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Small Talk Is For Small People – Sales eXchange 2040

by Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

When I talk to sales people about how they start sales meetings with new potential buyers (first time they meet), most (not all) tell me they “break the ice with some small talk”, then they “get in to it!” We’ll leave the getting into it for another time, what I don’t get is the “small talk” bit, I am not sure that in the current format, as practiced by most sellers is effective, necessary, and at times can be risky to the opportunity.

I am antisocial, (although some have accused me), but spending time talking about the weather, or the useless season the local sports team is having seems counterproductive to the goal of the exercise, helping the buyer move closer to their objectives, and yours. And while the people buy from people crowd may want to pounce on me, wait. You can “break the ice”, and set the mood without having to resort to pointless gibberish.

The buyers are all busy, as I should think you are, you obviously said something that caused them to invest an hour of their time with you, it is up to you to maximize the ROT for both. Getting to the point may not the worst strategy. Some buyers may make you feel that they required “small talk”, but that is more conditioning than anything else, if you deliver value by the end of a successful meeting, they will not complain about not having their time wasted.

I am also not suggesting that you jump right into the deep end, I know that the “void” walking between the reception area and the office or meeting room has to be filled, it is how you fill it that can differentiate you from the others.

As you are doing research ahead of your meeting, look for recent events, announcements, or analyst coverage, not specifically related to your product, but significant for the company and or the person you are meeting. A while back I was meeting with a dairy company that was the first to introduce Omeg3 into a line of product, to accentuate the launch, they introduced a beveled edged carton so it would look different from the other milk cartons on the shelf.

On “the walk” from reception, I asked how the packaging was received, changes they had to make to production, and were they looking to use packaging as a differentiator way with other products. While this had nothing with what we were meeting about, it indicated to the buyer that I came prepared, that I was taking an interest in the entire business, not just the part I can sell to, and I can relate the benefit of my offering to the other responsibilities he had. In return, the information he shared with me about the above, helped me refine and better position my value vis-à-vis his objectives. Small talk, yes, but it beat talking about snow in March or the fact that the Leafs were going to miss the playoffs again.

While we think we are being social with small talk, it can and does often come up being hollow, unimportant, and does not move things forward even one millimetre, in which case, what’s the point. It is also interesting that many people who don’t like the small talk when they are buyers, rely on it when they are sellers.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Effective Telephone Prospecting Tips – Sales eXchange 2023

by Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

If you are a sales person who does not use the phone to proactively prospect for potential clients, you may not find this post of interest, on the other hand you may find something to spark you to take up the habit.

As with many things in sales, to successfully engage and move through the process, you need to do some things that are counter intuitive, don’t conform to how you may act or behave in regular circumstances. But if you’re in sales, you know that selling is not a normal circumstance.

While the numbers vary, there seems to be consensus that communication is:

60% Body language
30% Intonation
10% The words you use

The challenge for those using the phone is that there is no room for body language, (well almost), and with that 60% of their ability to be fully effective is negated. Unless you compensate for that in some way, you are relying more on luck than anything else.

Most sales people do not take this into account, and in fact approach their prospecting calls as though they were in a face to face meeting, a fatal mistake.

All good selling involves a bit of drama or theater, the telephone as a medium, also lends itself to a bit of theater, when prospecting by phone you need to combine both. You need to accentuate certain things to make up for the lack of visual. The logical thing is to put greater focus on the second element, intonation. Rather than speaking in your normal tone, using words you would use sitting across the desk from someone, you have to make things bigger, be more assertive, descriptive and direct.

Think of the old radio programs, and how they ballooned things for effect, and so must you, especially given that your buyer is getting calls from dozens of other sellers, and that if you are an unscheduled call, their focus and attention is elsewhere, unlike when they have committed the time to at least listen to you in the context of an appointment. Introduce a bit of drama and effect, use more descriptive words, and accentuate them. Rather than simply saying we do this or that, say “we have a proven track record of success in delivering double digit growth.” Get rid of socially expected norms of being polite, rather than saying “I was wondering if we could meet” or “I was hoping…”; say it direct and with conviction.

People have a tendency to rush the prospecting call, which makes it easy for a prospect to go with the flow and the call faster. Leave greater pauses between words, let the meaning land before moving on, slow down, make you voice deeper. Ask questions, make them engage, rather than just listen and object. This is why having a script helps. Not so much because you will recite the words by heart, but it allows you set the momentum and rhythm that will engage the listener on the other end (assuming the right content and message).

Remember that the lack of body language cuts both ways, while they can’t see you, you can’t see their reaction either, so you have to sharpen you other senses. My first sales job was telesales, the first things I was taught was that I had to listen for things other than words. Focus on the breathing, the space between words and sentences, and all the other things that make up for the lack of body language. In the end, there is more than one element that will help you “give good call”, but if you do not make up for some of the big things, the small things will matter less.

Don’t Forget To Enter The Big Contest!!
See Biz Stone, Seth Godin and others

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Conditions Are Not Objections (#video)0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

In the heat of a sale, it is sometimes easy to confuse a condition to the sale with an objection. The key is to understand what you are really dealing with, and respond accordingly. Done right, it could solidify the sale and the resulting relationship with the buyer.

Take a look, then download the Objection Handling Handbook, and let me know your thought.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

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

A Reactive and Bad Way to Deal with Objections (#video)1

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

There are times when an objection is not what it seems, but by treating it as an objection we could inadvertently create a scenario and situation that is risky when it didn’t have to be. Often, prospects’ questions at critical points in the sale sound like objections, when they are just the buyer thinking out loud.

Sellers need to slow down, step back assess, then deal with the situation, statement in a way appropriate for that situation.

Take a look at what I mean. Then download the Objection Handling Handbook.

What’s in Your Pipeline
Tibor Shanto

What if you could defeat the Status Quo0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

All this week I have posted clips from a recent interview with Ago Cluytens, for his Coaching Masters Series. We dealt with a number of issues around selling to buyers who are traditionally referred to as being Status Quo. Being the weekend, I thought it a good time to post the whole interview for your weekend lounging pleasure.

Always interested in what you think, and whether you are more prepared to go forth and sell where many sellers and pundits fear to go. Take a look, and let me know.

If you enjoy this there are more on Ago’s site.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Apr 27th, 2013 Ability, Accountability, Action, Attitude, Business Acumen, Buying Process, Change Management, Client Life Cycle, Communication Strategy, Don't Wait, EDGE Sales Process, Emotion, Emotional Intelligence(EQ), Events, execution, Gap Selling, Interactive Selling, Interview, Leadership, Listening, Next Steps, Planning, Play to Win, Proactive Triggers, Sales Interview, Sales Leadership, Sales Process, Sell Better, Selling to Executives, Status Quo, Trigger Events, Triggers, Video

Accountability, Attitude, Change Management, Client Life Cycle, Commitment, Communication, Don't Wait, EDGE Sales Process, execution, how to sell better, Interview, Listening, Planning, Play to Win, Proactivity, Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., Sales Process, Sales Success, sell better, Selling to Executives, Trigger Event Selling, Trigger Events, Triggers, Video

What Are You Listening To? (Part II)2

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

In Part I of this series, I looked at the importance of asking powerful impactful questions if you are looking to have something powerful to listen to, and impactful engagements. The other attribute of good listening mentioned in the piece was patience. Seems straight forward, but we have all jumped in to soon, unintentionally interrupting the buyer in mid-sentence or mid-thought. By developing the discipline of patience, we can enhance the buy/sell experience for both parties.

In a world where most leading products/solutions look very much the same, how you sell, or more specifically, the buyer’s experience during your sale, could be the best way to differentiate yourself and product from the pack. Sellers have been pitched to death, they unfortunately expect Muzak like questions, and have fallen in to the habit of giving Muzak like answers; in effect they have become conditioned by previous sellers, who have trained buyers to give shallow and brief answers. Every time they start answering a question in meaningful and detailed way, and they are cut off by a seller, they are conditioned to answer with shorter and less detailed and useful answers. The interruption may be rooted in excitement about the fit, unfortunately the message the buyer gets, is “this guy is not interested in the full answer, just what serves his needs”. Each time they are unable to fully express themselves, they “learn” that the seller may not be really interested in the answer, so they provide the bare minimum.

If you decide to take on the suggestions in Part I, and move towards asking very direct and provocative questions, you need to prepare, and more importantly allow for longer and more detailed answers, which requires a patient listening style that encourages the buyer to speak in detail, and create a meaningful dialogue. It is up to you to recondition and reshape the buyer’s expectations and experience.

The reality is that there are a lot of things going on in a sales meeting, sellers have to keep track of and balance various inputs and cues, at the same time analysing and formulating how to piece the information together in a usable way, while at the same time finding ways to move the sale forward. It takes effort and practice not to jump in when presented with an opening. But with a little practice and effort, you can change the experience and the outcome.

In light of the fact that we think and speak faster than people talk or we listen, we need to work hard at slowing down, and being patient enough to succeed, it does take effort not to add to the buyer’s negative conditioning. As a young seller I was taught a simple two step technique that encourages the buyer to speak more and in greater detail, while allowing me to differentiate from other sellers. As you ask provocative and open ended questions, divide your note page in half, on the left side take notes as you normally would. On the left side write down two things, first, all the things the buyer says that you want to jump in and comment on, and save them for later. The other are questions you can ask based on what the buyer is saying. This forces you to listen more intently, not race ahead or make assumptions, but patiently and tactically listening with purpose. Once the buyer has finished (on their) own, you can ask the questions you wrote down, demonstrating that you did indeed listen. You can also go back and review and build on the points you wrote down rather than interrupting, again encouraging the buyer to expand and elaborate further, and see you as a listener, and someone worth talking to.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

What are you Listening To? (Part I)2

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Ask a group of sales people what are the most important attribute or abilities a good sales person needs to master, and “Listening Skills” will usually be near the top of the list. No argument here, the ability and as importantly the patience to listen are crucial. Beyond the common aspects of listening, there is the issue of what you are listening to. Based on the question, you could find yourself doing a lot of great listening, with little progress, or return for the effort.

So while listening is a good discipline, the skill still comes down to the quality of the question. Great questions make for worthwhile listening; crappy questions lead to… well you know.

Buyers have become immune to the most often asked common questions, some may have been fresh the first time they were asked, but by the third time they were asked “if you could change one thing….?” Or any other question of this sort, they develop a standard canned answer, which if not deflected by the seller, will lead to the same predictable outcome, no sale or discounted sale, I guess that’s the penalty for bad questions.

If you want something good to listen to, you need to ask good questions, the better the question, the better listening, the better the engagement. Where there is a range of opinions is around what is a good question. From where I sit, you need ask questions that penetrate the protective shield buyers have developed to protect themselves from the usual lot of overtly self-serving questions sellers ask, of course delivered in a consultative mode.

The questions need to be provocative, spark the buyer to think, at times shock them into thinking. Think of even though a buyer has granted you an hour, they still have a 16 hour work day they are trying get in to a ten hour day, with all the challenges that go along with that. Just like we as sellers are thinking (and listening) ahead of where we are, so are they. Your question need to stop them in their track, get off the tread mill, and actually think about their answers, not just illicit a response, responses don’t make for good listening.

Unfortunately, people don’t like to provoke, they fear making client uncomfortable, so instead they ask Namby-pamby questions, soft and cuddly, almost asking the buyer to be their friend rather than an agent of change, or a person of value. These kind of soft light questions ultimately lead to light listening, like Muzak at the supermarket.

You can build more provocative questions that help you get below the surface of the issues, getting to the root of what the buyer’s objective are and how you can help eliminate hurdle, identify gaps, and mine those gaps to close them in helping the achieve those objective. The goal is to get past the here and now, to where they need/want to be, where you can add value. To do that you need something good to listen to.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

An Empty Wagon – Sales eXchange 1943

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

We have all heard the expression that an empty wagon makes the most noise, no doubt from an older relative trying to tell us that that we were talking a lot, saying very little of substance, worth hearing, or had as near the level of impact as the noise we were making saying it. Well, I can tell you that there are a lot of empty wagons when it comes to sales and sellers, usually in lack of substance or delivering on the hype.

You see this when sellers embrace half of an idea, usually the easy half, but fail to follow through on the entire concept and end up making a lot of noise as a result. Specifically in the early stages of the sale, when they resort to talking about how their product/service will improve Productivity, increase efficiencies, reduce Costs, minimize Risk, enhance their work-flow, and a few other generic variations of the same thing.

The half they bought into is the need to go beyond feature – benefit, and venture forth to where they are presenting their offering from the “what’s in it for the client” perspective. Where they fail to follow through, is in adding specific substance to the above phrases, leaving them beige and generic. This unnecessarily extends the length of their sale cycle, or kills the sale all together.

Picture yourself as the person getting the calls, dozens of calls every week, from the copier rep, the wireless rep, the IT integrator rep, the office supply rep, the transportation rep, the sales training rep, and the oodles of other reps. All telling you that they CAN improve your productivity, not HOW they could do that, what the actual impact would be, but just that they can improve your productivity. Multiple that by all the “buzz-phrases” and by the number of calls, and by Tuesday afternoon, it all sounds like an empty wagon.

It takes little extra effort to replace the generic phrases with actual example. How do you in fact increase efficiencies, what has been the actual impact of that increased productivity, and how can you best present it in a way that the buyer can relate to in their world. All you need to do is go past where marketing leaves you, and study some real world examples, be they your customers specifically, or any client your company has helped. Understand what their reality was before they used your product and service, and where they after taking your offering on board. Yes, this requires effort, but in the end a lot less effort than the effort it take to push things up the generic hill, the hill where you and every other generic rep looks frighteningly the same and unappealing.

You will quickly move from saying “we help companies like yours increase your efficiency…” to “clients implementing our software have seen an average increase of 8% in the number of units produced per hour, with a reduction of 5% in rejected product, and a 6% reduction in materials used; this has allowed them to increase revenues by 7%, and a 10% rise in profit margin as a result of cost take out”. Sure there are a couple of extra words, but the substance, weight and specifics they communicate to a potential buyer are more direct and make a lot less noise than the emptiness of the generic descriptions used by most.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Dude, You’re Gonna Need More Than 15 Minutes3

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Sales people are constantly working at communicating value to their buyers, especially in the early stages of the cycle, lead gen to prospecting and engaging the buyer to where they could complete an effective Discovery process. After sellers have done all the work involved in getting to the point where they can engage with a buyer, I am always surprised at how easily they are willing to undermine it, and risk their opportunity by saying something completely unnecessary, and serves only to sooth their nerves.

The expression that does this most is “I just need 15 minutes of your time” or “A quick 15 minutes”. Both are stupid and useless, the second is one I never did get, how is a “quick 15 minutes” different than 15 minutes, don’t all minutes have 60 seconds, it is just the quality of the content that seems to make some minutes last a lifetime.

I know why it is used, generally comes down to two things, both can be dealt with more intelligently and effectively. First is the popular notion that if you can get 15 minutes, and do well, they’ll give you an encore and you can stretch it out; I guess we all think we can do a good job. On the other hand I used to work for a VP of Sales who managed his calendar down to the minute, busy guy. He would ask you how long you needed, and would book you in for that time, if you said 15 minutes, he would end the meeting right at 15 minutes. He wasn’t rude, he had to get to his next scheduled meeting, if you couldn’t live up to the expectation I set, it was your issue, not his, you had to deal with it, not him.

Which brings us to the first contradiction, most decision makers have more than what to do in a day, how realistic is that they don’t have other meetings behind your, or other things that require their time and attention. Yes, no doubt we have all had instances where we were able to extend 15 minutes in to 45 or even 60 minutes, but an occasional anomaly does not make for a sound strategy.

The other issue with this approach is that you are in fact misleading the prospect before you have even met them. Think about it, do you really want to start things off by lying to the prospective buyer? Any way you rationalize it, that is exactly what you are doing, not a good foundation for a trust based relationship.

The second reason sales people do this is linked to the first, and just as weak. Specifically they are trying to minimize the apparent impact on the buyer, trying to make it “easy” on them, “Your time will not be wasted”, is the implication. But unless you are selling a coffee service or window cleaning, how much real or tangible value can you effectively communicate. More so, when you are selling what you would call a “solution”, where information has to be exchanged, 15 minutes is not going to get you there, you can pretend all you want, you are going to pitch, worse, you are going to ‘speed pitch’.

Some will tell me, “I can at least get things started”, sure then comeback and continue, with a bit of recapping, you are costing you and the buyer more time. By asking for 15 minutes you are undermining your so called “value proposition”. What the prospect hears is that this is so basic and unimportant, what they are asking themselves is as follows: “we’re going to make real progress in 15, can’t be that important or unique, maybe it can wait, or I can delegate it to someone who deals with unimportant things.”

Think about it, assuming things get started, small talk, while you assume they checked out your web site, you have to validate; if they did, you still need to create context, if they didn’t you have to do a bit more than that. From here, you need to at least go through the motions of gather information or executing a Discovery of facts and objective. Ah, look at that time is up! I remember someone trying to sell me an ad in local board of trade directory, they said they just need 15 minutes, I pointed out to him that he will need to ask me some questions, I will certainly have some for him, so let’s get real, how much time will we really need, he was honest enough to come across with a real time frame.

What’s worse, it is usually the seller who brings time in to the equation, not the prospect, again communicating a lack of confidence in their offering, or their ability to sell, or both. Just stop this juvenile practice, and sell.

Now I know that there times when you will be asked by a prospect how much time you need; in my case I gear my first meetings to about an hour, I am the one that gets antsy after 50 minutes. But rather than saying “one hour”, I pause, and ask, “how long can you give me?” They usually come back and say “is an hour enough?” Touch down!

But assuming they ask again, I just say “I usually need about 30 minutes for Discovery, I assume you’ll have some questions, so 40 minutes is safe.” If I feel they have a sense of humor, I add “any longer than that I take as interest on your part.”

I do have people who say “I can give you 30 minutes.” Great I can work with that; if they offer 15 minutes, I say no, I know what is going to happen, it is not a good use of my time, my most important resource. Either we can find a mutually better time, or on to the next one. If you have lots of prospects, this is not an issue, if you only have one or two, you may have to settle for the scraps that a quick 15 minutes represent.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

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