The Sales Pro Insider Building Performance Profits and People

2009 was an interesting year for many businesses.  It was also an interesting year for many salespeople!  Some have ‘made it through’, some have soared, some are without jobs as we head in 2010 and most everyone is working harder than ever to maintain.  In trying times, the lessons we learn can serve us well in the future. 

Some of what was hard these last 18 months was that many professionals had not experienced this type of economic stall.  They didn’t know what to do.  So, as the year ends I put together the top 5 Sales Lessons we can take away from 2009.

1. Rules have changed.  Sales cycles are longer, the need to know your business, not just your products is key,
2. ‘Winging it’ grounds you.  If you need to soar to succeed, lack of preparation or ‘winging it’ weighs you down.  Preparing to make the most out of every contact is what makes the difference between long-term success and possibly being out on the street.  Use the Internet and relationships to find information on the person, the company, the industry that you are calling on will make a huge difference in your sales conversations.
3. Performance  (something about .    Many companies cut people. With few exceptions, they cut under performers or people that didn’t fit. 
4. Nurturing is necessary.  Staying top of mind with your prospects or customers was key in 2009.  They might not have had the budget or been on hold for a large part of the year.  And as they start surfacing again looking at 2010, they will go with the people that have kept in touch and tried to provide some value this year.
5. Creativity and flexibility mattermore than ever.  Creativity in approach, in how to give value, in other uses for your product or service, in gaining leads, are needed.  Flexing the way you’ve always done something could have been the difference between a sale or a stall.

Learning these lessons and defining a plan for capitalizing on them for 2010 is necessary.  What can you do? A few things:

1. Find a winner (or two).  Who has succeeded this year?  Ask them how they did it. Determine what you can replicate in your business.
2. Process and prepare.  What type of process works best with your customers and prospects now?  What are all the touchpoints, the objectives, the information you need to learn and to share?  Lay out the process and then prepare for each visit.
3. Perform!  No excuses.  Make the time, take the actions, get the training you need.  Companies more than ever will pay for performance.  If you don’t have the results, your earnings will take a hit.
4. Stay top of mind.  Drip marketing is huge these days.  Identifying the right tools and ‘touches’ to communicate and keep yourself, company and solutions in front of people -even if they aren’t buying now – will continue to differentiate you and position you to be “the” first call when the time is right.
5. Measure and evaluate what you are doing and the results you achieve.  Numbers will tell the story if they are regularly looked at.  Then you can constantly tweak and refine HOW you operate.

Each of these alone will help capture more sales in 2010.  Focusing on all of them will provide you a foundation for more sales in 2011 and beyond, no matter what the economy.

What do you think?  What lesson did you learn in 2009?  What are you going to do about it in 2010?

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And if you wouldn’t mind voting one more time for me at Top 10 Sales Articles. Voting ends on Monday for the Top Sales Article of the Year!  I’d like a good showing – the article, Sign of a True Sales Pro has now been read by over 3500 people in the last 6 months – the message also contains another sales lesson.   

Filed Under: maximize sales productivity, recession proof sales, sales tips

How do you feel about the bailout plan being implemented in the U.S.?  I totally agree that we need to stimulate the economy but giving loads of money to so many companies that were obviously poorly run is tough for me to swallow.  That is why the Make a Referral Weekinitiated by Duct Tape Marketing is a “Wow, THAT’s the way to stimulate the economy.”

The goal is to have 1000 referrals made THIS week to small businesses.  You can read the details here.  I’m sure all of you know of a deserving small business and can make a connection for them.

The current # of referrals on Day 2 is nearly 300.  You can join in and help stimulate OUR economy! 

Need more incentive to make the referral?  There are FREE events given by sales experts for you to learn more about how you personally can increase your sales this year.  Jill Konrath (a dear friend and master sales expert will present on Friday, March 13th) put together a great list  of  the free Education Series:  

Tuesday, March 10
Scott Ginsberg, founder NametagTV on being more referable and Rich Sloan, author of Start up Nation on low-cost referral strategies.

Tuesday March 10 Noon CST
Special live web conference featuring Bob Burg, author of the Go-Giverand Ivan Misner, founder of BNI and Bill Cates, author of Get More Referrals Now.

Wednesday, March 11
Scott Allen, author of the Virtual Handshakeon using social media for referrals and  Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing on small business word of mouth strategies.

Thursday, March 12
Ben McConnell, author of Church of the Customer on creating customer evangelists and Pam Slim, author of Escape from Cubicle Nation on Personal Branding

Friday, March 13
Guy Kawasaki, author of Reality Check on the art of the referral and Jill Konrath , author of Selling to Big Companies on customer referral strategies.

What are you waiting for?  Click on over to read the details and participate in this economic stimulus plan!

Filed Under: Economic Stimulus, Uncategorized, recession proof sales

How exciting to find out that this morning my article on Recession Proof Your Sales is the feature article on  Salesopedia!

Click on the link above to read the whole article.  And here are a couple of recession proof tips shared in the article with links to even more tips on each one:

1. Identify alternative prospect streams.  Review which industries are doing well in this economy.  Is there a way for you to connect your solution to that industry?  A full article on this tip is here. 
2. Reintroduce yourself to “lost” customers.  Use information about the economy as a springboard to a discussion with customers who you haven’t done business with.  A full article on this tip is here. 

Last week I interviewed Clayton Shold, the editor of Salesopedia.  What a fascinating man and consummate sales AND marketing professional!  If you haven’t bookmarked the Salesopedia site, you are missing out!  The content on this site is constantly updated.  And it is GREAT content from other sales experts like Jill Konrath, Kim Duke, Colleen Francis, Colleen Stanley, Kendra Lee, Leslie Buterin and so many more. Plus other great resources for you to grow your sales!

Later this week a podcast of a conversation between Clayton and I discussing some of the top tips for recession proofing your sales will be available.   I’ll keep you posted.  Until then, take the opportunity this week to implement some of the tips – we still have 11 months of potential great success for 2009!

And visit The Sales Pro Insider, Inc. website for even more articles, resources and information on the great solutions we offer!

Filed Under: recession proof sales

The Sales SheBang Sisterhood (isn’t THAT mouthful?), a group of savvy and sometimes sassy sales experts, wants to help YOU be more succcessful in sales!  And we want to provide free resources to help you in this tough profession!  Our first collective resource is ready for you as a FREE download!   Jill Konrath took the lead and compiled 19 TIPS from the Sisterhood sales experts to Keep Your Sales Up in a Down Economy.

To download your FREE eBook click here.  And while you are at the Sales SheBang site, check out the other Cool Resources and sign up for the newsletter so you are first to hear about plans underway for a virtual Sales SheBang in 2009.

While you are checking out all the success tips – you can find my tip Jumpstart Your Sales in a Stalled Economy on page 27

Filed Under: Sales, maximize sales productivity, recession proof sales, sales conference, sales expert, sales productivity

Want to grow your business in a tough economy?  Use the power of your existing relationships to grow your sales.  Tap into reciprocity when asking for referrals.

Reciprocity is defined as “mutual exchange” – the give and take of life.  And in a slow economy reciprocity can be your LIFELINE!  Many times referrals can be one-sided.  When we focus on what we give as well as get, we are more successful.

3 Lessons Learned to Give, Take and Give for Referrals

Lesson 1:  Give great value and your best referral source will be your loyal customers.

Who are your loyal customers?  These are customers who will “sing your praises” given the opportunity.  They know you provide great value to them and TRUST you. They stick by you in hard times because they know you will do the right thing for them.

Action:

GIVE your loyal customers the opportunity to share referrals!  This looks/sounds very different depending on what you are asking.  For example:

I did great work for a loyal customer and she valued our results and relationship.  But this never led to referrals.  In considering her needs, I realized that she might be concerned that I would be less available to her if I had more work!

To help ease this concern, I approached asking for referrals differently.  First, I assured her how important our relationship was to me.  Second, I let her know that I had positioned my company for more growth through additional consultants and was looking to secure work for those consultants.  And finally, I asked who she might know that would benefit from the work we do in strengthening customer loyalties.

She had two names for me within a week!

Lesson 2: Help them help you!  Identify your ideal referral and the value that you provide. Make it easy for your referrer to understand what you can do for your ideal referrals.  They only know what you do for them and may not be able to explain it to anyone else. 

Action:

Answer these two questions to make TAKING referrals easy:

1. Who makes a good referral for you?  Help your referrer identify opportunities that will be good business for you.  What companies are you best positioned to serve with your product/service?
2. What is the value you provide?  Explain the value in a sentence or less so your referrer can articulate it to others for you.

After 9/11 when the economy slowed, I contacted our loyal customers to review updates, talk about how we might serve them in the future and THEN said, “As we look to the future of our business, we are ready to help more people like you.  Who else is in a position such as yours that might benefit from increasing sales 5-25% this next year?”

Notice I didn’t give them, “Who can you introduce me to?”  Or, “I’d like the names of everyone in your address book.”  I was specific to the value we could provide to make it easier for them to refer specific people/companies.

Over 80% of these loyal customers provided at least one referral.

Lesson 3: Follow-up and reciprocate!  Closing the loop from a referral is extremely important in the give and take of a referral process.

Actions:

1. Give updates.  Periodically keep your referrer updated on the status.  A quick message telling them you have initiated contact or you have a meeting scheduled is always a welcome surprise and closes that loop.  A side benefit is that they might help you even more.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I couldn’t get in touch with a referral for months.  When I followed up with the referrer, he said, “Hang on, Ill conference us all together and get this done!”  Wow, in a minute’s time I was on a call “meeting” this referral and scheduling an appointment!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
2.  Give value back to the referrer.  Reciprocate their generosity.  The value can be in a referral to them, a thank you note, information to help them with something, or a  heart-felt THANK YOU.

Relationships have always been the foundation to long-term successful business. The value of relationships is even higher during a slow economy.  Focusing on the give and take of asking for referrals will show how you VALUE your most loyal relationship and give you opportunities to build new ones.

Filed Under: Uncategorized, customer loyalty, maximize sales productivity, recession proof sales, sales tips

Yes, you read that right!  Increase the sales results and performance of your sales team in 2009 as you join sales experts, Nancy Bleeke and Lynn Zimmer for a FREE webinar.  An economic recession does not have to to spell doom and gloom for your sales results.

We will share the “inside” secrets to help Sales Managers:          

1. Increase the sales results of your team
2. Decrease your turnover and recruiting expenses
3. Maximize each person’s talents and abilities

Want to know how valuable this information is?  An attendee in November, Mark Friberg, said:

I would definitely recommend your business to friends and fellow workers. Both you and Lynn did a professional job and gave us valuable information that anyone in the business could use. Thanks for holding this quality seminar, I hope there are more to come! -        I will bring a friend.

Make a note on the details:

Thursday, January 22nd   

10:30-11:30 a.m. Central Time

And then click here to Register to ensure your spot!

Help your colleagues – forward this information so they can increase their team’s sales results too!

Filed Under: Leadership, coaching, learning, maximize sales productivity, productivity, recession proof sales, sales expert, sales productivity, sales success, sales tips

Want to increase your probability of sales success?  “Lost” customers may be the key!  What do you do with your former customers?  Many salespeople hit the ‘delete’ key and focus on new prospects. Big mistake!  These former customers can make great future customers.  Another tip to recession proof your sales – earn business again from customers you’ve “lost” over the years.

How valuable can this be?  A study done by Marketing Metrics shows that we have a 20-40% chance of re-engaging a former customer vs. a 5-20% chance of turning a new prospect into a customer!

Why is now a good time to focus on former customers?  The consolidations, bankruptcy filings, and workforce reductions leave HUGE opportunities for those who are ready to capture more business in this economy.

What can you do?  First,        look BACK!

1. Review your past three years of sales data. Make a list of customers who have not bought/worked with you in that time.  Then for each organization note: 
   • When was your last contact with them?
   • Do you know what/whom they are now working with?
   • On a scale of 1-10, how likely is it they would welcome contact from you again?  If the score is a 5 or higher, they are a good prospect!
   • What do you know about them that you can use to reconnect? History, experiences, challenges they had, people they work with, hobbies or any shared stories?
2. Research your primary contact at each identified organization.  Use the Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, bizjojrnals.com search tools.  Find out what he or she has been up to!  Are they still with that company?  In the same position?
3. Review past business you did with this organization.  What product/service did they use?  What was their experience – favorable, neutral, bad? Why did they stop working with you?  Do you know? Identify whether this was a valuable customer to you/your company.  Sometimes customers can be more work than the value they brought. No sense in recontacting a customer who drained you

Second, use this background information to prepare to move FORWARD.

1. Are the reasons they stopped being a customer relevant any longer?
2. What value might you provide them today?
3. What experiences have you had since you last spoke that would help them?
4. What information would help them Right now?
5. What questions should you ask them?

Third, make CONTACT!

“Hi Gary, it has been a long time. We continue to help companies such as yours increase xyz or decrease abc.  When we worked together, we provided you with the product you needed at exceptional cost and delivery time.  With all the market changes we’ve still been able to help companies with increasing xyz.  And I didn’t forget about you!”

Then turn the focus to THEM!  Be prepared to listen…maybe there is information you don’t know about whey they are no longer a customer.  This should be addressed first.  Then you can move into a series of open-ended questions that will allow you to see if there is an opportunity to work together again.  Some examples:

• “What are you currently working on”
• “How is this economy affecting your business?”
• “What is most important to you these days?”
• “How happy are you with your current supplier?”

This works!  In the past month we’ve reconnected with former customers. And we found that some of them have done NOTHING since we worked with them.  They haven’t left us at all. And yet we haven’t done business with them in a while.  Now that we made the effort to open the discussion again, we are moving through the sales process to see how we can help them again in 2009.

This tip does take work – but the upside of the effort is HUGE!  You never know what hidden gems of business you might FIND in your lost customers.

Filed Under: Sales, customer loyalty, customer loyalty, maximize sales productivity, productivity, recession proof sales, sales process, sales productivity, sales success, sales tips

Have you noticed the changing buying patterns in business these past few months?  The economy is forcing everyone to re-evaluate how business is conducted and who business is conducted with.  The smart sales pros know changes in buying patterns means we have to change too.  One way to maximize your sales productivity is to re-evaluate the prospects in your pipeline.

Recently I took a hard look at the l-o-n-g list of prospects for our company.  At first glance, I thought “Wow, we have a lot of potential business!”  (Whew!)   But then I started looking closer. 

And I realized…

These aren’t all prospects anymore!!  The likelihood of doing business with some of these people and companies in the next year was extremely low! 

I don’t know about you, but we have limits to our time, energy and resources to invest in our sales efforts.  Our priorities had been pulled out of whack these last 6 months.  The anticipation of what the recession might bring caused some of our clients to postpone scheduled services.  Yet there were other prospects that wanted to reconnect and reconsider our expertise in how to increase sales! 

Now the big question, “Where are we spending our time, efforts and energy?”

I challenged our team to consider some tough questions for each name on the prospect list.  In light of what is going on with the economy:

1. What do you know about this person or company?  How might the economy be affecting them?  What does this do for their need for what we provide?  Do they need us now more than ever?
2. When was our last contact and what happened? 
3. Where are you in the sales process?  Be realistic.  Are you in the beginning stages of building trust and a relationship?  Have you uncovered needs?  Are they open to a solution?  Is it time to tie WHAT you do to their needs?  Have you gone through the process and not asked them for a decision?
4. What is the likelihood of them moving to the next step in the sales process in the next 60 days?  The next 6 months?
5. Do they have money to spend on what you offer?
6. Are you talking to the decision maker?
7. What have you done to provide proof and validation of potential results?
8. What value can we provide them today to demonstrate our expertise and to help them?

We learned that we need to realign our efforts. Some of our prospects needs had changed and so must our approach to earning their business.  We also found that some prospects who took a lot of our time and energy were never going to ”buy”.  They were happy to have lots of free consulting and resources.  But no budget to spend.  This doesn’t mean we will ignore them, but they won’t take up so much of our time.

We’ve been working on the new approach for a month and are having very good results.  Recession or not, 2009 is looking bright because we are focusing on the right prospects!

What about you?  Is it time to re-evaluate your prospect list?  To identify your real opportunities in light of the current economic conditions and to realign your efforts to the highest likelihood of success?  How can making the time now ensure you have recession proofed your sales?

Filed Under: Sales, customer loyalty, maximize sales productivity, priorities, productivity, recession proof sales, sales success, sales tips

Ready for another tip on how to increase your sales in a tough economy?  Commit to excellence and focus on the power of one! 

The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to his or her commitment to excellence, regardless of his or her chosen field of endeavor.  Zig Ziglar’s quotation is important for all fields - but most specifically the field of sales!

Today’s economy has created a lot of easy excuses for the average performer to not take action.  Top performers continue to succeed in spite of the economy.  In our sales training courses, we see salespeople become a bit paralyzed as they look at ALL the activities they could be doing to make more sales.  Don’t let that ‘I’m overwhelmed’ feeling stop you.  Instead of thinking you need to do 20 things different today, start with just ONE MORE!

 Today, make the time for ONE more: 

1. Phone call.  Who do you want to connect with?  Take 5 minutes to prepare your objective, how you will engage them when they answer the phone, what you want to find out and the next step.  And then pick up the phone!  Be prepared to leave a great voicemail message if they don’t pick up.
2. Message.  What information can you send to someone as a follow-up?  Is there something you promised that you can get out today?  Send it by email or regular mail.
3. Note. Handwritten notes/cards are a powerful connection!   Select someone that you haven’t connected with in a while and send them a note.  Don’t make it about your company, product or service specifically.
4. Action item from your plan to achieve your goals.  You do have written goals don’t you?  Review them and find one action you can take today that will move you closer to achieving that goal. 
5. Question.  What information do you need from a client, prospect, or internal team member? Craft a good open-ended question and then ASK the question.  If you are in a meeting – with a client or internal team – ask one more question before ending the meeting.

For more ideas that you can do ONE more of – I have a free resource for you!  Timely Tips for Sales Managers is full of 52 tips to increase sales!  The free  tips can be downloaded for you to reference as you focus on achieving higher sales results.

Now that this post is written, I too will focus on the power of one and make one MORE phone call before lunch.

Are you committed to excellence?  If so, what ONE MORE action you will take today for a big pay off later?

Filed Under: consultative selling, focus, priorities, productivity, recession proof sales

Want to give EXTRA value to your customers in tough economic times?  Give great business gifts (free or low cost) now!  With cost cutting in most industries and everyone trying to do more with less, its refreshing to know that there are still easy and inexpensive ways to give value today.  And giving value today allows you to receive sales tomorrow.

Giving value to customers does not necessarily mean discounting your price, buying large gifts, or giving more of your product or service at no charge.  In the long run, giving value to the PERSON is more important than all of those things.

Three Extra Value gifts you can give:

Information.  With time pressure listed as one of the biggest stressors and constraints to further success, many people struggle with not enough time to keep up with the “latest”.  It could be the “latest” topic or information in:

1. their industry trends
2. what their competitors are doing
3. something that is unique and specific to them (hobbies, interests)
4. resources

Find useful information and send it them directly.  Books or links to articles, podcasts or forums that are helpful to them all work.  I sent a group of financial advisers I had worked with an ezine link for an expert on getting referrals in their industry.  Months later one of them wrote to me that they are still finding value in that expertise and getting more referrals for it.  They attributed the success to me, though all I did was make the “link” for them! 

You can send the information electronically or surprise them and send them a hard copy of an article in the mail! 

A caution on this tip is to make sure you verify the quailty of the information first to check the relevancy.  You don’t want to send them information that doesn’t fit and waste their time. 

Tools to help them do something better, quicker or easier. A client that liked photography commented on the price of PhotoShop.  I found an article about Paintnet - a free download that does many of the same things as PhotoShop – and sent it to him.  He was so happy when I sent him a note with the link!  

There are so many legal free-ware items available that can help people with nearly everything.  Do they like to travel?  Do they need to do something more efficient at work? 

Think about specific customers and what you know about them, do some research and send them the tool.  Whether it be an electronic link or a “concrete” tool. I had a client trainer that loved my scented markers but her company wouldn’t let her purchase them.  She was thrilled when I sent her a box of scented markers!

Time.  Don’t underestimate the value of your time and attention.  Getting time from customers might be tough, unless they find that time with you is valuable to them! 

Most people value someone taking an interest in them, asking some great open ended questions that aren’t directly tied to what you sell and then having the opportunity to talk.  The questions might be about the current status of their company, the security of their job, the effect of the economy on people they know.  If you are trusted, you may find you will hear about challenges, fears and “new” news because they want to talk to SOMEone about it. 

Demonstrate restraint and don’t jump into “selling” them something right then and really listen. The perceived value of your relationship will increase.

Customers want value – even when they do not have budgets to support it.  They also want sales people to pay attention to THEM – not just when there is a sale at stake.  The type of attention they want is going to be very different depending on the person.  The closer you match what you give to what is important to them (because it still is about What’s in it for THEM?) the more VALUable the gift.

Filed Under: Sales, WIIFT, consultative selling, maximize sales productivity, productivity, recession proof sales, sales productivity, sales success, sales tips