Sales Goals and Money

Thanks for visiting SOCOM sales. Koka Sexton has combined 15 years of experience in the military and sales to build a solid foundation of sales and execution. Many sales leaders have good groups working for them. So why is it that they miss their targets and seem to struggle?

SOCOM sales is more of a methodology than a company. Teaching sales and marketing people new ways to be highly successful in their trade by becoming masters of executing plans to achieve goals. sales is a process for both the seller and the buyer. We help explain this process and help you determine which prospects are the low hanging fruit to easy revenue as well as ways to take down the whales.

photo credit: guiguis

I follow rules that create business plans based on a proven method that makes goals and a path to success crystal clear.

This blog will host articles I write about business, sales, marketing and articles that I find on the internet that I find helpful and would like to share. If you like what you see, add me to your RSS reader.

Since sales and marketing should walk hand and hand, this site will have information on both sides. Though I am a sales person by trade, I think I know a few things that can help a marketing group succeed.

The Art of Asking Great Questions

It’s been said that one of the most important skills in sales is listening. But in order to listen well, there’s another important skill that comes first: asking good questions. You can’t simply walk in a prospect’s door and say, “What are the issues you are struggling with?” or “What keeps you up at night?” Today, you’d be jettisoned out of the office by savvy executives who demand more researched, intelligent, and thought-provoking questions.

“The quality of your questions is directly related to the quality of your business because unless people change the way they think, they are not likely to change the way they act,” says Jerry Acuff, CEO of Delta Point, Inc., and author of Stop Acting Like a Seller And Start Thinking Like a Buyer (John Wily & Sons, 2007). Before he meets with anyone, Acuff spends an hour – and often two – creating the questions he needs answered to determine if a prospective client is a fit for his service. Here’s some of his advice for crafting great questions:

Be transparent. Open your dialogue by revealing a truth about why you’re there. Say something like, “I’m here to learn if there’s a fit between what we offer and your situation.” You’ll make the prospect more willing to answer your questions because you’ve framed the meeting not as a sales pitch but as an exploratory discussion.

Ask “thinking” questions. Asking a prospect how many units he ships per month or whether his business needs a good return on its liquid funds doesn’t require the prospect to use much brain power, which means he’s not engaging very deeply with you. But a question like, “How important is it that you have instant access to all your deposits?” or, “How will yesterday’s Senate decision on the environment affect your manufacturing procedures?” provokes thought and discussion and therefore opens the door for additional conversations.

Don’t assume anything. Don’t assume you know what’s important to customers. Even if you’re right, you still need to provoke thought to make the sale. Witness what happened at IBM. Years ago, the company found new sales reps were growing their business for about 20 months and then they’d plateau. In examining the problem, managers discovered that after 20 months, reps had so much product knowledge and customer experience, they could walk into an account and immediately tell the customer what would solve their problems. “They could diagnose a problem quickly, but they didn’t give the customer a chance to talk,” says Acuff. So even though their diagnoses were spot-on, they weren’t closing sales. The lesson: even if you’ve seen it all before, it’s still critical to ask the questions.

Use “triggers.” Triggers are phrases that pique the customer’s interest in your question before you ask it. They’re so called because they reference the event or occurrence that triggered the question. For instance, “Last week, I read an article that made me think you might have a problem with…,” or, “I was talking with John in marketing yesterday and he told me….”

Target your strengths. Ask questions that determine how customers value your major competitive strengths. For instance, if your company is the only one that can deliver in 24 hours, you might ask something like, “What percentage of the time is it absolutely necessary to get the product delivered in 24 hours?” followed by, “What happens if on-time delivery doesn’t occur?” If the responses indicate rapid delivery is not that important to the prospect, it could be a red flag this isn’t a great opportunity. However, if 24-hour delivery is critical, and a late delivery could botch up their entire process, you’ve just opened the door for some thought-provoking dialogue.

For more information, visit www.gotochange.com.

Skills set: Develop a Prospecting Strategy

1. Identify potential customers in your territory.

2. Organize them according to likelihood of becoming a customer, volume, geography and other factors.

3. Determine your "sweet spot" - the customers who are likely to provide the largest return for the least investment.

4. Select a manageable number of targets and slate them into your schedule.

5. Track your success so you can refine your approach.

Skill: Territory management

Problem: Managing your territory to make sure you get a full day each week in front of new prospects.

Solutions:

Develop a prospecting strategy. Organize your leads in a way that makes sense - by geography, size, likelihood of purchasing, volume, etc. Focus on the prospects with the highest return for the least investment. Track your success so you know how much each lead is worth.

What Is Stopping You from Closing

What Is Stopping You from Closing All of the Sales You Deserve to Close?

Buyers and sellers have different jobs: buyers need to solve a business problem; sellers place product. Before you can sell, buyers must manage all of the internal, historic, and idiosyncratic elements that created their “Identified Problem.” And sellers have had no way to help them manage this hidden process. Until now. Buying Facilitation leads buyers through an unbiased search for the policies, relationships, historic issues, and initiatives that have created and maintained their status quo,...read more.

Keeping Tabs On the Competition

Customer research and competitive intelligence are usually viewed as two separate entities. Moreover, while Voice of the Customer (VOC) research – including customer satisfaction data, account retention interviews, win/loss analysis, and more – is prevalent at companies of all sizes, few organizations have a formal, systematic process in place for collecting and disseminating competitive intelligence. Yet this information is crucial for sales reps to do their jobs well....read more.

Watch Your Language!

By Jim Cathcart

Who taught you to talk like you do? When it comes to your sales language; chances are good it was your sales manager–your first one. For generations now we have been talking about selling from the viewpoint of the Industrial Era. We have seen businesses as machines and accordingly we have "re-engineered" them, "systematized" them, and more. Our premise has been that businesses are things. So when it comes to selling we have such endearing terminology as "Closing" sales, making "Cold" calls,...read more.

The Customer Isn't Always Right

How do you react when a selling situation begins to appear unacceptable? By Bill Sharp

"The customer is always right," is a cliche as familiar to the salesperson as "don't call us, we'll call you." Although it has an element of truth, a successful sales must satisfy more than just the customer. All parties, the customer, the supplying company, and the salesperson must have their needs met before the sales can be termed a success. The different needs to be reconciled prior to a successful sales transaction include the customer's need for a good buy, the salesman's need for success, and the company's need for continued growth. Let's examine the tug of war waged around the salesperson. Restrictions put on salespeople by their own companies often leave them caught at the same time between the two power factions of Parent Company and Customer. Customers enjoy power in the buying process and some may try to squeeze the salesperson to get the most for their company or for the thrill involved in psychological gamesmanship.

Read more.

Nervous? It Might Be Your Own Fault

The words “presentation” and “nervous” have been used so often in the same sentence that many people have come to accept that the two are inseparable. Indeed, with more of the public fearing public speaking than death, presenters may believe they’re supposed to be nervous and that it’s to be fearful when speaking in front of a group. The reality, however, is that nervousness is not a natural by-product of speaking in front of a group – it’s a symptom of a deeper problem,...

read more.

Dale Carnegie's Thoughts for Success

by Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie seminars for speaking and selling have helped countless numbers of people improve their personal and professional lives. His down-to-earth philosophy, along with his keen insights into human nature, explain the continued success of the Dale Carnegie training programs. Below is a brief sampling of Dale Carnegie's well-chosen thoughts.

On Courage

Would you like to have more courage? Here are five short rules, which, if you follow them, I guarantee will increase your store of fortitude.

1. Act as if you were courageous. This makes you a bit braver, as if one side of yourself had been challenged and wished to show it was not wholly afraid.

"Pause to reflect that others have had to face great discouragements and great obstacles and have overcome them. What others have done, surely you can do."

2. Pause to reflect that others have had to face great discouragements and great obstacles and have overcome them. What others have done, surely you can do.

3. Remember that your life forces move in a sort of rhythm and that if you feel depressed and without the power to face life you may be at the bottom of the trough; if you will keep up your courage, you will probably swing out of it by the very forces which at the moment are sucking you down.

4. Remember you feel more defeated and downcast at night than during the daylight hours. Courage comes with the sun.

5. Courage is the measure of a big soul. Try to measure up.

On Perspective

About 90 percent of the things in our lives are right and about 10 percent are wrong. If we want to be happy, all we have to do is concentrate on the 90 percent that are right and ignore the 10 percent that are wrong. If we want to be worried and bitter and have stomach ulcers, all we have to do is to concentrate on the 10 percent that are wrong and ignore the 90 percent that are glorious.

On Selling Ideas

Don't you have much more faith in ideas that you discover for yourself than in ideas that are handed to you on a silver platter? If so, isn't it bad judgment to try to ram your opinions down the throats of other people? Wouldn't it be wiser to make suggestions -- and let the other man think out the conclusion for himself?

On Worry

If you are worried, do these three things: First, ask yourself, "What is the worst that can possibly happen?" Second, prepare to accept it if you have to. Then, calmly proceed to improve on the worst.

On Values

	People are not lazy; they just have impotent goals, that is, goals that do not inspire them. Anthony Robbins

I honestly believe that this is one of the greatest secrets to true peace of mind -- a decent sense of values. We could annihilate 50 percent of all our worries at once if we would develop a sort of private gold standard -- a gold standard of what things are worth to us in terms of our lives.

On Pep Talks

Is giving yourself a pep talk every day silly, superficial, childish? No! On the contrary, it is the very essence of sound psychology. "Our life is what our thoughts make it." Those words are just as true today as they were 18 centuries ago when Marcus Aurelius first wrote them in his book of Meditations.

On Enthusiasm

How can you make yourself become enthusiastic? By telling yourself what you like about what you are doing and pass on quickly from the part you don't like to the part you do like. Then act enthusiastic; tell someone about it; let them know why it interests you.

Motivation Tools You Need To Survive In Sales

QUICK TIP: "Solve, rather than complain."

To make motivation a daily part of your life takes practice and perseverance. Below are nine ways to stock your motivation toolbox. Use these tools daily to keep your spirits and goals on track.

Accept where you are. By accepting your own abilities and working within your limitations, you can use valuable energy to create positive life changes. Someone once said, "Your circumstances don't control you, they define you!" The way you are reflects the sum total of your choices to date.

Dare to Think in awesome dimensions. When you think about what you want to achieve, do you think of yourself-proclaimed limits? Why stop where you stop? Try thinking in unusual or outrageous terms.

"When you give up in your mind, your mind gives up on you."

Don't dwell on defeat. When you give up in your mind, your mind gives up on you. Once this happens the rest is downhill. Remember there is no such thing as failure; there are only outcomes. If you don't like your outcome, try changing your activity.

Listen to motivational tapes. When you listen to your "mental recordings" of past years, you fall victim to your mind's ceaseless broadcast. To counteract this endless tape, flood your mind with positive input every day of your life. If you were to add up the money you spend on the outside of your head you'd be surprised at the annual expenditure. instead, spend some money on the inside of your head by purchasing at least one cassette every month. Listen to a tape every time you drive.

For every dollar you spend ask yourself, "Do I need this and can I afford this?" This tip can help you spend less and save more. If you expect to become one of the four percent of Americans who reach financial independence by age 65, then saving is absolutely essential. Here's a sobering exercise. Ask yourself how much money per month you'd want, net, after taxes, if you retired today and quit working.

Now, leaving the principal intact, figure out how much money you'll need at eight percent net (after all taxes and investment management expenses) to generate that amount monthly for the rest of your life. Add the tax you have to pay on the total amount of income you'll need to put into your life savings account. Now you have a positive basis for beginning to plan for your financial future.

Stay committed to your career goals. People have a tendency to be on the lookout for a better deal. Lack of personal career commitment is the greatest source of personal dissatisfaction with one's profession. Get committed and learn to just say "No" to anything that doesn't support your career purpose.

Do not allow setbacks to control you. If you do, then your supporters may be that you haven't the resolve to stick to your plans for success. When you face an inevitable disappointment, accept it as a learning experience and find creative ways to work through it. You can choose to react to a disappointment by seeking solace and quitting trying, thus weakening your ability to do something positive about it. Or, you can choose to learn from it, to resolve to handle a similar situation differently the next time around, to grow and become more of a person instead of shrinking form challenge and becoming less.

	"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." Thomas Jefferson

Never be intimidated. Most success is more perceived than real. it does no good to envy the possessions of others. There is a teaching in Buddhism that says: "People are not their stuff." This means if you take all your elements such as your pride, body, friends, money, status, position, job and anything else you can think of that you normally use to define another, and remove them from yourself, the real you is left. You are as important as anyone else on the planet. Be your own person and don't get caught up in the myth of a "get more to be more" society.

If it is to be, it is up to me. You have to accept the responsibility for getting what you want in your life. When you don't like a situation, take action to change it. Waiting for someone else to make the changes you want decreases your motivation and your ability to act. By waiting you diminish yourself and your cause. Don't just take notice, take action!

Want an Appointment? Just Ask

One of the biggest challenges in sales is getting that first appointment. Many a rep has lamented, “If I could just get in to see the guy, I can make the sale!” As a result, reps spend a lot of time trying to craft that perfect, compelling message that will get total strangers to agree to spend some time with them. Yet all they really need to do, says one expert, is just ask for the appointment.

“The reason prospects agree to talk to our clients is we ask them to,” says Mike Scher, president of Frontline Selling, a company that helps reps improve their pipeline through training and as an outsourced service provider (www.frontlineselling.com). “We ask them to meet with us a number of times in a number of ways.” There’s no pitch, no stop-‘em-in-their-tracks insights, just a simple request for an appointment.

Here’s an example. Say you’re calling a prospect for the first time and, not surprisingly, you get his voice mail. Instead of trying to wow the person by telling him how you can solve his problems, just say something like this: “Hi Joe. This is John Allen from ABC Corp. I was hoping to get 20 to 30 minutes of your time on April 3rd or 4th to talk about how we can help you become more efficient at building your pipeline. Please let me know or have Becky, your assistant, call me at 123-456-7890.” A few days later you would follow that up with an email that reads basically the same: “Hi Joe. Per my voice mail, I was hoping to get 20 to 30 minutes of your time….” Later, you might send a fax to the same effect. Continue pursuing your request until you get a yes or a no – and don’t mistake a non-answer for a no, as many reps do.

There are two reasons this approach works. First, by simply asking for an appointment, you separate prospecting from selling. Prospecting is about getting the appointment, says Scher; selling is what you do once you’re there. Yet many reps mix the two by trying to sell their way into the appointment and that’s a big turn-off to prospective buyers.

Second, by asking for the appointment multiple times in multiple ways, you plant a seed in the same way that effective advertising plants a seed: at some level, even if subconsciously, the prospect is aware of you and considering your request. When he finally agrees to a meeting, it’s not a split-second decision he might later regret, which can happen when you secure an appointment on an initial cold call. Instead, it’s a “well considered decision” which sets the stage for meaningful dialogue, says Scher. That’s an important distinction, he adds, because the way in which your prospect decides to meet with you – on impulse in response to a cold call versus considering it over time – has enormous implications for the outcome of the sale.

Sure, the switch from selling your way into an appointment to just asking for an appointment sounds awfully simple. It is. And that’s one of the biggest reasons reps are wary of this strategy, says Scher. But it’s like taking a golf lesson after you’ve been playing golf for a long time: When the pro changes your grip, it will at first feel uncomfortable. However, the more you use that grip, the more you’ll realize it’s not only more comfortable, it’s also more effective.

So the next time you pick up the phone to call a new prospect, take the pressure off yourself. Don’t sweat about finding the magic combination of words to get him to meet with you; just ask him to meet with you. Take it one step at a time, concludes Scher. Your initial communication should be focused on trying to get the appointment. Once you’ve got it, then you can focus on the sale.


By Heather Baldwin

How to Improve Performance through Goal-Setting

For most sales reps, meaningful growth comes from working toward clearly defined, individually appropriate goals. As a sales manager, you probably know this. But do you know the best way to help your reps set and achieve their goals? In his book, The Inner Game of Selling: Mastering the Hidden Forces That Determine Your Success (Free Press, 2006), Ron Willingham, CEO of Phoenix, Arizona-based Integrity Selling addresses this critical coaching task by laying out the steps for defining and progressing toward a goal. Here’s a look at each step:

Step 1: Setting Goals. First, you and the rep must define specifically what he or she is going to work toward. Those goals should be written in this format: “By [date], I’ll [verb] [goal].” For instance, “By July 31, I’ll average sales of $200,000 per month.” Or, “By September 15, I’ll close the XYZ account.” Or, “In three years, I will have my MBA.” Tell your reps to write down each goal on an index card and post it where they will see it often.

Step 2: Planning Strategy. As you look at each goal, you’ll realize they have either clear, known steps of achievement and the rep simply needs to take those steps, or the strategy steps will be unknown and you will have to discover them. To work through that process, ask these questions: How can you break your goal down into sub-goals or incremental steps? What different activity levels will it take to reach your sales goal? What activities can you perform today? Once you have the answers, you’ll be well on your way to penning a step-by-step strategy to achieve the goals.

Step 3: Building Belief. This often-overlooked step in goal setting is about building your reps’ belief that they can reach their goals. One way to do this is to teach your reps to visualize success every day. As they go to sleep at night and/or as soon as they wake up in the morning, ask them to think about their goals and what they will do that day to move closer to achieving them. You’ll be amazed at how much faster reps meet their goals once they learn to spend time each day relaxing, visualizing themselves reaching their goals, and imagining themselves enjoying the rewards that come from that accomplishment, says Willingham.

Step 4: Developing Strengths. Sometimes your reps will need to develop some strengths or skills before they can realistically achieve a goal. For instance, if reaching that $200,000 per-month sales goal will require your rep to target a higher level in his prospects’ organization, he might need some training on how to have executive-level conversations.

Step 5: Managing Progress. On an ongoing basis, you and your reps will need to manage their progress toward their goals. You do this by reviewing those goals regularly, asking questions such as, “Where are you with each goal? What sub-goals have you already reached and where should you be to reach your main goal on time? What strengths do you still need to develop – or keep developing – to reach the goal?” Occasionally, you and the rep might decide the goal needs to be revised. When you follow these steps, says Willingham, you’ll find your reps often reach their goals faster than they expected, so maybe the bar will need to be set higher. Other times, circumstances may slow the rep from reaching his goal, in which case the date might need to be pushed back or the sales dollar target reduced.

Willingham promises that if you and your reps “follow this system to the letter, you’ll experience success.” And as we all know, success breeds success, which means you’ll be able to continue pushing your reps to higher levels of performance.

For more details, visit www.integrityservices.com.

What Leading Experts Say about Appearance

By Selling Power Editors

The growth of any salesperson begins with the realization that the process of selling is not a struggle against customers or prospects, but a struggle against oneself. To assist your professional growth, Personal Selling Power has created this special section which contains a collection of recent discoveries and observations made by leading experts in fields directly related to sales success. Appearance Dr. Charles Larson and Shelley Welton, two researchers, recently reviewed scientific evidence suggesting that attractive persons do better in this world. For example, University of Maryland psychologist Harold Sigall concludes: "Physical attraction is a critical and positive variable, especially when one is making a first impression." Studies show that handsome defendants in jury trials are less likely to be convicted. Also, comparatively attractive defendants receive more lenient sentences. Other research suggests that attractive persons are judged more intelligent, exciting, competent, persuasive, likeable and successful than unattractive persons. A number of research papers continue to underscore the cultural stereotype that "what is beautiful is good." Psychologists think the advantages of looks can be explained in part by the effects of a lifetime of positive judgments on an attractive person's self-image. One's self-concept develops from observing what others think about oneself. Thus, if a physically attractive person is consistently treated from an early age as a virtuous person, he or she may be likely to become one. To gain this advantage, therefore, many try to look better through dress, development of poise, or even cosmetic surgery. Dr. Harry C. Stein, who has improved the looks of salespeople, consultants and politicians, views cosmetic surgery as a means the patient chooses to improve an important asset. "After surgery, patients feel better about their appearance, so they can concentrate more on their work." In a meritocratic society, where hard work and motivation are supposed to be the key factors, the idea that attractiveness gets better results is an uncomfortable one. Even social psychologists turned a blind eye to the implications of beauty until the late '60's, despite the obvious fact that pretty faces have been turning heads for centuries.

Eleven Steps to Stress Management

by Selling Power Editors

QUICK TIP: Don't talk about what you are going to do, just do it.

Stress is an inescapable part of modern life. But you can change the way you react to it. The following suggestions for stress reduction will help you relax and enjoy life. As a dividend, you'll be more productive, so you'll create less stress for yourself in the future.

1. Laugh. Laughter is one of the best tension releasers there is. Find things to laugh about and people to laugh with. Laughter is a great antidote for taking life too seriously.

2. Take Breaks. Learning to interrupt a stress-producing activity will help give you the break from tension that you need. You'll return to your activity refreshed and ready to be more productive.

3. Make "Happy" Plans. Anticipation is an exciting feeling. Plan to see a special movie, eat out with someone you like, or do something else that pleases you.

	"He who restrains his anger overcomes his greatest enemy." Latin Proverb

4. Focus Your Thoughts. The habit of thinking about too many things at the same time is extremely fatiguing and stress producing. Instead of being overwhelmed and unproductive, concentrate on one task at a time. Try making a list of other things you must do, and then put the list aside, so that you don't have to think about the tasks, but you won't worry about forgetting them either.

5. Check Yourself. Stop to see if you are relaxed. Are your hands clenched? Is your jaw tight? Such tension will begin to spread throughout your body, so catch it early. Let your arms hang loosely, smooth your brow, relax your mouth, and breathe deeply.

6. Tackle the Hardest Jobs First. This will give you a sense of tremendous accomplishment, and provide momentum for finishing your other tasks. The pleasant things you must do will make your final hours at work enjoyable, if saved until last.

7. Go Task by Task. If you finish one task at a time, you will avoid feeling fragmented and overburdened. It is also easier to see where you're going with a job when you give your full concentration. Leave some time between activities to minimize overlapping.

8. Move. Speed up your body action by moving to music, stretching, or jogging. Movement helps eliminate pent-up stress by aiding the removal of chemicals that stress produces and which make you feel bad.

9. Manage Your Time. Use a plan of action. Schedule only as many tasks each day as you can reasonably finish without pressure. Leave time in your schedule for the unexpected.

10. Help Someone and Smile. Lending a helping hand or smiling can do what other methods of relaxation can't do- they give you a wonderful feeling of happiness and well being.

Stop whatever you're doing and delight in being alive.

11. Enjoy Yourself Now. Stop whatever you're doing and delight in being alive. Sense the physical processes inside you, the good in people around you, and the beauty of the world you live in.

What Do You Do? - Elevator pitches done right

In the past year or so, the elevator pitch has become a hot topic. Everywhere you turn, consultants are claiming it as an area of expertise, authors are devoting a portion of their business books to it, and professional speakers are adding it to their list of speaking topics. In essence, an entire micro-industry has sprung up around helping sales professionals answer the question, “What do you do?” The downside, of course, is that with more and more sales reps turning their attention to that question, it’s tougher than ever to stand out from the crowd.

“Given this situation, your initial contact with a prospective customer leaves little margin for error,” says Jeff Thull, CEO of Prime Resource Group and a leading strategist and advisor to executive teams of major companies worldwide (www.primeresrouce.com). “The first conversation is the most critical and least forgiving point of the entire sales process. Within the first 20 seconds you must simultaneously establish relevancy and credibility – or you will be dismissed as just more marketing noise in the relentless barrage of sellers looking for attention.”

Thull urges sales professionals to think about how they respond to the question of what they do – and then think about the reaction they get to their answer. When you tell people what you do, are they engaged by your answer and prompted to ask questions? Or do you get the standard, “Oh, that’s interesting” – meaning, of course, that your answer is not interesting at all. If the person you’ve just met is a real prospect, Thull says the first response you should be getting to your elevator pitch should be something like: “That sounds as if you could possibly help us. How do you do that?” Or, “We’ve been discussing that problem. Maybe you should talk to….”

To generate this kind of response, your answer to the “What do you do?” question must focus 100 percent on the customer’s world. “Discuss issues you believe your customers may be experiencing, but don’t come across as certain that they are experiencing them or that you can resolve them,” advises Thull. “If they are indeed having those problems, they will probably be very open to exploring them further with you.” Moreover, he adds, when your prospect believes you understand their problem, they will likely believe you have a solution to it.

Here’s an example. Most sales reps answer, “What do you do?” with something that sounds like this: “We are a boutique management consultancy that specializes in working with high tech organizations.” Bland, right? That’s because it’s all about the vendor and thus sounds like almost every other canned response out there. It will be quickly forgotten. To transform that answer into a springboard to a meaningful conversation, says Thull, you’d reply with: “We work with companies who are facing escalating manufacturing costs and are looking at the possibilities of outsourcing. We help them analyze the risks and potential benefits of outsourcing and have the capabilities to provide the manufacturing services if their situation points to that as a best alternative.”

This kind of response instantly gets your conversation partner thinking about his own situation. As you’re speaking, a real prospect is silently agreeing that this is a problem for his company and he naturally wants to know more. And by cutting directly to his problems, you cut directly through the barrage of sales clutter and open the door for further discussion.

If you’re not getting this kind of response to your elevator pitch, take some time to sit down and re-craft it. Describe who you are by describing the type of company you serve and a major symptom they might be experiencing, the concern they would typically be struggling with, and the value you can provide. Keep it succinct, as in Thull’s example. Then be prepared to listen and ask questions. When you follow these guidelines, you “build credibility in that initial contact, ensuring the conversation continues and deepens,” Thull concludes.

http://www.sellingpower.com

How to Implement Lead Management in Your CRM System

All sales reps want solid, qualified leads. Not surprisingly, the CRM upgrade that sales reps request most frequently is lead generation and management. Unfortunately, this type of software has a long way to go before it will be really useful. To understand why, let’s look at the early adopters – the high tech firms that always get the newest software technology before it becomes generally available.

According to the analyst firm IDC Research, approximately half of marketing investment across the tech vendor community is allocated to demand generation. Furthermore, about one-third of that investment is earmarked to directly support the sales force. That’s a significant commitment, but new research from IDC shows that, for most high tech vendors, this complex and expensive intersection of marketing and sales remains very much a “work in process.” In other words, they don’t know how to make this stuff work yet.

IDC undertook the study to find out which IT vendors have demonstrated best practices in lead management process development and execution. While IDC hoped to discover best practices, the study revealed that marketing's lead management process at a majority of tech vendors failed to provide even the most basic element: establishing a consistent global definition of what constitutes a “qualified lead.” The high tech vendors were also unable to deal with other aspects of lead generation, such as data collection, lead qualification, sales handoff, lead nurturing, and performance measurement. In fact (and this is the really depressing part) only a few of the companies surveyed were able to demonstrate any impact of lead generation systems on the sales pipeline. Ouch!

The failure of high tech firms to figure out how to do their own lead management is scary because, as Michael Gerard, director of IDC' s CMO Advisory Practice, puts it: “Developing and maintaining an efficient and effective lead management process is mandatory for marketing's success in today's technology organization.”

Take heart. While the high tech firms aren’t exactly going to be role models, it’s still possible to use existing CRM tools to help with the lead generation process. Here are some suggestions from IDC:

1. Create high-level support for lead management. Have the CMO dedicate a lead management individual or team to develop and govern a marketing lead management process across the organization, ideally in collaboration with a similarly tasked sales lead manager. In addition, get senior management buy in and support during process development, rollout, and governance of any lead management software or system.

2. Tie marketing compensation to the use of the CRM system. Providing quality leads and establishing the ability to track leads is only possible once marketers and other system users understand the need for a lead management process and its impact on the success of the marketing function. In other words, if marketing doesn’t get compensated for successful lead generation, they’ll continue to miss the mark.

3. Measure the lead generation process and system. These measurements should be in terms of their true impact on the sales pipeline. For example, the lead generation system should not only track marketing-generated and marketing-enhanced leads, but illustrate that those leads turn into actual sales in a shorter amount of time than leads that enter the sales process from other sources. As a side benefit, a measurement scheme will enable marketing to establish a direct feedback loop to improve its campaign effectiveness along the entire customer development lifecycle – from awareness through advocacy.

Goal Oriented

Sales veteran and mountain climber Susan Ershler shares her top-performance tips

QUICK TIP: "Think Yes! first. The rest that follows will be positive."

By the time Susan Ershler decided to climb to the top of Mount Everest in the Himalayas - the highest mountain in the world - she was managing a 100-person sales team and trying to reach a $300 million sales goal for U.S. West, a small telecom company.

She knew achieving both objectives would require daily dedication. To keep focus over the long haul, she wrote down her goals and kept them where she could look at them every day.

For the sales goal, she wrote "$300 million" on the first page of her business journal. Each Monday, Ershler held a meeting with her team by conference call to measure their progress, and she always reiterated the goal of $300 million.

"There are so many things that throw you off track," she says. "Sometimes, a large sale goes sideways or a customer gets angry or you get distracted by your weekly quota. Sometimes, salespeople will come to you and say, 'I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.' I tell them, 'Yes you do. You have it in writing.' " At the end of the year, her team surpassed its goal, hitting 150 percent of its quota.

She used the same technique with her mountain-climbing goal, writing down the height of Mount Everest - 29,035 feet - on a "sticky note" and putting it on her computer. "That number is really high," she admits. "But if you look at it several times a day, it can become doable in your mind."

The Air up There

Before she started dating veteran mountain- climbing guide Phil Ershler in 1992, Ershler had never climbed before. "I'd never even hiked," she says.

Early in their courtship, he offered to take her up Mount Rainier in Washington State. Climbing to 14,410 feet meant getting used to breathing with limited oxygen and suffering severe headaches (high altitudes can cause the brain to swell slightly).

"You get exhausted," Ershler says. "You're not sleeping right, and you don't feel much like eating or drinking. I found that it was quite emotional. Things that would be very concerning at sea level are extremely concerning up there."

The lows were indeed low, but the highs were exhilarating. "Getting to the top was such a sense of accomplishment," she says. "I was hooked."

Vertical Market

After marrying in 1996, the Ershlers continued to climb the world's most difficult mountains. Eventually, they decided to tackle Mount Everest, with the goal of climbing all seven summits together. A go-getter by nature, Ershler knew big success meant dreaming big.

	"You can learn a lot about success by failing a few times." Max Gitomer

"What I love about sales is that you're evaluated by your performance. But in the beginning, it can be difficult, because you're starting out at the very bottom," says Ershler, who began her sales career as a customer-service representative. In time, a GTE manager recruited her to sell to major clients.

"I was green," Ershler says. "I came in during the middle of the year, and I still carried a full quota." For nearly a year, Ershler courted the top two law firms without any breakthroughs. GTE moved her to small-business sales.

Ershler was crushed, but defeat fueled her desire to land the deal. A couple of months later - a little more than a year after she had set her goal - she made the sale. It was one of GTE's largest equipment sales ever.

"Once that hit, I was moved right back to major accounts," she says.

By 2000, Ershler had completed 31 successful climbs with her husband to summits higher than 14,000 feet, including Mount Kilimanjaro (19,340 feet) near the Kenya border, Mount McKinley (20,320 feet) in Alaska and Mount Aconcagua (22,840 feet) in the Andes. In 2001, the Ershlers set out to conquer Mount Everest. During the climb, however, her husband's eyes began to freeze, and his vision was severely impaired. A mere 1,500 feet from the summit, they decided to turn back. It was a bitter letdown. After taking a couple of months to reflect, there was no question they would try again.

"I'm motivated by someone saying no," Ershler explains. "So, in 2001, we didn't make it to the top. We turned around. Well, in sales, how many times do you put everything into it and work like crazy for a long time, and then, someone tells you no? One of the biggest things that separate the top performers is that they do not accept no."


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How Much Is that Discount Really Costing You?

“Boss, if I can just drop the price another 3 percent we’ll have ‘em.” Does that sound familiar? As a sales manager, you’ve probably heard all manner of pleas for the authority to lower your price to seal a deal. And in many cases, you’ve probably granted that authority. But do you know exactly how much those discounts are affecting your bottom line? The numbers might surprise you.

Say your organization needs 40 percent gross profit margin to operate. And imagine you want to run a 10 percent discount special to push through some year end deals. Do you know how much you’d need to increase your sales to make up for the discounting? A whopping 33.3percent. “In other words, you have to increase sales revenue by one-third to maintain the same 40 percent gross margin that you had before,” explains corporate strategist Graham Foster in his book, The Power of Positive Profit (John Wiley & Sons, 2007). “Why would you want to work 33.3 percent harder for nothing?”

Here’s another example from Foster that underscores the enormous impact discounting has on a company’s bottom line: If a $100 million organization on 40 percent margin typically foregoes 20 percent through discounts, it should be doing $120 million. And 40 percent of that missing $20 million is $8 million, which means the company is losing out on $8 million in net profit through its discounting practices. But how do you reverse that trend, particularly if your sales strategy has long relied on discounts to close sales? Foster offers these ideas to get you started:

1. Educate your reps on the bottom-line impact of discounting. In most cases, salespeople don’t know how their discounts affect the company. Salespeople are trained to make sales and they typically view any sale as a good sale. When you show them the numbers (how discounts at each level affect profits and margins) and the implications (smaller bonuses, lack of budget for new equipment, etc.) they’ll think about pricing in a whole new light.

2. Update the compensation plan to maximize profits instead of volume. Switch the plan to a margin basis, or at least a blend of volume and margin, to counter the discounters on your team.

3. Require that all daily transactions pass the average margin test and contribute to the bottom line. “Manage by exception in this area,” cautions Foster. “Require that any transaction priced below the budgeted company margin must be approved and signed off.” Then have a margin catch-up plan to recover those losses.

4. Document favors in a logbook so you’ve got a written record of the value you provide and use it to justify your higher, undiscounted prices. Customers will pay more if they understand you bring certain value to the deal. Foster tells the story of a world-class chemicals supplier who lost a big account to a discounting competitor. When the client called his new supplier late on a Saturday night with an urgent request, the discounter was nowhere to be found. Desperate, the client called his former vendor, the world-class supplier. The sales rep took the call, got out of bed, opened the warehouse, and drove two drums of the needed chemicals 100 miles away. Not surprisingly, the rep soon had his big client back and happy to pay the higher prices.

5. “C” customers pay in full. By now you know the theory – every company has A, B, and C customers. Your A customers are the big, top tier customers who make up the bulk of your revenues. On the other end of the spectrum are your C customers, the ones who demand deep discounts, overload your service department, and pay their accounts as late as possible. Starting now put all your Cs on full list price with no discounts. When your reps complain that they’ll lose these customers, show them it’s a good thing: if you lost most of your Cs, your bottom line would improve.

In conclusion, keep in mind that Foster isn’t saying you should never discount. Certainly there are, and always will be, occasions when it is appropriate. The message here is to be aware of how discounting affects your margins and net profit, and to make your discounting decisions with that knowledge rather than with a simple desire to close the sale.

Selling Power

How to Make Winning Software Sales Calls

Here are eight steps to make your software sales calls more effective:

Before the Call

STEP 1. Rethink your role. A software sales call is not an opportunity to “pitch” – a monolog that attempts to convince a customer to buy. Instead, a software sales call is a rapport-building dialog between the right salesperson and the right customer. The subject matter of the call should be how your software can address key business issues – not the software and its features and functions.

STEP 2. Do your homework. You’ll never understand – or be able to articulate – your prospect’s business problems unless you do your homework. Before each sales call, learn everything that you can about the potential customer. There is a wealth of information available on the Internet about virtually every company. Here’s a rule of thumb: you should never have to ask the customer a question that’s answered somewhere else.

STEP 3. Create an agenda. An agenda positions you not as a salesperson asking for a sale but as a consultant or advisor. This is particularly important for software sales situations, because software sales always deal with business solutions and opportunities. This allows you to credibly position yourself as much more than just a product sales rep. To have the best impact, the agenda should be on your company’s letterhead, and should have the customer’s full name spelled out, with the time and date. Ideally, the agenda should consist of five to seven questions that focus the conversation on the customer’s needs, going from the general to the specific.

During the Call

STEP 4. Listen before you talk. It’s a truism that listening builds trust. In the early stages of the sales call, asking questions (and then listening to the answers) makes the customer more relaxed and allows you to learn valuable information that can help you move the sale forward. If the information stops becoming useful, compliment the customer, and gently redirect the conversation. Example: “That’s really a good point, Joe, and it reminds me of something I want to show you…”

STEP 5. Address stakeholder issues. Do not make the mistake of addressing your presentation solely to the senior manager in the room. While he or she may be the final decision maker, software-buying decisions are almost always shared by a large number of stakeholders. Therefore, as you make your presentation, speak to each section of the audience, making sure that the conversation addresses whatever issues and concerns they might have.

STEP 6. Defuse the competition. Never criticize a competitor openly. Instead, praise them honestly for what they do well, but then show the customer why it would be a better business decision to work with your company. Example: “Well, ABC is an excellent software vendor and they’ve been in business a long time and have high standards. However, I believe, based upon what you’ve told me about your needs, that we can satisfy them better because…”

STEP 7. Sell value not price. Because software is often highly discounted, it’s likely that the customer will pressure you on your license fees, consulting fees, etc. Rather than get involved in a discussion over price, you’re better off emphasizing the value of the entire software package to the customer’s firm. Try something like: “When people buy technology, they tend to look for three things: the finest quality, the best service, and lowest price. However, I’ve also noticed that no company can consistently offer all three – the finest quality and the best service at the lowest price. Which two of the three do you think will be most important for your long-term business goals?”

STEP 8. Treat closing as a process. Your objective is the action step you will ask for at the end of the call. Maintain momentum at the end of each call with the next step specifically in place or by asking for the next step. Check for feedback throughout the call to gauge how you are doing. End every meeting by saying you hope to work with the customer. Keep the action step in your court so that it is your job to follow up.

The above is largely based on a conversation with Brian Tracy, chairman of Brian Tracy International, a human resource company whose customers include IBM and McDonnell Douglas.

How to Make Price a Non-Issue

By David J. Lill

Of course price is important to buyers, but if your product isn’t the cheapest on the market there are ways of getting around the price objection. The next time you hear your price is too high, use one of these strategies to prove that you and your product are worth it. Determine needs to establish value. The better you know your prospect’s needs, the better you can explain how your product will meet those needs. Address price objections at the end of the presentation, after you have already discussed needs, value and benefits. To tackle the price issue effectively, remember to view it from your buyer’s perspective. When the price objection comes up early in the call, you can try to postpone answering it by saying, “I appreciate your concern about price, and I assure you we will discuss it completely, but before we do I’d like to be sure my service meets your needs.” Example: “Can we review for a moment why this is the best choice for you? First, you will have higher productivity. Second, it will save you $75 per hour in service. Third, you will have our three-year warranty. Doesn’t that cover all of your needs?” Use the lowest common denominator. The price that sounds huge in its entirety often sounds much smaller when you break it down into weekly or monthly installments and compare it to how the customer normally spends extra money. For example, you could justify a stereo system purchase by saying that for the daily price of a cup of coffee and a newspaper, your buyer could enjoy a terrific new sound system on the daily commute to and from work. example: “I am glad you mentioned price. We’ll translate the purchase price into small installment payments, so your actual cost per month is lower with us than with almost any other company.” Make your offer exclusive. When competitors may offer a similar product at a slightly lower price, you have to tell customers why your product is worth the extra money. Compare your product’s features and benefits to your competitor’s – if there are no big differences, dig deeper. Maybe you could find a consumer magazine article that gives your product a higher reliability rating than your competitor’s. By continuing to pursue the prospect and emphasizing how you can add to the transaction personally, you could sway the buyer in your favor. example: “Don’t be deceived by today’s price. You actually pay less because we give you more. More service, more quality, more expertise, more security. Isn’t that what really interests you?”