Wednesday, May 25, 2011

You Gotta Let Someone Look at Your Telecom Bills

Most of the time I write about sales and networking ( hence the blog name) but I like to write specifically about telecom from time to time. Today I want to share a real story about the importance of reviewing your telecom bills and more importantly having someone else look them over for you.

I have a client with about 6 locations in a fairly close area ( they are all about 40 miles apart). Currently I provide a very small percentage of their service and they have given me the opportunity to review & determine how we could help them with the rest. To give you a brief overview they connect all offices with a data  network that also provides Internet access. They have 2 connections that support all inbound and outbound telephone calls and then they have about a 12 telephone lines for faxes, alarms and ETC. They currently have 9 Telecom bills (10 not including their service with me). One bill represents about 80% of their service. Another represents about 10% and the 6 others  represent another 3%  and then one bill is just 2%. You can see where this would be complicated and time consuming to follow for the customer. The good news is, the 5 bills with the 12 telephone lines are clean and the pricing is about what it should be. The good news for me is that the two big bills representing 95% of their service is at a margin that I can really help them reduce expenses with my companies product line. Here is the interesting part, during my evaluation, the  one bill representing just 2% of their total billing is a mistake. It should have been incorporated in the big bill but was overlooked, probably during the transition period. Now this bill is only about $250 a month, but over a year that is $3,000.00 they are spending when they shouldn't be. In addition this bill has a $12,000 annual spend agreement. Because it was never cancelled, they will be facing a $9,000.00 bill at the end of the year (as a lump sum) because they didn't hit their spend agreement for the year.

Think this can't happen to you? 80% of telecom bills I review have a charge on them that shouldn't be there or is being charged at the wrong rate. So, if you think you are part of that 20% that has a clean bill, BY ALL MEANS, keep going along as you have. Here is what I know, the overwhelming majority of the people that don't want me to look at their bills have MULTIPLE billing errors.  There is almost a direct correlation between their level of reluctance and the number of mistakes. Perhaps that is the result of someone being afraid of being called out for making a bad decision, I can appreciate that. I think most people think that reading their bill is fairly simple and they can do it by themselves. That would be the equivalent of me doing auto repair work on my car to save myself some money. Nothing good will come from that.

My tip to you is, Telecom is not DIY, get someone to look your bills. I do this as a free service for potential & existing customers, because I want the opportunity to do more business, if not now then later.

If you are a telecom sales person, show this to your potential client  and use me as an unbiased 3rd party ( because I have no idea who will read this , I can't possibly bias it past my own desire to do business with people).

If you are a potential customer, First THANK YOU for reading my blog, you have put yourself far ahead of most people I meet with. Second, call me or call  a telecom rep you know and trust and get an evaluation done. Even without changing providers, you could save your company  THOUSANDS of dollars.

And if that isn't worth meeting with a sales person, I don't know what is.

Thanks for reading today

Mike Shelah

BTW follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Monday, May 16, 2011

Build Trust with a Client or Lose Business for Stupid Reasons

Last week, I did something I am really not supposed to do. I got angry with a customer. I made statements to them that indicated the decision they were making was a bad one. The customer went so far as to send me an email later "apologizing" to me and said "I did nothing wrong." Quite to the contrary I did many things wrong in this process, so let's begin.

First: If you are not going to do business with someone, be up front with them. Tell them " I went with competitor XYZ because their price was better, they offered faster turn around time, they offered 24 hour customer support." Whatever the reason, articulate that to the vendors you didn't select. It's the only way we can learn. Don't tell a sales person they "did a great job." In your mind you are paying a compliment, trying to make us feel better. We feel insulted. If we did such a great job then why not use us? Now, back to our story.

That wasn't my problem though. I lost this sale because the customer did not trust me. I am sure she liked me and she enjoyed meeting with me but when it came to making a change, she took the word of a total stranger over mine. That is a  BIG failure on my part. What this particular case came down to was a fear on the customers part that I could not overcome because I had not worked hard enough to gain her faith in my knowledge. I told her that she did not have a binding contract with her current provider and someone else told her she did. I have been in this industry for 12 years, the other person was a temp with less than a year of telecom experience. You see where this was a failure on my part.

Where the trouble started was I believed the customer too readily. When she told me about her situation, I believed it with little or no clarification. When she told me that she valued working with local companies I took that at face value, when in fact that meant very little to her. What ultimately was important to her was to keep things status quo. The savings I offered the customer and my expertise could not overcome her fear of change.

So a couple lessons I take from this one: don't take a customer at face value for their statements. It is important to ALWAYS ask for clarification, get an example even. It will help you better position your product or service.  Determine your customers risk/reward factor. If you can better gauge your customer risk tolerance then you can better leverage innovation to solve their problems.

Thanks for reading today

Mike S.


BTW follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Sunday, May 8, 2011

What my mom taught me about sales and networking

My mother passed away in 2003. On Mother's day, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about her influence on me and how she helped shape the sales person I have become.

First, it is important to understand that my mother was not a salesperson. In fact, she spent her entire life taking care of the sick. she was a nurse. I think that was the first seed found in great sales people, a truly honest desire to help others. If you can show a client or business partner that you care about what their needs are, then your product becomes secondary. They buy you, not the product.

My mom was bigger than life. She commanded a presence when she walked in the room. It seemed wherever she went, she knew someone there. Before social media and connections, there was the simplest dynamic, building a solid reputation by doing good work and others knowing that. Everyone that knew my mother  also knew she was dependable and you could call on her with any problem and she would do anything she could to help. Know any good sales people that fit that description? If not, you need to find some better contacts.

Mom was fearless. She was not afraid to ask for what she wanted, and when it came to those important to her she would not relent until she reached her goal. Persistence is a common characteristic of the top sales pro's. Pushing for what you want in a negotiation is paramount to success.

She had a heart of gold. If she wasn't volunteering at church she was helping with my scouts troop or cooking dinner for 30+ people for the next family dinner. Mom built up a powerful network of people because of her dedication to serving the community.

When it came to networking, Mom would always help first. If someone tried to pay her she would always tell them "you would do the same for me, and I may need your help one day." Truly effective networking is about giving 4 times as much as you get. sometimes even more. Do for good and the positive will return itself.

So that is it. Mom understood persistence, generosity, helping yourself through helping others and surrounding yourself with a network of other like minded people.

Thanks for reading today

Mike S.

BTW follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

You're not a "Guru" or "Expert" so stop saying that

I recently attended a trade show (seems all my good stories are coming from trade shows lately) and there was a self proclaimed "Guru" of sales and success there. He was one of the Key sponsors so he was given some time to address the crowd that gathered that day. Now, I have no problem with him speaking to the crowd for a few minutes but considering how many people paid good money for a trade show table that day, I felt it inappropriate for him to speak for close to 20 minutes, when all the other sponsors only took 5 minutes. My next problem, this guy spent his entire time pitching us on how wonderful he is, how great his radio show is and etc.... One of the first things they teach you in most sales programs is the concept of "don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle." Put in simpler terms you need to sell the reasons why people should buy from you as opposed to why they should buy your product. Teddy Roosevelt is famous for saying "speak quietly and carry a big stick." In other words let your actions speak to your capabilities.

I don't know about you but every time I have sat in a presentation and the person doing the presenting called themselves some kind of "Guru" or "Expert" it made me skeptical and left me feeling guarded. What's worse is these people rarely say anything innovative or compelling. Many times I get the feeling that they are simply reading out of the same sales books I have read over the years and just putting their own stamp on it.

Don't get me wrong.... that is exactly what I am doing with this blog. I didn't create any ground breaking sales techniques or closing techniques. I didn't start a school for sales and sales management. Most importantly I DON'T call myself a "Guru" or an "Expert." I like to describe myself as someone who "gets it." That is in fact the highest compliment I can pay someone. Because frankly, there are a lot of people out there that just don't "get it." Now "It" can mean many things. For the most part, I am usually talking about people in the sales world who don't take any time to try and learn effective selling or intelligent prospecting. They generally think networking is a waste of time and once they get the sale they don't care about the customer. They don't get it.

A few years ago I was in the position to take a promotion to sales manager. During the conversation of duties and compensation and etc the "consultant" suggested my new title be "Director of Business Development." I told him that I thought the title made me sound like a pompous windbag. He told me that was his title at his last company for over 12 years. And that just proved my point.

So here are my thought about titles. When was the last time you saw a business card and the titles said "sales person?" you don't, were all "account managers" or some variation thereof. We're sales people! Stop it! We don't manage anything! We can barely manage ourselves. Our primary job (read that 95% of what is expected of us) is to find new customers to grow company revenue. That's it, end of list. Now many companies will tell you that they want you to take care of the customers and handle their problems and keep them happy. But ultimately, they don't pay you that way, they pay you to sell. I had a sales manager who would not lift one finger to help a customer unless one of his reps had directly sold it because, otherwise it didn't effect his bottom line. I personally felt he could not be more WRONG about that, but we disagreed on a great many things when it came to sales and the customer.

 On the flip side of this one, I meet people in sales roles all the time who tell me "well, I'm not a sales person." I have a little surprise for you. If your primary role in your job is to get someone sitting on the other side of the table to write you a check, sign a contract or do both, your a sales person. And YES, that includes small business owners. If you are a one person shop then sales is part of what you do and you are indeed a sales person. For some reason there is a negative connotation to the term "sales person." Forget about the fact that just about EVERY company on the planet has at least one sales person and without that sales person the company would almost come to a screeching halt. To be clear, I don't think sales people are any more important than any other position within the company but  like all other positions we are necessary. Just like a car engine, every moving part is essential to the engine running smoothly. Lose a part and eventually the engine will lock up.

Now, I will never tell you I am an expert of anything, but when people I know tell others I am, that is a win. That means I am doing something right. That is what you want. Even better, get someone to write an article about you and call you an expert, because that builds credibility and credibility is the foundation of all long term sales relationships.

So here's the summary: don't label yourself awesome. If you truly are, others will do it for you.

Thanks for reading today,

Mike S.

BTW, follow me on twitter   @mistertelecom