is impossible to contain! You take notes feverishly on your iPad, typing as fast as the flat-screen keyboard will let you, trying to capture every bit of information you can. You leave exhausted. Exhausted, but rejuvenated.

That’s exactly how I felt after attending SalesHacker Conference in Spring of 2015. I was pumped to get home and start selling services for the company I was working for at the time, SOUTH.

Not everything at SalesHacker was applicable to my job, but many things caught my attention. One of them went something like this:

“You have to be your sales team’s biggest cheerleader.”

I had previously managed sales teams and trained sales people so the idea of cheerleading for them wasn’t foreign. I understood that the sales manager/team leader needed to bring energy. I understood that sales people got down and that someone had to keep them positive. I understood it from a management standpoint. I understood all that on paper, at least.

Deliberately Sharpening Skills: 3 Ways To Find Sharks’ Teeth

I am infatuated with practice. Deliberately sharpening skills is an idea I’m comfortable with from extensive time playing and coaching football. I have seen how consistently honing skills can bring about improvement and, eventually, mastery.

But not just idly practicing, or “going through the motions.” By challenging ones’ self with new exercises. By getting out of a comfortable place and into new territory. With intention.

In addition to my personal experiences, I have studied the work of individuals who have dedicated their lives to the science of improvement. I have drawn from a well of inspiration that includes, but is not limited to, Steven Kotler’s The Rise of Superman, Angela Duckworth’s Grit, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, and next on my list are Anders Ericsson’s Peak and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow. These thinkers have inspired me to concoct new ways to practice.

I now know more about intentional practice than ever in my life. But instead of applying these principles to sports, I now apply them to writing.

“Do you have a card?” (word-art)

My mind was drawing a blank about what to write. I am usually a fountain of ideas when it comes to topics on which to blog… Maybe it’s cause I’m so busy. Maybe it’s cause I tried to write at night instead of the morning. Or maybe I just felt like it was time to push my creative limits.

Either way, this is what happened.

I’ve spent a ton of time responding to requests and prospecting for projects the past few weeks. This B2B terminology is everything that’s been rattling around in my head. If you’ve ever done sales of some sort, especially B2B, you’ll see where I’m coming from. Feel free to leave me a comment with anything I missed!

—

B2B sales is a whole new world for me. But in some ways I’ve been prepared for it through my time in retail: I’m used to talking to people. I know that not everyone is going to buy. I have know what makes people tick and how to be patient with them.

But in many ways it’s a new skill that I am still very much learning.

Anytime you go into a new challenge, it takes a while to sift through the process. This exercise has helped me sift through the sales process and identify the individual pieces. Now it’s time to put these thoughts into a logical order and continue working on closing more sales.

P.S. There is a small bit of rhyme & reason to this, can you figure it out?

—

Leave me a comment or chat with me on Twitter, I’d love to hear from you. Have a great week!

—

Sign up for Posts via Email below

Giving to Gain

Click the Cover Page to Download

I went ten months without a job.

I spent most of that time lost and confused, not knowing which path to take. And when I finally chose one, I didn’t know if it was the “right” one.

All I could do was forge forward and trust that everything was going to work out. I put my story into a book. This is how I gave my way to two jobs without a resume.

It wasn’t easy, and I’m still working hard at it. But I’ve learned some valuable lessons by taking this path.

The book is filled with my experiences, stubbornness, mistakes, and successes as I attempt to do things my way. I’d love for you to read it. Just click the cover page and download the PDF.

You don’t even have to signup for my email list, but I’d love it if you did you can signup on the right sidebar 🙂 .

The Art of Knowing When to Shut Up

I have spent a lot of time around people that are extreme introverts and some that are extreme extroverts. Some talk way too much and some don’t raise their voice enough. Normally, we think about this as when to “say the right thing” in the right situation.

I’d rather take a look at the invert: knowing when to shut up.

Keeping our mouths shut in certain scenarios can prove very beneficial if we know what we’re doing. Here are a few business-minded reasons to know when to shut up and keep your thoughts to yourself.

Skipping a Day

Not that you all were hanging on the edge of your seats for a post yesterday, but I feel a bit empty when I don’t write every day. However, I didn’t have a lot to write about and I didn’t want to put out junk just to appease my inner voice. I had to shut it up.

If I posted every day just to “keep the streak alive” I would put out content that you would shy away from and that I would not be proud of.

Negotiating Prowess

If you’ve ever been put through a sales course, you’ve heard the line, “First one to talk loses.” This is a perfect instance of knowing when to shut up.

In sales you are taught many things, but one of the most important is to shut your mouth after you go for the close. It ~~may be~~ will be very uncomfortable but it’s taught for a reason: it works! Here’s a quick scenario of what I’m talking about in case you are lost.

Customer: So what does something like this cost?

Experienced Salesperson: This is normally a $1,000 product. But we are running a special this month for new buyers like yourself. If we I can knock off another $200 and do this TV new in the box with a warranty for $800 would you get it today?

Customer: *Silence*

Experienced Salesperson: *More Silence*

Customer: *Silence*

Experienced Salesperson: *MORE Silence*

Customer: Does that include the delivery?

Experienced Salesperson: Yes it does, when would you like it delivered?

END SCENE

The inexperienced sales person would crack after the customer doesn’t answer right away. They get nervous and squirmish about waiting for an answer. The best sales people train themselves to withstand that uncomfortable silence for as long as it takes.

Why is that? Because it shows confidence in what we just asked. When we talk first, it shows that we are nervous and it gives the customer the upper hand. It also opens up the door for us to talk too much and tell the customer something that would detract from the sense of urgency they built up with the special they were running this month.

Check out this post to learn about closing more sales

The Art of Knowing When to Shut Up

“If you don’t have anything nice to say…”

Yeah we all know the saying, “Don’t say anything at all,” got it Mom. But did we ever question why?

We already looked at a blogging scenario and a negotiating scenario, but how about a marketing scenario?

Marketing doesn’t necessarily have to be actively searching out customers. You could be marketing yourself in a job interview or on a date. Marketing is a broad term, try not to be confined by it’s traditional definition in this example.

Marketing Examples

Content Marketing is something I do when I write. I create (free) content that I distribute any and everywhere in hopes of attracting readers that someday may turn into customers when I begin to sell products/services on this site. If you recall, one of my goals for this year is to be able to monetize my blog, I have started this with my book recommendations on the side-bar. But as I talked about, if I put out so-so or sub-par content, you would never come back to read. Better to shut up than put out mediocre content, right?

Now think about the social media marketing from a large company that has 35,000,000 Likes on Facebook, let’s just call them Oreo. It’s their style to post multiple times per week with funny sayings and cute pictures of their products occasionally posting things with cats and babies and things that make people say “awwwwwwww!

What happens when they begin to post too much of the same thing? What happens when they post 5 pictures in a week about dogs and Oreos? Do you think some people will misconstrue their message with something about dogs?

Sometimes it’s better for companies to not post anything that can be judged or disliked rather than reaching for something that’s not there. The best thing that can happen from forcing a post is they make a couple people giggle, while the worst thing that can happen is they alienate a number of their current and potential customers.

On the flip side of that, knowing when to shut up can help them avoid alienating those customers and keep their brand strong, even if it is with fewer posts. Don’t get me wrong we still have to put ourselves out there, and we have to try new things with our words, our actions, and our marketing. But the worst thing we can do in many situations is to say something just to say it.

—

What is a time when you opted for silence? In hindsight, was it the right decision?

Leave me a comment below or chat with me on Twitter

Have a great week!

How to be Perceived as an Expert on Any Subject

Expertise for Meetups

As I was thinking through my post from yesterday I began to think how I can incorporate meetups into my current business. What do I enjoy? What types of services can I offer people? Who do I want to learn from?

All these questions and more began racing through my mind as I tinkered with ideas. The most prominent of these was a meetup based on teaching small business owner’s what I know about SEO (search engine optimization) and online marketing.

That got me thinking… Today I want to discuss how to be perceived as an expert on any subject.

Doubt Showed Up to the Party

I almost immediately dismissed this idea, even though it was the best of the lot. I dismissed it because I told myself I was not an expert, I was not a guru, I was not an SEO ninja. But according to whom am I not any of these things?

Well I am a novice compared to the people I listen to on podcasts and whose articles I read online every day.

But I am a relative expert compared to the small business owner’s that I work with (in the past, currently, and the ones I want to work with) on SEO subjects.

I had to put myself in check and reassure myself of what I know to be true. I can help other small business owners improve their online presence.

Sales Training Examples

When I trained sales people at the furniture company I had to reassure people of this all the time. Many would come to me paralyzed with fear saying things like, “I don’t know enough about the product to sell it” or, “I can’t sell anything until I know all the products by heart.”

I would immediately cut them off and have to explain that you don’t need to know everything about a subject to be perceived as an expert. You just need to know more than the people you are selling to.

It helps a great deal when you know everything, but it’s not necessary. The more knowledge you have, the more widely recognized as an expert you will be considered.

When I first started selling furniture I was in their shoes too. But I had been doing it for years and was considered an expert by peers and even superiors across the industry even though I was significantly younger than most.

Missteps

In furniture sales I would teach everyone to repeat specific lines as their greet, close, and referral pitch. This conversation always came up around the time when new people were coming on board. Some didn’t want to start selling until they had every line memorized.

If you’ve ever played music you are shaking your head with me right now. Your teachers always say, “The audience doesn’t know what it’s supposed to sound like. So if you misstep, keep going and don’t dwell on it.”

It’s the same concept when selling furniture, SEO guidance, or any other product/service you can think of. If you misstep, keep going and get back on course as soon as possible.

One of the best ways to learn is through trial and error. Some of the in-depth knowledge I picked up over the years was because of a challenging customer that knew it all (literally) and corrected me when I misspoke.

Those occasions are rare, but they do come along, and they force you to become better at your craft. They keep you in check so you are constantly sharpening your ax and avoiding arrogance.

Twisting of Words

Please don’t confuse this with me saying, “Lie to people, they’ll never know the difference” because that is not what I intend. I want to be crystal clear with my message today: In your own mind you may not be an expert, but when you know more than others you can be considered an expert to them.

You don’t have to compare yourself to the best in the world. They are the best in the world for a reason, and odds are you are comparing your start to their prime.

The basic premise of this requires that you know more than the people you are selling to or advising. Be sure to do your homework before jumping out there and begin selling yourself or your products, you need a healthy base knowledge before people will even begin to trust that you know what you are talking about.

Don’t forget that today’s consumers are quite savvy and can see through BS just as well as you can!

—

Have you had an instance when you were hesitant to consider yourself an expert? Did you get over it? How did it turn out?

Leave a comment below or chat with me on Twitter.

Have a great day!

3 Essential Components: How to Close More Sales

One of my first jobs, even before the furniture company, was selling vitamins in a one-on-one setting. Then I spent most of much of my previous life with furniture in sales, performing and teaching them. I spent a lot of time observing what my sales people were doing and how the best ones operated. These are the best 3 pieces to any puzzle when learning how to close more sales with consumers.

The Theory

In sales, there is a lot to take in and there is a lot of reacting, not just doing. Meaning, walking up to a press in a factory and repeating the same process all day is not the same as making sales calls all day. When on sales calls you’ll have different objections to overcome, personalities to figure out, and rapport to build with each individual customer.

So how can we make that sales job more solid in order to teach people to be better at making sales?

We have to determine which pieces of the sales process are concrete. Some of the best sales people ‘just wing’ some sales calls and get lucky because they have the personality for sales. But the best ones have a plan and they know when to ‘wing it’ and when to go to what they know.

These are the 3 pieces of a sales that I like to call “The Skeleton.” These are concrete and should not be changed, no matter what scenario is in front of the sales person. If these can be done, than there is time and a place to ‘wing it’ while pitching something.

DISCLAIMER: All the terminology I’m using here comes from my furniture days, but the concepts have been shaped so I don’t give away any of their trade secrets and still convey the theory.

1.) The Greet

In any sales process there is a greeting period where the sales person and the consumer are getting to know each other. In the animal world this equates to butt sniffing, but here it’s more accurately characterized by confusion and cautious body language from the consumer paired with an eagerness from the sales person.

This is a crucial stage for the sales person. Starting off on the wrong foot makes a sale infinitely more difficult and is one of the main reasons I’ve seen sales people blow a transaction. The best way to start off on the right foot is to greet people the same way each and every time. Now this doesn’t mean act like a robot, it means to practice the first few things that come out of your mouth.

In furniture it was 3 lines about “who we are/what we offer, why you need to be ready to buy today, and why you should trust us” that were to be spouted off immediately after they introduced themselves to a customer. This was their way of taking control of the situation.

Every sales person has their second most anxious moment when someone walks through the door. Scripting the greet is the best way I’ve seen to calm them down. If there are things that need to be prepared such as a demonstration or a tour, this is the time to do it and get all the butterflies out at once.

Make sure this greet is not cheesy and it ensures to the consumers that you are here to sell them something. We all hear that nobody wants to be “sold something” but what that really means is nobody wants to be lied to. Be upfront and honest with your intentions and you’ll gain the trust of the consumers.

2.) The Close

We’ve skipped some major dialogue here and I’m sure there will be some critics ready to rip me apart for it. But the next concrete step is the close. After someone is greeted, there will be a rapport building time where a good sales person will find out what it is the customer needs. This is done through questions and answers, not by a sales person telling the consumers what they need.

The reason the Q & A sessions aren’t a concrete part of this equation is because every industry and product is different, just like every consumer. Some people want to know about warranties, others only care about price, and some want to know every detail no matter how insignificant. If you try and standardize the sales process too much you end up with robots that are too busy trying to ask the right questions instead of making people feel comfortable and listening to them.

The closing of a sale should be the same every time. The same words should come out of your mouth each time, the only thing that changes will be the products and/or prices. If you can condition your mind and your mouth to say the same thing every time, the same way with confidence, your success rate will increase.

How to Close More Sales

I said the second most anxious part of the sale was when someone was being greeted, but the most anxious part is when a sales person is asking for the sale. Athletes have done this for decades, calm the nerves by practice and improve the performance. Use muscle memory to become confident in asking for that sale.

Be sure The Close is delivered in the form of a question. I’ve heard too many sales people just throw out a price in the form of a statement, evoking no response from a customer. Then I’ll come back and say the same thing they did, but ask a question instead of making a statement, and the consumers “magically” want to buy from me.

Questions prompt answers, statements prompt silence. Figure out how to word your close into a question and your success rate will improve.

3.) The Referral Process

Since most sales people are commission based, this is essential to their long-term success. After the customer has given a yes and the transaction has been closed, this is the time to ask for referrals. Some sales people ask for names and numbers of people they can follow up with (insurance agents) and some just ask you to send as many people their way as possible (furniture sales people).

Whatever your method consists of, do it. Do it well, and do it every time. You have already closed the sale, you have already met your objective, what’s the worst thing that can happen? They’ll say no or they just won’t send you any, no big deal.

When you get in the habit of asking for referrals each and every time, you build good habits and those people that are willing to send you referrals will get a genuine pitch on why they should do so. If you only do it some of the time, your referral pitch will be weak and those people that are willing to send you people won’t get the proper message. You know what that means? Confusion for them and no referrals for you.

Just like The Greet and The Close, The Referral Process is essential to closing more sales. Be sure to ask for referrals every time you have a customer in front of you, you will become good at it and you will begin to see your referral business take an upward turn as well.

Please feel free to contact me if you think I’m full of crap or if you have any questions about my theories I’ve outlined, I’ll be happy to expound on anything I’ve talked about here. This post came at the suggestion of a friend and fellow blogger, Ryan Ard, check out his blog here. It’s been fun to explore the ins and outs of the sales game again.

Now go S.S.S.!

—

Chat with me on Twitter or check out these other sales posts if you liked this message.

Have a great snow day!

—

Sign up for Posts via Email below

In Honor of MLK: How to be Opportunistic

Today we honor one of the greatest leaders this world has ever known. He was the epitome of a man who stood by his message and did not waiver. I have great deal of respect for that quality, not many people are like that anymore. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been brought up in multiple books that I have read recently and I love it when I get to learn something new about the civil rights movement or Dr. King himself. Today we examine how to be opportunistic through Dr. King’s work in Birmingham in the 60’s.

David & Goliath

My current read, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell, argues against what we typically think of “strengths” and “advantages.” He outlines how some of the world’s most successful people can barely read because of dyslexia and how the things we think of “disadvantages” can be the key to our true strengths and ultimately our successes.

In Chapter 6, Gladwell talks about how Dr. King and a pastor named Wyatt Walker led the civil rights movement from Birmingham. They poked and prodded the local government through marches and sit-ins, hoping to get some sort of reaction out of them that was national newsworthy. They recruited teenagers and children to protest because they knew how powerful police brutality directed children could potentially be if it made the news. Plus, if they were arrested, it would not hurt families as bad economically, as opposed to a parent being thrown in jail. Their plan finally worked when this image was captured and publicized across the country.

As the media caught wind of the photo, the scene unfolded just as Dr. King planned. The reports came out about peaceful protests and police brutality on children and national support for the civil rights movement soared. The police chief, who ordered the use of dogs and fire hoses, was relieved and the black community united as Birmingham began the journey desegregation.

Hard Work or Dumb Luck?

Dr. King and Wyatt Walker worked very hard to accomplish what they did in Birmingham. They protested, they marched, they boycotted, and they did it all without violence. They had so much patience – and faith – for their plan that they did this for years, looking for that single opportunity to bring their cause to the rest of the world. They did not know that the national media would take the photo and run with it, but they sure hoped it would.

Dr. King practiced something (many things actually) that all of us can learn from. He understood that the harder he worked, the luckier he would be. All he needed was a little ‘luck’ for one of his demonstrations to be picked up by the national media. The world wasn’t streaming live on social media as it does today. So he kept preaching, and protesting, and loving his enemy. He never gave up, and when someone as influential as John F. Kennedy got involved, Dr. King knew that big changes were sure to come.

But remember, it took him years to get to that point. He had to put in the seemingly endless work to get that ‘lucky’ just to have that photo spread like it did. He was poised and ready when the national media grabbed the photo and it’s accompanying story. When he saw the opportunity, he capitalized on it.

A Hole In One

Ever since I’ve heard that connection with hard work and luck, I’ve related it to golf. Yes, it takes some luck to hit a hole in one. The wind has to be good, the ball must roll just at the right angle, the slope of the green has to be perfect, and more.

But if you practice every day, you’re going to get closer and closer and you’re going to have more opportunities as well. So when it eventually happens, it was the product of that hard work, not luck.

A Furniture Anecdote

In my previous life I was a trainer of furniture slingin’ sales people. Part of my job was train them how to sell it: steering people into products that we had in stock, maximizing profit, asking for referrals, and much more. Each sales person was purely commission based, so their paychecks reflected how well they sold furniture and they could determine what price to charge, so they had total control of their pay.

I had a young man that was excellent with customers, but didn’t always maximize his profit. He was not on his A-game one day, but lucked out with some very nice customers that fell in love with one particular bedroom set. In sales, when someone ‘loves something’ they are usually willing to pay more for it. This young man realized that they loved this bedroom set and he swung for the fences; he threw out a high price and they loved it.

Great job! But then, they asked about a second nightstand for the bedroom set. As a commission based sales person, this is a great opportunity to make some more money. Instead of swinging for the fences again, he gave them the second nightstand for free because he had “good profit” in the sale. Had he worked harder and been prepared for that situation, he could have made an extra $50 for giving them something they already wanted.

ASIDE – Those of you that have never been in sales are probably shaking your heads and saying, “See, that’s why I hate sales people!” But you have to understand, this is how they are paid, and that’s how we they put food on the table at night. Plus, for every story like that, I have a story about customers trying to cheat us out of product or trying to get us to deliver something for free. It offsets, and those opportunities to up-sell do not come ever day.

Dr. King and Wyatt Walker were patient opportunists. They were able to capitalize when they saw their opening. They worked on what they believed in, and they stuck to it. Their plan worked and it worked because they put in hard work. They didn’t know when and where their ‘luck’ would strike, but they knew if they stayed focused it just might happen. Turns out they got ‘lucky’ after all.

—

Have you ever been ‘lucky’ like this? What happened? Were you able to capitalize on the situation as Dr. King did? Leave me a comment or chat with me on Twitter.

Happy Birthday Dr. King!

Older Posts