What does it take to engage in mutually beneficial networking these days?  It seems more and more confusing.  In the “early” days sales pros met one-on-one with prospects, including potential business network possibilities.  Today networking has a whole different set of rules!  And sometimes it is easy to forget what set of rules we need to play by in the moment.

That is why when I was asked to actually meet face to face with a potential prospect this week, I looked forward to it.  Wasn’t it easier to make decisions and connections “live”?

During the meeting, this person let me know that he is a networker.  That he believes in reciprocal business.  I’ll do business with you, IF you do business with me.  It kind of took me by surprise.  I mean…doesn’t building relationships take time, was I supposed to jump on this “opportunity” within 20 minutes?

I didn’t feel I should have to decide right then.  I found myself doing a bit of backtracking.  And lots of questions were flying through my head:

• Was this the type of business relationship that was going to be worthwhile? 
• What is the upfront and back-end energy going to be? 
• Was I being open-minded or closed-minded?  This was a hard close to make a decision now.
• Do I have time for this?  After all, we only have so many hours in the day – and as I like to add – only so much energy within those hours to expend!
• How badly do I want this business?
• What’s the buzz about this person and company in the e-world?

As I’ve learned with other networkers, taking time to step back and ask these questions is really important.  There are a lot of opportunities to build relationships and it is up to us to make the time for due diligence so we can spend our time/energies in productive relationships.

So, the  ”live” meeting was interesting.  I was able to be direct and let him know that I have good information to consider. And now I have more work to do before jumping in.  So help me out please….

When you look at professional networking opportunities, what are some of the questions you ask yourself before deciding how to proceed?  What are the “rules” of getting good information to make a good decision?

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Tags: networking, prospecting, Sales, Social Media

Some things in life are  FREE!  If finding qualified leads is important to your success, this post is for YOU!

Andrea Sittig-Rolf, Sittig Inc., created a Professional Leads Network to help salespeople get access to unlimited qualified leads…FREE!

The tool uses social media sites in a very efficient way.  She is also offering free workshops this week for you to learn how to use this tool. 

I have just sign up and will post about my experiences in a few weeks.  It might help or it might be another way to divert my time and energy. I’m hopeful it is a time saver!

If you do sign up and use it – comment back here and let the rest of us know how you plan to use the tool/information.

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Tags: Collaborative Selling, collaborative+selling, sales tools

Email prospecting is on the rise.  And it has a bad rap because we are inundated with spam emails to collect money from long-lost relatives in Syria, send money to save the orphans, save money on designer watches (I just counted 31 “designer watch” emails in my Junk Folder).  So if you want to use Email as part of your prospecting approach, how do you make it stand out from the junk?

Kendra Lee offers great tips on writing a compelling Subject Line.  One tip:

If you’re attempting to secure an appointment or invite a prospect to a web event, try:

• Shall we meet Tuesday?
• Can you talk Wednesday at 2pm?
• Can you attend Friday at 12?

What makes this work when the contact doesn’t know you? It feels personal to him.

Read the rest of the article Create Email Subject Lines that Draw People In for more tips.

I paused to think of whether Kendra’s tips would get me to open the message if they arrived in my InBox.  (Really they would end up in my Junk Folder   And the answer is YES. I never delete the entire Junk Folder without skimming the subject lines.  I do think these types of Subject Lines would catch my attention….before I hit Delete!

What types of emails will you open if you don’t know the sender?

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Confucius said: 

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

I was wide awake at 2 a.m. this morning.  By 3 a.m. I hit my home office.  Feeling sorry for me?  Don’t!  As I return from a week in the north woods of Wisconsin and time away from all electronics, I was excited to get back to work!  Not because I spent a whole week with my teenagers, because I am thrilled with the projects and clients we are working on right now. 

I realize  how fortunate I am…so many of the professionals I work with are not excited to start their work week or their work day.  They dread it.  And that is why a focus in our training and assessment work is to increase confidence and competence in skills AND help sales and service professionals fall in love with what they do (and the value they bring)! 

When we love what we do, we:

1. Have more energy. We all have 24 hours in a day. Within those hours, each of us has a finite amount of energy to expend.  When we love what we do, our energy expands!
2. Are more successful.
3. Have higher levels of happiness.
4. Do not dread our “work”.

So, what if you aren’t loving what you do today?  What can you do about it?  This isn’t about finding another job – though you may decide that in the long run.  Sometimes we might not love what we are doing today.  And that is okay.  But if you have a larger need to increase your love of your job/career:

1. Consider why you are doing the work you are doing.  Is it a need to?  Or want to?  Or a dreaded-to?  Sometimes moving through the dreaded duties, allows you more energy to focus on the want tos.  A couple of weeks ago I had a “To Do” Item that I put off the entire week.  As Thursday rolled around, it was still staring at me.  At 5 p.m. on Thursday it was still there.  I had to get it done because I was delivering a workshop the next day. I took the 20 minutes (kind of embarrassing that’s all it took me, I probably spent 3x that avoiding it for 4 days) and finished that task.  I then had so much energy I spent several more hours on things I wanted to!   It was energizing to know that obstacle was out of the way.
2. Spend time defining the value of what you do or what you offer. Refocusing on the bigger picture can be helpful!  Most anything worthwhile has some drudgery to get there.  Drudgery isn’t as bad when it gets you where you want.  My home has a lot of painting details and plaster work.  I have done it all myself and am often asked if I will hire myself out.  They assume I must love painting and plastering.  The truth is…I don’t!  I love the outcome and am willing to do the work that gets me there. 
3. Reflect on why you are in the job you are in.  A question I ask sales groups “Who chose a sales career?” 50% or more do not raise their hands.  Wow that is a lot of people on a path not of their choosing.  But you can choose to stay on it … or not! 
4. Spend time with people who enjoy their work.  Ever notice the company you keep affects your feelings?  Spend time with complainers and someone who hates what they do and it starts to rub off.  Spend time with successful, productive people and it helps!

These actions just scratch the surface of things you can do to find the benefits of loving your work.  What else have you done to fall in love with what you do?

P.S.  No the blonde in the photo is not me

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Tags: goal setting, Sales, Sales Tips, value proposition

In today’s economy, it’s becoming increasingly easy to blame our lack of success on something other than our own actions.  While the economy certainly impacts sales activity, it’s not an excuse for failing to do those activities that made us successful in the first place. 

When your day isn’t going right, when your sales aren’t where you want them to be, when the project you’re working on isn’t working … Who do you hold responsible?

It’s human nature to blame circumstances or other people for many things.  Today, instead of complaining about something that isn’t working, consciously ask yourself, “What action can I take to make it better?”  It will keep you from the trap explained in the Parable of Responsibility.

 The Parable of Responsibility  

Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody were members of a group.

 There was an important job to do and Everybody was asked to do it.

 Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

 Anybody would have done it, but Nobody did it.

 Somebody got angry because it was Everybody’s job.

 Everybody thought Anybody would do it, but Nobody realized that Anybody wouldn’t do it.

 It ended up that Everybody, blamed Somebody, when Nobody did, what Anybody could have done.

 Unknown author of condensed version of Charles Osgood’s – A Poem About Responsibility.

 Today’s post is by Lynn Zimmer of the Sales Pro Insider team. 

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Tags: learning, Sales Tips

On June 10th at 5:22 am EST, the millionth word in the English language was coined, according to Paul J.J. Payack, founder of the Global Language Monitor. With new terms such as financial tsunami, de-friend, and carbon footprint becoming part of our language, “I just cannot imagine any other language offering such opportunities…,” says Simon Winchester, author of “The meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.”

Yet are more words better?  Powerful communication comes with simplicity.  Shorter, easy to understand words/phrases make for a more powerful message.

 ”Big” or trendy words can work against our communication.  Examples of many words that can be simpler:

• Ask for their consideration  - Consider
• In the event of   - If
• I’d like to thank you  - Thank you
• I’d like to take this opportunity to – Just say it!  
• Daily basis -  Daily
• I wanted to ask you - ask the question

This week, avoid redundancies and delete words that don’t add to your meaning.  You’ll save your breath and your listener will “hear” the message better.

                   -              -            -                   -          -                -                   -             

Today’s blog post is by Lynn Zimmer of the Sales Pro Insider team.  Nancy Bleeke is “up north” with her family away from all things that plug into an electric socket.

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Tags: Communication

Following my last post about my Social Media learning points after 8 months of activity, comes this post on 10 Stunning and Useful Facts About Twitter from Rohit Bhargava, Influential Marketing Blog, with 10 Standout Findings about Twitter.

One of the useful facts he writes about:  Twitter is being led by the social media geeks. This particular finding should likely come as no surprise, but 15% of Twitter users who follow more than 2000 people identify themselves as social media marketers. These individuals are more likely to post updates every day (sometimes more than once per day) and also use Twitter more actively for direct communication.

This gives me another learning point to add to my list from Friday’s post…it is OKAY to Unfollow people  on Twitter that do not fit into your “world”.  In fact, the referenced study’s stats on percentage of social media marketers seem low to me. 

One of my newer strategies for Twitter is to remove the obvious over-marketers!  Having 400 healthy Follows is better than 800 that dump useless information that I need to filter through.  This morning I noticed one Twitterer had sent the same marketing tweet 6 times in a minute…and that seemed to be their pattern.  It was empowering to Remove my Follow to them!

Maybe there should be a Twitter-police???

Thanks to Colleen Francis of Engage Selling for her post referencing Rojit’s blog!

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Tags: Sales Tips, Social Media

Social Media experts and gurus are EVERYWHERE these days.  They tell us we MUST do this and we MUST do that.  And if we aren’t yet on Twitter, Facebook, Squidoo, LinkedIn and all kinds of Forums EVERY day, we must be losing out.  But are we really losing out if we aren’t using ALL of these tools ALL of the time?

After more than six months of being bombarded with all of the hype and quite frankly, pressure, and getting involved in most of the social media tools, I’ve taken a step back to evaluate.  And I found that I need to make some modifications so that social media best fits WHAT I do and WHO I want to be friends, fans, and follow with.   

Observations:

1. Its’ okay to be choosy.  There are a LOT of people on all the Media tools, just like the hype says.  For my potential prospects though, they aren’t on ALL the sites in droves and droves.  Identifying where they “hang out” and focusing my energies there will allow what I share and what I can learn to be more meaningful.
2. Spending hours every day plugging into these sites is NOT necessary.  More important is finding a good pattern and frequency that realistically works for me.  And there are great tools to help me “stack” messages to be dripped out when I doing my “real” work and am not available.
3. A long list of YOU MUSTs is frustrating.  I’m a small business owner, like many of you, and adding MUSTs to my daily lists became overwhelming.  I experimented and found that I could easily spend 4-6 hours a day just keeping up with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  When does my “real” work of selling and servicing get done?  And when do I communicate “live” with anyone (including my children?)
4. Stepping back to evaluate how these tools fit into the overall strategy – for both marketing and sales is extremely important!  it was really easy to get into task-mode and just DO all the things the experts said I should.  One day I actually said “Stop the craziness!” and stepped back to evaluate. And I made adjustments to my social media strategy.
5. Social media helps some people hide from other sales activities.  Its easy to feel that we are being productive when we are so busy…but are we picking up the phone and advancing the sale?  Many products and services cannot be sold well without something more than hoping social media sites drive people to say “yes”.  Of course e-marketing and selling does work  – but it needs to be a piece of a sales and marketing plan.
6. Like most “tools”, social media tools need to be in the right hands and used for the right job to be most effective. 

Those are my observations at this time.  With an emerging trend and tools, things might be very different a few months from now.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not negative on social media at all.  I think it is VERY powerful when used appropriately and within a strategy.  I see that to use it effectively takes planning and then the best results will follow.

What do you think? What are your experiences and observations with social media?  Am I on track or full of smoke?

And if you would like to  follow  me on  Twitter, click on that link for my details (I promise not to bombard you with meaningless messages.) 

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Tags: Sales Tips, Social Media

When is the last time you were subjected to a presenter in love with their own PowerPoint slides?  I think you know what I mean.  You, the audience, did not matter near as much as what the presenter had on their precious slides.  Personally I’ve been subjected to TOO many of these presenters.

One presenter had slides FULL of sentences too small for me to read.  But he could – and he kept looking at them and reading them.  There was no stopping him - he was going to read EVERY word he wrote.  Think that was bad enough?  What if you were his co-presenter?  YES!  I was. 

I had coordinated the sales calls and created the PPT (taking his submitted slides), formatting the information to make it audience-friendly by removing most of the text, inserting graphics instead of words when possible, removing detailed tables, etc.  After all, I had taught a presentations class with specific tips on how to/not to use PPTs effectively just that month.  Guess what?  He took the PPT at breakfast and re-inserted HIS slides!

We were in front of a VERY high level leadership team at a Fortune 100 company.  I watched my months of hard work evaporate as the audience checked out during this 25 minutes oration.  The more they checked out, the more my co-presenter hurried reading his slides to them.  And his volume kept going up as he tried to gain their attention!  Oh boy.  Might I add this was not a rookie…this was a very experienced sales pro.

Too often in sales the focus on the presentation trumps the focus on the audience – your buyers.  And sometimes an idea from outside the “sales” world can make us step back and challenge ourselves to be better.  Pecha Kucha is a great idea to apply and adjust your presentations.

Pecha Kucha is a presentation format in which information is easily and efficiently shared.  The presenter shows 20 slides for 20 seconds apiece – less than 7 minutes!  Pecha Kucha was started so that designers could make their presentations quickly and many ideas could be shared in a short period of time. 

This YouTube video is a great example of Pecha Kucha – the video by author Daniel Pink is entertaining and interesting with an “emotional intelligence in signage” message.  The ideas Daniel shares can also be applied to WHAT you include on your PPT slides.

Do you think you can present what you do in the Pecha Kucha format?  It might be a bit extreme, but there are some good pointers.  Think about your “presentation”. Does it:

1. Get to the point very quickly?
2. Provide just enough detail to engage your audience without boring them?
3. Provide a starting point for more discussion?
4. Use PowerPoint or other visuals as an AID to what you are saying – not a written script?
5. Focus on what is important to THIS audience?

I like challenges and any type of methodology that can help me be more effective and efficient (two of my favorite words.   It just may be that Pecha Kucha will be an easier way for me to get the idea across to future co-presenters NOT to read their slides!

What do you think?  How can we use the Pecha Kucha concept to increase our presentation impact?

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Tags: Presentation, Sales Tips

Maybe it’s because we are in the middle of baseball season or maybe it’s because of the death of Billy Mays, the celebrity pitchman, is in the news…the word “pitch” is being used a lot these days!

Have you considered what pitch means?  From the salesperson’s  perspective, it may mean to present or explain something.  Sales people have their “pitch books”, sales managers tell their team to practice their “pitch”, etc.  Even Billy Mays’ profession as a professional pitchman was to promote with an approach that is extremely focused on a certain product with him doing all the talking!  It might be fun, energetic and engaging, but how is it received?

What does pitch mean from the customers viewpoint? Something much different.  As I heard mention of Billy’s death, I also heard “Good, time for him to shut up!”  “He probably died from an aneurysm with all the yelling he did.”  Wow, for as much product as he sold, there were many that did not care for that approach at all. 

From Dictionary.com, pitch means to:

• put, set or plant in a fixed position
• throw, fling hurl or toss

Pitching as a sales approach has never sat well with me.  What are we “throwing”, and who are we hoping will  “catch” it?  I observe that sales pitches are usually focused on features and TELLing people something.  What is wrong with that?  A couple of things…

• It means that the pitch has to be made a LOT of times hoping for a hit (sale).  There are probably more fouls and balls called.
• Pitching is done toward something stationary.  How many of your prospects are sitting stationary waiting for you to pitch something at them?  Not too many these days.

How can you avoid being a pitchman (or woman)?

• Focus your message to your specific audience.  Tie your features into the benefits that matter to them.  The closer the link, the higher the perceived value.
• Use your energy appropriately.  Being overly enthusiastic can send the message you are more fluff than substance.
• Stop and listen.  When presenting your solution, don’t talk AT your prospect.  Pause and ask for feedback along the way.  They will start selling themselves AND be more engaged.

Let’s leave the real pitching to the baseball and golf pros.  In sales. pitching takes more time and energy than the sales process really needs if you focus on presenting the right information, in the right way, to the right people.

What’s your perception of sales pitching?   

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Tags: Presentation, Sales, Sales Tips