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Want to stop procrastinating? . . . Read this now!
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 27 May 2009 0 comments
By Michael Caron, President, Northbound Learning   

Congratulations for reading this and not putting it off! Procrastination has been appropriately called the “silent killer of careers,” yet few people have ever had formal training on how to overcome this immensely costly habit. While managing this problem is a constant challenge to me, I have learned some strategies over the years that have worked very well.

Urgency versus importance. The first step in overcoming procrastination is to understand that by definition, urgent activities are usually done before non-urgent. On the surface, this seems to make sense until you take into account the additional factor of importance. In Northbound’s Goal Aligned Time™ program, however, we train people to place every activity in their personal and business life on a quadrant with these two variables before they decide what to put on their plan. Important tasks are often not urgent and so get pushed off the agenda. Unfortunately these are also frequently “growth” activities such as prospecting and skills development, on the career side, and exercise and building stronger relationships on the personal side. Have the discipline to schedule these activities so they get done and start saying “no” to low value, urgent activities that are screaming for your attention.

The 15-minute strategy. Psychologist David Burns recommends simply making a promise with yourself that you will give some task you’ve been putting off just 15 minutes of effort. His point is that we often become overwhelmed by the sheer size of a task and talk ourselves out of it. We might tell ourselves “it’s going to take so-o-o-o long” or “it’s too big to do now, I’ll leave it until I can really focus on it.” Instead, talk back and say “okay, I’ll give it just 15 minutes and then I can stop.” How hard can 15 minutes of anything be? Once you get started, you will have broken that psychological barrier. Most often, you’ll find that it’s not nearly as hard as you thought it was going to be, and you’ll either keep going or not fear it so much next time.

Think of the end result. Instead of thinking of how difficult the process may be to accomplish something, think rather of the end result and all the great things that it will mean to you. Turn thoughts of “I hate cold calling, it’s not much fun” into “if I make two hours of calls, I’ll probably book one meeting, I usually close one out of two meetings, so I’m 50% towards a sale if I make some calls!” Once your brain clearly connects the doing of a task with the major benefits of doing so, you will be unstoppable!

Five reasons why you can’t afford to procrastinate on CRM!
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 10 Apr 2009 0 comments
By James Carter, President, Path Marketing, Inc.   

1. Leads cost money, and your team is probably dropping more than you think! According to a major study of top US firms conducted by CSO Insights, over 50% of leads are not properly followed up, and only 20% of all leads are actually followed up in the recommended fashion!

2. Do more with your existing database! The existing database is the single most neglected asset in most small to medium enterprises! It costs 500% more to get a net new customer than it does to nurture and up-sell or cross-sell an existing one. But for some reason everyone is addicted to the “what’s new” dogma! What’s new is right in front of you, assuming you have a CRM system from which you can effectively mine and execute marketing campaigns.

A second part to this is re-engaging leads. Without a coordinated marketing database, leads that are not qualified are generally discarded. Studies have shown that over 50% of disqualified leads may just not be willing to purchase today, but could result in a sale eventually if you make the effort to keep your brand in front of them. In this way, a CRM database can be a two-way bridge between sales and marketing efforts, ensuring that leads that are not immediately sales-ready are still being nurtured with e-mail newsletters and relevant information.

3. Accurate reporting and better coaching Okay, that’s more than one reason, but a well implemented CRM system can not only deliver reports in real time and tell you where things are, it can also be set-up to reinforce best practices every time.

Reports can now be dynamic. No more excel sheets: opening up a salesforce.com report means a sales manager can drill down on an opportunity and immediately see:
  • What decision makers were contacted and when?
  • What are the defined next steps?
  • Have client’s needs been captured completely?
  • Is the deal really as far along as they think it is?

A good CRM system can completely change the dynamic of a sales pipeline review from one where the sales manager asks the same questions over and over again:

  • Who’s the signing authority?
  • Did they say that we were the top pick?
  • What were their top needs?
  • What is the business case/ROI and who are the competitors?

Leave micro-management to the system. All these questions are captured in the opportunity record so that weekly meetings can be much more strategic; that is, “how can we win this deal?”


4. Increase per-rep effectiveness and goal-focus with dashboards A properly configured CRM system can not only help reps be more effective at closing business, but can also help them keep the funnel moving with real-time dashboards. Products like salesforce.com can actually set-up a dashboard for each rep.

It is a great exercise to sit down with a rep and set-up the dashboard goals in relation to the plan. They really love the dashboards, and it transfers some ownership of goals to the rep so that they don’t get a nasty surprise at quarter-end when they don’t meet their quota. Instead, every day, they can see if they’re on track.

5. What if every deal was done “the Right Way?” Most people admit that after about every fifth sales meeting, they walk out and say “I did everything right today!” Sales is not a skill so much as a science—a series of steps that will get you the result you are looking for. If you have a well defined idea of what these are, using a CRM system to map them into a sales record can mean dramatic improvements in your closing rates.

A well constructed CRM system can map your company’s sales practices to ensure that all these key steps are being met every time.

  • Budget
  • Needs
  • Authority to sign off
  • Decision makers
  • Influencers
  • Etcetera

If you even think you might need CRM, you’re already leaving thousands of dollars of revenue on the table! At a minimum, every customer we work with who says “yeah, we might benefit from CRM” will see a lift of 10% in top-line sales by doing so.

James Carter is President of Path Marketing Inc., one of Canada’s leading CRM consulting firms for SME to Mid Market. As Salesforce.com and ACT! Certified Consultants, James has helped over 300 companies to increase sales, customer retention, and many other factors attributable to successful CRM implementation. If you think it’s time to get your CRM tuned up, or you’re just starting out, you can find them at Path Marketing.
Batten down the hatches!—Is there a better strategy?
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 29 Oct 2008 0 comments
By Michael Caron   

Stormy Sea

It’s hard to catch the news on the radio, TV or the web without being exposed to the disturbing economy. Another company laying off; investments plummeting; housing slumping. In the sales world, we have our own unique set of problems brought on by the worst recession in over 3 decades—dropping margins, sinking closing rates, customers not calling us back. What can we do? As sales leaders we clearly have two primary paths to choose from: 1) Wait for the economy to recover (and it will!) or 2) Increase our sales efficiency to help compensate for the downturn. Naturally, option 2 is preferable so the next question becomes “How?”

World famous business author, Tom Peters, has this to say about running a business in this time of disarray:

“Instant, mindless cutting of R&D or training or salesforce travel in the face of a downturn is often counterproductive-or, rather, downright stupid. Tough times are in fact golden opportunities to get the drop, and the longterm drop at that, on those who respond to bad news by panicky across-the-board slash and burn tactics and moves that de-motivate and alienate the workforce at exactly the wrong moment.”

The natural tendency of sales leaders is to “hunker down” and ride out the storm with their existing team and maybe even make some cuts. This leads to predictable bleeding and casualties.

A smarter, more profitable strategy is to invest in your team through creativity and skills development. Because the last recession was over a decade ago, many companies have some salespeople who have never sold in anything but “good times” and lack the skills to weather some rough water. In today’s environment, the number one priority is to connect better than ever to your existing customers. Get to understand their challenges and ensure that your sales force is very well trained in a consultative selling approach—that is, all focus should be on providing solutions to help the customer meet their specific challenges.

Sales leaders must think about their organization on the other side of the economic downturn. If you can equip your team with sharper skills so that they prospect better, use their time more carefully and close stronger, not only will it stack the odds in your favour in the short run but also pay heavy dividends once the storm has cleared. Sales leaders with foresight will also look to this period to recruit sales talent who might have been untouchable or unaffordable in high times.

We are all powerless to change the economy. How we react and focusing on what we can change will separate the sales leading organizations from ones that languish.

Prospect every day. Block some time in your calendar daily and devote it exclusively to making introductory calls to uncover new leads. Generally, you ought to be able to make 10-15 calls per hour on the phone and 5-7 per hour in person. If your personal goals require that you make 25 calls daily to hit your revenue objectives, it means you need to set aside two hours every day. A recent study by M.I.T. shows that the best time to make calls to prospects is at the beginning and at the end of the day but I recommend starting by blocking this time for first thing in the morning. That’s when you’re at your sharpest, and are least likely to have other issues or tasks competing for your time.

Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese (Part 2)
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 03 Mar 2008 0 comments
By Michael Caron   

Mr. Big Cheese

Last time, we discussed part one of a strategy for connecting to high level decision makers, or who we affectionately call, Mr. Big Cheese.  In this section, we’ll pick up at the point where Mr. Big Cheese has received your carefully written, benefits-oriented letter and you’re ready to make the phone call on precisely the date and time you promised in the letter.

Making the call

You are probably a little nervous and that’s good as it keeps you on your toes.  When you call, one of two things will happen: you will be put through to Mr. Big Cheese live or you will reach his voicemail.  We will cover what to do in each case.  Before you get put through to Mr. Big Cheese, however, you may be faced with a gatekeeper.  Because of your letter which clearly stated that you would be calling at this precise time, you can honestly and confidently state to the gatekeeper that Mr. Big Cheese is expecting your call.

He answered.  What now?

If you do get through to Mr. Big Cheese, what next?  At this point, say something like, “Mr. Big Cheese?  It’s Michael calling from Northbound Learning.  Is this a bad time?”  If there’s one area that I receive push back on when teaching the Mr. Big Cheese program to salespeople, it’s the use of the question “Is this a bad time”.  People say, “Why would you ask that?  That’s giving them a perfect opportunity to say ‘Yes, it’s a bad time!’”  The fact is that in the life of a busy executive, any sales call that takes them away from their endless to-do list is probably a bad time.  That being said, asking them if it’s a bad time shows consideration for their time and most often, invokes a positive response.  In my own personal experience and the experience of Northbound clients, you will usually be met with something like, “No, it’s OK but try to be quick” or “It depends. What is this about?”.  Frequently, the question will produce a chuckle from the prospect with something like, “It’s always a bad time but go ahead!”  Try it and I know you will be surprised with how well it works.  Follow this up with “Thanks.  I’ll try to be brief,” which also shows respect for Mr. Cheese’s valuable time.

Aim for a two-way conversation

Once you’ve received permission to have some of Mr. Cheese’s time, you’re ready to get to the core of the matter.  Your goal is to get Mr. Big Cheese talking and have a two-way conversation.  Roll into something like, “I’m following up on the letter that I sent you last week.  Did you receive it?”  If they say that they did receive it, you simply ask, “What did you think?”  And then shut up, which is incredibly challenging for most salespeople as we are all programmed to talk endlessly.  I know this might be completely counter to what many of you have been taught in error over the years.  Most less effective sales professionals spend their time telling, telling and telling instead of asking and then selling.  Let the prospect explain fully what their thoughts are and go from there.

Remember, that your goal is to move Mr. Big Cheese to the next reasonable stage in your sales funnel, such as agreeing to a meeting or a demo.  Except in the case of very low transaction size sales, you goal is not to make the sale on this first call.

If Mr. Big Cheese hasn’t received the letter (or has it sitting in his in-box), don’t waste this opportunity to speak with him.  You can say something like, “Oh, that’s strange.  That’s OK though.  It states that we’ve had a lot of success in . . .  “ and give him your carefully rehearsed 15-20 opening statement.  Your opening statement should be natural, relaxed and friendly—similar to the way you would talk to a friend without being too casual.  Use the time to convey strong business reasons why he should want to continue the conversation with you.

In an upcoming post, we’ll cover what to do if you receive voicemail, which, in today’s digital world, will be over 75% of the time. We’ll discuss proven techniques to get Mr. Big Cheese to call you back.

Northbound Learning provides sales training and consulting to companies who want to improve their sales performance. The complete Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese is a one day customized, in-house program that will dramatically increase your prospecting results. Click Click here for a list of other Northbound programs.

Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese (Part 1)
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 15 Jan 2008 0 comments
By Michael Caron   

Mr. Big Cheese

When determining an entry point when selling into an organization, it’s always better to start high and be “pushed down” than to start at a lower level and claw your way up to the ultimate decision maker. But how do you get your message through to, what we at Northbound Learning call, “Mr. Big Cheese”? Note: We call him Mr. Big Cheese but of course it could be Ms. Big Cheese as well!

Do you currently, or in the past, mostly rely on relentless cold calls placed at off times of the day, hoping to catch Mr. Big Cheese off guard on the other end of the phone? This technique often brings poor results. Why? Because it’s very time consuming and if or when you do reach Mr. Big Cheese, he is irritated by being interrupted with an unscheduled sales call that he considers to be a waste of his time. Further, it’s only you and your voice who have a few precious seconds to convince Mr. Big Cheese that he should give you a larger share of his valuable time. That’s quite a challenge.

Mr. Big Cheese hates to be interrupted—use this technique to prevent you from annoying your important decision maker.

We recommend (and use ourselves) a step-by-step process to connect to Mr. Big Cheese that is very different than the traditional cold call. In general, it goes like this:

A letter is mailed to Mr. Big Cheese in a plain white envelope without your company name and logo on it but rather just your name and address. In this day and age where e-mail is the way of communicating, why send a snail mail letter? Two reasons – one is that e-mail is too hard to deliver and far easier to delete and two, snail mail gets noticed because it is rare these days. The writing of this letter is worthy of an entire issue of North of Target so suffice to say at this stage, that it needs to be powerful, benefits oriented and concise. In the Mr. Big Cheese letter, you give him two options on the call to action. If he prefers, he can e-mail or send in the attached fax form to invite a call from you at a specific time and day or he can simply wait for your call at the precise date and time that you’ve noted in the letter. For instance, it might say, “I will call you at 9:15 on Thursday morning to organize some time to talk. If you will not be in at this time or you would prefer another time, could you kindly contact me with a better time?”

Is is considered interruptive to call Mr. Big Cheese at the time in the marketing letter? No way. You’ve told him when you were calling and gave an opportunity for him to change it.

One of our clients has recently used this technique to great results. This company sells enterprise software solutions and has been targeting large US universities. On the very first batch of 8 letters from one salesperson, they received two positive replies back even before the salesperson was scheduled to call them! With one of the universities, the salesperson was told that they have to go through a vendor application process which would take weeks even before they were allowed to call anyone. Instead, a Mr. Big Cheese letter was mailed out to the CIO and he e-mailed the salesperson with the name of the person in his department to contact right away. Try it. It works!

There is a technique for what we call the “Chase Calls” which take place at this stage that we will cover in the next issue.

Northbound Learning provides sales training and consulting to companies who want to improve their sales performance. The complete Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese is a one day customized, in-house program that will dramatically increase your prospecting results. Click here for a list of other Northbound programs.

Leverage your team to help boost your sales
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 13 Jul 2007 0 comments
By Michael Caron   

Don’t forget that you have a wealth of knowledge and support all around you in the form of colleagues and management. Consider enlisting their support in these ways . . .

(1) Make them into a prospect Ask them to pretend that they are a prospect and give you honest feedback on your skills. Of course, before you do this, you need to be willing to listen and take constructive criticism. Send them your typical e-mail, leave them your typical voicemail, do a customer sales meeting with them.

Sure, it’s uncomfortable “acting” in front of your peers but where do you want to make your mistakes? In front of your friends where they can give you valuable feedback or in the field where prospects are far less kind and where it can cost you thousands?

(2) Take turns riding shotgun Ask a coworker to go along on a sales call with you. (If you ask your manager to go with you rather than waiting for them to ask you, just think of how much of a keener you’ll look!)

I’ve never seen someone ride shotgun where they haven’t noticed something the salesperson hadn’t.

Ask Doctor Sales
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 17 May 2007 0 comments

Dear Doctor Sales,
     I have a problem. I’m calling lots of prospects, doing lots of presentations, but can’t seem to keep everything organized. I spend half my day just going over my list to figure out what to do next. Can you help?
     Nancy P, Markham

Nancy: There are two parts to getting organized. The first is getting your organizational skills developed. The other is getting technology on your side. Let’s look at them separately:

Part One: Get a system set up. Categorize all your time and all your prospects. You should break the selling process in your specific organization into segments. For instance, you may have a category of “prospects who have been sent intro e-mail” and “prospects who I’m attempting to follow up with after intro e-mail” etc. In this way, you can clearly see what the required actions are for each category and it also allows you to filter out the “unlikely” time-wasting prospects more easily.

By the way, did you know that the average salesperson wastes 30 minutes per day simply looking for stuff on their own desk? That’s equal to three full work weeks a year! To help prevent this from happening to you, clear your desk and mark down in your agenda which category you are going to work on in a given block of time. This way, you won’t seem overwhelmed.

Part Two: Once you have a system set up, get a CRM product like Salesforce.com, ACT! or even Outlook and put every prospect and all actions taken in the system. Each time you “touch” a prospect by connecting with them by e-mail, phone or other means, ask yourself, “What’s the next step to take with this person?”. Once you’ve answered this, plug it into the date that you want to do it. This will cut down your future thinking time dramatically and give you a greater feeling of being in control. If you would like to learn more about managing your time, check out Northbound’s Goal Aligned Time™ program.

If you have a question for the Doctor, e-mail me at doctorsales@northboundlearning.com.

Questions are the answer
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 07 Apr 2007 0 comments
By Michael Caron   

Puzzle Pieces

In our business, we are often asked, “What is the biggest mistake salespeople make?” Of course, we tend to term them “opportunity areas” rather than “mistakes” but whatever you want to call them, the most common is the area of questioning. The second area that goes hand-in-hand with number one would be the seeming inability of typical sales professionals to quit talking and listen after they’ve asked great questions!

The average salesperson is high in the “D & I” of the DiSC personality assessment, which means that they are “dominant” and “influential.” They like to control their environment and generally, they love to talk (to learn more about the DiSC profile, send us an e-mail for a sample). While these are critical personality traits for a sales professional to possess, they can also be their Achilles heel. In a meeting with the prospect, they think that selling is best done by being the one who talks the most. Their best definition of communication is “taking turns talking!”

The shortest course on selling is “ask questions and shut up”. Good use of open ended, closed and probing questions allows you to accurately determine your prospect’s priorities, challenges and needs. How can you truly provide a solution, which is an overused word in sales these days, without knowing precisely what the problems are and where the opportunities are? You should never go into a sales presentation without a list of well thought out questions. At Northbound, we’re hesitant to even use the term “presentation” as it implies that the salesperson is “presenting” while the prospect carefully listens while it should be just the opposite.

Our partners in e-learning solutions, CRK Interactive, recommend in a Customer Focused Sales Interview, that the prospect should be talking over two-thirds of the time. Of course, there is much more to learn about performing this process properly.

Northbound Learning’s Customer-Centric Selling™ program includes a solid skills building segment in this area. For more information, click here. To experience a free e-learning demonstration in this area from our partners, click here.