1. Goals

I’m a great believer in goals but these are not the same as targets. Sales professionals are given targets to reach, but these can be de-motivating. If you fall behind your annual sales plan early in the year it can be incredibly hard to get yourself motivated. Conversely, if you smash your targets with months to spare, the temptation can be to ease off later in the year. This can have a knock-on effect the year after.
Getting-better goals are more motivating, rather than targets. Here you breakdown each aspect of selling and aim to improve them one by one. This seems to work, in that you are competing against yourself, to get better every day.

2. Agile Selling Learning Model

The biggest challenge for me, when I changed roles, was the amount of learning I had to cram in, in a short space of time. Konrath gives us a simple model to use in Agile Selling.

a. Chunking

First you map out everything you need to learn and then chunk similar things together. You can then chunk down into smaller chunks.

b. Sequence

You can’t learn everything all at once. This will fry your brain. Instead decide on the first skill or piece of information you need to learn and concentrate on that. Only when you have mastered that, should you go on to the next skill.

c. Connect

Are there any other things you already know, that you can link to the skill you need to learn? This can often give you a head start.

d. Dump

Get what you learn out of your head and onto paper. Therefore, practice dumping this information. Mind maps are a great tool to use here.

e. Practice

With any new skill, practice makes perfect. Doing something once or twice, will mean you never habituate the skill. The author recommends role playing and recording yourself on video. Do not fear this feedback, as it is priceless.

f. Prioritise

I agree with Jill Konrath, in that multitasking is a myth. Therefore, you should prioritise what you are doing and do the most important one-thing first.

3. Situational Credibility

The aim of all this learning is to reach situational credibility in 30 days. This means that within 30 days you should be able to sit in front of a customer and have a good productive conversation. The 30-day deep dive is long enough for you to get this situational credibility. It is also short enough for it to fit into your induction period, in your new job.

4. Dictionary

One of the biggest helps for me in my learning was setting up my own dictionary. As you learn unfamiliar terms and jargon, make a note of it to look up later. Once you have the definition, write this down in a dedicated notebook. I still use my dictionary all these years later as more new buzzwords and acronyms come into fashion. I now use an excel spreadsheet for this, so I can rearrange it alphabetically.

5. Fill out buyer’s matrix.

Konrath gives us some a lot of homework to do in Agile Selling, but it is well worth the effort. One of the tasks is to set up a Buyers’ Matrix. Here you list out each type of customer you have, for instance my list would be:

• Business owner, Owner, MD, CEO
• Factory Manager, Operations Manager/ Director, General Manager
• Engineering Manager/Director
• Project Manager

For each position, fill out their key roles, objectives and challenges. An example for a CEO is below:

1. Role/responsibility – oversee all company functions, maintain and improve profits, increase sales.
2. Business objectives – get new business, increase and maintain business, ensure profitability.
3. Strategic initiatives – sales drives, cost cutting, new product development, branding.
4. Internal challenges – labour costs,
5. External challenges – loss of business, unable to supply business.
6. Primary interfaces – Parent company directors/ managers, shareholders, owners, other business owners
7. Status quo – current profitability and sales are fine, don’t rock the boat.
8. How to overcome Status Quo: costs are rising, labour costs, labour market
9. Change drivers – sudden new business, loss of business, increased costs, pricing.
10. Change inhibitors – ongoing contracts, parent company group deal, other investments required, uncertain forecast.

6. Status quo

Looking back on my sales career, my biggest competitor is the customer not doing anything. Jill Konrath calls this the Status Quo i.e. the customer would rather do nothing. There are assorted reasons for this, for instance fear of making mistakes or the time required to make the change. However, we can still compete against this. Therefore, what are the weaknesses or gaps, for them to remain with the status quo? How can we exploit this?

7. Value Proposition

The author advises us to reverse engineer the business case, to arrive at our Value Proposition. This chapter was quite lightweight and Konrath points us to her website to download a Value Proposition Toolkit.

8. Customer Stories

During your first 30 days, start collecting customer stories. What are the stories of how your company got customers? How did you help them? You can ask other salespeople in the organisation or even interview the customers. You can then weave this into your own sales and marketing narrative.

9. Map out the buyer’s journey.

Mapping out the buyer’s journey is a useful exercise in sales and marketing. It can help you to craft the message you are putting out and to whom. Broadly speaking there are four stages to the buyer’s journey, but each industry and customer will have its own sub-stages:

a. Allow access.

The first step in the sales journey is the customer allowing you access to them. Here you need to be noticed by the customer and offer them a valid reason for starting a conversation.

b. Initiate change

The customer allows you access to them and you are now face to face. Your task now is to guide the customer to initiate change, i.e. to realise they might have a problem worth solving.

c. Select resources.

As the buyer now realises he needs to change something, he will now start to think about how he can change. I.e. to select resources. This is the research stage and hopefully you will be involved in it. Otherwise, the customer has already done their research and you are part of a quote gathering exercise.

d. Expand relationships.

You have been successful in gaining some business with this new customer. The next stage is expanding the relationship. This will be traditional account management and will involve selling more of your offering and dealing with the fulfilment side.

10. Create cheat sheets for everything.

I’m in agreement with the author here. Cheat sheets or checklists can help you to remember to do what you should do and they are a plan you can follow. For example, the book includes a cheat sheet for meeting preparation. (See below). I’ve written more about my checklists in the post Checklists and Daily Lists.

11. What are the trigger events?

For the customer to realise they have a problem or initiate a change, there is usually a trigger event. To help you optimise your time, you can identify what these trigger events are and then target these as a priority. Trigger events could be anything from New Legislation or a new CEO overseeing the customer’s business. If you do your homework, you can find these events and get ahead of the game.

12. Gobbledygook test

How will you know if you have situational credibility and are ready to sit in front of a customer? You should be able to pass the gobbledygook test and be able to answers these four questions, off pat.

• What does your company do?
• What are your primary products and services?
• Why should I consider changing to you?
• Have you worked with any other companies like us? Name them.

13. Agile Selling skills

Your professional development should include developing your sales skills, but where do you start. The author tells us to start where you are. I.e. it’s pointless mastering closing skills if you have no prospects.

a. Prospecting

If you have just joined the company and are responsible for generating your own leads, then prospecting should be your first skill to master. These skills include phone use, email and networking etc. I’ve written more about this in my post My Prospecting Process, in which I go through my methods for getting in front of customers.

b. Opportunity creation

Once you have mastered prospecting or you are already provided with leads, then the next logical skill to practise is opportunity creation. Some sub-skills in this area include questioning, listening and needs analysis.

c. Winning business

Winning business will be the next skill to practise. This is a huge topic ranging from presenting the business case, through objection handling to negotiation. When choosing a subskill to work on, it is best to analyse what you are doing now and whether there are areas on which you can improve.

d. Account management

Account management is a whole different skill set. Once you have the business, this area is about keeping and developing that business. How are your customer service skills? Have you networked within the customer organisation to meet all the stakeholders?

14. Personal bests

Sales is a numbers game we are often told, but Konrath tells us to not focus on the number of calls we are making. Instead change your goals to, for instance, connection ratio. This means the percentage of calls that result in a conversation.
Once you’ve improved your connection ratio, to acceptable levels, you can then look at improving your initial meeting conversion ratio. I.e. the percentage of visits that result in a quote.
Again, once the meeting conversion rate is satisfactory, look to improve the closing ratio, otherwise known as the percentage of quotes that result in a sale. The corollary to this could be to look at the percentage of quotes, that are lost to no-decision and improve this.
When you are looking at ways to improve, or to highlight things that might be holding you back, find the root cause of the problem. For instance, your issue might be a lack of presenting the business case rather than closing skills.

15. Meeting preparation

One of the bad habits that seasoned sales professionals can sometimes slip into is trying to ‘wing it’ i.e. not preparing adequately for a meeting. As you become more experienced and your knowledge increases, this can be when danger can strike. You think that you can just turn up to an initial meeting and go with the flow.
In Agile Selling there is a Meeting Plan that you can use to ensure that you have at least done the minimum amount of preparation, before the meeting. Here are some of the questions you need to ask yourself before the meeting:

a. Outcome

At the end of the meeting, what will the next step for me be?
What will the prospect be expecting?

b. Opening

How will you open the meeting? E.g. Make intros, confirm times and review agenda.

c. Set the stage.

Share your value proposition, success stories, ideas or insights. Establish yourself as a credible source. What will you say?

d. Transition

How will you move the conversation into questions?

e. Focus on Business

Lead the conversation about the reason for the meeting. List ten questions you want to discuss, in a logical sequence.

f. Support materials

What will you need to take? Presentations, handouts, case studies.

g. Personnel

Who will to be present, both from your company and the customer’s.

h. Advance

How will you bring the meeting to a close, in a timely manner. Summarise your understanding, discuss open issues, and suggest the next steps.

16. Debrief meetings.

After the meeting, whilst it is still fresh in your mind, you should be having a debrief. I use a model called the Personal Improvement Grid (PIG). You can read up more about the PIG on my post Skills and Mastery. In this post I explain how I improved my cold calling skills.

17. The Agile Selling 90 days Plan

There is a lot of work to go through when you start your new post at a new company. Aside from getting yourself up to speed or having situational credibility in 30 days, the author gives us a useful 90-day plan. You can of course adapt this to your own situation.

18. Time management

Here are four useful areas to improve in your time management, which I took away from Agile Selling.

a. Prioritise daily.

At the start of each day, or the evening before, list what you are going to doing, with the most important item first. With me, I make sure I prioritise getting at least twenty customer contacts per day. I will do this first.

b. Chunk time

Try to group like tasks together, for example if you have a raft of phone calls to make, then block off a few hours to get through them all in one chunk of time.

c. Set deadlines.

We are beset with deadlines issued by customers, bosses etc, which means that these tasks are focussed on first. But what about the tasks we give ourselves, those things that could move our own performance and development forward. Give these deadlines too, so you make sure they are done.

d. Email scheduled.

Scheduling my email time was a big gain for me. Set yourself 4 or 5 times per day, when you will check your email messages and don’t deviate from it. If you have spaced these times throughout the day, you will not miss anything. For example, I now only check email at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm and one last check at 7pm.

Summary

Reading Agile Selling by Jill Konrath and applying the recommendations, got me out of a potentially sticky situation when I changed from Account Management to Business Development in Capital Equipment sales.
If you are about to start a new role in sales or if you are floundering with the mountain of things that need to be done, then I can heartily recommend getting yourself a copy.

The post Agile Selling by Jill Konrath – my takeaways appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

In this post, I go through Pat Flynn’s points on how to set up a sustainable online profitable business.

There are firstly two things that all businesses must fulfil in order to find prospective customers and to convert them into buying customers. Those two essentials are:

1. The business must provide value or a service that people want or need.
2. Secondly you must find a group of people and find out what is causing them pain.

Here are Pat’s four business models that you can adopt, which I will go into detail about.

1. Arbitrage
2. Share a message.
3. No ideas/no business/no audience
4. Static website/niche site

1. Arbitrage

Arbitrage is buying low and selling high, simple as that. It is not strictly passive because you have to actively look for buying opportunities and then ensure when you sell, it is at a profit. Although it isn’t passive, it is a good start for the budding online entrepreneur.

Here are a few examples of arbitrage.

Location arbitrage

Location arbitrage is when the prices of a certain product are higher in some locations compared with others. For instance there might be a physical shop which sells goods at a discount near to you. You could buy these goods bulk and then sell them online at amazon or eBay, to people in areas where the prices are higher. They get a discount and you can get some profits.

Time arbitrage

This is when the price of something varies over time. It is as simple as buying when the price is low and selling when it is high. Here you capitalise on the fact that some people will buy when the price is high, just because they need the products now.

Knowledge arbitrage

Here you buy products, which you are knowledgeable about from somewhere where there is no information given by the seller. For instance it could be from a seller on eBay who has listed the item with a basic description and poor quality photos.

You would then re-list that product at a higher price with a detailed description which would help prospective buyers to make a decision.

2. Share a Message

Then next of Pat’s models is where you share a message and become an authority figure on a certain topic. The objective is to build a tribe of loyal followers, who are interested in your topic. You create a brand that the tribe can relate to. Usually this is done around your own website/blog. You would then collect their email details, so you can message your tribe with more in-depth information. This builds trust in the mind of the customer. Occasionally you will also then market your products, services and consultation to your tribe.

This model takes a lot of time and is an ongoing process. You can speed the process up by piggybacking on to other blogs and platforms. Your objective here is to get them back to your site.

The key with this model is patience and consistency. The rewards will come after a time and will be longer lived.

This methodology would be that espoused in 1,000 True Fans .

3. No ideas/no business/no audience

This model intrigued me. How could you possibly start a business with no ideas, no previous business and no audience? Pat explains this model thus:

First you call a small local business up or meet up with them at a networking event. You ask them this question: What do you do that you hate in your business, or that you need help with? When they give you the answer, ask them why this is a problem. Then ask if they would be willing to pay to solve this problem. How much?

When you have the answer, you simply go away and develop an app, product or information product to help them.  Once you have developed the product, you have a proven market already.

4. Static Website or Niche Site

The saying goes that the Riches are in the Niches (which doesn’t rhyme when I say it). This is different to your authority site, where you build up a tribe of loyal followers. A static or Niche website has a finite amount of information in it, to allow the reader to reach a certain goal. And that’s it, nothing more. This site will be have a define focus on one problem.

The logic here is that it is easier to specialise than to generalise.

Here are a couple of methods to choose your niche site:

a) Pick a Market

Pick a market you are interested in or have some affinity for. Have a look on Amazon.com and look up this category of products. For example Photography. Then pick a subcategory. Then keep defining the sub categories to smaller and small categories as per your preferences. Keep dividing down until you get to a specific need, that you could be an expert in.

So a photography category might niche down to Studio lighting for photographers on a budget. Cars might go down to mini-vans for families with more than two children. Pets could go down to breeding Betta Fish.

This method starts with your interests and works down to a need.

b) Keyword Search

This method is the opposite of the niching down method. It is the use of keyword research. Here you use a keyword research tool. (There are many of these such as Google’s Keyword Research Tool). You research the search terms that people are typing into Google. You are looking for The Longer Long Tail . These are very specific terms or phrases that people will search Google for. The more specific the search term is, the more the searcher is willing to spend money on it. For instance the search term TV is so monstrously broad that it is next to useless. However your long tail search might come up with Samsung TV. Now this is better, but still very broad. So next you put Samsung TV into the Research Tool. Then it might come up with Samsung HD Smart TV. This is getting very specific. Finally you are lead to Samsung UE55K5500 55-inch 1080p Full HD Smart TV. This is so specific that it can only have been searched for by someone with their credit card in hand, ready to buy.

Now, what if you created a small niche website reviewing the Samsung UE55K5500 55-inch 1080p Full HD Smart TV, with an affiliate link to a site selling it? You would get very targeted traffic to your website. Your website would be small, very focussed and probably short lived. It could however be very profitable.

The post 5 STeps to Set Up a Sustainable Online Profitable Business appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

Here’s a very quick post to share with you what I believe it takes to become a professional salesperson.

The Sales Career

A good salesperson who knows what he wants will reap the rewards of becoming financially stable and satisfied with his career. Selling is a career. And you can be very good in it. Learn the skills, follow the steps, and enjoy successfully closing sales deals day after day after day.
Always learn the true essence of selling by heart. Selling is not all about deceiving or manipulating people. It involves talking to customers, becoming friends with them, winning their trust, and selling them your product. In short you are helping people.

A Good Sales Person

You do not have to be loud-mouthed and over-ambitious to succeed as a salesperson. Instead, you have to be a person of fine character and grace. Maintain your poise as well as those of your products. Once you and your products have attained that certain level of respect, you are very likely to make sales, sometimes even without trying.

Think of a good salesperson that you know of. It could be your boss or somebody in the marketing field you admire the most. It could even be somebody from the local store from whom you find yourself buying most often. Observe them. What do you think are the things that they are doing right, which makes you admire them totally? Do you think they are honest? Are they good in explaining? How do they talk about their product? How effective are their sales pitches on you?

Get a Mentor

You will learn a lot from a mentor. What my book teaches you is the basics, the theories, and the secrets of becoming a professional salesperson. Observing a good salesperson in action will show you more clearly how successful selling is really done.

Right now, you should have realised that being a salesperson might not happen overnight; or it might, depending on your determination and skill. It takes practice and patience. If you follow everything this report teaches, you can become a professional salesperson in the shortest time possible.
If you combine all these with regular practice and determination, you will not just become a professional salesperson very soon, but you might even be heading your own group of salespeople to train and manage. So keep in mind that the opportunities won’t end for you if you love your craft.

The Bike Seller

Let me finally finish with this story about an excellent salesperson:
A young person from London moves to Manchester and is looking for a job in a big department store. The manager asks whether he has some sales experience. He said that he was a salesperson in London before he moved. The manager asked him to report the next day. He will be hired depending upon his sales for the day.

The following day, the young person managed to get only one sale. The manager was dissatisfied with his turnout. So he said, “Our sales people here average 25 sales in a day. If you can only sell one item, I can’t take you in.”
But the person said, “It was a £100,000 purchase though.”

The manager was surprised and asked, “Really? What did you sell him?”
“Well, I sold him some mountain bike shorts. Then I sold him a helmet. But I learned that he didn’t have a mountain bike yet so I showed him one of ours. He bought one. He chose the biggest and heaviest model and he realised that it wouldn’t fit in his car’s boot. Also  he said he doesn’t know how to ride it yet so he couldn’t cycle home. So I showed him one of our transit vans and sold that to him too. I told him he could take the bicycle home with it.”

“You mean to tell me you successfully sold a bike to somebody who doesn’t know how to ride one? And you even managed to make him buy a van just to take it home? Why is he looking for biking shorts anyway if he doesn’t know how to ride a bike?” asked the manager, bewildered.
“Well actually, he was just buying a pair of roller skates for his kid. But I told him I might as well join him in his hobby. And since he said he’s too old to skate, I suggested he might as well ride a bike. So I sold all of those items to him.”

I wish you well.

I wish you well in your sales career. Now, get your gear going and start earning your first million. If you would like more information on how you can achieve your selling goals, please contact me.
It’s a Done Deal – How to Build Your Sales Career.
© Michael A. Holden 2018.
Email: [email protected]

The post The Professional Salesperson appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

Whilst giving your presentation, it is important to use the right tonality. Here are three tonalities to practise:

• Secrecy and scarcity
• Certainty
• Disarming

Anchoring the tonalities

The easiest way to practise using these tonalities is to actually feel them and create an anchor. An anchor is a term used in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). For more on anchors, see my post at ChangeAndAchieve.com (LINK).
For instance, think of a time when you were certain. As an example maybe when you absolutely knew that you were going to win a sale and you did. Think of that time. Recall all the feelings and anchor them. This means adopt the same body language or create a gesture, like pumping your fist into your palm.

How to create an anchor

Here is the step-by-step process for creating a resource anchor.

Whenever you make a sale or even just book an appointment, close your eyes and make two fists.
Associate with the feelings for ten seconds, including mental images. Intensify the feelings.
Get a smell anchor. You could use a fragrance in your office. Every time you make the sale take a sniff. Try to get four anchors –

• Auditory (it could be ringing a bell.
• Kinaesthetic (make a fist)
• Olfactory (smell the fragrance)
• Visual (look at a motivational poster)

Repeat this three times ONLY when you close a sale. This will lock the anchor in place.
Then only use the anchor as a resource when you really need it, for instance just before a presentation. Don’t just do it for phone calls, as this will dilute it. Save it for that special occasion, when you need to be at your best.
Use Gestures for anchoring the tonalities

Identify one gesture that creates support for each tonality, for example for certainty, slap the back of your hand into the other hand.
Do an anchor for the other tonalities: scarcity (a sideways glance as if you are checking if someone is listening) and disarming (raise your palms facing away).

Presentation: The Basic Structure of a Pitch

Before we start, always remember that a pitch or script is always a work in progress, as you should always be testing and improving your delivery and the words.

1. Less is more, when making a presentation. For example, “Good morning this is Mike Holden” would be better as “Morning, Mike Holden Here”. Then the body of your presentation should be bookended by:
   “… This should be the perfect fit for you” and “Believe me you won’t be sorry”. In between these two statements, the body of your presentation should be no more than one page of A4 long.
2. Once you have hand-written your presentation script out, read it through and tweak it a hundred times to make it flow naturally and sound casual. (Tip – take it with you to pull out when you have a spare couple of minutes, for instance if you are waiting in a reception room). Remove any unnecessary words and sentences. Shorten words like “it is” to “its”.
3. Paint a picture using comparisons and metaphors. This is crucial. People like to hear stories as it helps them to picture themselves using your product in their mind.
4. Link your goods or service to a trustworthy figure. Are there any industry leaders in your company, who may have used your product or service? Are there any famous people who have endorsed your company? Has your company dealt with any household named companies before?
5. In the last paragraph create some urgency, but remember to stay ethical. E.g. “the reason I’m calling now is…” or “we’ve just got this new”…
6. Use a soft close within the presentation, followed by “sound fair enough?” Price might not have been mentioned yet, but it could be. This should be no more than 1 to 1.5 minutes and no more.

The power of presupposition

A presupposition is a term used in NLP, which describes a statement, which pre-supposes something. For example “When you start this program and start earning more money…” This pre-supposes that the prospect will earn more money if they start the program.

Embrace the power of No

The sale begins with “no” and here are some of the reasons they will say no:
The don’t love your product
The don’t love you
They don’t love your company
They haven’t resolved their limiting buying beliefs.
The three tens
We have discussed the three tens before, but here they are again. They are the conditions you need to fulfil at ten out of ten before your prospect will buy:

First they need to love your product
Then they need to love you
Finally they need to love your company

The art of boxing someone in (ethically)

Imagine that your prospect is standing in a box. In Jordan Belfort’s model, you want to box him in by building solid walls around him metaphorically. The four walls represent:
A cast iron logical case.
A cast iron emotional case.
You dismantle his limiting beliefs around buying.
You reach and surpass his action threshold for taking action.
If you do this whilst showing you care, with the correct tonality and you will make the sale. Otherwise, the prospect will hang up the phone or end the meeting.

The art of looping.

Looping is a skill where the prospect says no. So you loop back in the conversation and re-establish the three tens. Then you try again. During the sales conversation, you keep repeating this so that you box him in and you make the sale.

The first Ten – the product

People will not buy if they’re not convinced that the product or service is the best thing since sliced bread. So the first ten is to get them to believe that the product is the best thing since sliced bread. Here is an example script:

“Now getting started is easy, it’s just a matter of some basic information along with you card details and I can reserve you a seat at next month’s training. And believe me Bob if you do even half as well as the other people who have gone through this programme, you are going to be very, very impressed. Sound fair enough?”

Answer – sounds good, let me think about it. (The first no).
What you want to do here is deflect this.

“I hear what you are saying, but let me ask you a question. Money aside, does the idea make sense to you, do you like the idea?”
Yeah its sounds pretty good.

(Match his tonality – if he is at level 6 enthusiasm you be at six, then start going up the level to lead him) “Exactly…”

You want to enter the world of your prospect where he is, then raise it and he will follow.

In the script, get him to the spot, a pre-planned question with an obvious positive answer. He will answer in a state of certainty. Then anchor this and take it back into the product to get your first ten.
Next you future pace the prospect’s success.
“Once you sing up you’ll start making real money follow what I’m saying?”
Yes

The second ten – you

Sell yourself by creating an example – a metaphor. For example if you are a stockbroker, your prospect won’t know you or trust you if it’s a first call, so you ask them if they’d bought before and knew you would they buy. If yes, reintroduce yourself to them and re-sell yourself. After that, you come to the third ten.

The third ten – your company

Give them a name and face for your company. Tell them the owner’s origin story, how he formed the company. Make them honest and ethical. Script this.
Now they still probably won’t order yet, they might say that they need to consult with their lawyer.
“I hear what you’re saying, but let me say this- the true beauty of this program…” (The second deflection.)
Now give them a third presentation with all the good stuff in that you have saved and tailor it to his objection. For example, he might say he needs to consult his wife, so mention this in the close:
“When you make the first £x thousand, go and buy your wife something – sound fair enough?”
THEN DON’T SPEAK

Tipping the scales from negative to positive.

“What’s the worst that could happen; let’s say I’m wrong…” “The up side is…all I ask is this –just give me one shot and believe me if you get half of the benefit of xyz you will be amazed. Believe me the only problem you will have is I didn’t call you last year and got you started then. Sound fair enough?”
They may get uncomfortable at this point because he is getting boxed in.
The next loop is very tight. You re-sell the company; you re-sell yourself again in two lines, then say:
“What exactly do you have to talk to your partner about?”
Let him speak.

The post The Presentation – The Power of the Three Ten’s appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

What is qualifying and how do you do it? Isn’t it just asking questions? Here is a step by step qualifying process.

Step one

Find out the clients Why? This is so important. The customer will have a logical and emotional why. You need to find out what they are. A logical why would be increased profits, whereas an emotional why would be to make me look good in front of the boss.

Step Two

Write down the perfect questions from your industry (see below).

Step three

Memorise these questions. They should be general to start with and then become specific. You should never be short of a question to ask.

Step four

Ask permission before you ask the question. Say something like, “Just a couple of quick question, so I don’t waste your time”, or “Just a couple of quick questions so I can better serve you”.
Remember that you care, you are trustworthy and you have the prospect’s best interests at heart.

Some example questions

Here are some great questions for you to tailor to your own industry and memorise, especially if they have used a similar product or service in the past:
“What did you like and dislike about xyz?”
“What would you change or improve with your current supplier?”
“What’s your biggest headache with xyz?”
“What’s your ultimate objective around xyz?”
“What would be your ideal program or xyz?”
“Of all the factors, what’s the most important to you?”
“Have I asked about every detail that’s important to you?”

Remember – keep you powder dry. With the answers you get here, it’s so tempting when you know your product or service is a fit for the prospect, to jump in like an eager puppy, eager to please. Don’t jump in yet. This is so important and will turn you from an average to master salesperson overnight.
Bite your lip; do not jump in with your solutions just yet. You want the prospect to feel the pain of his current situation, so he gets everything off his chest. What you are trying to do here is identify his emotional wants and logical needs whilst simultaneously gaining rapport.

Specific Questions

Now you can get to the specific questions, whilst remember to use tonality. This is where memorising and rehearsing the questions come in to play. You can use your body to help you get tonality if you are selling on the phone. To sound concerned, you can put on a concerned expression for instance.
Then you ask the all-important question:
“How long have you been thinking about getting <your product or service>?”

YOU THEN DO NOT SPEAK.

Out of all this qualifying, it comes down to two things:
The product or service is right for your prospect.

IF NOT END THE CONVERSATION.

You do not serve your prospect or yourself by trying to sell something someone doesn’t need.
Your prospect can afford your product or service. AGAIN IF NOT END THE CONVERSATION.
(If he feels all is useless all the better. It’s just like when you take your old car to the garage and the mechanic rubs his chin, sucking air through his teeth. You feel broken, just like your wreck of a motor. He tells you how it’s so hard to get the parts and how you should scrap your car. Then just when you are about to start crying he says well I guess we might be able to do something. It’s a little ray of hope. You are now practically begging. Yes, he says more confidently we can fix it – but it will cost you. You don’t care as you give him your car keys.)

The Presentation

Back to presentation –
As we stated before, you state your transition statement, which is worth repeating again:
“Based on this, from what you have just told me, this should be a perfect fit for you”.
Now you are in to your presentation and you are going to be anticipating your first NO. When that no comes you act as if you are expecting it (because you are). You perk up and you run your first pattern.

THE PATTERN

The product is the best thing since sliced bread.
Usually the first objection will be price. First, you deflect the objection, to handle later on in your own time. Say” I hear what you are saying, but does the product make sense to you? Do you like the idea?”
He might then say, “Yes it sounds good…” Then you loop back and resell the product. “The true beauty of the program is…”.”So you see what I’m saying?”

Mastering the art of asking questions.

Here are some example questions that Jordon Belfort uses in his telephone questioning:
“So how long have you been thinking about becoming a trader?”
Ans. – About 2-3 years.

“Are you looking to trade full time or part-time?”
I’ve got a couple of free hours in the evening.

“What kind of work are you doing?”
I’m just working in a factory, about 40 hours a week.

“And hours it going for you?”
Ahh its pretty good, I try to get away when I can (ramble ramble ramble, we are getting of track here.)

“Oh, that sounds great, I’d love to do that, so are you looking to supplement your income or are you looking to go full time after you make tonnes of money on it?” (This is future pacing and implies a guarantee).
Well I’m just going to do part time.

“Are you currently invested in the market now, any stocks, bonds or mutual funds? (No big deal tonality)?
Yeah I’ve just got a few things invested.

(Here’s a sensitive way to ask if you have enough money to invest):-
“And just for suitability purposes, how would you way your picture is right now? Are you in good shape now or are you struggling? (Use empathy tonality).
Well I’m ok, just paying the bills (or) well really badly actually.
(Match their tonality plus one level of optimism/ enthusiasm) “Ok – I totally understand, that’s exactly why I rang. How much money are you looking to spend? Just a ballpark? Have you got the funds right now, or do you have to raise them?

Prospects Answer
“Ok great, now let me say this, based on what you have just told me, this is the perfect fit for you”.
Before using scripts, always remember the following:
Tailor the question for your prospects industry.
Practise the scripts in the mirror.
Even better would be to practise on real people.

The post The Art of Qualifying, asking the right questions appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

Now this is the meat of the matter. When we are talking about how to motivate your customers into action, we mean buying. And buying is the main goal of every sales deal. It is what every salesperson aims to get. The million-dollar question comes into surface: How then, can you make a customer buy?
After going through the steps listed in this book, you should have learned about product presentation, quality, appeal, customer’s objections, and the salesperson qualities. All these are taught with only one intention – that you successfully get into your customers’ heads and goad them into action.

Selling as Psychology

Selling is a very psychological thing. A good product won’t necessarily sell without an equally good salesperson behind it. Try it. Let’s do some role-playing. Get your products on the frontline and act not as an enthusiastic salesperson but as an indifferent vendor. Act like somebody who gets paid by the hour without commissions. That means you will get your salary after working hours no matter how few or how many items you have sold. See if you are going to achieve your day’s goal.

Now act like a very aggressive salesperson and take what you think is your worst product. Maybe for research, you can even select a brand or a commodity that you think is a big junk. Sell it passionately, following everything taught in this report. See if you had sold more products acting like this compared to when you are acting like the uninterested salesperson.

This is the first point you have to know. Selling is not entirely about your product. Your product won’t sell on its own. That is the very reason why your boss hired you in the first place. He knows it. You should know it too. Be reminded of this one thing: Before you can sell anything, you have to sell yourself first. This is why you are taught the qualities of a good salesperson earlier. The moment you speak to your customer about your product is the moment your customer maybe doing his best trying to trust you. If he finds that very hard to do, you are in big trouble.

Impulsivity

The second point: Not all customers buy impulsively. You might be lucky to meet more than one compulsive customer in a day. So don’t gripe if the customer lets you talk for five whole hours only to leave the store without making a single purchase. This happens; and it does quite often, actually. So you have to know your plan of attack each time you face your customer. If he is a new customer, don’t come on too strong. Again, customers do not like to be pushed around and feel ensnared.

Keep them Interested

The third point: Keep your customer interested. Getting your customer’s attention is not enough. You have to keep the water flowing, so to speak. You have to capture their interest and sustain it. But do it in such a way that it doesn’t look as though you are going to some extreme heights just to sell to them. Customers know when you are making conversation and when you are making a sales pitch for them to buy. It is your job to keep them interested. And when their interest is at its peak, move in to close the deal. That should be the time when they are more than willing to take out their wallets right then and make the purchase.

Your Intentions

The last and main point: Let your customer know your intentions. Make it clear to them that you wanted them to buy your product, get an insurance plan, to sign up for a loan, to purchase a warranty card, or anything else you might want them to do. Calling them to action is not enough. They have to know what the real action is, what they are supposed to do. And be prepared for that. Don’t be too engrossed in your sales pitch that you are forgetting little details (like the customer has to have several identification cards to go with the purchase or other trivial things like that). Assess your customer while you are talking to them. Determine what they need to do and make them want to do it. Now that’s the best salesperson in action!

To guide you further in your selling, here are four almost magical selling techniques that you can use to your advantage:

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Have you heard of the six P’s?
Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Poor Performance? As you know this is true, here is a step-by-step process for preparing yourself before and after your in call selling process.
In step one you will take a macro view of your territory and organisation yourself for maximum efficiency.
In step two you will prepare yourself for the actual sales call for maximum effectiveness.
Finally in step three you will review you call against your objectives, to help prepare for your next call.

STEP ONE – Territory organisation and planning

You could perform your territory organisation and planning at the Sales Strategy stage , as this could highlight particular geographical areas that you could target. Otherwise, during your Prospecting phase , you could divide your time and resources according to your planned territory.

Territory

Most professional sales people will have a geographical territory to work on. This could be anything ranging from Continents down to Streets, depending on the nature of your business.
For the purposes of this illustration we will assume your territory is region within a nation, for instance a common one in the UK would be the Northwest of England, including North Wales.

Sub-territories

The first step would be to divide your territory into four equal sub-territories, based on the market size of the prospective customers in that sub-territory. If at this stage you don’t know what the potential business in your territory is, just divide it based on the size of the population numbers or conurbation sizes. Label these territories A-D.

Next, if you can get hold of a physical map, wall chart or atlas of this area, mark on the territories and the location of known customers or prospects.
There are several ways to do the next stage, where you allocate a day in the week to each territory. I will highlight the simplest here. I will show you other methods on later blog posts.
This method is a great way if it doesn’t matter that you only hit one sub-territory on a particular day of the week. In this way A is Monday, B is Tuesday and so on. Friday is free for Admin, Office Work or whatever.

Which customers & prospects to visit?

In the next stage, you use a four week journey planner like the one below, to start to allocate your current customers.
Your criteria for allocating customers and prospects to particular days are as follows:

How often to visit them? Do you need or wish to visit this customer quarterly, monthly or sooner? You can use the ABC or Pareto methods to prioritise how often to visit. The ABC method is where you separate your customers into three groups depending on their monetary value to you.

Let’s say your biggest customer is worth £100,000 to you in sales per year. You could give customers of £50K plus status A. Customers of £10-£50K would be B and those less than £10K would be C. in this case you can then choose to visit your A’s monthly, B’s quarterly and C’s just receive a phone call.
The Pareto method or 80:20 method is based on the theory that 80% of your business comes from just 20% of your customers. You would then choose to maximise your time with these customers.

Your task, when you are filling in your journey planner, should be to maximise customer-facing time and minimise travel. Your objective when you are prospecting, is then to start to fill in the gaps in your planner with prospect calls

STEP TWO – Pre Contact Objectives & Planning

Pre contact objectives and planning is deciding what you aim to do and how you aim to do it. In a way this you can link it to your macro level Sales Strategy.
As you can see below, you want to have a What and a How, to be focussed and competent.

Contact Objectives

When should we set objectives? We can set objectives at different times:
Post customer contact ie. Directly after a visit.
The day before the contact.
There are benefits to both of these. After every customer visit, it is fresh in mind. However conditions or opportunities may have changed since the last visit and so the day before could be beneficial. Another option could be to set the objective directly after a visit and then review it the day before the call.

Test criteria for objectives.

Clearly define your objectives, so there is no ambiguity. Set the objectives against a recognised standard that is clear for both you and the company.
Next, your objectives should be measurable. This means it should be clear when it is achieved. They should also be performance driven.
It is great to have stretch goals and objectives, but they should be achievable and realistic on the one hand but motivating on the other. Stretching objectives test attitude and can foster personal growth. They also generate business growth.

Check list

I’m a big fan of creating checklists as they support self-discipline. Consider the following checklist for your in-contact sales call objectives:

Review the account plan. Where is this customer against its sales target?
Review last contact
Note your objective
Prepare yourself for the Analysis & Investigation step of your in contact activity
What information do you need and what do you want to know?
Plan your questions. Write them out beforehand.
What will be the key point of your Proposal?
What objections do you anticipate?
How you can Close?

STEP THREE – Post Contact Review

In practising a skill to mastery, continuous improvement is what you are after. This is where small incremental improvements are compounded over time. A useful tool you can use to help you in this is the Personal Improvement Grid. After every performance you can review your results and ask yourself the 4 questions, which are designed to root out any areas for improvement or where you can improve further.
This is a great tool to use after every sales call. It is simple and should n’t take too long, but it is very powerful if done habitually. If you answer these questions honestly for yourself and then put into action your findings, you will grow and improve immeasurably.

What did I do well – and why?

What went wrong – and why?
Then what could I do differently – and how?

What could I do that is new – and when?

The post Planning appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

You can’t sell your goals but you can sell your vision. So don’t just have goals have a vision, which drives these goals.Then you become a visionary. Replace ‘should do’ with ‘will do’ or even better ‘must do’. A goal is something you are somehow obliged to do and push for. They are stepping stones. A vision will pull you. Your vision is your engine.

Imagine your future vision of yourself and your family. Where are you, what are you doing, what do you have? Imagine that you are looking at a picture with you in it. Then step into the picture as if you are looking through your own eyes. Associate with the feeling and let them flood in. I go into a lot of detail on goal setting in my book Done: How to Achieve Your Goals and Make Your Dreams Come True.

Your vision should include the goals of you becoming the sales professional who will generate the income you desire. According to Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street), his sales professional will be:

• Sharp as a tack
• Enthusiastic as hell
• An authority

Here is some more from Mr Belfort, there will be much more later.
For your customer to buy, they need to:

• Love your product or service
• Trust you
• Trust your company

1. Love your product or service.

To make them love your product or service you need to establish a case for them to buy now. You do this by establishing an airtight logical case and an airtight emotional case. You can build the emotional case by future pacing. This is an NLP term to describe a process where the customer imagines how they will feel when they own the product or service.

2. Get them to trust you with Body Language

Apart from your tonality, you can also use your body language to get someone to trust you. You do this by managing your space and time. As a caveat to this though, you need to be a trustworthy person. No amount of body language training will help you if you are not trustworthy.

When selling to women, always stand directly in front of them face to face and about 0.75 metre away (2.5 feet). Standing side on with women will appear shifty.

Conversely when selling to men you don’t want to stand in front face to face as this would be confrontational. Here you want to stand at an angle.
A word on accessories, for the man. One plain wedding ring is a maximum amount of jewellery. Definitely no pinkie ring. Leave this for Prince Charles. Tasteful cufflinks are fine, and a nice tasteful watch, can demonstrate success without being ostentatious.

Facial hair in a no-no. Sorry but the moustache, goatee and beard need to go. They make you come across as untrustworthy. I’m sorry don’t shoot the messenger. Shave them off. Your sales figures will thank you.
Hand Shakes should be neutral ie not too soft not too vice like; think of holding a bottle of wine and that wold be the grip you need. The hands should be waist high.

Dress – Wrapping the package.

Always dress your best not just to impress but for how it will make you feel inside. You don’t need to go overboard on expensive cloths. Understated quality is what to aim for. It goes without saying that clothes should be spotlessly clean and maintained. Let’s face it you could give your best killer presentation ever, but if you have a soup stain on you tie, kiss the sale goodbye.

If you have a meeting to close a sale, there is evidence that a sharp dark blue (or black) suite, a solid coloured (not patterns, checks or stripes) white shirt and a pink/red tie will get you markedly better results. This is all down to the colours of influence. Just look at any major politician and they all wear this uniform.

Eye Contact

;You should aim to be looking at the prospect in the eyes for approximately 70% of the time, preferably more. It’s fine to glance away from time to time, as if you are collecting your thoughts, whilst speaking, but when you are listening to them, keep your eyes on theirs. If you are meeting in a public place like a hotel lobby, get there early so you can find a spot away from windows, TVs or any other things that can distract you or the prospect. Your prospect needs to know they can trust you and so good eye contact is a must.

Matching and mirroring.

These are techniques from NLP. They can subconsciously influence the prospect. The principle here is that people like people who are like themselves, so by matching and mirroring you can make them feel you are like them. Mirroring is when you mirror what they do. If they touch their face with their left hand you touch your own with your right hand. Ie you are like a mirror image of them. Matching creates the same sense of rapport but is more subtle. If they touch their face with their left hand you touch yours with your left hand. Be very subtle with this as you can make them very uncomfortable if you get it wrong. It would be much easier and safer to create an air of genuine rapport t with them and you will both naturally mirror and match.

3. Trust Your Company

This is perhaps the only part you are not fully in control of, however that said you can influence if and how the customer trusts your company. Firstly never over promise what your company can deliver, this is a sure way to lose trust in your company. The saying under-promise and over-deliver is a cliche but it is true. When you are in the throes of a sale, its really tempting to tell the customer that your company can meet some deadline or quality standard which they obviously can’t. It’s much better to say no now.

Other ways in which you can create trust in your company are references. Can you ask your current customers for a testimonial or would they allow a prospect to visit them? There are many other ways to build trust in your company, such as factory visits, or you could take along a trusted Technician with you to the prospect call.

The post Being a Visionary appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

Set your objectives and targets to first develop your sales strategy. First start with your business objectives and break these down to individual sales targets. If you are a solo entrepreneur, setting your sales objectives is straight forward, as these are a function of your company objectives. If you have a sales team, you would have to break down these company objectives even further. For example, the Sales Manager would have her sales objectives, The sales teams would then have their individual objectives. Objectives of course don’t need to be financial. They could be to do with policies, such as answer customer queries within a certain time.

Forecasting

In larger businesses, there may be top-down and bottom-up forecasting. For instance, the sales force will forecast future sales, based on their knowledge of the market. Higher management would then reconcile this against the forecasts. There is usually an end of year tug of war until they agree a forecast for the following year.

Personal Targets

Once your have done the forecast, you can then set personal targets for the sales team individuals or yourself if you are a solo entrepreneur. These targets could be stretch targets, with compensation and commissions based on achievement. Targets could be end of year sales, monthly sales. Here is an example of a clear personal objective:

To achieve an overall Net Sales target of £726,464, which is to include New Business growth of £20,000 (i.e. accounts or new product sales into existing customers) by the end of Q4. This to be monitored quarterly against figures published in the Monthly Report. A gap action plan should be produced if sales fall >5% below plan. Another example of an objective is Administration: Ensure all Territory and Customer Admin (e.g. Visit Reports, Special Pricing Forms, Price Increases, Expenses, Mileage, Stock Requisition and Monthly Reports) is completed On Target In Full (OTIF) to standards set by Regional Sales Manager and communicated to all relevant internal and external contacts on-going.

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I’ve been in sales for almost 20 years and in this book I share everything I’ve learned along the way which has helped me go from failure to success. This book is the manual I wish I had all those years ago. I’ve had several sales jobs which included Account Management for Industrial Hygiene Chemicals and New Business Development for Capital Equipment Manufacturers. Then I’ve also had stints in Telephone and Door to Door Canvassing. I’ve put everything I’ve learned into this book – this is how I’ve built my successful career.

This book is aimed at the new salesperson or someone considering a career in sales. As a professional salesperson myself, I consider myself a perpetual student. I strive to learn and get better everyday. Seasoned professionals, therefore, may also benefit from some of the different methods and techniques I present.
Finally the Sales Superstar may also find at least one nugget to take them to the next level.

What is Your Opinion of Salespeople?

On an average day, a person encounters about three salespeople. Your phone will ring one weekend morning; a jovial salesperson is on the other end of the line selling you double glazing. As you condition yourself for a good relaxing nap, somebody begins knocking on your door and when you open it, an insurance salesperson is right at your face smiling his heart out. You try to sort out your emails before going to bed and you noticed that half of them are promotional newsletters.

What is your reaction to this? Are you annoyed? Or do you quietly congratulate the salesperson, to yourself? Your answer will uncover your true beliefs. If your answer is negative, I would suggest you spend time working on your sales philosophy. I believe Selling is one of the noblest of professions.
Salespeople are the very individuals who move the economy forward. Their job is to market the products which make companies flourish and countries prosper in the process. If nothing is sold, no money changes hands – ever. If a salesperson is not able to do his job well, then the rest of the company will fall. The CEO, down to the rank-and-file employees, will soon be out of their jobs. Multiply this over an entire economy and the result is recession and depression.

Your Power as a Salesperson

Do you see now how powerful you as a salesperson can be? In addition, because of this reason alone, you are indispensable in any company.
For a salesperson, every sale merits a commission. Therefore, for every good performance produces income and special bonuses, who then would not want to be a salesperson and become rich and successful?

Are You Up to It

Do you now want to be involved in sales, if you are not already? If you still don’t feel up for it, take heed. It is in selling where the money really lies. You do not even have to invest too much, nor would you need any capital upfront. All you needed are the right skills and the correct attitude for the job. That is exactly what this book is going to give you. After you’ve read this book, you will have the information to become a professional salesperson – a salesperson that can sell anything and everything under the sun, from a shiny new car to a multi-million pound new build factory.

Whatever product you are selling it doesn’t matter at all. You will sell your merchandise, service, or goods in a matter of minutes, hours, days, or years, depending upon their complexity and worth. You may also achieve your first million more sooner than you have ever expected.

A Born Salesperson?

Almost no one is born a super salesperson, although some may have “natural” talents in selling. Selling is a learned art and there are no tough prerequisites for it. All you need is the willingness and the desire to succeed. Once you have that, you should next get a focus on a goal. You will notice that everything then simply falls into place. You will become a master when it comes to selling.

Expect that selling is something that you can do well. Everybody can become successful in the field of sales. People go to the market each day. They shop for the food that they will eat and the things they will use. You see, almost every place is a marketplace. Selling is simply a part of our lives. Most of the time, you are on the buying side, but this time around, you are on the selling side. You must have seen good salespeople at work. Try to observe how they can make people buy their products or even ideas. They have a certain ability that makes them good at their job.

It Could be You

As you read this book, remember that that outstanding salesperson could be you. The things written here will help you, if not transform you into becoming an excellent salesperson in just a very short time. This book is for anyone in sales, no matter if it is your first time to sell or if you have any experience in selling before, even if you have tried your hand at selling and didn’t do so well.

It really doesn’t matter what your sales record is before. You could have been your company’s most terrible salesperson. As someone once said, “I am the world’s worst salesperson; therefore, I must make it easy for people to buy.”
As we start your preparation to become a professional salesperson, try to maintain a small note pad where you can list the answer to the questions, exercises, and the rest of the pointers contained in the book. Doing so will expedite the entire learning process and facilitate you becoming the professional seller that you really are.

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