Mark Hunter's Blog, page 67

How Well Do You Understand Your Business?

You’re being challenged every day as a business owner or business leader.  There is never enough time in the day to complete what you know you need to.  I’m no different.

Below are 5 questions I ask myself and I ask my clients regularly.   If you’re like most people, it will be hard to say you have definitive answers for more than a couple of them.

1. What is the “value of the value” I provide my customers? How do I know this to be true?

When I say “value,” I mean, “How does what I provide my customers help them?” The value is not your cost. It’s the benefit the customer receives.  Knowing this is key, as it allows you to understand who you need to be prospecting and where you can be of the most benefit.

2. What is the % of business I get that is a result of my salespeople creating the opportunity with the customer vs. merely getting what they give us?

This question stops everyone in their tracks, as we want to think our sales team is great, but far too often, the business they’re getting is because it’s being handed to them.  I hate to sound cold, but that’s the real world.  What you need are salespeople who do an outstanding job of listening, probing and punching through barriers to determine new opportunities that never would have been uncovered any other way.

3. What is the % of business we get each year by way of referrals from existing customers and is the trend growing?

A measurement of the quality of service any business provides is what current customers have to say about you.  One way to measure this is by the referrals you receive because customers can’t stop talking about you.  If this % is not on an upward trend year after year, then it means something is not working right in how you deal with customers.

4. If our biggest customer were to leave, what would we need to do to replace their business and how long would it take?

Go ahead and admit it. This is a question you really don’t want to think about, but you sure have thought about if you have ever had it happen.  Regardless of the business you’re in and regardless of how good you think your customers are, it will happen.  It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when. And it’s best to be prepared for it when it does happen.

5. What is the margin potential in our pricing and what are the processes we use to measure this?

Of the 5 questions, this one can have the biggest impact on your bottom-line.  How confident are you in your pricing? If you’re like most companies, there’s far too much “legacy thinking” in your pricing than you realize.  The price you charge now is a reflection of the price you charged a few years ago, but why does it have to be that way?

Your price must reflect the value the customer receives and not your cost to produce.  The stronger your sales organization is, the more margin potential you will have. This is a key reason to be investing in your sales organization. A key measurement you can look at is the % of business being done at full price or even above full price.

Are you guilty of spending all of your time working in the business and not spending anytime on the business? Business growth occurs not due to financial capital, but rather it grows due to intellectual capital.  Maybe it’s time to be investing more in the intellectual resources of your company by starting to dig deep into these 5 questions.

And don’t forget that a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

Why Can’t I Sell? 10 Ways to Change Your Sales Results

Why can’t I sell? When was the last time you asked yourself that question?

There is way too much turnover in the sales profession, and I think it stems from one thing — false expectations of what others can do for you.

The excuses run rampant, from “Marketing isn’t doing their job” to “I’ve never been trained” to “my boss is an idiot.” The list of excuses never ends.  It’s time to take ownership and realize the answer to the question “why can’t I sell” resides in you, not somebody else.

Only you can motivate yourself. Stop blaming your boss. Check out this 34-second video:

Quit blaming others and start taking control. Here are 10 things you can do now that will impact how you sell:

1. Accept 100% responsibility for your attitude. Nobody can change your attitude, only you can.  Similarly, nobody else, including your boss, can motivate you. That’s your job. Only you can motivate you.

2. Stop blaming your boss for what you believe he or she is doing wrong to you. Who cares! It’s what you do that matters, not what your boss does or doesn’t do.

3. Build a list of all the ways you’ve helped your customers. You’re much more effective as a salesperson then you realize you are. You’ve just chosen to focus on the negative. Focus instead on the positive things you’ve done.

4. Other people will only impact you negatively if you choose to let them. There’s a reason why negative people hang out with negative people.

5. Be 100% focused on how you help your customers and how they will benefit from buying from you, rather than the physical product or service you sell.

6. View life not from a mindset of scarcity, but rather from a mindset of abundance. When we look at life as having unlimited opportunities and an abundance of everything, it is amazing how many more opportunities we will see.

7. Realize you have the greatest customers any salesperson could ever ask for. If you view your customers as being great, it’s amazing how better your results will be. The mindset you take toward your customers will impact the relationship you have with them.

8. Start each day by being thankful and appreciative to have the opportunity to meet with others.

9. Focus first on helping others, including your prospects and customers. When you view your customers as being more important than making your sales quota, it will be amazing how much easier it is to make your sales quota.

10. Never allow yourself to have an “if/then” attitude. This is one where you believe every problem you’re having can be fixed by, “If I do this, then I’ll do that.”  The only thing this type of attitude can do for you is allow you to create cheap excuses and a tendency to place blame on others.

Sales is not a job. It’s not even a profession. It’s a lifestyle and it starts from within.

And don’t forget that a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

Sales Myths that Still Trap Salespeople and Sales Managers

Don’t get me started!  The list of myths salespeople and sales managers believe will drive anyone crazy.  These are just a few of the ones I’ve heard, and worse yet, have seen people believing:

1. Mistaking quantity for quality when it comes to leads.

2. Believing just because you’re thinking about a prospect that they are thinking about you.

3. Thinking all leads will become great customers.

4. Believing it’s important to keep every lead in your sales pipeline.

5. Believing the sales manager needs to be present to close all big deals.

6. Subscribing to the idea the more emails you send out, the more customers you will get.

7. Thinking that posting more on social media and getting a lot of “likes” and “shares” will lead to a lot of customers.

8. Thinking having a 10-step selling process must be better than a 3-step selling process because it’s 3x as long.

9. Insisting if it’s a long sales call, it must be a good sales call.

10. Believing the way to close a stuck deal is to lower the price.

11. Thinking you must start sales presentations by doing an overview of your company and how great you are.

12. Believing people are too busy to talk on Mondays and Fridays, so it doesn’t make sense to prospect on either of those two days.

13. Thinking if you push hard enough, you can get the prospect to buy.

14. Believing people will always buy more from you at the end of your quarter.

15. Thinking a prospect who states “just send me some information” is ready to buy.

16. Thinking the random person who calls you and asks you for your price is going to be your next great customer.

17. Believing the best way to get a customer that has gone silent on you to respond is by offering them an amazingly low price.

18. Thinking you can close a customer with a one-time low price and make it up with them the next time they buy.

19. Believing if the prospect didn’t respond on your first call, there is no sense in following up again.

20. Thinking you can turn a lead into a customer by contacting them once a quarter for two years.

21. Thinking nobody answers the phone and the only way to prospect is by email.

22. Believing spending all day catching up on your “paperwork” will somehow magically result in having more customers.

23. Believing it’s the responsibility of your manager to motivate you.

24. Thinking how much more successful you would be if the products you sold weren’t so lousy.

25. Believing its the job of marketing to provide you with all of your leads.

26. Thinking the reason you can’t close more sales is because it’s always somebody else’s fault.

27. Subscribing to the belief all customers are stupid.

After reading this list, you’re thinking how glad you are that you are not guilty of believing any of them, right? As you read the list, you can’t help but think of others you know who do believe those myths, right?

Think again. At one time or another, you have most likely been guilty of believing at least a few of them.  Worse yet, there are times even now when you allow yourself to believe some of them.

Sales is a contact sport. It takes contact to make a sale.  In the end, you can throw out every theory and every idea, because it comes down to one thing, and that is you having a conversation with another person.

And don’t forget that a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

Prospecting: Asking for Referrals the Right Way

I meet too many salespeople who think networking with people they know is the same thing as prospecting. Don’t kid yourself!

In my book, “High-Profit Prospecting,” I give you specific step-by-step processes to help you not only feel more comfortable prospecting, but also to do it with regularity and enthusiasm.

Invest in yourself with my book, and I am confident you’ll see your pipeline grow not merely with quantity, but with quality!  Quality prospects are what lead to high-profit sales.

And don’t forget how a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

Sales Motivation Video: Average is the Bane of Greatness!

If you want to be great, you cannot settle for average.  Sounds simple enough, but too many people just don’t get it.  Great salespeople have a totally different set of outcomes they can achieve because they refuse to settle for average.

Check out the video to see what I mean:

And don’t forget that a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

Sales Leadership Comes Down to Doing These 3 Things

Do you know what sales leadership is all about? It’s about doing these 3 things:

1. Identifying the vision

2. Removing barriers

3. Inspiring people to get on board

Think about these 3 things, as they are the same whether you are leading people or selling to a customer.

A few weeks ago I ran into a good friend who spent nearly 20 years in sales leadership roles with a Fortune 100 company.  Galen Bingham has seen it all, and in this short video he explains the 3 things needed to be a sales leader:

 

Take a look at the 3 and ask yourself where you excel and where you fall short. Being seen as a sales leader is never an end game. It’s always a work in progress, as each day brings new challenges and new insights.

In the video, Galen and I discuss whether a customer will see these 3 things in a salesperson.  Our opinions are different. You might say Galen is the realist and I’m the optimist.  If you are to be seen by your customers as a sales leader, the customer must see all 3 of these in you all the time.

The bigger question you need to ask is, “What is the value of these three 3 to my business?”  If you’re an account manager dealing with a limited number of accounts, the value is huge and immediate.  If, on the other hand, you’re one who prospects, you might think they don’t have as much value, but I will contend otherwise.  Customers can read you more than you realize, and if your motives are on you making your number, they will sense it.  If, on the other hand, your focus is on these 3 traits, it will become clear you’re focused on them.

Check out Galen. He’s the real deal — a very smart and classy person who is making an impact on others:  http://www.galenbingham.com/

And don’t forget that a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

10 Questions to Create a Prospecting Mindset

You’re behind on the number of calls you need to make for the week. Worse yet, the quarter is nearing an end and making that number is looking impossible.  Is this you?

You will never have anything to close unless you first start to prospect, but just because you have a list of leads doesn’t mean they are going to instantly become customers.

As much as sales process is a mindset, I believe prospecting is at the top of the mindset.  If you don’t have the right mindset to prospect, then there is little chance you’ll prospect. This then translates into even less to close.

How do you create a prospecting mindset? First, thinking you don’t have to answer this question is a mistake.  Prospecting is not an activity of just going through the motions. No, it’s about engaging, connecting, and setting the table to create value.

You know I talk on the prospecting a lot in my keynotes. Here’s a 94-second segment from my time at the Growth Acceleration Summit hosted by Zoominfo:

 

Ready for my list? Here are 10 questions you need to get serious about.

1. How does the customer benefit from what I sell? Record all of the benefits your customers benefit from when they buy from you. Be specific and include not only the benefit, but also how it helped them.

2. How does my personal style connect with prospects and customers? Record what makes you special and makes you a person with whom people want to engage.

3. How does what I sell differ from other options in the marketplace? Record everything that sets what you sell apart, but do not include price.  There is no place for price in prospecting, so leave it off the table

4. What so I like about my customers? Record all of the things you like about your customers, including things that may include their personal lives.

5. What is the main obstacles in my day that block me from prospecting? Record all of the activities you get caught up in during the day you feel keep you from prospecting.

6. What is keeping you from blocking on your calendar specific time periods each day and week to prospect? You’ll never have enough time to prospect unless you dedicate the time to do it.

7. Are you relying on Marketing to provide you with leads? Why? How good are the leads they give you? What’s stopping you from getting your own leads?

8. Who are the negative voices in my life I need to get rid of? There are people with whom you associate that you really can’t afford to spend time with.  Hanging out with negative people will do nothing but create negative results.

9. What are my personal excuses? OK, here is where it gets personal.  Write down every single excuse you’ve ever had about why you didn’t prospect when you were supposed to.  Write down everything. By no means is this the time to leave anything out. When you’re done with the list, look at it closely and realize you are in control of everything.

Every excuse is your excuse. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. Each one belongs to you.  Your objective is to accept responsibility and NOT allow any one excuse stand in the way of you prospecting.

10. Who will hold me accountable? If you want to succeed, you must be willing to be held accountable. Who can you have as your partner? I like to say how sales is not a solo activity, but rather it’s a team sport, and you need somebody on your team. Who will you ask who can hold you accountable?

Take these 10 questions to heart and use them to propel you toward a more solid and productive prospecting mindset.

And don’t forget that a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

Sales Motivation Video: Personal AND Professional Goals

Don’t just attack your goals this week, but make sure they are ones that are helping you achieve the next goal.

Be diligent in setting goals that move you to the next level.

Check out the video to see what I mean:

 

And don’t forget that a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

Maximum Revenue. Maximum Value. Maximum Sales Leadership.

You will never be able to maximize the value your customer receives from what you sell until you see yourself as a sales leader.

Sales leaders are confident and are comfortable in asking what others would view as tough questions.  When you create maximum value, you can achieve maximum revenue.

Watch this two-minute video, as I share a situation from my own business about helping the customer see more value:

 

How confident are you when talking with your customers?  Confidence comes from believing you can help the other person.  When you see results in others from what you’ve provided, it fuels your confidence.

Confidence in a conversation is a two-way street.  As one party exhibits more confidence, it’s only natural for the other party to exhibit more, too.  The more confident everyone is, the deeper the conversation and the greater the ability to uncover new levels of value.

Sales leadership is not a title. It’s an approach one takes to each conversation.   In the story I share in the video, there is little chance I would have avoided offering a discount, let alone being able to secure additional work, if I had not been confident.

My confidence allowed me to not be shaken when the customer stated at the start of the call that my price was too high. Had I not been confident, I would have come down in price.  Anything less than being totally confident would have resulted in me offering a discount.

You can’t take a pill or read one article and suddenly become confident and be a sales leader. If it were that easy, then everyone would be a sales leader.  Sales leadership is based on a fundamental belief you can help others achieve what they didn’t think was possible. It’s a belief that is unwavering due to your personal track record of helping others.

Make it your objective to be seen as the leader who brings out the best in others.  As you do, you’ll move yourself closer to not only being a sales leader, but also closer to creating more value for your customers. In so doing, you’ll bring in more revenue for you.

And don’t forget that a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

7 Prospecting Secrets You Need to Know

Are you one of the vast majority of salespeople who don’t have a prospecting plan that works?  I get asked for help with prospecting skills more than anything else.

Below are 7 secrets I bet you’ve overlooked when it comes to prospecting.  Watch the video first and then read further regarding the 7 secrets. The video is an excerpt of my keynote from OutBound 2017.

 

1. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Your prospects are not going to agree to buy due to a single message from you. There’s a reason why the biggest brands in the consumer world advertise, because they know they have to keep their name in front of you. No different for you. It’s the repetition of messaging that will make a difference. Just remember one key thing — each message, regardless of the delivery method, must create new value.  Repeating the same message only proves one thing — you’re lazy.

2. Don’t start what you can’t finish.

Never put more names into your prospecting pipeline than you know you can manage long-term. Results take time and it requires a coordinated effort.

3. Prospects must see your confidence.

They will see this confidence when you’re confident enough to ask questions that probe deep and are not seen as purely superficial and mundane.

4. Your goal is to get the prospect to say, “Great question!”

When a prospect responds with “great question” to something you’ve asked, that means they’re having to think. When you reach this level, the prospect will no longer see you as a vendor. They will now see you as somebody who can help them.

5. Your goal in that first call is to uncover one critical piece of information.

When you can uncover a critical piece of information on the first call, then you know you’ve established a level of interaction that will significantly increase your ability to close the customer.

6. The best question you can ask is one to which neither you nor the prospect know the answer.

Think about this for a moment. Would you ask a prospect a question like this if you weren’t confident? No, and this is the mark of you knowing if you are confident. Confidence cuts two ways. Your goal by asking this type of question is for the prospect to have confidence in you and you to have confidence in them.

7. Your goal is to spend more time with fewer prospects.

This runs contrary to what most people believe, but I firmly believe by asking tougher questions of the prospect, you will be able to weed out faster those prospects who are really just suspects. The end result is you know who to spend time with and who not to spend time with.

One last thing!  If you have not been to OutBound, you need to make plans NOW to be there!  In 2019, we’ll have well over 1,000 attendees from around the world.  This is an event I and my three good friends Jeb Blount, Mike Weinberg and Anthony Iannarino created to better the skills of sales leaders like you!

Mark your calendar now for April 24 and 25 in Atlanta. You can get your ticket now (I think a few early bird tickets remain, but you’d have to jump on them soon!)

Here is the link for all the details: OutBound 2019 in Atlanta

And don’t forget that a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results