Tag Archives: Sales

Ah, The Dog Days of Summer!

Posted on July 27, 2010 | Leave a comment

Been a while  between posts  –  I just returned from some vacation.  The prep time before and digging out after have been significant, as always.   But, should be back on track for posting now…

It’s great to unplug and step away from the daily grind and see the forest for the trees though.  When you realize what you’re working for – it makes it so much easier get back and hit it.  It was a great time off with my wife and kids: hiking, swimming, fishing.  My son caught his first Musky…thought he won the Superbowl!

One of my take-aways this time was that I really love what I do.  Not everyone can say that.  There is a real vocational dimension to helping people with their most important projects that motivates me to do the best for my clients. 

Also, although some people automatically think technology is extremely cool and fun (guilty) it is also continuing to change the game for everyone, so you need to pay attention. 

On that note, I was reviewing some of my favorite blog reads while away and I think this one from Seth Godin wins.  It’s a concise summary about the transition from the production > information > “information about information” economy and gets you thinking about all the opportunities yet to be seized…  

Better get back to work!

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Voicemail or eMail?…The Answer is Yes!

Posted on June 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Let’s face it.  Most of us are in meetings (even if some are virtual – phone/web) most of the day. 

Reaching someone live between the hours of 8am-5pm in today’s business world has become a near impossibility.

Just for fun let’s say you do get someone to pick up the phone.  Odds are, you have just distracted that person from a task they believe to  be a priority over whatever it is that you have called about.  Just think of your own experience.  How long does it take you to pick up an inbound call when you do not recognize the caller ID?  Don’t hold your breath, right?

It is for this reason I now almost always leave BOTH a voicemail and email message when contacting a client or partner, particularly if this subject is important to them.

Try for a live discussion via phone first, of course.  When you get their voicemail, leave a brief message and tell them that you will also send an email if that is a more convenient mode of communication for them.  Then, send the email with “My Voicemail” included in the subject.

But don’t take my word for it.  Marketing firm CCSI has this to say in their recent blog post…”Lead generation strategies that put e-mail and direct mail before telemarketing may be putting the cart before the horse and missing out on the optimal impact of each vehicle….”  The gist of their post?  Leave a voicemail before sending email.

Doing both has increased my response ratio significantly.

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Friday Strategy: Make it a 10-Point Day

Posted on June 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

It’s the end of the week.  Depending on how yours went, you either have 20 pounds of sand and a 10 pound bag and you’re wondering how your going to get it done, or maybe you are at the end of a long week and wondering if you have the steam to keep going and finish strong. 

Either way, here’s an idea:  Make it a 10-point day.

Give yourself a weighted value for key activities accomplished.  Specifics may vary here, just make it a stretch.  For example: 5 points for a contract, 3 points for an executive meeting, 2 points for an executive phone conversation, 1 point for any buyer touch-point like a nice email/voicemail combo.  Now, try to  reach or beat a total of 10 points today.

Hope you need a calculator!

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Sales Lessons from The Blackhawks? You Bet!

Posted on June 10, 2010 | 1 Comment

For Chicagoans,  last night’s Stanley Cup victory by the Blackhawks was an incredible end to an incredible season. When you win your first championship since JFK was in office – it’s a big deal.  We’ll be celebrating for a while here.  But can you take away any sales lessons from this team?  You bet…

1. You can’t score if you don’t come out shooting.  These guys were firing at the net the entire game, and the entire season for that matter.  You have to be playing offense, always focused on the next play, or your competitors will take the momentum.

2. Defend your goal.  Antti Niemi was awesome this year.  He made some incredible stops (as a rookie!) . Without him shutting down the opponents, the wins would not have come.  Are you protecting your existing clients as ferociously? 

3. It’s a contact sport.  If you’re playing it right, you may even lose some teeth!  You need to know your strengths and play them hard to give your clients outstanding service – bump the competitors out of play.

4. The refs don’t always see it your way.  There were a few tough calls on Chicago last night (goaltender interference? – I don’t think so!),  but you have to roll with it and play with the calls delivered.  There is no such thing as reality – only your clients’ perception counts!  You can think you’re doing great.  What do the refs (your clients) think?

5. You’ve got to win the home and away games.  The Blackhawks had an awesome record on the road.  Hockey is a tough game to win when you’re not on your home ice.  Remember, to win over the long-term, you need to win with existing clients (home) and net new clients (away) as well!

6. The cup is worth the fight!  It sometimes seems like the sales battle is getting the best of you.  But if you give it all you have – and then give some more, truly serving your clients and stunning them with results, then you may get to kiss the 118 year-old trophy!

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Folks, This is a “Pens-Down Moment”

Posted on June 8, 2010 | 2 Comments

I’ve had it with people who don’t take notes in client meetings.  In fact, unless you have a miraculous photographic memory or a tape recorder, if you’re not taking notes in a client meeting, you should probably not be having one.

Note-taking is a lost art.  I had a CEO in a prior life who was minted at Xerox.  He understood this principle and tried to pound it into our heads.  During critical meetings with staffers, he was famous for calling people on the carpet and literally saying, “Folks, this is pens-down moment!”  Translation:  “You idiots, you should be taking notes.  Otherwise, I have no idea that you are understanding the importance of what I’m saying.”

If you are sitting through critical client/prospect meetings taking no notes, isn’t this what your clients are thinking too?  Will you really remember all the action items, much less the owners or due dates without notes?  What if you learn some key information about the alma mater of that key executive, or how many kids they have, or their pet (and budgeted) project coming up in 6 months?  Will you remember the critical details?  I don’t think so.

You’ll never catch me without my Moleskine notebook and a nice pen ready to jot some key take-aways.  I can still hear Paul, “…Folks, this is a pens-down moment…“

Take copious notes in client meetings!

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Yeah, It’s a Number Game Too…

Posted on May 14, 2010 | 1 Comment

Like success in any professional career, there are many ingredients to success in selling.  Accurate opportunity targeting – as my friends at Selling To Zebras will tell you, is a critical one.  Chase the right prey and your hunt will be more successful.  

Another key element is using a solid framework (pick a methodology that fits your situation) for high-gain conversations with prospects to elicit their needs and to link your solutions in meaningful ways.  

Also important are elements like pre-call planning, lead-nurturing, compelling proposal creation, Ferocious Follow-up - the list is too long to discuss in one post.

One inescapable success factor is activity.  A wise sales mentor once told me that activity yields opportunity which yields results.  Sometimes hearing that sales is a “numbers game” is a turn off.  It makes the sales process seem cheesy or pushy in some way.  But the fact that you need to produce quantity as well as target quality is not a contradiction.  It takes both. You can have the best targets in the world, but unless you are acting on them daily, all you have is a glorified list.  Go ahead – put up some numbers today!

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Is Your Follow Up Ferocious?

Posted on May 12, 2010 | 3 Comments

We’ve just crawled out of one of the toughest patches in business that any of us can remember.  Thankfully, things seem to be stabilizing and even slowly beginning to grow again.  However, every opportunity will be harder fought – tougher to find, tougher to close. 

Yet, I see the cardinal sin being committed –  A lack of priority follow-up on business leads.

In this fragile recovery, you must execute strong follow-up – no – Ferocious follow-up.

In his fantastic sales blog, Sales and Sales Management, I recently discovered this post from Paul McCord in which he explains that he has experienced the same.  He says, “…A quality lead has a very short shelf-life—whether we’re talking about the retail situations above or a long sales cycle, sophisticated product or service.  Someone–you or your company–has paid good money to get the phone to ring, to get a lead card mailed back, or get a form filled out on the internet.  Every minute you wait to contact a prospect is a minute you’re giving the competition to close the deal before you even get there…”

Get Ferocious.  You competitors are!

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“10 By 10″

Posted on April 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

I am a relentless for citing authors of great ideas.   I picked this one up from a blog post in the past few days, but for the life of me, I can not find where I picked it up.  So my apologies to the author (I’ll keep looking and give you your kudos soon) – but the idea is too AWESOME not to share… 

Challenge yourself to complete 10 outbound client touches toward advancing the deals in your funnel by 10am each day.

Sounds easy, right? 

Try it for a week and get back to me when you hit 8 for the first time!

Enjoy.

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Handouts, All But Worthless? —– I Think So…

Posted on April 26, 2010 | Leave a comment
In a blog post yesterday by HR Specialist Rebecca Masin in allbusiness.com, the author makes a great case that handouts are no longer worth it for a myriad of reasons including cost, economic impact, and efficacy. 
 
Her favorite reason, from a book called “Saving the World at Work” is that “Over the course of the last few decades, we’ve gotten into a habit: We print, then think. Instead, we should think first and only then print-maybe.”
 
I agree with Rebecca’s rationale – AND, I would add a sales and marketing twist to the list of reasons not to use handouts – handouts don’t work.  If you’re deal comes down to handing out (or mailing) a piece of paper to get your point across, you need to seek a fresher alternative.
 
I rely on social media, email, and voicemail combinations to get critical points across.  In rare instances, a customized slide show (not printed but distributed via email or USB drive) does the trick. 
 
For more information, please request a handout of this blog post at tim@salesandmarketingmashup.com KIDDING!
 
What are your thoughts on handouts?

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Today on LinkedIn – A New Way to Share Ideas…

Posted on April 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Logged in to LinkedIn today to share a post and found a great new feature that we can all use to connect more deeply with our networks.  You can now embed links inside of your status updates to more directly communicate web content to your contacts.  Here’s a YouTube link that explains.

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Focus on Your Clients

Posted on April 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

A mentor once told me that ”Sick companies are internally focused – Healthy ones are focused on their customers.”  Wise words from a wise man.  Thanks, Larry. 

With the economy slowly crawling out of the funk, where are the leaders in your company focused?  It’s easy to become entranced with YOURSELF.  Think about it.  Do you spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy looking at your own company’s Operations?  Alliance Relationships? Cost Containment/Reduction?  Organizational Structure?  Market Segmentation? Inventories? Corporate Branding?  If so – STOP!

These are all necessary concerns.  But they are also a very  - dangerous - distraction from your most vital area of  focus in this moment -           The Client! 

If you take your eyes off the client right now, you run the risk of buying your stock high and selling it low.  How so?  You burned a lot of calories keeping clients during the downturn (never worked so hard for so little myself).  If you focus internally now, you may have burned them in vain – only to have a competitor snatch the client away from you as you focus inward and miss the first signs of the recovery.

Instead…Spend as much of your time as possible with clients.  Have progress report meetings to brag about all that you did for them in the past year, hold peer-to-peer executive lunches with them, bookmark web articles of interest and share them with clients, make twice the cold calls than you did last month, do a speaking engagement, double your contacts at a given account this week…

…However you want to…

…FOCUS ON THE CLIENT right now!

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The NEW NORMAL…Buying Power Has Changed

Posted on April 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

In their great white paper, Selling in the New Normal, Jeffrey and Chad Koser (authors of Selling to Zebras) cite Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, coining the term a “New Normal” to focus and re-engage GE  in the economy we’re dealing with for the foreseeable future.  More on this white paper in future posts, but for now…

One of their more interesting points is that post Great Recession, the people you sell to don’t have the decision-making power they once had.  It’s dangerous for your sales if you don’t realize that.  What’s worse is, sometimes even they don’t know it.  “A decision that once required director-level approval now goes to the CFO.  Previous CFO-level decisions go to the CEO or board.”  

Not talking to C-level executives?  You’re going to need to change your approach.

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3 Buckets…All That Matter

Posted on April 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

In his bestselling book, Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty, business guru Ram Charan says that during [and after] the world-wide business crisis  “…company executives are categorizing all expenditures into one of three buckets…” 

1. Keeping the lights on
2. Compliance (MORE than ever)
3. Discretionary Spend (LESS than ever)

If your solution doesn’t keep the lights on or help with compliance; you’ve got a fight on your hands for discretionary dollars. 

When is the last time you described your solution in terms of a business case?   

You can’t kick these buckets! 

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Speed Kills

Posted on March 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

Speed Kills.  This may have negative connotations in sports like auto-racing or billiards, but in sales – it’s a positive.  I just set a personal record and closed at $300,000 deal in 2-1/2 days.  As with all sales, luck played a role.  But even more important was SPEED!  I had an excellent team on this pursuit with just the right skills and experience, but what really set us apart from the competition was a drive to understand and respond to the client.   It started with the client asking us for a personal visit with 12 hours notice.  We jumped right in, took them up on that offer, and proceeded to have a great introductory meeting.  We then responded in kind and told the client that we would like a proposal review the very next day.  They were impressed that we heard their urgency and answered the call.  Needless to say that meeting went very well and we won.  Moral of the story?  My competitors may have had a better solution (doubt it), but we moved so quickly they did not have time to breathe.   Speed Kills!

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Selling and Marketing Services vs. Products

Posted on February 23, 2010 | 2 Comments

While a great number of companies make and sell products, the past 20 years have seen a revolution in the professional services industry.  So there is a good chance that you are responsible for selling services vs. products.  However, many of  the sales techniques used today still echo a product sell.  A great book on the subject of the difference here is called “Selling the Invisible” by Harry Beckwith.  He’s written some other great books too, but this in my opinion is his best.  Here are a couple of my favorites from this book… 

“The first step in service marketing is your service.” - In other words, do your craft with excellence before thinking up a wiz bang marketing plan.

“One Thing Experts Don’t Know…” - In most professions,  you ARE NOT selling your competence.  Your client can’t evaluate you fully.  They are not the professional – you are.  That’s why they are seeking your help in the first place.  Your competence is assumed.  What you ARE selling is a relationship.  Do you pick up the phone and respond quickly?  Are you a good listener?  Am I important to you? Do you deliver to me with excellence? etc.

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Things May Come to Those Who Wait…

Posted on February 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

But only the things left by those who HUSTLE! 

This quote sits in my office as a reminder of a person who failed many times over his life, but always worked harder than everyone else and ended up as one of our most famous Americans – Abe Lincoln. 

Imagine if you got up each morning with this at the top of your mind.  How many more calls would you make?  How many more meetings would you have?  How many extra value would you deliver to your clients? 

…AND…

How much more success would you see?

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Ode to LinkedIn

Posted on February 12, 2010 | Leave a comment

LinkedIn has reached 60,000,000 members!  RT @techcrunch: LinkedIn Now 60 Million Strong – http://j.mp/9vkPWB

Think about that.  60 MILLION members.  It is even more incredible when you think that these are people connecting regarding their public/professional lives vs. the private/casual users of other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. 

This service is one of the most fundamentally game-changing new tools for professionals.  What did we do without it?  

When I imagine what the first half of my career might have been like if I started out with this tool for helping and leveraging my network of relationships as I began in sales, it makes me want to cry.

But we have it now!

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You Can’t Cut Your Way to a Funnel

Posted on February 10, 2010 | Leave a comment

Here is a link to today’s Harvard Business Review “Daily Stat.”  Interesting research numbers on firms and their behavior during the recession.  http://web.hbr.org/email/archive/dailystat.php?date=021010.     HBR says “Sales reps get hit with double whammy…”   The gist: 67%. That’s how many companies froze or reduced lead-generation budgets for sales reps last year, at a time when salespeople needed help the most, according to CSO Insights’ survey of more than 2,800 companies worldwide. The percentage of reps making quota in 2009 dropped to 51.8% from 58.8% a year earlier, the survey shows.

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Super Bowl Sales Tips

Posted on February 8, 2010 | 1 Comment

What an awesome Super Bowl last night!  Watching it, you could not help but root for the Saints.  They were unstoppable.   Here are a few observations that struck me as relevant to sales people…

-  Focus & Common Purpose.  This was about more than any one star or any one game for these guys.  They were focused on winning the season and the championship for their city. Sean Payton kept them on task.  What’s your purpose?  Are you that focused?

- Keep the Momentum.  One or two bad plays will not slow you down if you are charging fast at your goal.  You can absorb a touchdown by the other team or a penalty (or an objection / rejection) along the way as long as you have the momentum.

- Celebrate the Wins.  Whether it was Drew Brees holding up his baby son and welling up, Sean Payton getting the Gatorade shower, or the party on Bourbon Street that looked more like Fat Tuesday than Sunday night – These folks know how to celebrate a win.  It’s been a long 18 months of recession.  Are you still celebrating when your team delivers?

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Social Media Is for Sales People Too!

Posted on February 5, 2010 | Leave a comment

So often, Social Media is described as the domain of Marketing.  But “…While marketing owns the message, sales owns the relationship, so using social media to build deeper relationships on a customer by customer basis just seems like a pretty natural thing for the sales team…” 

That quote is from an article called “5 Ways That Sales People Can Benefit From Using Social Media,” by John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing.  The points it makes are very valuable to sales people.   If you are in sales, you need to read this.

I got this link from at tweet by Mike Stelzner.  Mike is the founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com, and a great source of information on social media (20,000+ followers on Twitter).  Thanks, Mike!

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