Sales Machine

To move a sale forward during the initial conversations, you must keep the prospect engaged. As I pointed out in a previous post (”Better Questions=Faster Selling“), the best way to do this is to ask an open-ended question that moves the conversation forward and also builds rapport. The easiest way to do this is to assume that the prospect has something uniquely interesting to say.

A couple of weeks ago, I was discussing this concept with Barry Rhein, who is probably the top sales trainer in the high tech world. He pointed out that there are nine archetypal ways to say “tell me more about that” using a question. Here they are:

1. Why is that?
2. What are your ideas (opinions, thoughts) on _________?
3. What did you mean when you said __________?
4. Why is that important (essential, relevant)?
5. How does that look (feel, seem) to you?
6. What are some examples of _________?
7. What’s your definition of __________?
8. Can you elaborate on _________?
9. What does _________ mean for you?

As with most conversational sales skills, delivery is all-important. There are three keys to using these questions effectively:

1. Be really curious. I mean, really. If these questions are going to build rapport, you’ve got to be able to communicate (non-verbally and verbally) that you are truly interested in the prospect. If you really do care, the prospect will sense this and (being human) feel flattered.
2. Do your research. I hate to keep harping on this point, but every sales conversation needs to come from a place of knowledge and authority. Without research, you’ll end up asking a question about something obvious and end up looking ill-informed or foolish.
3. Use a cue card. Unless you’re some kind of sales savant, you’re not going to be able to remember all nine questions. Post a copy of them by your telephone and in your day-minder. Flip to the list when you’re in the meeting. Use different questions at different times during the conversation.

By the way, there is also a tenth classic way to say “tell me more about that” — a way that’s not in the form of a question. Can guess what it is?

The whole point of Marketing is to make selling easier. Unfortunately, many marketing groups think their job is to “drive” sales. As a result, they waste big bucks on nonsense and fluff. That increases the cost of sales, which inevitably results in smaller commissions for the sales team.

Since it is in the interest of sales professionals to keep Marketing focused on low-cost, useful activities, here’s a quick questionnaire to determine whether your firm is suffering from costly dysfunctional marketing behavior.

Answer the following questions, keeping a running total of the number associated with each of your answers:

Q1: What level of sales experience is typical among your marketing folk?

1. They’ve all held Sales positions.
2. Some have held Sales positions.
3. The CMO once ran a lemonade stand.

Q2: What is the quality of the sales leads that marketing generates?

1. Most of the leads convert into being customers.
2. Some of the leads convert into being customers.
3. You could do better with your finger and a phone book.

Q3: How useful are the sales tools that marketing creates?

1. They’re invaluable and we use them all the time.
2. They can be helpful when edited and customized.
3. Gee, look at the pretty pictures.

Q4: How do your engineers react when they see marketing folk?

1. They ask the marketers for more of those useful product inputs.
2. They nod politely and then go back to their own work.
3. They start laughing and pointing.

SCORING: Subtract the total of your answers from 12 and find your rating on the following scale:

• 7-8: Congratulations. Your marketing folk are a fully contributing part of your sales success.
• 5-6: Above average. Your marketing folk aren’t exactly dead weight and do add some value.
• 3-4: Average. Your marketing folk are eroding profits that might otherwise go for commissions.
• 1-3: Uh 0h. Your marketing folk are complete waste of space. Resume time?

Unless you’re psychic and know when a prospect is going to pick up the phone, you’re going to be leaving voice messages sometimes. Here’s how to up the chances that your target actually calls you back.

Step 1. Research. Figure out the major challenges in the target’s industry, the role your target’s firm plays in that industry, and the role your target’s job title typically play. Use Google, Linkin, etc. to search on your target’s name, business and likely city of residence, etc. Look for anything that might hook the target into listening to the entire message: personal interests, trade association memberships, colleague relationships, etc.

Step 2: Craft. Use the information you gathered in step 1 to craft a message that will drive the sales process forward. The message should consists of three parts: 1) a title line “teaser” or headline, 2) a few sentences (less than 4) of concise content, and 3) a call to action. Use the tone and vocabulary that you would expect to find within an internal voice mail message sent inside your prospect’s firm. Emphasize how, from the target’s viewpoint, you’ll be able to help solve a problem or achieve a goal.

Step 3: Practice. When you actually leave the message, the word must come out of your mouth naturally, as if it were half of an interesting conversation. This means that you must internalize the message rather than simply prepare yourself to read it over the phone. You will need to cultivate the casual confidence that the target might hear in a voice message left by one of his or her colleagues. To practice, call your own voice mail. Try different wordings, expressions and tonalities. Ask a trusted colleague to critique your performance.

Step 4: Follow-up. If you’ve left a message and haven’t gotten a response, call again. Leave a message that expresses concern and respect for the target. Something like: “I can tell you’re not the kind of person who wouldn’t return a phone call, so I’m calling to see whether everything is OK with you.” Be sure to practice the follow-up a few times before you actually leave it. This works about a third of the time, which ain’t bad, considering that you’ve got nothing to lose at this point.

Step 5. Repeat as necessary. If you’ve got a lot of prospects to call, you can reuse the gist of your crafted message, but it must be modified to match whatever you’ve found out about each prospect. However, always practice leaving every message at least twice before actually leaving it. And check yourself (by leaving a voice mail message for yourself) every hour or so to ensure that it’s not starting to sound rote. Effective voice messaging is all about sounding genuine and credible.

Most of the above is based, by the way, upon a conversation with Linda Richardson, author of “The Sales Success Handbook.”  The “hail Mary” move in Step 4 comes from a sales pro I know who does a lot of cold calling.  It’s worked for me occasionally.  The trick is to make it sound natural and not “salesy.”

In a future post, I’ll give some examples of “well-crafted” voice mail messages.

“I hate being in Sales,” a woman recently confessed to me. Even so, she’s pretty successful, and was recently netting $40,000 a month in commissions. But here she was, telling me that she hated the very job that she was so good at.

This surprised me, because I like to pretend that most sales professionals enjoy their jobs. I’m pretty certain (but can’t prove) that the ones who do enjoy it are generally more successful. And most sales professional seem pretty upbeat, at least on the surface.

Even so, I’m well aware that plenty of people don’t like their jobs. I was just always kinda assumed that sales professionals were immune to the typical work-a-day malaise.

“I hate treating everyone as a potential customer,” she continued, “I hate pretending I like people with whom I have little or nothing in common. I hate cold-calling and I hate following up.”

Hoping to put a more positive spin on the conversation, I asked, “Well, then, what do you like about your job?”

She answered without hesitation: “The money, that’s all. I do my job and do it well, but if I could do something else and still make this kind of money, I would.”

I found her viewpoint personally depressing, because she happens to be my sister.

I want my sister to be happier but I don’t know what to tell her. Seriously, I’m at a loss.

Do you secretly hate your job? If so, how do you cope? And if you don’t, what’s your secret?

Can anyone help me out here?

Sales managers are always insisting that sale reps should sell high, but that’s not always practical. Some organizations push buying decisions so far up the chain that nobody except a CEO is likely to get face-time with the guy who’s got the cash.

The most obvious example of this is the military, where the generals make the decisions but are supposed to be isolated from the contractors. There are also firms that surround the decision-maker with organizational walls, simply to make sure that sales reps don’t call on them.

When that’s the case, you may need to get your lower-level customer contacts to sell your offering for you. Here’s how, in six easy steps:

Step1. Make a decision. Sometimes getting to see the decision-maker is just a matter of persistence. Is really impossible to get a meeting? I mean, really??? Remember: the harder it is to get in to see somebody, the easier they are to sell. That’s why they’re making it difficult for you to get access. So don’t give up too soon or too easily.

Step 2. Locate the best champion. Chances that you’ve had the opportunity to meet with a few people in the firm before discovering that you’re not going to get to see the big Kahuna. So now you’re looking for somebody accessible who’s consistent and trustworthy, reasonably well-positioned to carry your message up the chain, and (important!) willing to learn from you how to sell your offering.

Step 3. Do extra research and homework. If you’re prepping up a customer contact to sell for you, you need to prepare far more thoroughly than for a regular sales meeting. Bring every kind of material that your champion might need to carry your message forward. Anticipate any kind of question or problem that the champion might encounter.

Step 4. Craft an incredible solution. This is where your communications skills come in handy. Ask probing questions, discover requirements, and build a solution in a collaborative way so that the champion feels ownership for it. Because your champion lacks your sales skills, the solution will need to exceed the requirements and pull the sale forward on its own merits.

Step 5. Coach your champion. Unless your champion has previous sales experience, you’re going to have to coach on how to sell your solution. Encourage the champion to think of presenting the advantages of the solutions through questions, while having all the right answers. (Sales 101a stuff.) Work with your champion on the presentation and notes to be used in the meetings with the decision-makers.

Step 6. Follow-through flawlessly. Your champion won’t be able to sell as quickly as you might like and may become discouraged in the process. You must continue to provide support and build the relationship both during and after the sales effort. Ideally, you’ll be able to cultivate a contact that can bring you business for years to come.

Pretty easy, eh? But I want to emphasize one more time: Do everything you can to get in to see the decision-maker yourself before trying this technique. If you can break through those roadblocks, you’re home free, because the bigwig is probably a pushover.

Why else would he be afraid to speak with a sales professional directly?

Everybody in sales wants to have great sales skills, but not everybody realizes that sales skills come in three varieties.

1. Psychological skills. These are what most people think of as sales skills. They include the ability to complete a successful cold call, to get an appointment, to build rapport, to give presentations, to close business and so forth.
2. Business skills. These are skills involve understanding your own industry and the customer’s industry. They include specific knowledge about your product offerings, competitive information, the business climate, the market, and economic influences.
3. Process skills. These are the sales skills that deal with the way that things get done in your company. They include the ability to use sales technology, forecast revenue, research customers, and so forth. These skills are a little different inside each company, depending upon the market and industry.

If you want to reach the very pinnacle of sales success, you’ll need to have all three skill categories balanced, honed and ready for action. Here’s how.

Working with your manager or a helpful colleague, do an objective assessment of your skill level in all three areas. Identify your strengths and weaknesses, then come up with a gradual learning plan that will fill in the gaps.

For example, if you’ve got great psychological skills but not much business acumen, take some general business courses at the local college. Similarly, if you’ve got an MBA but not much selling experience, get your company to send you to some sales training seminars to improve those skills.

The above comes from a conversation I had a couple of years ago with Joe Galvin, vice president and service director at SiriusDecisions, an advisory service for sales executives.

Selling is hard work, but it’s even more difficult when the sales team starts exhibiting dysfunctional behavior. Here are the seven major sins of sales teams, along with some advice on how to cope:

1. OVERCONFIDENCE. When everyone wants to make big numbers, there’s a tendency to sell too much, too quickly. Solution: Before closing, always make certain that the customer really needs your offering and that your firm has the resources to deliver promptly.
2. GRANDIOSITY. If you’ve got a terrific offering, it’s all too easy to pretend that it’s a panacea. While some products do arguably “change the world” they’re few and far between. Solution: Focus on helping the customer, rather than converting them to a “product” religion.
3. HUBRIS. Sales professionals know what worked in the past, but the memory of past success blind the team to changing customer requirements. Solution: Become obsessed with customer satisfaction and measure it through an objective customer survey.
4. DEHUMANIZATION. Sales technology is great, but if it becomes too pervasive it can hinder the person-to-person interaction that is the core of relationship building. Solution: Use technology sparingly and use face-to-face communication for key customer meetings.
5. OVERWHELM. During times of change, there’s a tendency demand more from everybody on the team, and management may pile on extra offerings, making it difficult for keep abreast. Solution: Stay focused on what the customers are buying today.
6. STOVEPIPING. In every company there is a tendency for sales to view itself as the only group that’s really important; meanwhile, other groups start viewing the sales team as arrogant. Solution: Get other groups involved in the sales process by inviting them to meetings with key customers.
7. STRESS. Sales is, by nature, a stressful activity. If a sales team isn’t careful, it can end up creating a sales culture where stress becomes habitual, like a drug. Solution: Make humor and laughter an integral part of your personal sales process.

Have I missed anything?

I was wrapping up a second mortgage with my local bank when I noticed that, for some reason, they were now using seven-digit telephone extensions. That meant that you had to dial an 800 number and then seven more digits to reach a particular person.

Most business cards already have at least three phone numbers (direct, cell and fax) and maybe an 800 number, too. And a lot of people do business from their home, which means another number to remember. It’s getting to be a real pain entering all that stuff into my contact manager, even without the added burden of a seven digit extension.

It’s not just telephone numbers. I know companies that have ordering systems so complicated that it takes a manual, a help file and two days worth of training, just to be able to define a product configuration that a customer can actually use.

High tech firms are the worst. For example, if you purchase Quickbooks from Intuit with the direct deposit feature, you need a 21-character install key code, an 18-character registration number, a 20-character serial number, an 11-character group number. That’s 60 characters worth of unique identification information (not including a seven digit pin), which means that Intuit could theoretically support

999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999

unique users. Hey, I’m all for ambitious business plans, but this is ridiculous.

This gratuitous numbering bugs me because it wastes time. Some day, a smart marketing geek (they do exist) will figure out that it’s a competitive advantage to dump some of the gratuitous numbering schemes and make it simple to conduct business, rather than an endless exercise of keystroking. And among the sales folk working for that company (not to mention the customers) there will be great rejoicing.

A meeting with a prospect is more likely to result in a big sale if you go into the engagement armed with solid information about the prospect’s firm. Fortunately, there’s no mystery to market research. Here’s how the experts build a quick corporate profile when they’re pressed for time:

Step 1. Go to Hoovers.com and do a search on the prospect’s corporate name. Unless the company is very small or very closely held, you’ll likely get a summary of the company and it’s business model, the basic financial, and the names of a few top executives, even if you don’t have a subscription. If there’s not a listing for the prospect in Hoovers, skip to step 3. If there is a listing, cut and paste the summary and the headquarters address into the top of your profile document. If the company is not publicly held, skip to step 3. If it is publicly held, continue to step 2.

Step 2. Go to www.sec.gov, click on “Search for Company Filings,” then “Companies and Other Filings.” (Or just click HERE.) Enter the prospect’s corporate name. You’ll get a list of documents. Click through to read their most recent 10K and 10Q reports. Typically you get a list of .html files. Click on the first one, which will contain the bulk of the company’s last detailed financial report. The most important sections are the financial tables, the list of executives, the descriptions of the prospect’s business model, and the “issues and uncertainties.” This last identifies the prospect’s pain points that might provide an opening for a sale. Cut and paste whatever looks interesting into your profile document.

Step 3. Go to the prospect’s website. Click on the “ABOUT” link and examine everything that the company has to say about itself. Pay particular attention to any management biographies. Cut and paste whatever looks interesting into your document. Look under “NEWS” (or “MEDIA RELATIONS” or whatever) for the prospect’s recent press releases. Cut and paste any releases that look interesting from the perspective of your firm’s offerings.  Now look under “JOBS AVAILABLE” (it might be called something else) to find out who they’re hiring; that gives you a good idea of how and where they’re planning to expand and where they’re short of resources (another pain point.)

Step 4. Google the prospect’s corporate name and the name of your contact in the prospect’s firm. (Hint: Put both in quotes like so: “John Doe” “Acme Corp”.) Look over the first two pages of results. (Look at the links and the summary.) Click on any document that contains information that might help you better understand the contact’s roles and responsibilities. Take especial note of anything, like references to a personal life or conference speaking engagements, that might offer a “hook” for rapport building. Cut and paste whatever looks interesting into your profile document. Repeat the process with relevant executive names that you retrieved during earlier steps.

Voila! You’ve got a twenty to thirty page document that, if you study it for a half hour or so, will give you a better understanding of the prospect’s firm than most of the employees who actually work there.

Questions serve three functions in a sales conversation. First, they elicit more information about the prospect, thereby allowing you to learn more about how (and if) you can help. Second, they move the conversation forward, so that you can continue to ask more questions, and learn even more. Third, they help build rapport with the prospect so that you can more easily move the entire sale forward.

With that in mind, the absolute worst kind of questions to ask are those that have a one word answer. Example:

Sales Rep: What CRM vendor are you currently using?

Prospect: Oracle.

While the above question does elicit information, it does not move the conversation forward. Making the question open-ended does both. Example:

Sales Rep: What was your decision-making process when you selected a CRM vendor?

Prospect: We put together a cross-functional team which looked at different vendors. We decided that Oracle would be the best choice for us.

Sales Rep: What were the most important criteria for the decision-making?

While the above question both elicits information and keeps the conversation moving forward, it would be even more effective if it also helped build rapport with the prospect. The easiest way to do this is to assume that the prospect has something uniquely interesting to say. Example:

Sales Rep: The economy is tough but I’ve read that your company plans to use sales technology to help weather the tough times. How did your team come up with that plan?

Prospect: Well, we’ve been through some similar situations in the past and, when we got early warning that sales might drop…

In the above question, the prospect has essentially been given the permission to brag about his firm and his participation in helping his firm be successful. Since people like talking about themselves and their achievements, the prospect will probably warm to the subject, and the entire conversation will be more productive. And that, in turn, will make the sales cycle faster.

The above is adapted from a conversation I had a couple of years ago with the legendary Dr. Earl Taylor, a thirty year employee and master trainer at Dale Carnegie & Associates. I’ve found that it helps to practice this kind of questioning with a friend or colleague before trying it in real life.