Thomas A. Freese's Blog, page 4
December 17, 2017
cheap jerseys Sure other teams don like it
But we didnt. The only defender of the 80’s and 90’s generation who could hold his own today is Milan Ivanovic. I wish he had not stopped in the middle east on his way home though AND that he choose a better club to play for rather than that disgraceful Paddington based team..
cheap jerseys Sure other teams don like it. They think we arrogant. But it has to do with us, and our mentality. Bipolar I disorder with psychotic features is a mood disorder characterized by unusually euphoric or agitated moods, along with depression or a mix of high and low moods. Psychotic symptoms are also part of this disorder, which can severely impact a person ability to function. A manic episode is a period of unusually elevated, excitable or irritable mood lasting for at least one week. cheap jerseys
wholesale jerseys Call me a homer if you must, but anyone who won acknowledge that these jerseys are amazing is, at best, ill bred. While the jersey technically does not adhere to the white plus one other color simplicity principle of great looking jerseys, it subtle incorporation of red in the under the white Minnesota script is clear proof that the designers of this jersey get it. The team itself has been underwhelming as of late, but when they look this wonderful it becomes hard not to want to root for them. wholesale jerseys
Cheap Jerseys free shipping Early on they were kinda wide eyed, didn know what to expect,” said Stegall. “Right now, they confident. They learning and hopefully they can continue this on and just take it on to their football game and on to the football field when they really start playing.”Stegall said he wanted to focus on the three positions of receiver, defensive back and quarterback because he familiar with those positions skill sets. Cheap Jerseys free shipping
wholesale jerseys from china It was just like old times, and completely different.Sharp and Oduya played in Chicago on Saturday for the first time since they helped the Blackhawks to their third Stanley Cup title in six seasons in June. Each was http://www.2015cheapjerseysoutlet.com glad it was only a preseason game in October.not going to lie. It was pretty tough to play out there, Sharp said after the Stars 4 0 loss, the red jerseys and all the guys out there, but it something I have to deal with. wholesale jerseys from china
wholesale nfl jerseys I do like my share of throwback jerseys and Yankee hats,” Ferrara says. cheap nfl jerseys We all get to put a little something like that into a little bit of ourselves. We try to ultimately create something that is always going to be a little bit you. In Basket/In Box Exercises This is a simulation exercise and can be applied to any position in the organization. The player is usually told which position they hold in the organization and who they report to or who reports to them along with any other relevant information such as job description. In an in basket exercise a list of random every day activities in a typical company are listed (they vary from hard to easy) these activities are placed in a persons in basket or inbox in the form of memos, telephone messages or emails. wholesale nfl jerseys
Cheap Jerseys from china These are termed regulated. S272: Funds based outside the EU and the designated territories but satisfy the FSA requirements individually. These are termed recognised Offshore OEICs OEICs/ICVCs are the most common form of pooled investment in Europe. Cheap Jerseys from china
cheap nfl jerseys Bush’s successfully throwing out the first pitch during the 2001 World Series. Fans of the New Orleans Saints have a tortured but passionate history with their usually awful hometown team. This was true even in the week after the hurricane hit, as heard on the all Katrina conglomeration of New Orleans radio stations.. cheap nfl jerseys
wholesale nfl jerseys from china I said: Jannie, on condition that I select the under 19 teams and put the players in the positions that I want them to play in. I think the score was 6 0 or 6 6 and I made nine or eleven changes to the team for the return match, including positional changes, and I put Mannetjies where I wanted him at centre. My, how they clicked and Mannetjies spearheaded most of those movements. wholesale nfl jerseys from china
Cheap Jerseys china All of South Korea has caught soccer fever as the national team gears up to enter the next round of finals in the World Cup. The team has legions of fans who call themselves the “Red Devils” as they sport red jerseys to show their support for their favorite players. According to Reuters, the athletes aren’t the only ones training hard for the upcoming games Cheap Jerseys china.
go to this tournament
I always wanted to go to this tournament hosted by Duke University each year in North Carolina. Even before I began business school I’d heard about it, but since coming to Berkeley I haven’t been able to get a Haas team together because we’re a small business school and there just isn’t the interest in rugby (sadly!). Instead, I contacted the Stanford GSB team and arranged to go with them..
Cheap Jerseys china The 120 miles of coast that Maui has offers visitors many options to hop in the water with their snorkel gear. Of all the spots to explore underwater, Molokini is by far https://www.cheapjerseysshopchina.com/ the best. Just off of the Maui coastline Molokini is a quick boat ride away. The case of Brian Aitken, 27, had become a cause c among gun rights advocates. On Jan. 2, 2009, Aitken, an entrepreneur and media consultant with no prior criminal record, muttered to his mother that life wasn’t worth living after a planned visit with son was abruptly canceled at the last minute. Cheap Jerseys china
wholesale jerseys from china Reporter: So, we’re in birmingham, alabama. And just down here is the jail where luther king jr. Wrote the famous letter from a birmingham jail. Uruguay also has one of the most important footballing cultures in the world. By footballing culture, I mean countries where the national team is a part of the national identity. You just have to look at when we came home from South Africa in 2010 to see that everybody children, old people, young people cheap jerseys was celebrating.. wholesale jerseys from china
wholesale nfl jerseys It’s 10 years since choirmaster Gareth Malone first set out on a mission to get Britain singing. Since then he inspired hundreds of people creating 14 very different choirs across the country, from schools to entire towns to military wives. Now to mark the 10th anniversary, he has a dream: to track down and bring together all the choirs he’s formed for a huge reunion party. wholesale nfl jerseys
wholesale jerseys Fact, people love Messi. Not only because of his great quality as a player but also because he is a very kind person. He is calm, has a very nice family, parents, wife, brothers, friends et cetera. Witnesses spoke of chaotic scenes after the crash. One injured passenger said he saw a number of people dead and serious injured. A local said she had to shut her windows to protect her grandchildren from the sound of screaming victims. wholesale jerseys
cheap nfl jerseys Underneath the identifying information you should place the date and time of the trip on the blank taxi cab receipt. This information serves to identify both the day and date of the trip and the exact time of the trip. This information is useful to both you and the customer. cheap nfl jerseys
Cheap Jerseys free shipping My wife is clearly not a Traditionally, the term used to be coupled with in the name of gender equality, shouldn servers sometimes ask me and my wife, you gals doing? an all inclusive pronoun, is quite sufficient for addressing male and female patrons, singular and plural and gender free. And gents is OK, if a bit stuffy. Would be acceptable and, well, folksier. Cheap Jerseys free shipping
wholesale nfl jerseys from china IN THE GYM1. Catch the running bug. You’ll continue to burn fat after your jog: People who run for at least four hours a week melt more calories than non runners, even when they’re not running, a Yale University School of Medicine study reports.2. Just as one Us hallmark brand, MK taxes for approximately 80 % in the Upper National industry, it profits regarding $ 573 number of from the A couple of months finished 12 Up to 29, The year 2012. Evidently this item could certain you seen impressive in addition to coordinate flawlessly using well put together highlights, cleaning up is simply pretty toilsome. Film coming from purifying agent and touches through steam could very well now have the rug wine glass porcelain ceramic tiles in search of not clean by natural means regarding regardless of whether you can easily cleaned these kind of males. wholesale nfl jerseys from china
Cheap Jerseys from china 3. To qualify for the 200 meter showcase at the M of C, the top 16 boys and top 16 girls as ranked on Milesplit are invited to participate. The invitation has to be accepted by 12:00 noon onMonday, February 16, 2015. The circumstances under which Kitty Genovese was murdered on 13 March 1964, has been extensively cited as a suitable example of ‘bystander effect’. She was stabbed by serial rapist Winston Moseley, who fled the crime scene after one of the neighbors shouted at him to leave her alone. However, the assailant returned after ten minutes, stabbed the victim many times over, raped her, and left her for dead Cheap Jerseys from china.
November 1, 2017
How’s Your R-O-I-S-E (Return on Invested Sales Effort)?
Most customers focus on 3 letters when making important purchase decisions. At the end of the day, they will choose whichever product or service they believe provides the greatest return on investment (ROI).
Sales organizations, on the other hand, should focus on 5 letters, those being: R-O-I-S-E (Return on Invested Sales Effort).
Too often people refer to the familiar theme that sales is a “numbers game.” While I agree that tracking activity & results is, and will always be, an integral part of managing sales teams, simply pressing salespeople to make more calls in an effort to fill the pipeline ignores the most important metric in any business—sales efficiency.
Now that the average success rate for sellers leaving voice-mail messages or sending email solicitations has dropped below 1%, rather than just ‘banging the phones’ and hoping for the best, one has to wonder why there’s not a greater focus on the notion of increasing sales effectiveness.
The ‘number’ sellers should really focus on is conversion rate. What if were possible to get a 30%, 40%, or 50%+ response rate when reaching out to new prospects, as opposed to a 1% return on your invested sales effort? Similarly, what if you could accelerate the sales cycle, create a greater sense of urgency, maintain higher margins, and improve your closing ratio?
Relying on sales tricks or gimmicks to boost performance is unsustainable in today’s competitive business environment. But show me someone who is not only focused on sales efficiency, but knows how to execute more effectively, and I will show you a top performer in any company or industry.
How does one increase their R-O-I-S-E? I have published six books on the subject of sales effectiveness, but for our purposes here, allow me to give you three simple thoughts that can be implemented next time you talk with real live prospects or customers:
1.) Create Mini-Invitations
It’s easy to dive straight into ‘sales mode’ and barrage customers with questions. But just because you want to ask a bunch of sales questions doesn’t mean customers will “want to” share information with a salesperson they don’t yet know or trust. That’s why the very first question in my needs development strategy is:
Seller: “Mr. Customer, can I ask you a couple specifics about ______?”
This question is not only easy to ask, it’s easy to answer—typically with a “Yes.” In Question Based Selling, we call this securing a mini-invitation.
Once the customer says, “Yes,” “Sure,” or gives you any other affirmative response, they have essentially invited you to ask questions. Bingo! By securing a mini-invitation to ask questions, you can expect to get more information, in more depth, that’s also more accurate.
2.) Trying to Indict the Customer… Seriously?
Sellers offer solutions to solve problems. And, in order to actually solve a problem, you first need to know what issues the customer is currently experiencing.
Trouble is, the issues or problems customers face are oftentimes self-induced. While the typical sales mindset is to ‘uncover’ the customer’s needs, there are plenty of occasions where decision makers aren’t excited about exposing their vulnerabilities.
For example, here are a few typical sales questions that can actually thwart your needs development efforts:
Salesperson:
“What problems do you have with your current operation?”
“Are you aware of the new compliance regulations?”
“Is it important to stay within a certain budget?”
Typical Responses:
“We’re doing just fine, thank you.”
“What, do you think we’re ignorant and uninformed?”
“Of course budget is important, duh!” (click)
3.) “Besides the Obvious Goal of…”
One of the best ways to sidestep the risk of asking overly rhetorical sales questions is to ask “to what extent” a certain topic is important to the customer or needs to be further explored.
For example, asking if ‘reliability’ is important to a customer sounds silly. Of course reliability is important! I would be more inclined to ask, “To what extent is reliability important?” Asking the customer to quantify their perspective on relevant topics is one of the simplest ways to remove the “Duh!” factor.
Another risk reduction technique is simply to ask, “Besides the obvious goals of ____, ____, and ____, what else are you concerned about?” Fill in the blanks with three topics that are relevant to the target industry, and the pride factor that so often causes people to be guarded in their responses is more likely to generate the opposite reaction—where customers open up and share tons of valuable information.
Bottom line: Just ‘probing’ for needs is intrusive and laced with risk. A strategic approach to needs development gives savvy salespeople an opportunity to increase their R-O-I-S-E by raising potential issues, objectives, goals, wants, needs, and desires that the customer may not have otherwise considered. In fact, helping potential buyers better understand their needs is one of the greatest opportunities sellers have to add value throughout the sales process.
August 1, 2017
How’s Your R-O-I-S-E (Return on Invested Sales Effort)?
Most customers focus on 3 letters when making important purchase decisions. At the end of the day, they choose whichever product or service they perceive will provide the greatest return on investment (ROI).
Sales organizations, on the other hand, should focus on 5 letters, those being: R-O-I-S-E (Return on Invested Sales Effort).
Too often people refer to the familiar theme that “sales is a numbers game.” While I agree that tracking activity & results will always be an integral part of managing sales teams, simply pressing salespeople to make more calls in an effort to fill the pipeline ignores perhaps the most important metric in any business—sales efficiency.
Now that the average success rate for sellers leaving voice-mail messages or sending email solicitations has dropped below 1%, rather than just ‘banging the phones’ and hoping for the best, one has to wonder why there’s not a greater focus on the notion of increasing sales effectiveness.
The ‘number’ sellers should really focus on is conversion rate. What if were possible to get a 30%, 40%, or 50%+ response rate when reaching out to new prospects, as opposed to a 1% return on your invested sales effort? Similarly, what if you could accelerate the sales cycle, create a greater sense of urgency, maintain higher margins, and improve your closing ratio?
Relying on sales tricks or gimmicks to boost performance is unsustainable in today’s competitive business environment. But show me someone who is not only focused on sales efficiency, but knows how to execute more effectively, and I will show you a top performer in any company or industry.
How does one increase their R-O-I-S-E? I have published six books on the subject of sales effectiveness, but for our purposes here, allow me to give you three simple thoughts that can be implemented next time you talk with real live prospects or customers:
1.) Create Mini-Invitations
It’s easy to dive straight into ‘sales mode’ and barrage customers with questions. But just because you want to ask a bunch of sales questions doesn’t mean customers will “want to” share information with a salesperson they don’t yet know or trust. That’s why the very first question in my needs development strategy is:
Seller: “Mr. Customer, can I ask you a couple specifics about ______?”
This question is not only easy to ask, it’s easy to answer—typically with a “Yes.” In Question Based Selling, we call this securing a mini-invitation.
Once the customer says, “Yes,” “Sure,” or gives you any other affirmative response, they have essentially invited you to ask questions. Bingo! By securing a mini-invitation to ask questions, you can expect to get more information, in more depth, that’s also more accurate.
2.) Trying to Indict the Customer… Seriously?
Sellers offer solutions to solve problems. And, in order to actually solve a problem, you first need to know what issues the customer is currently experiencing.
Trouble is, the issues or problems customers face are oftentimes self-induced. While the typical sales mindset is to ‘uncover’ the customer’s needs, there are plenty of occasions where decision makers aren’t excited about exposing their vulnerabilities.
For example, here are a few typical sales questions that can actually thwart your needs development efforts:
Salesperson:
“What problems do you have with your current operation?”
“Are you aware of the new compliance regulations?”
“Is it important to stay within a certain budget?”
Typical Responses:
“We’re doing just fine, thank you.”
“What, do you think we’re ignorant and uninformed?”
“Of course budget is important, duh!” (click)
3.) “Besides the Obvious Goal of…”
One of the best ways to sidestep the risk of asking overly rhetorical sales questions is to ask “to what extent” a certain topic is important to the customer or needs to be further explored.
For example, asking if ‘reliability’ is important to a customer sounds silly. Of course reliability is important! I would be more inclined to ask, “To what extent is reliability important?” Asking the customer to quantify their perspective on relevant topics is one of the simplest ways to remove the “Duh!” factor.
Another risk reduction technique is simply to ask, “Besides the obvious goals of ____, ____, and ____, what else are you concerned about?” Fill in the blanks with three topics that are relevant to the target industry, and the pride factor that so often causes people to be guarded in their responses is more likely to generate the opposite reaction—where customers open up and share tons of valuable information.
Bottom line: Just ‘probing’ for needs is intrusive and laced with risk. A strategic approach to needs development gives savvy salespeople an opportunity to increase their R-O-I-S-E by raising potential issues, objectives, goals, wants, needs, and desires that the customer may not have otherwise considered. In fact, helping potential buyers better understand their needs is one of the greatest opportunities sellers have to add value throughout the sales process.
July 5, 2017
Why Sales 101 No Longer Works…
It’s ironic that the sales training world has stayed pretty much the same over the last 20 – 30 years, while for most companies, the selling environment has changed dramatically. Consequently, it has become more difficult for sellers to penetrate new accounts, while potential buyers are often working even harder to keep salespeople at bay.
There’s no point in blaming the customer. Over the past decade, corporate decision-makers are being asked to achieve more in less time, oftentimes without the benefit of additional resources. Meanwhile, while workloads continue to increase, competitors are getting hungrier, and the overall pace of business has quickened. Even if they wanted to, customers simply cannot afford to spend time with every salesperson that comes calling.
Customers are also less accessible. In the past, salespeople could build relationships with the gatekeeper in their target accounts, knowing that these relationships would eventually get them in to see the decision-maker. Electronic devices have since replaced most gatekeepers and you can’t build a relationship with a voice mail system. Other technological innovations such as e-mail, fax, cellular phones, digital pagers, and the Internet have also given customers the freedom to execute their job functions away from their desks. While this is good in one sense, it also means that potential customers are less likely to pick up the telephone when you call.
Many prospects are reluctant to pick up the telephone anyway. With the rapid economic expansion in recent years, more vendor businesses are offering more solutions than ever before. Consequently, decision-makers are being inundated with a barrage of sales callers—who are all competing for the same thing—a chunk of the prospect’s budget, but even more importantly, a slice of their time and attention.
Some sales organizations try to address this problem by encouraging their salespeople to be more aggressive. “If the going gets tough,” chants the proverbial sales manager, “then we, as salespeople, need to be even tougher.” The problem is, if the telephone rings tonight at my house during dinner, and a salesperson on the other end tries to be “more aggressive” with me, they will irreparably harm any chance they had of making a sale. People don’t want to be pushed.
Many of the marquis sales training courses currently being offered were developed fifteen to twenty years ago, if not earlier. But the business world has changed dramatically in the last twenty years…and in my opinion, many of the “old school” techniques no longer apply.
Most prospects already know the tricks—things like calling after hours to avoid the gatekeeper, or leaving voice-mail messages that say so-and-so told me to call. They also know about the Ben Franklin Close, Alternate Choice, and Feel-Felt-Found. That’s why so many salespeople and sales managers have become frustrated with traditional methods. Teaching salespeople to be just like everyone else puts them at a competitive disadvantage. When a salesperson is perceived “the same” as everyone else, then they are only average, by definition, and their chances of winning are significantly diminished. Prospects and customers usually don’t buy “average” products from an “average” salesperson.
In today’s business environment, teaching salespeople to be just like “everyone else” puts them at a competitive disadvantage.
The fundamentals in selling have remained the same. Salespeople must uncover needs before they can provide solutions, the product or service being offered must be cost justifiable, and the salesperson with the best relationship has the greatest chance of winning the business. People still do buy from people. But the paradigms of the strategic sale have shifted significantly and differentiation is now the key.
Everyone wants to have good relationships with lucrative prospects, in order to uncover needs, present solutions, and secure a commitment. Establishing mutual relationships with new prospects has grown increasingly more difficult, however, and just because a salesperson wants to ask questions, doesn’t mean their prospects and customers will want to respond.
What makes prospects and customers “want to” respond? The answer is: Conversational Layering™. The first time I tried to diagram the sales process, I sketched a cacophony of boxes and arrows into a messy schematic that would make most engineers proud. This model evolved into a much simpler diagram (as shown) that depicts the strategic sales process as a series of prerequisite steps. Before you can secure a commitment, for example, you must first present a solution. Likewise, before you present solutions, you must first uncover needs.
Relationships are an integral part of the Conversational Layering model, but you will notice that the sales process doesn’t begin with a relationship. Salespeople must first earn the right to engage. What’s the key to building effective relationships? The answer is credibility. Now the question becomes: What are you doing different than your competitors to establish credibility in your targeted prospect accounts? Everyone claims to have the “best product,” which once again, makes you average.
Leveraging curiosity to fuel the sales process is another paradigm shift — but it’s one that makes absolute sense. If a prospective customer is not curious, then it becomes very difficult for a salesperson to secure their time or their attention. On the other hand, a curious prospect will want to engage in a conversation about their needs and your solutions to satisfy their curiosity. Now the question is. . .What are you doing to leverage curiosity in the sales process?
The message is clear. If you are going to train your sales organization, then make sure to invest in something that teaches them how to be different, in order to give them back their competitive edge. After all, just because you have a great story, doesn’t necessarily mean prospects and customers will “want to” hear it.
June 27, 2017
When should it feel like…“Crunch Time?”
Too often, sales teams wait until the end of a fiscal period before they shift into high gear, and ‘push the pedal’ all the way to the floor, in an effort to boost results. Since the day of reckoning is surely coming, however, why wait until your back is against the wall to ramp up sales productivity?
It would be optimistic to hope enough deals would simply materialize out of thin air to make your numbers before year-end. It’s more likely that whatever business you close in the coming months will be a direct result of the level of effort you put forth in the coming weeks–to cultivate new prospects, nurture qualified opportunities, and ultimately, bring deals to fruition.
So, why delay? Crunch time is…NOW!
With half the calendar year already behind us, and the finish line now in sight, here are three specific execution strategies worth considering:
1.) Re-Think Your Account Penetration Strategy
How many voice-mails have you deleted, or email solicitations have you trashed, in the last few weeks without listening to the entire message, or reading past the very first sentence? A bunch? That’s because traditional ‘cold calling’ tactics are no longer cutting it, and continuing to sound just like everyone else who is knocking on your same door list of target accounts has become somewhat of a futile exercise.
Fortunately for those who are willing to step outside the box of traditional sales thinking, there is an antidote for customer standoffishness—curiosity.
If a key decision maker in an important target account is not the least bit curious about who you are or what you can do for them, it’s highly unlikely that you will get an audience with them. On the other hand, as prospective buyers become more curious about how you can add value, that’s the ticket to securing a precious slice of their time and their attention.
So, what are you doing to ‘leverage curiosity’ in the sales process? If the answer to that question isn’t clear, whether you prefer books, audio, or on-site training, I’ve spent the last 20+ years teaching sales teams how to gain an ‘unfair’ advantage in terms of penetrating more new opportunities.
2.) True Differentiation is Highly Intangible
Simply claiming to offer the best products is no longer enough if you sell into highly competitive markets. You must also find ways to differentiate yourself from everyone else who is out there claiming that, “We’re better.”
Trouble is, important sales attributes like credibility, integrity, and thought leadership are not just something that can be indiscriminately claimed. They must be earned, which is why it’s crucial for salespeople to understand how to convey more intangible value than the competition, throughout the sales process.
3.) Secure Smaller Commitments on the Way to the Larger Sale
Strategic deals generally require a series of smaller sub-steps on the way to consummating a mutually beneficial business transaction. As a result, your ability to secure those initial and secondary commitments are often just as important as wrapping up the final deal.
What’s the best way to secure these smaller commitments? One option is to try and push customers to move forward. Another is to beg. The best option to move your opportunities forward is to use of superior closing technique.
What does an effective closing question sound like? Here’s just one of many examples:
Salesperson: “Mr. Customer, would it make sense to get the appropriate people together in front of a flipchart (or WebEx), so we can map out your options, how they would impact your business, and the associated costs?”
If you treat the mid-summer months as “crunch time,” and focus on increasing your sales effectiveness in each of these areas, the seeds you sow in the near-term should put you in a strong position to far exceed your numbers by year-end.
When should sellers feel like it’s…“Crunch Time?”
Too often sellers wait until like the end of a quarter or fiscal year before they shift into high gear in an effort to try and increase results. But, since these days of reckoning are surely coming, why wait until your back is against the wall to ramp up sales productivity?
It would be overly optimistic to hope that qualified deals will suddenly materialize out of thin air before year-end. It’s more likely that whatever business you hope to close in the coming months will be a direct result of the level of effort you put forth in the coming weeks—to cultivate new prospects, nurture qualified deals, and ultimately, bring opportunities to fruition.
So, why delay? Crunch time is…NOW!
With half the calendar year already behind us, and the finish line now in sight, here are three specific execution strategies worth considering:
1.) Re-Think Your Account Penetration Strategy
How many voice-mails have you deleted, or email solicitations have you trashed, in the last few weeks without listening to the entire message, or reading past the very first sentence? A bunch? That’s because traditional ‘cold calling’ tactics are no longer cutting it, and continuing to sound just like everyone else who is knocking on your same door list of target accounts has become somewhat of a futile exercise.
Fortunately for those who are willing to step outside the box of traditional sales thinking, there is an antidote for customer standoffishness—curiosity.
If a key decision maker in an important target account is not the least bit curious about who you are or what you can do for them, it’s highly unlikely that you will get an audience with them. On the other hand, as prospective buyers become more curious about how you can add value, that’s the ticket to securing a precious slice of their time and their attention.
So, what are you doing to ‘leverage curiosity’ in the sales process? If the answer to that question isn’t clear, whether you prefer books, audio, or on-site training, I’ve spent the last 20+ years teaching sales teams how to gain an ‘unfair’ advantage in terms of penetrating more new opportunities.
2.) True Differentiation is Highly Intangible
Simply claiming to offer the best products is no longer enough if you sell into highly competitive markets. You must also find ways to differentiate yourself from everyone else who is out there claiming that, “We’re better.”
Trouble is, important sales attributes like credibility, integrity, and thought leadership are not just something that can be indiscriminately claimed. They must be earned, which is why it’s crucial for salespeople to understand how to convey more intangible value than the competition, throughout the sales process.
3.) Secure Smaller Commitments on the Way to the Larger Sale
Strategic deals generally require a series of smaller sub-steps on the way to consummating a mutually beneficial business transaction. As a result, your ability to secure those initial and secondary commitments are often just as important as wrapping up the final deal.
What’s the best way to secure these smaller commitments? One option is to try and push customers to move forward. Another is to beg. The best option to move your opportunities forward is to use of superior closing technique.
What does an effective closing question sound like? Here’s just one of many examples:
Salesperson: “Mr. Customer, would it make sense to get the appropriate people together in front of a flipchart (or WebEx), so we can map out your options, how they would impact your business, and the associated costs?”
If you treat the mid-summer months as “crunch time,” and focus on increasing your sales effectiveness in each of these areas, the seeds you sow in the near-term should put you in a strong position to far exceed your numbers by year-end.
June 5, 2017
Why Sales 101 No Longer Works…
It’s ironic that the sales training world has stayed pretty much the same over the last 20 – 30 years, while for most companies, the selling environment has changed dramatically. Consequently, it has become more difficult for sellers to penetrate new accounts, while potential buyers are often working even harder to keep salespeople at bay.
There’s no point in blaming the customer. Over the past decade, corporate decision-makers are being asked to achieve more in less time, oftentimes without the benefit of additional resources. Meanwhile, while workloads continue to increase, competitors are getting hungrier, and the overall pace of business has quickened. Even if they wanted to, customers simply cannot afford to spend time with every salesperson that comes calling.
Customers are also less accessible. In the past, salespeople could build relationships with the gatekeeper in their target accounts, knowing that these relationships would eventually get them in to see the decision-maker. Electronic devices have since replaced most gatekeepers and you can’t build a relationship with a voice mail system. Other technological innovations such as e-mail, fax, cellular phones, digital pagers, and the Internet have also given customers the freedom to execute their job functions away from their desks. While this is good in one sense, it also means that potential customers are less likely to pick up the telephone when you call.
Many prospects are reluctant to pick up the telephone anyway. With the rapid economic expansion in recent years, more vendor businesses are offering more solutions than ever before. Consequently, decision-makers are being inundated with a barrage of sales callers—who are all competing for the same thing—a chunk of the prospect’s budget, but even more importantly, a slice of their time and attention.
Some sales organizations try to address this problem by encouraging their salespeople to be more aggressive. “If the going gets tough,” chants the proverbial sales manager, “then we, as salespeople, need to be even tougher.” The problem is, if the telephone rings tonight at my house during dinner, and a salesperson on the other end tries to be “more aggressive” with me, they will irreparably harm any chance they had of making a sale. People don’t want to be pushed.
Many of the marquis sales training courses currently being offered were developed fifteen to twenty years ago, if not earlier. But the business world has changed dramatically in the last twenty years…and in my opinion, many of the “old school” techniques no longer apply.
Most prospects already know the tricks—things like calling after hours to avoid the gatekeeper, or leaving voice-mail messages that say so-and-so told me to call. They also know about the Ben Franklin Close, Alternate Choice, and Feel-Felt-Found. That’s why so many salespeople and sales managers have become frustrated with traditional methods. Teaching salespeople to be just like everyone else puts them at a competitive disadvantage. When a salesperson is perceived “the same” as everyone else, then they are only average, by definition, and their chances of winning are significantly diminished. Prospects and customers usually don’t buy “average” products from an “average” salesperson.
In today’s business environment, teaching salespeople to be just like “everyone else” puts them at a competitive disadvantage.
The fundamentals in selling have remained the same. Salespeople must uncover needs before they can provide solutions, the product or service being offered must be cost justifiable, and the salesperson with the best relationship has the greatest chance of winning the business. People still do buy from people. But the paradigms of the strategic sale have shifted significantly and differentiation is now the key.
Everyone wants to have good relationships with lucrative prospects, in order to uncover needs, present solutions, and secure a commitment. Establishing mutual relationships with new prospects has grown increasingly more difficult, however, and just because a salesperson wants to ask questions, doesn’t mean their prospects and customers will want to respond.
What makes prospects and customers “want to” respond? The answer is: Conversational Layering™. The first time I tried to diagram the sales process, I sketched a cacophony of boxes and arrows into a messy schematic that would make most engineers proud. This model evolved into a much simpler diagram (as shown) that depicts the strategic sales process as a series of prerequisite steps. Before you can secure a commitment, for example, you must first present a solution. Likewise, before you present solutions, you must first uncover needs.
Relationships are an integral part of the Conversational Layering model, but you will notice that the sales process doesn’t begin with a relationship. Salespeople must first earn the right to engage. What’s the key to building effective relationships? The answer is credibility. Now the question becomes: What are you doing different than your competitors to establish credibility in your targeted prospect accounts? Everyone claims to have the “best product,” which once again, makes you average.
Leveraging curiosity to fuel the sales process is another paradigm shift — but it’s one that makes absolute sense. If a prospective customer is not curious, then it becomes very difficult for a salesperson to secure their time or their attention. On the other hand, a curious prospect will want to engage in a conversation about their needs and your solutions to satisfy their curiosity. Now the question is. . .What are you doing to leverage curiosity in the sales process?
The message is clear. If you are going to train your sales organization, then make sure to invest in something that teaches them how to be different, in order to give them back their competitive edge. After all, just because you have a great story, doesn’t necessarily mean prospects and customers will “want to” hear it.
May 31, 2017
Is it Better for Salespeople to be Problem Solvers, or Solution Providers?
Especially during the ‘kickoff season’ of any new sales year, sales teams and marketing departments alike usually invest a tremendous amount of thought and energy into how best to position their solutions within their respective markets. That makes sense—after all, the more solutions you provide, the more money you and your company stand to make, right?
Or, perhaps it should be the other way around…
Providing valuable solutions is certainly a noble goal for individual salespeople, and for the entire sales organization. But, if you step back and think about it, customers in any value-oriented sale are much more focused on solving “their” problems than acquiring “your” solutions. How do we know this to be true?
Last time you bought a car (or a computer, cell phone, home, or faced any other value-based purchase decision), as you walked through the front doors of the automobile dealership, what was more important to you—addressing your goals, wants, needs, and desires, or getting ‘pitched’ by an eager sales representative?
Not surprisingly, the answer to this question is the same for every business, in every industry, and in every culture. Customers are much more interested in addressing their needs, than being “sold” on your solutions.
This is where a seemingly small difference in semantics translates into a significant increase in sales effectiveness and productivity. As it turns out, solving a customer’s problem…and providing a solution…is the same—in the sense that you can’t solve a problem without providing a solution, nor can you provide a solution without solving a problem.
Still, there is a huge difference between being a ‘problem solver’ and a ‘solution provider.’ The difference is perception. Customers these days are much more focused on addressing their goals, objectives, wants, needs, and desires, than they are willing to be on the receiving end of a sales pitch. Thus, adopting a ‘problem solver’ mindset can give sellers a significant advantage over the traditional ‘solution provider’ mentality in today’s increasingly competitive marketplace.
While everyone knows that success in selling is about building mutually beneficial business relationships, sellers who focus on solving the customer’s problems can expect to sell substantially more solutions. That’s because the mutual bonds being formed with potential buyers are the result of focusing on the problems they are trying to solve, rather than fixating on whatever solutions you might be wanting to sell.
May 25, 2017
There’s NEVER a “Good Time” for Sales Training
More than any other time since the industrial revolution, companies and salespeople in all industries are working at a feverish pace to find ways to retain customers, boost top line revenue, and maintain profit margins.
To survive and ultimately flourish in today’s rapidly changing business environment, it may be time to reexamine the way sellers deal with prospective customers–and frankly, some of the adjustments that need to be made are long overdue.
Thomas A. Freese's Blog
- Thomas A. Freese's profile
- 2 followers
