Selling Tips

This story is from a reader of Baseline Selling:

Please read Page 43 of Baseline Selling. Since I’m over the embarrassment of screwing up something so simple, here goes. After almost 20 years of selling, managing & coaching salespeople and now sales development, I just learned last week how to leave a voicemail!

Nothing beats a great first impression and although you can recover from less than stellar start, it certainly helps if your first 20 seconds causes your prospect to focus all of his attention on you.

The key to getting more appointments is your ability to have conversations where you can ask, “is that a problem?” and “would you like to fix it?”

When you’re prospecting and you do finally reach a prospect, it’s discouraging when the prospect says, “we’re all set”. But it doesn’t have to be discouraging. There are things you can do to turn these calls around but you might be uncomfortable with it.

Many salespeople, even veterans, go through periods when they’re not effective on the phone. Salespeople who are new to a company face this challenge when they must tell the new story or ask the new questions.

Every salesperson in every business encounters resistance in some part of the selling process. Most salespeople encounter resistance when cold calling while others encounter it at closing time.

When salespeople share the list of objections they most often receive, very few of them are industry specific and most of them are very popular. When we assign those objections to the base path on which they should have been handled, the majority of the objections take place on the way to first base.

Red Sox fans are getting a fairly positive impression of starting pitcher Julian Tavarez. It turns out that he’s a free spirit, hanging out and having fun in the dugout with superstars Manny Ramirez and Daisuke Matsusaka. He’s pitching well and Red Sox fans are quite happy to have him on their team. He’s always talking, laughing and having fun and seems like a great guy to have on the team. But it wasn’t always like this.

Last week I received an email from a salesperson who attempted to get me interested in her web site development services by telling me that there were both major and minor problems with two of my web sites.

This may seem like a rant about nothing but I happen to think it’s a big deal. I think most salespeople do a horrible job at saying hello to their prospects, customers and clients.

Last week I received many emails requesting help after my offer to send along scenarios where readers were “stumped”. This email should benefit most readers:

It’s one thing to get the order, the account or the deal but it’s totally another thing to beat the competition for the business. But seller beware. If your idea of beating the competition is producing a lower price, the only one getting beat is you.

On Friday evening my wife and I entered an art gallery and were followed around by a very young sales clerk. Each time we looked at a painting, she felt compelled to tell us who the artist was, where he lived, why the gallery displayed his art, what she liked about him, why people liked his work and how much the piece sells for.

Every salesperson wants to be more effective – unless of course they’re looking for early retirement. A salesperson made a call on me that serves as a good example of what most salespeople could do better.

Today’s Baseline Selling Tip is about the lost art of story telling in sales. I receive many compliments from readers of Baseline Selling about the stories in my book. The two most talked about stories are the Tennis Story on page 9 and the story on page 88 about selling knives to a girl and her mother.

Selling Power Magazine called last week, hoping to interview me about an article I wrote in my “Understanding the Sales Force Blog” back in January. I’ll give you the gist of it here:

In a recent training program we focused on closing. Each attendee was asked to identify an account they felt was “ready to close”. Not surprisingly when asked “what the compelling reason for action” was many were unable to clearly identify the real issue and it’s impact.

This week, in honor of Dan Seidman’s new book, “Sales Autopsy” – 50 Sales Horror Stories I’ll share my own sales horror story – my sales call gone bad – and the lessons that can be learned from it.

Many readers have emailed me about their products or services that are now being perceived as commodities. Baseline Selling has a very detailed section of the book devoted to commodities. I call the section Commodity Busters and those of you who find yourself in this situation should refer to that.

How often does this happen?  You ask your prospect a question, have a pretty good sense of what the answer should be, and their answer is not what you expected?  For most salespeople it happens a lot.  I have written a lot about questioning skills and listening skills but for this challenge, you’ll need listening skills and observation skills.

Have you been taught to ask a prospect, “…and what’s your budget?” or “Do you have a budget for this?” Perhaps you’re one of the brave salespeople who prefers not to ask, instead hoping that when it’s time to buy, the money will be there. In today’s Baseline Selling Tip, I will address the importance of financial qualification and demonstrate the most effective way to do it.

I was in Chicago, presenting two talks on selling; Closing and Creating Urgency. In the second talk I walked them through a Baseline Selling Tip,”First Impressions”, from several weeks ago. I was asked, “but what if the decision maker says ‘I want to save us both a lot of time. We’re looking for the lowest price.’?”

There isn’t a single sales approach, technique or rule that appeals to or even applies to everyone. Some of the best ones cause a small percentage of people to get very upset about them. Why? I guess when they have struggled so long they don’t think it’s fair to discover that there’s a simpler way.

You can find many articles about compelling reasons in the Baseline Selling Tip archives. In nearly all of the articles, the focus is on identifying the prospects’ compelling reasons to buy from you. Do you remember the promotion that the Pork Industry used to run? – The Other White Meat.

You or someone you know likely suffers from Happy Ears. This syndrome is not as easy to diagnose as prospecting and closing problems, which are as obvious as your next commission check. No, Happy Ears lurk undetected beneath the surface, presenting symptoms like bad luck, lying, the competition, status quo and pricing to throw you off track. The first order of business is to determine whether you have Happy Ears.

How many times has this happened to you? You have a prospect that you’ve already spoken with and when it’s time to follow up they don’t take or return your phone calls. What’s up with that?

Here’s a debriefing scenario that’s hot off the presses. Last week, an 8 figure deal was scheduled to close at the end of the month.

I was watching television on Friday evening and found myself crying at the end of The Ghost Whisperer. Are you kidding me? Me? But then I thought about it and realized that this isn’t exactly unheard of.

Once upon a time I was a musician and between the ages of 15-25, had two bands that performed at weddings and functions. One of the frequent requests I receive is for tips on speaking and I believe that conducting presentations is very similar to speaking so it probably applies to all of my readers.

This month I’ll focus on timing, specifically, the short window of opportunity that exists with most senior level executives. Your window of opportunity remains available only while you are in front of that person. As soon as you leave, your prospect is on to the next burning issue and you become out of sight and out of mind. Getting that prospect’s attention a second time becomes much more challenging and, in many cases, impossible. To succeed with this prospect, you must quickly get his attention and cover enough ground in the first meeting to get a commitment to work together. This actually shortens the sales cycle in what is typically viewed as a very long sell cycle.

Try this exercise. It will immediately help you become more effective closing sales.

Many sales professionals believe that closing is the act of asking for the business. They’re wrong. Asking for the business is simply the asking part. Closing is the getting it part. There are a number of events that can take place between the asking and the getting, most of which can delay or eliminate getting it part.

My wife and I just returned home from a trip to Italy. In the walled city of Pisa, home of the leaning tower, we were repeatedly approached by an army of peddlers, offering great deals on counterfeit watches, handbags, belts and sunglasses. Most of their attempts to close were very transparent and ineffective.

We just returned from a trip to Cancun where, once again, I was struck with how easily, the people with something to sell, ask for your business. In America and Canada, a huge percentage of salespeople seem almost embarrassed to ask – even when they’ve earned the right. In Cancun, the salespeople haven’t earned the right, haven’t even shaken hands, and they’re already asking. It’s the way that business has been done for centuries. It’s honorable. It’s a way of life.

I’ve written about how to be more effective at closing time, but what happens when the opportunity isn’t closing, doesn’t seem to be getting any closer to closing, and you know you need to move things along? Here are some do’s and don’ts:

Happy New Year! The holidays, now a week in our rear-view mirror, expose one of the biggest weaknesses that salespeople have. Nearly all salespeople head into the holidays intending to get as much business closed before Christmas as possible. Did you? Good. The problem is that only the top tier of salespeople succeed at getting most of that business closed – before Christmas. The rest, good intentioned and committed as they are, tend to run into two problems. 1) They have difficult reaching prospects; and 2) they have trouble getting them closed.

I wrote about Closing Urgency in last week’s Baseline Selling Tip. One salesperson, who believed I wrote it for him, proved himself correct. I had an unusual print job that needed to be completed within a week. My assistant was having difficulty identifying a local printer that could handle the job and get it done on a timely basis. “Bob” learned about the print job and with as much urgency as I’ve ever seen, contacted a one of his closable prospects, a printer. He and the printer both showed considerable urgency, appearing in my office within an hour.

Most salespeople could use a little help at closing time. It’s not with the prospects who say yes or no, it’s with prospects who can’t say yes or no. They need more time, need to think about it, need to discuss it, need to compare your offerings, or need a better price. Today we’ll discuss what salespeople can do about all that.

Last week I conducted a live Baseline Selling seminar on Overcoming Objections. Today I’ll provide you with the lessons learned from the Objections seminar. Use it as a checklist to gauge how you’re doing and if there’s something you don’t understand, email me for more info at .

When an opportunity has an extra zero or two at the end, what do you do differently to earn the business? Are you more polite, respectful cautious, aggressive, intimidated, or observant? Do you ask more questions, better questions, fewer questions? Do you spend your time answering questions, talking about your value proposition, company and expertise?

There has been an ongoing debate about the death of the sales call, the death of the sales force and the eventual death of selling. You can read the latest installment on my Blog, Understanding the Sales Force.

You probably know Jeffrey Gitomer, author of the Little Red Book of Selling and a syndicated columnist in many business journals. In this week’s column, Gitomer presented five internal senses required for having a sense of selling. The great part of writing my own weekly column is that I can disagree with what he writes!

I get many calls and emails asking for help – and that’s good! One of the things I’ve observed over the years is that most salespeople, when they’re struggling some, don’t know why they’re struggling. I thought that today I would share my simple formula for helping salespeople discover where in their selling process the problem is hiding.

What separates sales superstars from the salespeople who simply reach their goals and those who struggle and under achieve? In today’s clip I’ll share both the 21 Sales Competencies as well as some Best Practices.

That’s right. Never miss your goal, target or number again. Today I’ll show you how.

This week, Major League Baseball held its annual Home Run Derby. A fan favorite, this event features some of the mightiest sluggers to play the game. Now a three round affair, it has an amazing similarity to Sales.

I spent much of Saturday and Sunday of this past weekend pitching to our five-year old son, who is just nuts over baseball. He not only wants to improve so he can hit more home runs, but he just plain loves playing.

In every sales call there comes a point where nothing is going to happen unless the salesperson does something. It could be the point where you haven’t heard any compelling reasons. It could be the point where you need to qualify your prospect. It could be the point where you need to close. It could be the point where you need to build value. It could be some other point.

A salesperson called me last week and complained that every once in a while a prospect asks a tough question or gives an objection that stumps him and he just didn’t have the magic to turn things around. As a result, the call ended without a sale and it’s difficult to get back in and turn things around.

What’s the difference between a motivated salesperson and the rest of the sales population? Is motivation enough to become successful? What about skills? Are superior skills enough to assure success? If you have superior skills and motivation will that guaranty success?

The most recent post to my Understanding the Sales Force Blog was the Top 10 Factors in Getting Salespeople to Overachieve. Those of you in management may want to check that out. For all of you salespeople I present the 7 Factors that you can control, since the other 3 must be controlled by management.

I evaluated a salesperson who was highly regarded by his company. The evaluation indicated that he had little in the way of hunting or closing ability, possessed all of the biggest selling weaknesses and had conditional commitment. Why was he so highly regarded?

One of the weaknesses that plague salespeople is when they become emotionally involved. This isn’t when salespeople get too close to their prospects, customers and clients, but it is when they react emotionally.

As we approach the end of the year it’s time to do some goal setting. For most salespeople it’s writing a list of things they would like to accomplish. That’s a very loose form of goal setting. Loose because it doesn’t have an accomplish by date, it doesn’t detail how it will be accomplished or even if it can be accomplished, and doesn’t have provisions for following through or accountability.

As we start the New Year we think about what we can accomplish this year that we didn’t accomplish last year. We think about earning more money, closing more sales and being more effective and efficient. How would you like to easily increase your earnings by 25% – 50% this year? It’s not difficult and you don’t have to change.

Last August I wrote this article on Urgency. It’s probably a good idea to review it if you read it then and you’ll definitely want to start there if you haven’t read it. I’d like to expand on Urgency and give you an exercise to measure your own level of urgency.

Continuing with our series on Urgency, today I’d like to talk about Urgency and your emotions. Jim Sasena, my director of operations at Objective Management Group, called my attention to the following matrix:

Every once in a while an unusual case of urgency will overcome a salesperson, often brought on by a need for sales, money or recognition. Whatever the reason, this urgency to sell usually creates a change in behavior. What would you do if you absolutely had to sell something – soon?

Last Saturday, in blizzard-like conditions, we left Boston for a much needed family vacation. We arrived in the Bahamas three hours later to find sunny, tropical, 90 degree temperatures. Blizzard to Tropical in three hours got me to thinking, as usual, about selling which, for a lot of salespeople, has become more difficult in the past 90 days.