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It Is Personal0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

One questionable piece of advice sellers are given is not to take “things personally”. While I understand the sentiment behind it, encouraging sellers to not go down a dark hole, there is something wrong with telling professional sales people, in fact professionals of any type, not to take it personally. The reality is that part of successful selling is conviction, not just in your ability to add value to the buyer, but and in how you sell. It is hard to have that and not be passionate about selling, and as soon as passion is involved, it also becomes personal.

Certainly there are parts of the sales cycle that you can remove yourself somewhat from the emotions of the sale, usually during the prospecting stage, especially if you are a proactive rather than a passive prospector. When you first reach out to a potential buyer they don’t know you from Adam, and the goal is to get them engaged. Initial rejections are more situational than directed; meaning that they are not rejecting you as an individual, but what you represent, an interruption. But as you get engaged and are working through the sale, you get more emotionally involved, things do become a lot more personal.

It is that emotional involvement that often allows you to go deep with a buyer. Passion and enthusiasm are contagious, and it’s something you want your buyers to catch. After all, we are constantly reminded that people buy on emotion, then rationalize their decision, so it only helps if you are going to connect with the buyer on that level as well.

A more workable and realistic goal is to understand that you do need to get involved on a number of levels, that it does get personal, and that you need to be able to deal with and manage the outcomes whether they go your way or not. The ability to step back, assess the circumstance, and move on to the next sale. No different than the expectation and practice in professional sport.

By assessing the outcome you achieve a number of positives that help with the personal aspect. First you can evaluate how well you did execute you plan and process and understand why perhaps you lost the deal. I say perhaps, because there isn’t always a clear answer all nicely wrapped, if the result of the assessment is ambiguous, you will still have to deal with the outcome and move on.

But if the analysis of the deal and outcome are not ambiguous, then you are in a great position to learn, both what you want to repeat and to accentuate moving forward, and what to avoid and improve. While this may not take away the sting of a lost deal, it does help you benefit in some way, cope, and have a reason to give it another go with your new insight.

It is very much the emotion we bring at sellers that helps us win deals where most all other things are equal. It is precisely then that you need to go deep, and leave yourself open to disappointment, and yes it does become personal precisely because of that; and given the opportunity I would advise you to get emotionally involved and deal with the outcome win or lose. After all, they only give you the advice about it not being personal when you lose, it seems they are OK with it being personal when you win.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

What’s A Better Seller? – Sales eXchange 1990

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of discussing sales and selling with Charles Adler, Canada’s Boss of Talk. Charles had read my piece in the Globe and Mail on the difference between a blue-collar approach to selling and the white-collar approach. We explored other aspects of sales and successful people, take a listen, and let me know or Charles (@charlesadler), know what you think.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Emotion + Risk in Getting Buyers to React and Act! (#video)0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Today I feature the third excerpt from my discussion with Ago Cluytens, for one his Coaching Masters Series interviews. Today we look at the roles played risk and emotion in getting buyers to not only react, but act.

In Monday’s clip, I talked about the fact that you don’t need to waste time in waiting for an event to engage with a potential buyer, what you are looking for is the reaction, not the event. Two things that get reactions every time are risk and emotion.

But while it is true that buyers buy on emotion and the rationalize that decision, it is also true that there are other factors such as risk, stories, sounds, and other factors a seller can leverage to get a buyer to react and more importantly to act. It is easy to get a ready buyer to react and act, but you need to use many things to get a complacent buyer to engage, react and act.

Take a look:

If you would like to see the entire discussion you can either visit my You Tube channel, or go the Ago’ site by clicking here. Always open to comments and views.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Be Provocative in Demonstrating Results (#video)0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Monday I shared a clip from a discussion with Ago Cluytens, for one his Coaching Masters Series. Today’s second clip looks at the need to be provocative in gaining traction with entrenched potential buyers.

The challenge many of in sales face is the entrenched buyer who is reluctant to look at new or alternative means of achieving his/her goals. This is usually due to the fact that they are entrenched in how they are doing things now, feels there are too many resources needed to make a change, and a host of other reasons. In order to get engagement, we need to demonstrate the results we can deliver and the positive and measurable impact we will directly deliver to their business and attaining their goals. In a WIIFM world it is about the What, not how of how they get there.

Here is more:

If you would like to see the entire discussion you can either visit my You Tube channel, or go the Ago’ site by clicking here. Always open to comments and views.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Can You Switch Hit For Sales Success?4

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

I remember when I first started working for a company back in the early 1990’s (before we had web mail), the company had two main product lines, and had the usual territories across the continent, primarily driven by geography. Each territory had two hunters, one for each product, two account development/management (AD) people, again one for each product, and an administrative person, all supported by a central customer care group, as to not overwork the front line folks. The flow was simple, the hunter was in charge of finding and landing accounts, they would then hand off the account to the AD, who would work on maintaining and growing the account. No one ever had to move out of their comfort zone, mine was hunting.

As the competition heated up, and costs had to be cut to maintain operating margins, the two teams were collapsed into one that handled both product lines, there was still a clear line between hunting and development of accounts. While we had to learn a bit about the new product, we were still left in our functional comfort zones.

As in most similar scenarios, the hunter was always in a better position to earn more. I am not saying that hunters were or are more important than the AD role, the fact was, that there were less qualified hunters than AD types, and this is still so now.

The next round of cuts was a bit more drastic for almost all involved. Administrative resources were reduced, and more significantly, they collapsed the two roles into one, no more hunters and AD’s, just one person who had to execute both functions. In some territories the hunter had to learn how to actually manage and develop the accounts they brought on; and the AD’s had to learn to hunt and bring on the accounts they were going to work on growing and retaining. Since the company had a union to deal with, (yes I know, sales and unions, what a concept, nonetheless), the choice of who stayed and who left was not always made based on abilities and potential. Many of those who remained were AD types who had to learn how to hunt, in most instances, a much bigger ask than the other way around. At the same time it turned out that some of the hunter role were in fact “closet account developers”, and gravitated to the AD side of the job, increasing the value of real hunters even more.

To be clear, I am not saying that hunters are naturally better rounded, and are able to easily become good or even adequate AD’s, I was living proof that this was not the case, but hunting was a better cover for AD skill deficiencies; where as you can be a great AD, but if an account leaves for factors beyond your control, and you can’t hunt, you will be in a difficult hole.

As you would expect there were a number of reactions, outcomes and repercussions to the new reality, about 20% – 25% floundered and struggled, and eventually were replaced. At the other end of the spectrum, about 20% or so, turned out to be natural switch hitters, not losing a stride in the transition, relishing the new found opportunities in the job and the rewards. They stepped back, reformulated their action plan and then marched forward as if nothing had changed.

A large majority 55% – 60% worked diligently at developing the “other” skill, and over time found the required balance, but as you would expect things were usually skewed towards their original skill set and comfort zone, but they were able to generate both organic growth and new account growth. No surprise the hunters had just as hard a time, if not harder, in developing their AD skills, than AD’s had in developing enough hunting skills to make sales happen. What was interesting is that in the end both groups leaned more on improved hunting than improved maintenance skills.

Again this is not to say that being an AD does not require skills, is easy or any other “better/worse” comparison, but does speak to the fact that getting to the right person to have the right conversation with, is still the biggest challenge in sales. Most sales people I speak to, be they traditional sellers, social sellers, or other, tell me something along the lines of “get me in front of the right prospect, and I will close them”; and they probably will. But the ability to find and engage with the right person, and then talk about the right things, those things that will lead to real engagement, is a rarer skill, but one that can be learned and with practice, and mastered. Those that do, are your switch hitters, they can deliver revenue in by succeeding in both cases, prospecting and selling. The difference between baseball and the revenue game, is you need to do both to succeed, you need to be a switch hitter.

Since then sales teams have continued to contract, sales goals have continued to grow, as has the number of sales people who almost, but don’t always make goal. These are the group of sellers I call the “80-90 Percenters”; year after year they deliver 80% to 90% of plan, and when you strip back the layers, most often you’ll find that they are great at growing their base, but not as good at finding, engaging with and brining on new clients. Their new business growth is usually from referrals, or people who are like people who have already bought from them. Again, nothing wrong with the thinking or reality, just the lack of consistently delivering against plan.

In today’s market there are a number of parallels; a specific one can be found in those industries that are making the transition from selling products, to managed services. You see this trend in any number of industries, from copiers to managed print service; break fix to managed it services; in transport from loads or lanes to managed freight services; really, in any industry where before you sold “stuff”, “stuff” that is becoming commoditised, to selling a complete service that allows clients to reduce costs while allowing you to grow, both products sold and the services around them, while locking in revenue streams and locking out competitors.

Product sellers need to learn to switch hit and hunt not only in new jungles, but for prey they have not encountered before, a prey that is smarter, more demanding and usually less accessible. The prey speaks a different language and have entirely different set of objectives and expectations than the people they used to sell “stuff” to, or account they maintained. Further, the new prey does very much have to be hunted, they are not out there declaring their readiness or willingness to buy, they are the Status Quo, doing their thing deep in the jungle where only hunters go and maintainers and posers avoid. Selling to the willing will leave them short unless they step up and learn to hunt a bit more, learn to switch hit.

Hunting in this environment requires skills upgrades whether you are coming from an AD background, or have successfully hunted while selling products, “stuff”. Unless you take the time and make the effort to become a true switch hitter, you are bound to the beige of the “80-90 Percenters”

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Sell What You Have – Sales eXchange 1931

by Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

At the risk of stating the obvious, the job of a sales person is to sell their company’s offering in order to deliver revenue AND Profits for their company. This can be a challenge at times, but should not be so as a result of our doing. Some sales people seem to want to sell things they don’t have, at times they do this on their own, other times they let their prospects lead them down a dead end path.

How many times have you heard sales people say that they could sell their product, or more of their product “If Only…..”. All too many times we allow ourselves to be distracted from what we can sell, and end up losing sales for all the wrong reason. I am always surprised how many sales people act as though they were in product development rather than sales, sadly some would be better at that than sales; but until they do officially transfer, they need to focus on selling what they have, not what they or the buyer wish they had.

Don’t get me wrong, sales people play a crucial role in the feedback loop that helps your company develop and market your offering better. But that should not be at the expense of selling what they have now, that is job one.

Part of this comes down to knowledge not only of your own product, you’d be surprised how many sales people know little more than what’s in the brochure or on their websites, but also that of the competition. It is hard to sell what you have if you don’t know, it is harder to sell if you don’t know how what you have can help the buyer, and harder still if you can’t discuss how what you have applies to the buyer’s world. You quickly go from an exercise in creative selling to being on your heels in a defensive posture.

The challenge is that with an 80% overlap between most leading products, it mostly comes down to how you sell that will determine the difference. Your ability to align the attributes of your “solution” to the real requirements of the buyer, based on their objectives, and their obligations to their organizations. For example, last week I was out with a rep I am tasked with helping, during a routine sales call, the buyer kept interjecting “can your product do this?”, “can your product do that?” Each time the seller apologizing for the products inability to do some of the things the buyer raised.

The seller clearly had not prepared for the meeting by knowing what his competitors offered and did not offer. Most of the things the buyer put on the table with their questions were not available from any of the products in the market. Had he established that this was a wish list, not a requirement, the issue could have resolved. I finally had to ask the buyer, “I am just curious which product that you currently use allows you to do that?” A long pause, and a shrug allowed us to move forward. By asking that simple question we were able to get back to what was required, available and affordable.

Sell what you have, if they are not the right buyer, prospect another, but sell what you have, or you may find that you have all prospects for what you don’t have, and no buyers for what you do.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Shock Treatment – Sales eXchange 1922

by Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Last Monday I posted about the overlooked opportunity in that segment of buyers know as Status Quo, pundits and sellers alike commiserating each other about the difficulty of selling to a ready group of buyers, vs. taking orders from self-declared buyers.

I’ll be the first to admit change is hard, especially for business buyers who have their handful, trying to make headway in a competitive market. Change is time consuming, a drain on resources, creates upheaval, usually expensive, and fraught with risk, for the organization and the individual at the centre of the decision. Moving the dial with these types of buyers requires more than a bit of effort, which is why change is also hard for sellers; it is much easier and safer to rationalize, and wait for a referral.

This is why there is a healthy and growing industry of sages ready to sell indisposed sellers every mean of just waiting at the edge of the forest, encouraging them to wait for something to come out to them, rather than entering the fray and winning business most sellers seem reluctant to peruse.

How much effort does it take? Well take a minute, step back and look around you and study what it takes for people to make critical changes in key their lives. Frighteningly, you discover that people don’t often make big changes, right changes, preferring to avoid and live with the consequences of the Status Quo. Even when they know that the new state is preferable to their existing one. The naive notion which many buy into that people will move to a better mouse trap has cost both sellers and buyers much time and money. You can build the better mouse trap, Trap 2.0, and people will rodent infestation will maybe look your way, then rationalize why they shouldn’t beat a path to your door.

Don’t believe me, how many people do you know who continue to smoke, even after their father expired due to lung cancer; how many people do you know who continue to biggie size it, despite the fact that they have to buy a new wardrobe every six months? People can change these with a effort if they wanted to, but it takes effort. How many times have you watched companies go to the brink or beyond because the devil they knew was a better alternative to the one they didn’t know?

The answer is not offering the “right” or “better” solution, or in becoming their friend. It is about penetrating the barriers the buyers have erected to protect their current state. Your only choice is to shock them, shock your way past their fortress of hope. Hope it will work out, hope it will last, and hope no one will notice. For the “be found crowd”, this is not an issue, the buyer has dismantled the barriers, and are ready to change, but for the Status Quo, intervention time.

Now I am not talking about clamping a couple of electrodes to your buyer’s temples (or elsewhere); but I am talking about asking hard and very direct questions, which at best could be called provocative, at worst a punch below their reality belt. One does not have to be rude, but one does have to shake things up, which means the ultimate relationship you have starts out a bit rough, but ends up being a solid one, built on being a reliable resource, not a cuddly friend.

There is plenty of writing and thinking out there about how to succeed with the Status Quo, mine, others who provide means and questions you can use. But the first step is for you as a seller to recognize and decide how you want to deliver value to your buyer. Once you decide that you can do more than just take orders from ready buyers, and win more business who may not think they need you or your offering, there are plenty of resources to help you, but as with other changes, you need to first admit that you are a card carrying member of the Status Quo.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Voice Mail Survey0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

As you may know voice mail has been a hot topic in some circles lately, and an ongoing challenge for sales professionals. I recently got tangled in a flare up about e-mail, as a result of a piece I wrote for Radius, titled: Get More Call Backs: How To Increase Returned Voicemails By 50%. It got the usual support from those who have used it and engaged with prospects they have been seeking for a while; and the usual disbelief by sellers and pundits, I forgot to mention that you have to pick up the phone and try it for the technique to work.

This got me thinking, how many people actually leave voice mail, so I created the quick survey below, please take a minute to answer four easy voice mail related questions.

http://www.instant.ly/s/OrKVt

Thank you in advance!
Tibor Shanto

Mar 10th, 2013 Attitude, Change Management, Cold calling, execution, Hunter, Survey, Voice mail

Attitude, cold calling, execution, how to sell better, Hunter, Prospecting, Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., Survey, Tibor Shanto, Voice mail

It’s Your Mini Resume Dude!0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

As some of you may know, last week was have fun with voice mail on LinkedIn, with people taking different reactions to a voice mail technique that gets me a 50% rate of returned calls. In response to comments on an LinkedIn group, I posted on Friday about a specific dynamic that makes the technique in question successful. The piece resulted in more comments, so I wanted to take another view that may help some understand what’s behind it, why it resembles something almost every critic of the technique already does without feel they are unethical, misleading and so on.

This storm reminded me of a similar reaction three or four years ago when I suggested that sales people should use text (SMS) as a prospecting tool. People saw the suggestion as being unethical, underhanded, and just not professional. This despite the fact that an executive, a prospect, was the one that suggested that I would have connected with him a lot sooner had I not limited my use of his cell number on his card to strictly voice. But the overwhelming reaction at the time was that text to prospect was déclassé. But now four years later it is a mainstream techniques acceptable to all. Maybe time does not heal all wounds, but it does seem to wipe memory.

So I would suggest that when something seems uncomfortable you have two choices, try it and see, or pass an uninformed opinion. So lets take a different look at the technique in question and see if we can get you to try.

The technique, (summarized here), is very much like a mini resume. Much the same way we use resumes to create the opportunity to entice a potential employer to call us back and invite us in for an interview that we hope will lead to employment and a mutually profitable relationship.

Let’s look at resumes, they exist to communicate in a concise way you capabilities vis-à-vis the position, anchored in our history in similar positions with similar company. If you have been an A/R manager with one distributor, and a position opens up with another company you want to work for, you submit your resume featuring your experience with their competitor. The potential employer, like most, will begin to begin to sort the hundreds of resumes they receive based on who they think will fit their requirement; and one of the most common means of selecting those that make the consideration list is their experience with similar companies.

As we all have been told, it is important to keep resumes short, using highlights, and then expanding once in the interview. Depending on the source, some will tell you to keep it to two pages or less, a small amount of space to include past experience as well as other attributes we may have that would make us a suitable candidate.

It is also often a topic of discussion, that many resumes are the stuff of fiction and or embellishment. Very different than the technique in question, which repeatedly emphasizes the need for honesty and ethical use of past experience.

It seems interesting that in the age where people are actively participating in micro-blogging, they would find problems with micro messaging when it comes to engaging with prospect. I suspect the reality is one that is all too familiar in sales; sales people complaining that clients hang onto the Status Quo irrationally, while they do that very same things when it comes to embracing new or alternate – non-middle of the road – sales approaches. Almost ironic as the group professes to be the home of fresh sales ideas.

Oddly, one very vocal opponent, using words like misleading, deceiving, and so on, has held IT sales related positions with four or more different companies in the last 10 years, I bet if we looked at his resume, we would see all the previous companies he worked for, his related capabilities, and his accomplishments prominently listed in his resume. Where is the difference? Why is it OK to dangle past companies in one form, but not another? We know the answer.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Just Do It NOW! – Sales eXchange 1850

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

I often think that Nike got their famous tag line only half right, they should have added the word Now to Just Do It!

If you are a follower of this blog, you know I am big on process, a structured approach and a tight approach to time and what activities we spend time on. Many mistake this for rigidity, and often push back on how it limits their creativity and spontaneity. I beg to differ and here is a specific reason why.

I have been working with a group of experienced (or at least tenured) sales people. Many too experienced to learn new tricks or skills, they know what they are doing and resist new things, man that sounds a lot like some prospects we all know, don’t it. Working with one fellow, I noticed he had a running list of names on a note pad, when I asked he explained that these were people who popped into his head during that day, people he should call. Either because he “had an angel on something” or he had not thought about them, and thought “I should give them a call”. When I asked him when he calls them, he said “as soon as I get around to it”; when was the last time he did, “just before Christmas”, why the wait, hadn’t gotten around to it yet, nor did he get around to getting quota, coming in at about 83% last year. What was he busy with that he could call them, was the initial thought still valid, no answer.

Personally, I call these people right away, hand held laws be damned, if I think of a good reason to call a prospect, or an up-sell potential client, I do it right away. Before the thought and ENGERGY fade. Call Now is my mantra. If I am in a meeting, I make a note in my note book and it is the first thing that gets done when I am out of the meeting.

Waiting has a lot of risk. First and foremost, is the call not getting done. Even if it gets done later, it lacks the urgency and energy of a call made right there and then. This kind of energy is just electric over the phone, the prospects feel your excitement and get caught up in the moment along with you. There is few things as effective as telling a prospect “Hey Jon, I was just thinking about you!” People love to be thought about, and if you tell them why and what you see happening next, it just gets through and makes a clear and powerful point. The spontaneity, the excitement in your voice is contagious and effective.

I attribute my ability to make these calls, and succeed in making them to my process, the time I build into my day to experiment with selling and do off hand things like this when they present themselves.

So here is the challenge, next time you think about calling someone, call them, don’t make a note, don’t rationalize, call them, you never know what will happen, but I can predict what will be the outcome if you don’t. So just do it NOW!

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

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