I have been in Telecom sales since 1999 and my first Telecom Job required me to wear a suit or at the very least dress slacks and a tie, every day. Khaki pants were not allowed, except on the rare "casual day" which we would get once or twice a year. Following that, I worked for a small local company and one of the owners was a VERY accomplished sales professional who decided to strike out on his own. In my 2+ years working for him I noticed that he NEVER wore a tie. He would put a jacket on at times, but never a tie, and he presented to some very significant clients. I asked him about it one day and his answer was very simple & powerful. "Mike, wearing a tie just isn't me. If I were to put one on just for appearance it wouldn't be right, it wouldn't be sincere. My customers buy from me because of my sincerity, because of my sincere desire to help them. If I can't be comfortable with who I am, how can I expect my customers to be comfortable with me?" That, is what is commonly referred to as an epiphany. This is an absolute breakthrough concept to grab with both hands and hold on to with every last bit of energy you have, so I am going to repeat it.
"If I can't be comfortable with who I am, how can I expect my customers to be comfortable with me?"
Now the flip side of this is I see people all the time that want to conduct business with other companies and they look like they just rolled out of bed or they are off to a summer BBQ. So it is important to strike a balance and go through a mental checklist.
Who is your target Audience?
If you regularly engage law firms and doctors offices, it makes sense to wear a crisp white or blue pressed shirt and dress slacks.
If you own a landscaping company, it is perfectly acceptable to have on a polo shirt with your company logo and clean pair of jeans that aren't used for field work.
If you have employee's that engage your customers it is always a good idea to wear clothing with the company logo and to have some form of ID badge that can be worn around the neck.
Here's a hint, flip flops are NEVER acceptable business attire. Same thing goes for men in shorts.
I am not going to even try to tell women how to dress. I will say there is an important distinction between dressing to impress and dressing to seduce. So I am just going to leave it there. I will give you one hint ladies, if you have to ask "is this appropriate? " The answer is probably "No."
So in summary, you must be comfortable with the way your present yourself so you can present an air of confidence. You must also be cognizant of your target customer and what they expect.
Thanks for reading today
Mike S.
BTW, please check out my new blog for a very worthy cause
www.40milesforautism.blogspot.com
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Good Customer Service is Simple, Yet Rare... Why is That?
I don't normally blog on back to back days, but I had such a terrible customer service experience yesterday that I thought it would be a good idea to talk about what good customer services is and how simple it can be to achieve.
Your first line of defense: auto response email and what to do with it. I am sure we have all gotten an email from customer service saying "We have received your email and someone will contact you regarding your concern within 24 hours." Fine, it's a good start. Here is where the trouble begins. The "real" response needs to have empathy and a legitimate call to action to assist the customer. I received about 8 emails last night from this company and the first email received was the auto generated one. The second (supposedly) was someone who had read my email and was responding to it. In all 4 "real" email responses it seemed as if someone had just "cut & paste" some canned responses. It really didn't seem like they understood my concerns at all.
Your second line of defense: a customer care team that is educated in your products and has the autonomy to make decisions. We've all had this experience, you call customer care and it is very obvious that you know more about the product than the person on the other end. I am sure the first argument people will raise is "Well Mike, those customer care people are minimum wage earners that don't last very long so it is very expensive and time consuming to keep them trained and educated." My response to that? How truly important are your customers? Every company tells you that top notch customer service really matters to them but they view those employees as overhead and more of a problem than an asset. Here's a crazy idea, keep the good ones and give them a raise, and hire their friends. Create a positive work environment and support them to support the customer. But that's just a silly pipe dream, it would never work. Just keep managing call volume, abandon rate and the percent of closed trouble tickets, because those are the only metrics that really matter ( I hope you can read the sarcasm in that last line).
Your third line of defense: a sales team IN CONJUNCTION with sales management that realizes a happy customer is one that gives referrals. I cannot tell you how many times I would approach my old boss with a customer issue and he would ask me if I sold them or if somebody on our team sold them. If my answer was no, he would completely ignore the issue and tell me to tell them to call customer care and let them deal with it. Even if it was one of my customers, he was convinced that 80% of customer issues were self inflicted and felt they would often work themselves out. Here's a hint, this is a TERRIBLE way to manage a business. But since his ability to earn money was based on finding new customers and not keeping old customers happy, he ignored them. If you don't care about the customer, who will?
So here's the summary: effective email response, a solid well trained and well compensated customer care team, sales & management working together to keep customers happy. Simple, right?
Thanks for reading today
Mike S.
BTW please check out my new fundraising blog
www.40milesforautism.blogspot.com
Your first line of defense: auto response email and what to do with it. I am sure we have all gotten an email from customer service saying "We have received your email and someone will contact you regarding your concern within 24 hours." Fine, it's a good start. Here is where the trouble begins. The "real" response needs to have empathy and a legitimate call to action to assist the customer. I received about 8 emails last night from this company and the first email received was the auto generated one. The second (supposedly) was someone who had read my email and was responding to it. In all 4 "real" email responses it seemed as if someone had just "cut & paste" some canned responses. It really didn't seem like they understood my concerns at all.
Your second line of defense: a customer care team that is educated in your products and has the autonomy to make decisions. We've all had this experience, you call customer care and it is very obvious that you know more about the product than the person on the other end. I am sure the first argument people will raise is "Well Mike, those customer care people are minimum wage earners that don't last very long so it is very expensive and time consuming to keep them trained and educated." My response to that? How truly important are your customers? Every company tells you that top notch customer service really matters to them but they view those employees as overhead and more of a problem than an asset. Here's a crazy idea, keep the good ones and give them a raise, and hire their friends. Create a positive work environment and support them to support the customer. But that's just a silly pipe dream, it would never work. Just keep managing call volume, abandon rate and the percent of closed trouble tickets, because those are the only metrics that really matter ( I hope you can read the sarcasm in that last line).
Your third line of defense: a sales team IN CONJUNCTION with sales management that realizes a happy customer is one that gives referrals. I cannot tell you how many times I would approach my old boss with a customer issue and he would ask me if I sold them or if somebody on our team sold them. If my answer was no, he would completely ignore the issue and tell me to tell them to call customer care and let them deal with it. Even if it was one of my customers, he was convinced that 80% of customer issues were self inflicted and felt they would often work themselves out. Here's a hint, this is a TERRIBLE way to manage a business. But since his ability to earn money was based on finding new customers and not keeping old customers happy, he ignored them. If you don't care about the customer, who will?
So here's the summary: effective email response, a solid well trained and well compensated customer care team, sales & management working together to keep customers happy. Simple, right?
Thanks for reading today
Mike S.
BTW please check out my new fundraising blog
www.40milesforautism.blogspot.com
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
The DNA of the Business Card
I collect business cards...... A lot of them. I have this great big binder filled with hundreds of them. I've seen some really good ones, I 've seen some really bad ones and I've seen some mediocre ones. So lets talk about the different elements to make an effective business card.
First things first, you need the basics:
Company Name
Your name
Your email
Your website
Your phone number
Company tag line
Really good optional items:
Direct line and or cell number
Fax number
Custom QR code
Promotional tag on back of card
When it comes to the basics I am AMAZED at how many cards I collect in my travels that are missing one of theses items. The purpose of your business card is to provide someone who doesn't really know you that well with all of your key contact information and a little summary of what you do. I actually got a card from someone promoting a marketing company and his name and his email were not on the card. Yeah, sounds like a great marketing company right? I saw another card with the email on it twice but no website. Which leads me to my next comment....
If you go into business for yourself, get a real email acct. Don't use yahoo or gmail or anything like that. For a VERY small fee you can set up an email address to match your website. This will go a long way to not only show your professionalism but give your potential clients and business partners a sense of staying power.
In addition to the email comment, there are some real "no no's" to avoid on a business card. For one, check for typos. So many people produce their own cards now, it's fairly simple and you can create a real professional card right from home. So double, even triple check the font size, grammar, etc. to make sure it is correct. NOTHING is more embarrassing than a typo on your card and yes, people will notice. They will think you are an idiot, and they wont want to do business with you.
Don't put religious quotes on your card, unless you only want to deal with people who espouse your specific religious beliefs. Your religion is connected to your spirit and is very personal. You will turn off a great many people this way, because there is an implied bias behind a quote like that. You don't ever see "card carrying Democrat" or "Republican and proud of it" on a business card, because like religion. politics are a very polarizing topics. In the world of business keep those opinions to your inner circle and not on your business card.
For those who recognize the value of a traditional business transaction & want to take advantage of technology, QR codes can be very useful. There are thousands of QR code creators on the Internet and a quick key word search will allow you to pick the right one for your company. A QR code can simply create a link to your blog or website. It can also link the reader to a vcard with allow of your contact info available for Download to a smart phone. For those that are not sure what a QR code is, it looks like this
So in summary, make sure your business card info is complete, accurate and devoid of polarizing statements that could offend potential customers.
Thanks for reading today
Mike S.
BTW follow me on twitter @mistertelecom
Please be sure to check out my new blog (if you tried my QR code,then you already have), I am heading a fundraiser for Autism
www.40milesforautism.blogspot.com
double thank you
First things first, you need the basics:
Company Name
Your name
Your email
Your website
Your phone number
Company tag line
Really good optional items:
Direct line and or cell number
Fax number
Custom QR code
Promotional tag on back of card
When it comes to the basics I am AMAZED at how many cards I collect in my travels that are missing one of theses items. The purpose of your business card is to provide someone who doesn't really know you that well with all of your key contact information and a little summary of what you do. I actually got a card from someone promoting a marketing company and his name and his email were not on the card. Yeah, sounds like a great marketing company right? I saw another card with the email on it twice but no website. Which leads me to my next comment....
If you go into business for yourself, get a real email acct. Don't use yahoo or gmail or anything like that. For a VERY small fee you can set up an email address to match your website. This will go a long way to not only show your professionalism but give your potential clients and business partners a sense of staying power.
In addition to the email comment, there are some real "no no's" to avoid on a business card. For one, check for typos. So many people produce their own cards now, it's fairly simple and you can create a real professional card right from home. So double, even triple check the font size, grammar, etc. to make sure it is correct. NOTHING is more embarrassing than a typo on your card and yes, people will notice. They will think you are an idiot, and they wont want to do business with you.
Don't put religious quotes on your card, unless you only want to deal with people who espouse your specific religious beliefs. Your religion is connected to your spirit and is very personal. You will turn off a great many people this way, because there is an implied bias behind a quote like that. You don't ever see "card carrying Democrat" or "Republican and proud of it" on a business card, because like religion. politics are a very polarizing topics. In the world of business keep those opinions to your inner circle and not on your business card.
For those who recognize the value of a traditional business transaction & want to take advantage of technology, QR codes can be very useful. There are thousands of QR code creators on the Internet and a quick key word search will allow you to pick the right one for your company. A QR code can simply create a link to your blog or website. It can also link the reader to a vcard with allow of your contact info available for Download to a smart phone. For those that are not sure what a QR code is, it looks like this
So in summary, make sure your business card info is complete, accurate and devoid of polarizing statements that could offend potential customers.
Thanks for reading today
Mike S.
BTW follow me on twitter @mistertelecom
Please be sure to check out my new blog (if you tried my QR code,then you already have), I am heading a fundraiser for Autism
www.40milesforautism.blogspot.com
double thank you
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
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
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
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
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
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