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A Passion For Life0

For many, summer is a time to take it back a notch, relax, and enjoy a slower pace. For others it is a time to bear down and focus on things they want accomplish, they spend time preparing their next adventure and conquests.

If you’re not ready to left the summer drift by, and see it as an opportunity to reignite your passion and take things to the next level, we have good news for you.

On July 24, Legacy Mastery, is presenting a fantastic event in Toronto: A PASSION FOR LIFE, is a full day event pack with today’s EXCEPTIONAL LEADERS who will transform your BUSINESS, PROFESSIONAL & PERSONAL PERFORMANCE.

I know it sounds like a big statement, but the day lives up to it, here is the roster:

Tony Robbins – Peak Peformance – Entrepreneur, Author & Peak Performance Strategist World Authority on Leadership Psychology
Robert Greene – Keys to Mastery – Best Selling Author , The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, and Mastery
Chip Heath – Creativity & Branding – Best Selling Author of Switch, Made to Stick and Decisive Loretta LaRoche – Work Life Balance – Acclaimed Stress Expert, Author, Humorist and Motivational Speaker
Joe Plumeri – Success Strategies – Chairman and CEO of Willis Group Holdings (2000-2012) CEO, Citibank North America (1999–2000); Chairman and CEO, Travelers Primerica Financial Services (1995-1999); President and Managing Partner, Shearson Lehman Brothers (1990-1993)
Desiree Rogers – Customer Relations – CEO, Johnson Publishing Company, LLC; White House Special Assistant to President Obama; 2009-2010, White House Social Secretary, 2009-2010

A great bill no matter what you have your eye set on, you’re bound to get the inspiration and practical steps you need to succeed.

And As you would expect, as a reader of The Pipeline, you can register now, use the code RENBOR, and receive $100.00 courtesy of Renbor Sales Solutions and the good folks at Legacy Mastery.

These events tend to fill up fast, act now to get your seat, and your $100 discount by using the code RENBOR.

Enjoy and profit!

Tibor Shanto

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

As we make our way back to work from time spent with family, friends and credit cards, we are about to besieged by a wave of articles, blog posts, tweets, and other sources touting the (new) trends for 2013. I have been approached by a half dozen or so outlets asking for my input. While I understand the purpose, I am not sure this type trend spotting adds much value to the discussion, or the ability of organizations or individuals to improve their execution.

For one thing, trends do not adhere to a calendar, they don’t bubble up around January 1, only to fade in time for the start of the next year. Fashion does, this fall’s fashion trends have already been decided in Paris, and oohed and aahed on by Jeanne Beker; and while those wearing them this Thanksgiving will feel trendy, real sales trends evolve, form and take shape based on market conditions and voids, rather than being ushered in on a schedule.

Like fashion, some “trends” are manufactured, there to promote a cause, product, or other thing with an intended predetermined purpose, as with most manufactured goods, the end goal is profit. Witness the social selling trend a few years ago aggressively promoted coincidentally by particular vendors with specific agendas.

While this type trend spotting has been around a while, it presents an added risk today when part of the daily practice and vernacular has people looking for “what’s trending?”. Trends by definition are short term:

noun
1. the general course or prevailing tendency; drift;
2. style or vogue;
3. to veer in a new direction:

In sales a short term focus often makes trends more of diversion than a benefit; long term success in sales evolve in response to real market conditions. So before you jump on any January 2013 trends, take a minute and review the outcome and accuracy of some of the trends hyped last year at this time. Give it the 72 day test, see which “trends” proved to be accurate and sustained, which delivered value to you helping you execute your sales better, and delivered consistent success; and which were just “trending” the way of the #KimKardashianpregnant pregnancy.

Be sure that you differentiate between “trends”, and real evolution in sales and selling; the former are distractions, while the latter presents opportunity.

I suspect that some trends being presented are a blend of prediction, wishful thinking, or self-fulfilling in nature. Take for example the one response I did provide to a request to share a brief prediction of a trend we in the industry see impacting sales in 2013. I submitted:

“The trend I see is benchmarking. As the economy improves, and sales improve along with them, some sales leaders will fall back into slumber riding the wave. The smart ones will want to know how much of the gain is due to rising tides, and how much is due to specific performance by their team. To that they will need solid sources to benchmark to, and avoid the temptation of using anecdotal sources.”

The above reflects my discussions with sales leaders who would like to have more to benchmark against than anecdotal – blind survey based – benchmarks as a means to improve the way their teams execute.

Will this become a trend, I hope so, but just in case, I do have a plan B.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

“Leveraging Value from Engaging the Buyer to Closing the Sale” – A Sales Association Webinar
Tuesday, October 30 – 2 p.m. EST / 1 p.m. CST / Noon MST / 11 a.m. PST (1 hour in length)

On Tuesday October 30, I have the privilege to deliver a webinar for The Sales Association – I will be talking to specific steps sellers can take to delivering and leveraging value throughout the sale.

Almost every conversation about selling starts or ends with the concept of value. At the same time, there are as many different understandings and definitions of value as there are sellers and buyers. Without a clear and actionable definition of value, many conversations between buyers and sellers are less than effective, and do not help create a buy.

Starting with a clear definition of value, participants will learn the five-step process to leveraging value throughout the sale, from the initial engagement to winning the client.

Steps include:

Identifying and validating buyer’s objectives
Understanding why buyers really buy
Why Buyers buy and don’t buy from you and your company
Converting the above to Impact Questions for quality conversations
A structured follow-through approach to maximize impact and progress

Participants will learn how to use this process to create alignment with the buyer, their objectives and buying process.

Click Her to Register Now!

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

On Thursday October 18, The Proactive Prospecting Workshop is coming to Houston, specifically to Four Points by Sheraton Houston Southwest, at 2828 Southwest Freeway, Houston.

If you are in B2B sales, and need to engage with more new prospects, mark this date on your calendar, then sign up for this full day interactive prospecting program.

Whether you are with a small company or large, veteran or just launching your career, this workshop will give you the fundamentals needed to connect and engage with more qualified buyers.

We leave dogma at the door, this is not about old school vs. new school, this is about executing a proven methodology for prospecting more effectively and filling your pipeline with the quality prospects in the right quantities. This is the same program that has helps thousands of sale professionals improve their skills and increase prospects and sales. Sales professional in dozens of companies are using the methods and process delivered in the Proactive Prospecting Workshop to deliver consistent results.

What you’ll learn…

Overcome the fear of cold calling
Develop techniques for making successful cold calls
Take a proactive role in filling your sales pipeline
Write effective e-mails – Leave voice mail messages that get returned
Handle Objections – win more appointments

To learn more about the results sellers have realised just click here to read success studies, or watch what they said after attending the Proactive Prospecting Workshop.

Every New Customer begins as a Prospect!

Start filling your pipeline with Real Prospects!

Learn more at www.proactiveprospecting.com
Sign up today, seating is limited to 100 people!

Early Bird Specials Available – Multi-Attendee offers
ADDED BONUS – 500 FREE leads from LeadFerret.com
The Proactive Prospector’s Guide to Objection Handling Booklet

www.proactiveprospecting.com
Call – (855) 25-SALES

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Sep 8th, 2012 Appointments, Attitude, Business Acumen, Buying Process, Change Management, Cold calling, Communication, Disqualify, EDGE Selling, execution, Impact Questions, Leadership, Metrics, Next Steps, Objection Handling, Persistence, Proactive Prospecting, Prospecting, qualifying, Referrlas, Sales Cycle, Sales Leadership, Sales Mistakes, Sales Process, Sales Strategy, Sales Success, Sales Training, Success, Time Management, Voice mail, Workshops

Accountability, Appointment Setting, Appointments, Attitude, cold calling, e-mail prospecting, execution, Houston, how to sell better, Objection Handling, Pipeline Management, Proactive, Proactive Prospecting, Prospecting, qualifying, Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., Sales Technique, Sales Training, sell better, Selling to Executives, Texas, Tibor Shanto, Time Allocation, Voice mail, Workshop

Welcome back – How Was Your Summer?69

Well here we are at that odd part of the year, while not officially the end of summer, most consider it to be; while not the final quarter, for many, September is part of the final run up to year end. In essence, harvest time! You did a lot of planting in the months before, now you want to be in a position to realize your bounty.

Seems everyone is not only back at work, but also have a “back to work” mind set; gone are the excuses (on both the buyers’ and sellers’ part) of summer. Buyers are expected to produce for their companies as much as you are for yours, so leverage that for your mutual success. Get out there and engage with buyers, really dig in with your discovery.

This doesn’t equate to raking them over, or pitching hard (harder), but more to sit down and understand what they need to accomplish in the next four (or so) months for them to count their year as being successful. Again, this will require a balanced approach, while you do want to focus on those thing you can add value to, you also want to ensure that you are driven by their agenda, not solely yours. To get to that, again leverage your knowledge based on past deals, wins, losses and draws, and base your discovery questions and topics on that.

Also remember that while they may have numerous objectives, they only have so much time, so help them prioritize and narrow down what is really doable in a successful way in the next 15 weeks, and what is not. There is no benefit to them or you, if you both go down a road that will dead-end due to deadline and priorities, and leave you without a sale (at least this year).

You also need to prioritize, look at your pipeline and ask yourself two questions:

Do I have enough prospects to help you close the year the way I need to? Remember you will need to handicap based on your closing average; meaning if you need four more sales, and you have a 3:1 closing average, you need to be able to identify 12 prospects, no room for dead wood or wishful thinking.

If you cannot identify those prospects, what is your plan to get new prospects in your pipeline, in time?

Then it’s time to act, much like farmers at harvest time, you need to focus on systematically brining in the crop, not meander aimlessly in your fields. Having said that, farmers are also thinking about the next season, the planting season. Ensuring their fields are ready.

Between now and the end of the year there will be a lot of focus and pressure to “close”. Close deals, and close the year strong. But don’t forget that as soon as the year is done, high-fives all around, the pressure will turn to Q1. 2013 looms large, so make sure that you set enough time aside to prospect for those deals that will give you a healthy and balanced pipeline on January 1, well in reality, January 2.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Effective communication is crucial to sales success, understanding what the client wants, how they prefer those wants addressed, and understanding what they mean, can tilt things for you or against you. But communication is way more than the words exchanged between buyer and seller, as we all have been told communication is 60% body language, 30% intonation and tone, and only 10% verbal or words. Yet many sales people rely too much on strictly words, both in conveying their message, and taking input from potential buyers, almost completely ignoring the other aspects of communication.

This has obvious repercussions when it comes to effective selling, and ensuring you are getting the right message to the listener in the right way. Borrowing from the work relating to how people learn, because getting someone to change and buy from us is an exercise in educating the buyer; there are three types of learning styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic (or tactile). Buyers tend to fall into one of three groups when they take in, understand and absorb your message. If you do not take steps to ensure you are incorporating all three types, you risk not fully communicating to many buyers even as you speak to them.

Read On…

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

A reminder that there is a class this afternoon, 4:00 pm Eastern

GAP Selling – Leveraging Process and Execution

GAP Selling – Looks at how to deliver value to buyers across the entire sales cycle.
Almost every sales conversation starts or ends with the concept of value; at the same time there are as many different understandings and definitions of value as there are sellers and buyers.

This course delivers clear and actionable definition of value. Starting with that definition of value, participants will learn the five step platform to leveraging that value right through the sale, from the initial engagement to winning the client. The overarching goal of the platform is to focus on the buyer’s objectives, and delivering specific means of helping them achieve those objectives.

These include:

Identifying and validating buyer’s objectives
Understanding why buyers really buy
Why Buyers buy and don’t buy from you and your company
Converting the above to impact questions and quality conversation
A structured follow-through approach to maximize impact and progress Participants will learn how to use the above to create alignment with the buyer, their objectives and buying process

Join us at 4:00 pm Eastern today

Prerequisite – An open mind to learning and selling better

Test – Your weekly Pipeline Review

Last week I was working with a group, we were looking at more effective prospecting, when we got around to discussing referrals, I got back some familiar comments. We all know that referrals are a highly effective way to grow your leads and prospect base, (yes, there is more than cold calling, and more than referrals), but at times reps and sales organizations place unnecessary limitations on their ability to fully leverage referrals.

The specific comment was that the rep was reluctant to ask prospects/clients for referrals “because what if the person or company they refer are out of my territory?” Really, you would leave money on the table just because of that, your sales leadership can’t figure out a way to overcome this insignificant obstacle to revenue?

There are number of answers or solutions to this common challenge, the fact that it still persists speaks more to attitude and quality of leadership. The attitude issue is at the leadership and front line level; while the quality of leadership issue rests squarely with senior leadership and the line managers.

In some ways you can’t blame the reps, they are given a territory, a playground to play in, a set of rules to play by, and one of those rules usually means that you get paid for what you sell in your territory. This is easy to solve, some organizations I work with do double pay, a small price to pay to win customers and revenue, while keeping the competition out. Unfortunately many refuse to, using a number of reasons, most beyond my comprehension.

It does in some ways speak to the degree that some senior sales leaders (VP’s, CEO’s, directors) are out of touch with their markets and what their sales people are facing in the field. Believe me those reps that drive revenue and want to make money are very vocal about this issue, making it clear that if it is left unaddressed, the fault lies with the leadership. Not surprisingly, the organizations that have addressed the issue are usually led by very engaged and involved leadership, regularly interacting with the front line and joining them on customer calls on a regular basis, not just when it is time to save accounts. This involvement creates not only better awareness of this, and other customer issues, but creates and fosters a proactive customer focused means to revenue; simply stated, they lead from the front not from behind a distant desk.

But even if you are a rep working in a limiting environment, why not take charge, and take it on yourself to reward referrals from you fellow reps. Giving a reasonable reward to fellow sellers will encourage them not only to refer opportunities to you, but to pay you for referrals you may generate for them. They are able to stay focused on their territory, while earning some incentive for asking one extra question. Failing this, all too often money is left on the table.

Front line managers are in a great position to change reps’ view of this situation, they can create a culture of sales success not sales selfishness, and the rewards extend well beyond referrals. The fact is that managers will extend the culture they grew up, meaning if they worked in an enlightened atmosphere, where collective success was encouraged along with individual success, which is what they perpetuated. Others who cut their sale teeth on a team where cross referrals were not valued, or even discouraged, extend that culture.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Had an interesting discussion with at a reseller conference I presented at earlier this week, with Jason Stitt, a VP of Sales at a local technology firm, dealing with sales activity.

We talked about the level of activity, the timing of the activity, and of course the quality of activity; mostly how these factored in prospecting and driving new revenue. Now if you are in a position to make your quota without having to prospect, including cold calling, and do it purely and strictly through referrals, you may find the rest of this mundane, pedestrian and old school. But if you are like the serious majority of B2B sales reps, and you need to pick up the phone and talk to people you want to turn into prospects, read on.

As we talked about the importance of including prospecting in your daily activity, and the challenge of getting everything done in the hours of the day, while maximizing that precious time we in sales call ‘face time’, read 9 – 5. We compared notes and again agreed that if you are in sales, 9 – 5 is the middle of your day, not the whole day. The good news is that for most in business this days, 9 – 5 is a nostalgic trip that was last enjoyed by Ward Cleaver. This means you as a sales person have options.

You can see prospects/clients in the middles of the day, and prospect at the start and end of your day. In fact Scott told me how he has implemented a program called 8 By 8 and 5 After 5.

Yes, it is as simple as it sounds, make eight calls to potential buyers before 8:00 am, and then another five calls after 5:00 pm. The trick is to stick to the discipline of doing it every day. Making sure you schedule meetings between 9 – 5, so you can make your calls every day. As you execute, you will improve, and as you improve your confidence and success builds, and you calling yields greater results.

The added bonus, if you get an appointment booked before 8:00 am, it gives you that spring in your feet, knowing that no matter what happens in the middle of your day, you have something new in your pipeline to work on and you can spend the day playing to win.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Few sales people are true hunters, and even among hunters, few call outside of their comfort zone, specifically senior executives. We can pretend it’s not true, but based on my discussions with sales VP’s and business owners it is. They tell me their people don’t do it enough, and they hardly hear from sales people selling things that impact critical parts of their business. But let’s not dwell on why some don’t do it, and let’s focus on why they should and how it will help them win.

1. Top Man/Woman on Totem Pole – no matter how big or small the company, the President along the VP’s set the strategic direction for their companies, and the more you are aligned with that the better you will do. The challenge is that these are rarely expressed in terms of product, but objectives, thing the want to and need to achieve. So if you sell using the the language of product, you need to stop, and start speaking the subject “here is how I, my offering and company will help you exceed your objectives”. Once you do that you will have a number of doors open to you, both figuratively and literally. The literal part segues us to the second reason.

2. Use My Name, Please - No one knows better who the real decision makers, influencers, movers and shakers are within their organizations. That knowledge and understanding alone is worth gold, but an introduction, a recommendation, a direct mandate, well, thats like a cocktail mix of gold, oil, and more. Want to be the gold standard, nothing beats being sanctioned by the leader of the organization.

3. Friends in High Places – we have all faced scenarios where the decision was down to you and an alternate provider, that is when you want to have the right people in your corner, and who can be more “right” than the president or VP. When there is a tie, you want to have a tie breaker, and of you master point number 1 above, that tie breaker will break for you.

These are three reasons why you ALWAYS WANT TO CALL HIGH, in the organization that is. Master this and you will win more deals, not only due to the points above, but the process of mastering them will set you up for continuous improvement and success in engaging with the entire organization, and help you play to win.

Next Step

Call everyone involved in the success you can deliver
Sell in a multilingual way
Don’t hesitate to lean on your friends

What’s in Your Pipeline?

Tibor Shanto

1 2 3 Next »

A Passion For Life0

A Sales Association #Webinar31

Houston, We Have The Solution!74

Welcome back – How Was Your Summer?69

Not Only Is Talk Cheap But Misleading32

Read On…

School Is In53

The Value of Cross Referrals – Sales eXchange 15882

8 By 8 and 5 After 563

3 Reasons To Call Senior Executives First – Sales eXchange 15046