Wednesday, October 26, 2011

I Should Be Happy to Have a Job in Such a Bad Economy

I often write my blogs as a cathartic expression of the daily grind that is, being a salesperson. Identifying candidates is 100 times harder than it was even 5 years ago and once you get the appointment, the decision process that used to take 30 days is now 6-12 months. I hear people say all the time " this economy is terrible" and I don't argue that point, to the contrary, as sales people we are told to sell through objections. But nobody tells the customer that. There is no one standing behind the small business owner saying "stop making excuses and go make some damn money!" I have a good friend who has been in business for himself for over decade and this poor economy has hit his industry very hard. He has a fantastic product that I truly believe in and I often suggest ideas or options to hopefully help him think outside the box and get things moving in the right direction. He politely listens to what I say but I don't think he really hears me. I think the biggest reason he doesn't hear me is because he is so focused on "fixing" the problem that he does not evaluate the problem and create a plan to fix it. I truly hope that business owners will read my blog too, but I know that for the most part they don't. Because there are several key factors they could implement to make the sales process easier on them.
Topic one, be a good listener. They teach you this in sales training all the time. It is important, not only to listen when people speak, but to truly "hear" what they are saying. The subtle word choice can indicate frustration that may lead to you asking more questions to find the right solution for their problem and make them a customer. This is the same for customers. I recently blogged about a customer that thanked me for being so persistent and then told me he would sign up with my company. During our evaluation process, one of the concerns he had was a new business venture that he was starting within his office  space. I told him VERY SPECIFICALLY that his decision to start this venture would have little to no impact on our solution and that he would need a second vendor to complete the task regardless of choosing my company or staying with his current company. A few days after our installation the customer called me yelling quite loudly that I dropped the ball. I asked him what he was referring to and cited the scenario I just explained to you. My response was " Mr. Customer not only did I not drop the ball, but I told you that a second vendor would be needed to complete the work you desire." He yelled some more. I then told him I have business partner I often work with that does that work and would be glad to introduce him. I told the customer he worked fast and was fairly priced. His response was "just get him to my office and send me the bill." I had to explain to him that he would need to visit the site, quote the project and then the customer would sign an agreement to engage him for services. The customer responded " I'm gonna remember this Mike, you didn't help me when you could have." The post script to this story is my vendor friend took care of everything for my customer in less that 5 business days and did so at a VERY fair price. Customer has yet to call back and thank me for helping him when he was in a self induced bad spot. Doubt he will.

Topic two, be honest. This is paramount to any good sales process. If it takes your company 90 days to deliver then you damn well better tell the customer that. If there is ANY chance it will take 120 days, then tell them that too. Don't sugar coat it, don't put a positive spin on it. Address the issue and move on. The flip side of this is that customers lie to sales people all the time. If you are any good at sales then you can probably catch about 70% of the lies a customer tells you. I hate these situations because the customer is lying to me A: because they want to spare my feelings because they like me or B: they have absolutely no respect for me and have already decided to go with my competitor but want to use me to leverage the price they are getting. As for the first reason, please don't. Eventually we will come to learn that you lied to us and it will only make us angrier. Plus we wasted a bunch of time  listening to your lies because we thought we really had a chance. Here is a big sales secret. It is not our job in sales to trick you into buying from us. We don't get paid to meet with you or send you emails or chat on the phone. We get paid for signed contracts, EVERYTHING else is window dressing. The more time we waste on your lies, the less time we have to pursue real customers who want to work with us.

Talk to the other side. Nothing is more frustrating than when a customer ignores our emails and voice-mails. I have many customers who have said to me "wow I just left you that message a few minutes ago!" That's right, if you thought it important enough to contact me the least I can do is respond in a timely manner. Even if my response is " I don't know the answer, give me two days to research that and find out for you." This gets back to my "don't lie" concept and it creates a tangible timeline. Here is another hint for you customers out there. If you are not ready to buy or what we are proposing isn't really  a high priority for you then you can simply say " Mike this isn't high on my priorities right now, lets pick this up again in 30/60/90 days." you wanna know what we will do? We will get back to you in 30/60/90 days? Y'know why? Because no amount of selling or persuading is going to convince you to sign on the dotted line this month & that is all we care about. You don't wanna do business this month? Fine, thank you for being up front with me. I will get back to you in the requested time frame, in the mean time I will work on my other opportunities that still can make a decision this month.

If I wanna be paid in November then I need to sell in October, period.

The customer that goes dark on us after meeting and "oh yes this all looks and sounds great" is a real time waster and no one gets what they want. As sales people we need to keep calling because you haven't told us ANYTHING! you didn't say yes, you didn't say no, you didn't even say maybe! we have no idea where this project stands. Our intuition will tell us many things but really YOU the customer need to tell us. And to you sales people that get emails or voice mails  from you customer, get back to them in 24 hours. Better yet, call them back today. If they want to yell at you that isn't going to change tomorrow, in fact it will be worse. If they have a simple question, then give them a simple answer. Think about this, your simple answer to their question may free them up to answer another sales person and in turn, free them up to buy from you.

So that's the blog this week. Nothing terribly controversial this week but hopefully this provokes some thought and is a call to action for you. One more thing, show this to a customer you have a real good relationship with. It may just lead to your next great sale.


Thanks for reading today

Mike S.


PS

My Baltimore networking event is coming up Friday night 11-11-11 please use the link below to register, I would love to meet you in person. Beside you will be doing something good by raising money for children and a local charity. Did I mention it's a tax deduction?

Networking for a Cause in Baltimore Maryland 11-11-11

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Cold Calling Sucks and Frankly, it's Really Stupid

I have alluded to this concept in previous posts, but today I felt it high time to really discuss this topic in greater detail. So let's set the table first. I started in telecom sales in 1999. It was my first real B2B sales position and I knew nothing about the Baltimore business landscape. My company preached "go out and collect 20 cards and make 20 phone calls every day and you will be successful." I hated collecting cards. I did so only when absolutely forced to. Usually this meant there was a national contest that participation was mandatory and their were prizes for certain categories. I always won the "most cards collected" one for my office. It was easy & I don't mean that I went a grabbed a fish bowl from a local tavern. What I would normally do is hit a medical building with 50-100 Doctors offices and collect those cards. Now, most of the names on those cards were the wrong person for me to talk to, but that isn't what the contest was about, it was about collecting cards, it made the bosses happy.
So you will notice that the OVERWHELMING number of people who advocate cold calling are either sales managers or people trying to sell "cold calling" techniques to sales managers. When I first started I only cold called. I would get contact lists from Dunn and Bradstreet and that would give me a targeted location, company name and contact person to speak with. In a given day I would make 100 calls, I would talk to 10 people and set 3 or 4 appointments. I usually did that twice a week and that gave me enough activity  to keep my manager happy. So here is a question for you good readers today. How many of you can genuinely tell me that the last time you made 100 cold calls that your spoke to 10 decision makers and set 4 appointments? So what changed? Do I just suck at cold calling now ( sure, maybe the answer to that is yes, but lets put that aside for a moment). If you make those 100 calls, how many decision makers do you get to speak to, 2 maybe 3? So right there the contact percentile has been cut by 70%. Now I don't know about any of you but I can't live on 70% less money than I did ten years ago. And there is one truth about sales that I agree with, it's a numbers game. You still need three times your quota in your funnel every month to hit your target. But that has become increasingly difficult, so back to my original question, what changed? I can't speak for every industry but I know telecom was wide open in 1999 and you could openly call people and get through to the right person. Depending on your market sector, that right person would often answer the phone. In 2011, that has changed incredibly. Thanks to the Snake Oil sales people out there that give legitimate sales people a bad name, the actual DM that will take the time to answer the phone is almost completely gone.

So how do you get people to take your call? There are lots of theories on this one. Here is what I have found success with. First, you connect with people through networking, the chamber of commerce and philanthropy. Find something you are passionate about and then volunteer. You build up a list of people that may or may not be good customers for you but most certainly can make introductions for you.

Step two, research. Use your local business journal, use the Internet, I am very fond of Linkedin and I research people on there all the time. Most specifically, I am looking for people with specific business titles that have mutual contacts with me. I will then ask that person for an introduction. If I have done right by this person in the past and introduced them to good people then the introduction shouldn't be a problem. If I don't have a mutual contact then I look for other common ground. Did we go to same college? Are we part of the same fraternity? Do we like the same sports teams? Do we advocate for the same or similar causes?You are looking for things that make you stand out as a person so that you are no longer just "another salesperson." Once I find that common ground I will call and ask to speak with them. Undoubtedly I will get transferred to voice-mail and that is my chance to introduce our common ground and see if they are willing to speak with me. If they have a receptionist/screener that says they don't have voice-mail  (here's a hint, that's a lie) I decline leaving a message and instead I look up their email through more Internet research (jigsaw is very useful for this, but that is another topic for another day) and when I send the email I mention the connection in the subject line. For example if it is my college then I say "hello fellow Retriever." for those that don't know, UMBC's mascot is a Retriever, so it has meaning to the alumni.  If none of this works, then go back your network and just start asking around. Eventually, if you bring a name up enough times to enough people, you will eventually get the right contact and the right introduction.
I actually just had this very experience. I saw a company article in the Baltimore Business Journal ( another favorite) about a new space opening. I did some research and found the right person. I called and asked about the new space. They said "not interested" and hung up. Very odd, because I knew that their new office would need my services. Even if they don't buy from me. So I went back to my network and found that the person I need to meet with has a mutual contact. I asked for an introduction. She told me that they are very tough to deal with but she would make an introduction for me "no promises." So a month or so went by and I sent an email back to the customer and mentioned that our mutual friend had indicated they are very hard to meet with and that they don't really like sales people. Told them I completely understand, that I don't much like sales people either. That little bit of humor seemed to be enough to open the opportunity. Now, it took me another 6 months from that email to actually get the meeting, but I did get the meeting and it looks like there is a great opportunity for me to do business with them and they will be a tremendous "named account for me in Baltimore.

So to all you sales managers and business owners that preach to your sales people the "Value" of the cold call, take a hard look at the success rate and instead, teach your people to build long lasting relationships that can create powerful referrals.  

And to all the "cold call Gurus" out there peddling your wares to corporate America here is a request " go sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up here."

Thanks for reading today!

Mike S.


BTW, I really hope you can come out to my one of my networking for a cause events. Click the links below and I hope to meet you in person very soon.

Networking and FUNdraising in Baltimore 11-11-11

Networking and FUNdraising Ram's Head Savage Mill 10-17-11

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Sales People Continue to Sell Despite their Lack of Professionalism

The general consensus in the sales arena is "Wow, it's tough out there!" I don't disagree with this statement, but I think we have to consider a counterpoint that says "Wow, there really are a lot of sales people that suck at their job." In this instance I am not referring to performance. I am talking about that sales person (and we all know a few of them) that actually manages to sell despite the fact that they are completely devoid of the sales fundamentals. Thought I would share some of my observations and see just how close to home this hits for people.
Punctuality: sales 101, schedule your time to show up 10 minutes early. Better 10 early than 10 late. I cannot tell you how many times I have shown up for a sales meeting or networking event and THE SAME person is 10-15 minutes late every time. I had a co-worker  about 10 years ago who lived in the city about 10 miles form the office. At the time I lived in the suburbs about 25 miles away. I made a point of leaving my house to get to the office 1/2 an hour early because I knew the traffic to the office could be very tricky. When I asked this person why they didn't leave earlier their response was "it shouldn't take me longer than 20 minutes to get to the office, I cannot control the traffic." But they certainly could control the time they leave for the office. This attitude almost always transfers over to all other aspects of life. The message is "it's really not that important." Whether someone consciously or subconsciously acknowledges this, it does resonate with the customer. It says "I really cannot trust this person to be reliable." No trust, means no customer. Hopefully lesson learned.

Your mobile device. If you go into a meeting, no one is more important than the person sitting across the table from you. I don't care if they are a CEO or your best friend from high school. There are times when you are expecting an important call and that is a reasonable excuse. When my wife was pregnant with our first child I would attend meetings and tell the customer "if my phone rings I will check to see if it is my wife, she is _ months pregnant, I hope you don't mind." This does two things, it shows respect to the customer and clarifies why this potential call is important. It also gives you common ground. I am no longer just a sales person, I am a husband and a soon-to-be father.
And this leads into my next topic, honesty. So many sales people are afraid to tell the truth, so they dance around uncomfortable topics or avoid them completely or they lie to the customer to make them feel better. It's is my experience that being brutally honest with the customer gains you a ton of credibility. If you're willing to tell them something they don't want to hear then they know they can depend on you to conduct yourself in their best interest, Trust equals customers.
You have got to know your company story. I am sure  this happens in many other sales arenas but particularly in telecom the sale often becomes a commodity sales based on price. If you don't know your company story and you cannot articulate your competitive advantage to the customer they will look at you as "just another bid." knowing your company story also allows you to know when you are meeting with a client that you have little or no chance of doing business with. Know your strengths, know your competition's strength and know what is important to the customer. Focus on the deals you can win, not the deals you cant.
Listen twice as much as you talk. Zig Ziglar is one of my favorites and he said many years ago " you have two ears and one mouth, so listen twice as much as you speak." The reason for this is simple, as good as you may think you are at selling someone you have to know what they want before you can "sell" them what they need.
Your attire and grammar need to be appropriate. In sales there are many degrees of appropriate clothing and women seem to have even greater leeway. I tell you that your attire should be professional and should match your client environment. In addition, every region has little nuances to vernacular, when you are dealing  with a customer it's not okay to say "Mondy" when you meant " Monday." it's not okay to say "anythink" when you really meant "anything," even if the customer speaks that way. Your attire and grammar will show a level of professionalism and they help you convey reliability and trust.
The last one to mention is preparation. Nothing infuriates me more then when I have a networking event and someone shows up without business cards or folio for writing, or a pen. That's like showing up to a meeting without pants. It's just inconceivable. I know if they do it at my meetings that they also show up to a customer appointment or a sales meeting without these items or worse, they didn't research the customer and the point of contact. You are showing a complete lack of interest in winning the business. No interest means, no customer.

I hope you read this and got a good laugh at the horror show that is many people in the sales community. If you read this and thought "hey that sound"s like Bob" please forward this on to them. There's only a couple of reactions that can come from this. They will read it, learn and change ( good for you for helping). They will read it and say "hey! what's this about?" you tell them you enjoyed it and thought they would too or they read it don't get it and don't mention it. No harm, no foul.

Thanks for reading today.

Mike Shelah

BTW I have two networking events coming up, raising money for Autism. If you are in the Mid-Atlantic area I hope you stop by to say hello.

Networking for a Cause in Savage Mill Maryland 10-17-11

Networking for a Cause at MaGerks Pub 11-11-11