When in doubt, be honest

I am sure my blog title today caught some people off guard. Surely some of you are saying "but Mike, isn't honesty always the best policy?" Aren't we taught, since childhood to always tell the truth? Y'know, George Washington and the whole cherry tree thing? First, the whole cherry tree story, is not true. it's made up, or if you prefer, it's a lie. The most ironic factor is  the story was created by a Parson, a man of the cloth ( google it, that's what I did). So we preach telling the truth to our children and one of America's classic examples of truth telling is invented by a man who is supposed to extol the virtue of truthfulness (for more information please reference The 10 commandments).

"So Mike what is your point?"

The point is, as much as we value honesty as a virtue, it is harder and harder to come by. There are many degrees of lying and different reasons why people will lie to one another. I want to discuss a couple of these ideas as they apply to sales and business.

First: dealing with the matter upfront. Full disclosure, I grew up about 1 hour north of NY City. In New York people are blunt, their offensive, their direct, but they deal with things as they happen. That can be applied directly to sales. Now,  I want to be clear, I am not suggesting you tell your customers that they are idiots and don't know what they are talking about (even if it is true). What I am suggesting is that you need to bring certain things to light an be honest about them. I recently engaged a business in the Baltimore area that had need of my services. It is a family run business and was told numerous times "you need to discuss this with Dad, he calls the shots on this. "  Fine by me, turns out dad is currently in Florida and spends the cold months there. So I work up a proposal that is very attractive to their needs. I send an e-mail to Dad and also send it to the son and daughter. Weeks go by and nothing happens. I call my local contact again and she again tells me Dad is the one in charge and I need to deal with him. Of course she won't give me his telephone number so I must deal with him by email. So I sent Dad an email and asked why he was ignoring me..... YES you read that correctly, I asked him why he was ignoring me. In the body of the email I indicated that I had addressed his need and came up with a solution that would work for his company. I wrote that if he doesn't want to work with me he doesn't have to but I would appreciate a response as to his intentions. TO HIS CREDIT, the customer called me a few days later and the first words out of his mouth " Mike, you're right, I'm sorry."

Now lets be clear again, you don't do this with every customer. And you don't do it right away. But if you are working through the sales process and the customer just begins ignoring you and you are confident that your product or solution is a great fit for them, then why not? This takes tact and professionalism, but it is a very useful tool.

Second: taking responsibility. As a telecom sales professional I have angry customers from time to time. Sometimes things go wrong and the customer is the one left holding the bag. As the sales person it is your job to absorb the blow. I have worked with many people over the last 10 years that, when things go wrong,will blame everybody but themselves for the mistake or the problem. Take ownership of the problem. No, this will not be easy, you will not enjoy it ( yes that is a movie quote), but taking ownership does have some very positive effects, first it disarms the customer. Second it makes the customer feel better. Third, it allows you listen to the customer instead of defending. This way you can find out what the true problem is and then lead the customer down a path to resolution. Beyond this, take care of the problem, even if it is not yours. If the customer is calling you because they have service with or bought a product from your company, it IS your problem. No customer wants to hear "that is not my job," they don't care and your indifference will only fuel the fire of anger and make things more difficult for your company. Be the front line and disarm the situation, this also known as "be the Hero." Besides, who's to say that customer wont be grateful and then refer you to your next big client, that's called "turning a negative into a positive."

So in summary, Washington didn't cut down the cherry tree, you need to be upfront with customers to get the deal done & you need to take ownership of the problem and help the customer.

Thanks for reading today.

Mike S.

BTW follow me on Twitter @mistertelecom and @selflessnetwork

some thoughts on sales and networking in 2011

One of my followers on twitter posted this link http://bit.ly/gKmgve to an article about the demise of the transactional sales agent. As someone on the front lines of the telecom since 1999 I can attest to this transition. When I first started it was "sign here & press hard," & "porched or paperwork." You would bludgeon people over the head to do business with you, yes, even in the civilized world of telecom. What I find more frightening is how many sales manager still espouse this method of prospecting. Let me be clear, prospecting will always be an essential part of the professional sales persons daily activities. How you decide to go about prospecting is what truly will make the difference.

First: using social media: those that know me know how much I am an advocate for LinkedIn and what it can do for your professional career. In addition to making you highly visible to recruiters to find your next great gig it is an excellent database for finding customers. I can use today's activities to illustrate. A couple weeks ago I was researching contacts on LinkedIn and found a man who is not only a C level executive for a Technology support company but he also sits on the board of directors one of the premier hospitals in Maryland. This man could be a customer for me, he could introduce me to the right people at the hospital and he could become a valuable business partner. This is what I call the win, win win opportunity. So we met at a neutral space (Starbucks) because I didn't want it to feel like a sales call. We both graduated from the same college, so we chatted about that and it turns out that he happens to know one of my fraternity brothers. I asked him about his business and before he could ask I gave him 3 connections that could be of great value to his firm.
So here's what I did
Step 1: found the contact
Step 2: set up a meeting
Step 3: found common ground
Step 4: offered to help without selling anything.

Second: you gotta have face time. In person networking is as important as face to face networking. Even though I created this relationship via social media I took the next step to meet with him. I attend 3 one hour networking meetings a week and I am a member of a local chamber of commerce that has 2-3 events per month. I also participate regularly with the local tech council. People ask me all the time "where do you find the time? I am so busy trying to find new customers I don't have time to network." Huh?

Here is a little secret for the un-initiated: NETWORKING IS LOOKING FOR NEW CUSTOMERS! Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people that go to networking events and don't know how to network effectively (that is another blog for another day) but once you learn to effectively network you should have MORE time to yourself, not less.

So here is the summary: network on line & in person, doing one and not the other will hurt your success. Always offer first to help and you will be amazed at how open people will be to help you.

Thanks for reading today

Mike S.

btw you can follow me on twitter @mistertelecom & @selflessnetwork

Shared versus dedicated Internet access

There are lots of opinions about what type of internet is the best and what to use and why. I am going to share some basics here and hopefully they will help your decision process. The most popular "broadband" services now are DSL ( digital subscriber line) Cable and Fiber. The three choices all use different delivery methods. DSL uses the existing copper telephone line infrastructure created by the Ma Bell over 100 years ago. In essence DSL is a technology "retro-fitted" onto an old standby technology. Coaxial cable became popular in the late 70s to deliver TV services and when the Internet blew up in the late 90's they figured out how to use that network to transmit public and private internet. Fiber is the telephone companies attempt to compete with Cable for bandwidth customers. Of the three, DSL is usually the slowest option ( usually it is the cheapest as well). DSL is a distance sensitive product, meaning that the farther you are from the local phone companies central office building the less effective it will be. There are a number of factors that can slow down the speed of DSL service. Distance, copper quality and the time of day. Yes, you read that right, the time of day you use it will effect how fast it will be. This is the dirty little secret that no one really wants to talk about and it affects all three types. All 3 services are based on a "shared services" infrastructure. Simply put, each given area has a certain amount of bandwidth to use for both residential and commercial customers ( this is the other dirty secret they don't talk about) so the more people  that subscribe to your service reduces the speeds available to you. We call this the "after school affect." I am sure you notice that around a certain time every afternoon the bandwidth seems to slow down. If you were to mark that time and make some phone calls, you would find it is right around the time that kids get out of school and get home. They are downloading itunes, streaming netflix and playing x-box live, all of which sucks up the bandwidth you need to run your business. Now the decrease is only a blip on Fiber solutions and is probably tolerable on cable. Fiber is so new that that market is not saturated but as time goes by you will start to see the effect here as well. Cable, while no longer new, is also not saturated. As more people switch to bundling in their phone service and using solutions like vonage, the demands for bandwidth increase but the bandwidth available does not. None of these speeds are guaranteed and are all considered "best effort." There is no promise of performance.

By comparison, Dedicated internet, is just that. You sign up for a specific bandwidth and you are given an SLA ( service level agreement) that guarantee's not only speed, but also up time and mean time to repair when there are service issues. The most common dedicated internet is called a T-1 ( there is also Ethernet, but for the purposes of this article we will just talk about T-1) a T-1 is a 4 wire circuit that generates a 1.5 mbps ( megabits per second) symmetrical internet connection. The two key words here are dedicated and symmetrical. So you always get your 1.5 mbps regardless of how many other people my be using the same service provider in your area. Also, with this product your upload and download speed are the same so it wont take ten times as long to send that big file as it did to receive it. T-1 service tends to be more expensive than the other options but for a business application, is also more reliable and gives the customer greater flexibility.

To be clear, there are plenty of companies that use shared broadband services for their day to day needs and it works great. But for the company that is going to really use: Telecommuting, VPN ( Virtual Private Network) and VOIP, T-1 based services really are the smart way to go, to assure a consistent user experience. T-1's can also be bonded together to meet increasing bandwidth requirements.

In summary, it is a good idea to review the multiple technologies and determine how each one can perform in your specific area. Also keep in mind, just because your office isn't near a residential area, don't think they aren't tapping into the same bandwidth as you.


Thanks for reading today


Mike S.

BTW follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Have you been crammed or slammed lately? It's not nice

Today I wanted to talk about something fairly common in Telecom, Cramming and Slamming on your Telephone bill. These are two items that, without inspection can cost your company hundreds and thousands of dollars each year.

Slamming is when the long distance provider on one or more of your phone lines is not the provider you chose. Other than the obvious issue of someone doing something that you didn't approve of, slamming can cost you more in rates, fee's and billing type. Let's say your company has 10 phones lines and you chose ABC telecom to be your long distance provider. You chose them because their long distance rate is 5 cents per minute, they don't charge a plan fee's or PICC ( pre-inter exchange carrier charge) fee's and they bill in 6/6 billing increments meaning 6 seconds minimum charge per call and 6 second billing increment. So along comes XYZ telecom and they assign three of your ten numbers to their service. This is done by contacting the local phone company ( through various methods) and requesting that  the PICC code for XYZ telecom be placed on 410-xxx-xxxx and so on. The PICC code is a numbering system set up by telephone company to identify each long distance provider. So this XYZ company charges a PICC fee of $5 per line ( not uncommon) they charge 10 cents per minutes ( also not uncommon) and they bill in full minute increments. You can see from this example how quickly this can impact your companies bottom line. Often times, this is an accident. When placing your long distance change request the provider did not designate the change to every line for both traditional long distance and also your instate long distance ( which shows on your bill as LPIC). So what should you do? First, check your bill quarterly. In the section labeled  "Services and Equipment information" check to make sure the PIC and LPIC for each phone line matches. If they don't, contact the phone company and have them change it. You can also ask them to put a "PICC freeze" on your acct, which requires a signed document from any long distance provider indicating you approve the change.

Now Cramming, is a bit more sinister. Cramming is when a provider starts billing you for a service you may or may not been using and they bury it deep in your bill with the hope that you won't notice. Typically the way this happens is someone at your company gets a phone call and asks if you would like to try a new service free of charge for 90 days. Because they don't ask for any payment, most people say yes. What they don't realize is that after the 90 day trial you will get a charge on your bill.  Here is what to look for, on the summary page under the "new charges" section it will say "other charges," go to that page. you will see a billing company, a toll free number and then the product description. When you call the toll free number they will tell you that they are billing on behalf of another company and you must call them to cancel the service. They will provide you with a contact number for them. You must call that number  and request to cancel service. You can often get a credit for up to 90 days, sometimes longer depending on how hard you push.

I am glad to give further information about dealing with these matters so feel free to contact me with additional questions

In summary, I cannot emphasize enough, how important it is to review your bill at least quarterly and  asses the proper charges. If you don't fully understand you bill there are plenty of people (like me) who are willing to review them and answer you questions.

Thanks for reading today

Mike Shelah

BTW follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Be Nice to everyone

I am not sure how it is in other sales industries but in Telecom it seems like we all work with each other or against each other at one time or another. So today I wanted to chat a little about how you should interact with others.

First: know your competition: In sales, it is important to know your competition, what are they are good at what is their niche. It is also useful to know the individual sales rep. Do they have a reputation of being reliable & trustworthy or are they the type of sales person that gets the sale and moves on. When you know your competition is deficient in a certain category, that is your opportunity to emphasize that as a strength for your company ( if in fact, it truly is). This way you can point out the weakness to your customer with saying anything bad about your competition and it will set you in a better position to win the business.

Second: just because it's true doesn't mean you should say it. I am very truthful with customers. There is a right way and a wrong way to convey a message. If I were to come out and say "XZY's customer service is a nightmare" that is the wrong way to phrase it, even if it is true. Instead you can say that  "Our customers that previously used XYZ have found that they really like our customer service center much better." This idea goes back to some sales 101 "it's not what you say, it's how you say it."

Third: don't Brag. You can point out your accolades without beating the customer over the head. If an independent study was done on your company and recognized you for excellence, let the customer know that your company is grateful for the recognition and you hope it conveys to your potential customer the dedication your company has to taking care of their customers. I recently met with a potential client who had been using one of my competitors and her said the rep spent the entire meeting showing him all the big name customers they had signed on. Sometimes that works with a client. I personally think it is more valuable to show relevant customers. If eBay is your customer, the potential client might be impressed by that, but if they don't do business with eBay it probably won't hold much weight. If you have another local customer that they do share business with, that can be VERY Powerful, which leads to my next and final point for today

Fourth: do some research. In this case I don't mean about the specific company, but I mean the person you are meeting with. Google search their name, did they recently win an award? Did they do something to make a positive  impact on the community? These are great items to find common ground and build the foundation of your relationship with the customer. Look them up through social media. I am a big proponent of using LinkedIn, it is a fantastic resource that lets you connect with people around the world. When you look up a profile you can see where they went to college, what organizations they are a member of and even if you have common friends, business partners or customers. All of this works towards building your relationship with meaningful common interests and ideals.

In summary, always choose your words thoughtfully and with the intent of best serving the customer. Do some research to build that trust and help you service the customer for years to come. I kind got off topic didn't I hope you found the information useful anyway.

Thanks for reading today,

Mike


BTW follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Spring Time is Moving Time

In the baseball world, pitchers and catchers began reporting for spring training. So that means Spring ( while in its infancy) has begun. this is the time of year when most companies really begin to think about opening a new office or moving to a new space. I've worked on hundreds of these types of moves over the last decade and I have noticed there are several items that are often overlooked or assumed by the business that can cause real headaches and worse, can delay moving in and The Grand Opening.

First: keeping you phone number. You can always keep your phone number, it just depends how much you want to pay to keep it. In very simple terms every phone number is associated with a specific geographic location served by a building known as a Central Office (or C/O). Lets take 410-848-XXXX as an example. 410 indicates this is a Maryland phone number and the 848 indicates service in the Westminster area. So there is a Verizon Central Office building in Westminster that handles all calls for numbers that begin 410-848.  Let's say this business owner decides to move from Westminster to a nearby town like Finksburg. Finksburg has its own Central Office building and its own numbers that it supports. This customer has 3 options, change all their numbers (which most don't want to do), create a Remote Call Forward (RCF)service, or set up a foreign exchange service. With an  RCF, you take the Westminster number and set it to "point" to a Finksburg number. To the outside world (your customers) there is no difference. For you as the business owner this RCF generates a local phone call charge every time someone calls you. Most companies will set this up for their main phone number and their fax number, since they are the 2 publicized numbers for the company. A "foreign exchange" is a programming feature that has your Wesminter numbers route all calls through the Finksburg central office. Because of this arrangement you pay a premium for every foreign exchange line and it is "all or nothing" if you have 5 phone lines you pay this feature on all 5. Meeting with your local rep can help determine which way is best for your company

Second: moving your service. You cannot assume that your service can be moved with yout company, no matter how close the move my be. If you move 1 block down the street, you may move out of the Central Office service area, you may move out of DSL range, you may move out of the service area for cable or fiber. Making such a change may force you to switch providers and may result in purchasing more expensive products to get comparable service. Call your provider, speak to your rep or a manager and verify the new address can be serviced THE EXACT SAME  WAY you are currently. This is an ideal team to evaluate other providers to take advantage of newer technology and better pricing.

Third: office cabling. NEVER assume you can re-use the cabling in the office. My experience says about 20% of cabling can be re-used without significant expense. The most common issue is the previous tenant will often chop off all of their network gear in such a manner that all the cables need to be re-terminated, and possibly spliced and extended. At that point re-cabling will only cost you about 15% more and will give you the piece of mind to know it all works. The other common issue is the cable grade. Cat3 is still considered industry standard for traditional voice cabling. Many companies now opt for Cat5 or Cat6 which can be used for voice or data. If you are using VOIP telephones you cannot use Cat3 for voice. Which leads to my next subject

Fourth: there are many kinds of VOIP. Most service providers are delivering VOIP today  and you as the customer may not even be aware of it. There is PURE IP service which requires IP phones to operate. Most VOIP uses an access device on the customers premise that breaks the service out in a manner that the customers phone equipment can support. When you are ready to move, evaluating which works best for you can help your new office get off to a fast start

Fifth: Moving The Phone System. As a general guideline your phone system has a life expectancy of about 10 years. While you certainly can keep them longer it is important to consider ft moving an 8 or 9 year old system is in your companies best interest. Can that system be upgraded to support the latest features? Can you get a low cost maintenance agreement to cover it in the event of failure? Does the system fit your needs currently? What is the cost difference between moving this system and purchasing a new one? All good questions. The bottom line is to meet with someone you trust and evaluate your needs.

In summary review all these topics for your office move. The most important item is to start this process at least 90 days before moving. Setting up telephone and Internet service can sometimes take 60 days or longer. Don't get caught and then have what could have been an avoidable delay.

Thanks For Reading

Mike

BTW, follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Some Networking 101

I have lots of people ask me how to become a great networker. Frankly, I don't really do anything special. I have noticed that I do many things consistently that many others don't So I wanted to share some of those items here today.

   First: keep a box of your business cards in the trunk of your car. I can't tell you how many people come to an event and when I ask them for a card they tell me they don't have any with them. Uh hello, it's a networking event. be late, but don't forget your cards, go back to the office if you need to and get your cards.

Second: be sure to get a card from everyone new to the group. When you get back to the office, send them a quick email or better yet, invite them to connect with you on one of your social media sites.

Third: listen twice as much as you speak. Amazing how many people will verbally vomit all over you at the first chance they get. which leads to my next idea

Fourth: know what you are going to say. I have friends I have known in my networking circle for years that still cannot tell me what they do in 30 seconds or less. I have essentially used the same "elevator pitch" for the last 5 years. Once you know what you need it only takes little tweaks to adjust to your current goal

Fifth: follow the rules of the meeting. I cant tell you how many people will speak out of turn or will start talking about their latest promotion when it is just their turn to give a 30 second introduction. Don't be rude, follow the rules. If you don't know the rules, ask.

Sixth and last tip for today. Whenever possible, be the first one to offer a lead or referral. Obviously you have to do a good job of my third point before hand but, you get the idea.

Thanks for reading today

Mike

Customers can do a better job of dealing with sales people

I got this idea from a networking meeting I attended a few weeks ago. There were about 6 of us sitting around a table discussing how frustrating it can be to deal with customers. This wasn't about getting a lead , this was about  someone who says " yes I'll meet with you" and the challenges that go with it. First, I understand that there are many unethical sales people out there that have taken advantage of people in the past. Sales people aren't going away and neither is the sales process so here are some good tips to Non sales people when they have to deal with us.

First: Stop lying. In short most sales people can tell when a customer is lying to us or holding back information. Stop it. It does you no good. All it does is make the negotiation more difficult. Here are some examples: you wont share a current invoice with us because you just want us to give you "our best price." it ain't gonna happen. If you think this tactic works, you are mistaken. We need to evaluate what you spend now to determine if we can help you and be competitive. By sharing your current invoice you help yourself to get a fair market price. That is what you should be shooting for. Not disclosing the competition to us. How exactly does that help you as the customer? It doesn't but sharing that information with us, goes a long way towards determining if we have a real shot at helping you. Every company has a niche or strength to their product. On the whole all of them are very similar, it's just little tweaks that separate us. A good sales person will know the difference and it helps us understand what our opportunity is. So be open, it helps the sales process greatly.

Second: don't go dark on us. This happens to every sales person on almost a daily basis. We meet with a client, We discuss their needs. We meet with our team to develop our proposal we send you the proposal and  let you know when we will follow up to discuss and then...... nothing. We cant get you on the phone and you wont answer our e-mails? Again, how doe s this help you as the buyer? Here's the thing, if you don't like the solution... tell us we'll fix it. If you think it is too expensive, tell us we'll come up with another solution to fit your budget. If now is not the right time and you need 30 days, tell us, we will wait 30 days. Here's the thing, if we don't hear back from you, we have NO idea why not. Since you took the time to meet with us we must assume there was some level of interest. Our job is to find customers that need our product and get them to sign on, then we find the next one. We cant move on from you until you tell us "Yes" or  "No." So just tell us what is on you mind and remember what I said about " being honest." in the first block.



Third: respect our time, if you agree to meet with us, tell us before we spend $20 in gas driving to your office and $10 to park that you have to reschedule. Believe me we would much rather you tell us you need to reschedule than spend time in the car unproductive. If something comes up last minute and you can get a hold of us, it's okay, tell us the next day. Don't wait a week or two weeks or a month to return our call. I know it's hard to believe but salespeople are "people" too. We have lives and families and responsibilities just like you. My point being, we can be very sympathetic to your needs, please be sympathetic to ours

So the summary here is simple, communicate. don't avoid us, don't hold back information and whatever you do, don't lie to us. It doesn't help

Thanks for reading today

Mike

The Start of Something Awesome!

Hi Everybody and welcome to my blog. Today is the first step in what I think will be an incredible journey. I graduated from College in 1995 and shortly after that got my first sales job..... It was awful. For 6 months I put more money in my gas tank than I did in my pocket. The next couple years I knocked around with different sales jobs trying to figure out what I wanted to do. In late 1999 I took my first job in Telecom Sales with Allegiance Telecom. Since then I have met with thousands of companies in the Mid-Atlantic area and worked through telephone bill audits, cable design solutions and telephone equipment design. I've had customers curse me and customers praise me (oddly enough for doing the same thing). I have never cracked into enterprise sales and have seen most of my success working with small to medium size companies. A few years Ago I discovered the value and power of networking and I spend a great deal of time meeting new people, creating new relationships and making new friends. In a terrible economy sales only come from people that trust you directly or they trust the person that recommend you. I hope to share great information that you will find useful for your company and hopefully you will comfortable hiring me to solve your companies problems, or refer me to a friend. thanks and enjoy!

Mike