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How to Manage Interruptions

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training 20 Nov 2024 0 comments Tags: sales productivity, time management

Do you really know the cost?

By Michael Caron, President, Northbound Sales Training

Interruptions are one of the biggest time suckers for most. Did you know that if you are focussing in the middle of a task that it takes 6 minutes to get back to the same level of focus as before the interruption? If you get interrupted just 5 times in an hour, you’re only working at 50% productivity!

You might think with the work-from-home trend, “I’m at home so I don’t have to worry about interruptions like I did when I was in the office all the time.” WRONG! While interruptions are less likely to be from someone stopping by your desk on the way to the water cooler, interruptions abound today mostly by our own doing — our devices!

Our cell phones, our computers and even our watches are set up to over-notify us of everything from a new social post to “time to stand”. (I know I’ve got about another 10 minutes before my Apple Watch annoys me to do that.) If another human notified us in person as often as our devices, we’d likely want to duct tape them to the wall within a couple of hours! Without constant interruptions from your devices, think of how much more you could get done, how much greater your focus would be and how much lower your blood pressure would be.

Here’s how to help stop your interruptions from sucking your precious time and focus.

Make it clear when you can be interrupted. In an office environment, put a sign on your door asking people to only interrupt you if it’s urgent or if you’re in an open work environment use an orange pylon to indicate it.
If you work in an office setting or in your home with other people around, turn your desk to the wall. People will be less likely to start chatting if they don’t make eye contact.
When someone physically interrupts you, standup! People tend to get to the point quicker if they’re standing. Once they sit down, you know you’re in for a long chat!
Get in the habit of asking people how urgent something is. Ask to get back to them if it’s important but not super urgent (but make sure you do or you’ll lose credibility).
Ask people who you deal with often, to make a list of items to cover and set a quick meeting (or regular meeting) to cover off most things at one time.
When you are on “focus time” turn off all gadgets or leave them in your bag. It sounds productive to multi-task but it is far less productive actually. Focus on one thing at one time!

You and your team can learn dozens of other proven time management strategies with Northbound’s Goal Aligned™ Time Management workshop. Graduates report an average productivity increase of 12%. For more information or to arrange a complimentary mini workshop for your team, contact us.

6 Language Mistakes to Avoid in a Sales Call

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training 06 Nov 2024 0 comments Tags: consultative selling, increased sales, sales management, sales training, selling skills

Your Words Are Important – Choose Them Carefully!

1. Eliminate the grunts: Um and Ah and Uh!
Be comfortable with the silence and resume speaking when the thought is there. People who use “um” to illustrate their thought process may appear less sure and less knowledgeable.

2. Sorta, kinda, shoulda – what?
These words make you sound unsure of your ideas. Casual language sounds unprofessional and sends the wrong message.

3. Avoid absolutes.
When you use absolutes, you are asking to be proved wrong. Substitute often for always and rarely for never. Use absolutes sparingly.

4. Avoid slang or rough phrases.
Avoid using slang like “ain’t” or rough phrases like “that sucks.” They make you sound very unprofessional. Find another way to say what you mean.

5. Stop the hard sell.
Ending each though with “You know?” or “You know what I mean?” Come across as the hard sell and are annoying. People who abuse these phrases are seeking support for poorly explained ideas.

6. Avoid but and however!
These words negate whatever was said before them and send a message to the prospect that you didn’t mean what was said before “but” or “however”. Here’s an example – “I understand why you might feel that way, however, there is another way to view this.” A simple pause will serve you much better than “however” ever will.

About Len D’Innocenzo – Len is Co-founder of Corporate Sales Coaches, a US based provider of cutting edge performance development programs for over 30 years. Northbound Sales has an exclusive Canadian partnership with Corporate Sales Coaches. If you or your team would like to learn how to ace the language of a powerful sales call or arrange a complimentary workshop, contact Michael at 416.456.1440 or [email protected]

Why you should always leave a voicemail when prospecting.

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople 02 Oct 2024 0 comments Tags: cold calling, growing selling skills, increased sales, prospecting, sales productivity, sales training, selling skills

If you don’t leave a voicemail when cold calling, you need to start. Here’s why!

Do You Know Your Time Quadrants?

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Salespeople, Uncategorized 03 Apr 2024 0 comments Tags: growing selling skills, sales management, sales training, sell more in less time, selling skills, time management

Knowing where your time is being used will allow you to spend more time on the sales activities that make you money. 

I don’t read many books but at least I try to implement good ideas from the ones I do get around to reading. One of the oldest books on my shelf that is still in my top 10 is “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. The chapter on time management speaks of all activities in you life fitting into one of four quadrants. The concept is that there are two variables that can be attached to any activity you engage in.

1) Level of urgency

2) Level of importance.

Plotting one of these against the other produces four quadrants as in the diagram below. Armed with this insight, you’ll be able to make better choices deciding what you’re going to spend your time on and be more effective.

Importance vs. Urgency

Let’s first be sure we understand the difference between urgency and importance as people often confuse them with each other. “Importance” represents the amount of value that this activity brings to you. A good example would be preparing a proposal for a big prospect. On the other hand, “urgency” refers to how quickly it needs to be done. Responding to a complaint from your biggest customer is a good example of an urgent activity. Combining both urgency and importance allow us to place them in quadrants 1 through 4. You’ll see some examples of common activities also noted in the diagram.

You Need to Spend More Time in Quadrant 2

The problem is when we end up spending most of our time reacting to urgent activities, quadrants 1 & 3, the important. The non-urgent activities in quadrant 2 take a back seat — sometimes forever! People who live in the world of urgency often love the thrill of the accompanying adrenaline and cortisol rush but fail to grow. They often find themselves languishing in key areas of their career and life. We’ve all heard the stories of hard driving executives whose health or marriage is failing.

Majoring in the minors

Closer to home, I’ve see countless salespeople who want greater sales success but can’t manage to find the time to attend training sessions or do 1 more hour of prospecting each week. They spend their time on low value, urgent things or even worse, low importance, low urgency activities like social apps or watching Netflix. They “major in the minors.” I know catching up on social and TV can be very entertaining and addictive. If it’s at the expense of building your career, getting healthy or spending time with your kids, however, I’d argue that it’s not the best use of your time.

Why does this happen? Because quadrant 2 activities take planning and discipline to happen. They don’t just appear out of nowhere crying for your attention whereas urgent activities, by definition, do. If you don’t workout today, what’s the big deal? It won’t kill you — at least not today. If you don’t make those 3 extra calls, it’s not going to kill your career — at least not today.

Your Homework Assignment

Set the alarm on your phone or watch to alert you every half hour. When it goes off, write down what you did in the last 30 minutes. Do this for 3 days and then mark beside each item which quadrant it falls into. Add them up in total time. I promise you that you will be shocked when you see how much time you are spending in quadrants 3 & 4. I know you will want to spend more time on quadrant 2 activities. The good news is that after this exercise, it will start to happen as you gain increased awareness and focus of where your time is going.

Effective people are experts in managing their time and have developed a ruthless approach to “time suckers.” Apply this knowledge and you too can be one of these people.

Happy selling.

The Power of Scale Questions

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training, Uncategorized 01 Feb 2024 0 comments Tags: consultative selling, growing selling skills, increased sales, sales productivity, sales training, selling skills

The use of scale questions will help uncover more sales opportunities.

We all know that good questions are the most powerful tool in sales. But some are markedly better than others. One of the most powerful types is the scale question. What’s a scale question? (Good question!) A scale question is one that asks your buyer to answer on a scale, usually from 1 to 10.

To understand why they are so helpful in sales, we need to take a step back. Solutions, by definition, can only exist if there is a problem. Although many companies claim they sell “X solutions” it’s often not possible because their salespeople haven’t uncovered legitimate problems from the potential buyer that their solution can solve. It’s the dreaded trap of “a solution in search of a problem.”

Needs begin with problems and problems only exist when their is a gap between where someone is currently and where they’d like to be. This is commonly called the “tension for change.” Some might have an issue referring to this “tension for change” or gap as a problem. They might prefer to call it an opportunity instead. It really doesn’t matter what you choose to call it, however. What’s important is that we realize that without a gap, there is no possibility for a sale. The potential buyer sees no reason to change from the status quo. On the other hand, the bigger the gap, the more motivated a buyer will be to find a solution.

During the discovery phase of a sale, a good strategy is to establish what the key result areas are for the customer and then uncover the level of satisfaction in these areas. Here’s an example of a simple way to do this.

You: “John, could you share with me the 3 or 4 most important criteria to you in choosing a (your industry) partner?

Prospect: “Price is most important.”

You: “OK. And besides price, what would be next important?”

Prospect: “Great service.”

You: “OK. Could you be more specific as to what great service looks like to you?”

Prospect: “I’d like to see my rep every couple of months. I’d also like to have my phone calls returned quickly and my emails not as quick but still pretty quick.”

You: “So why is great service so important to you?”

Prospect: “If I have an issue and it doesn’t get fixed PDQ, it can cost us a lot. Plus it’s very frustrating not being able to get a hold of somebody with the vendor we use now.”

You: “So, if you were to rate the service you’re getting now from your current vendor, say on scale of one to ten, what do you think you’d say?”

Prospect: “Oh I don’t know. Maybe six.”

You: “OK. So is it fair to say that there’s room for improvement here?”

Prospect: “For sure.”

Repeat the above for at least 2 other areas. Through this process, you’ll have identified several problems — areas that are important to the customer and that he’d now like to do better in. You’ll see that in most cases, the customer concludes that they are not as satisfied as they could be in key areas and how the “gap” has negative implications. If you simply asked them to tell you what problems they have with their current vendor, not only will you get less valuable information, but they might also say, “I’ve got none.” At this point, you have nowhere to go except out the door!

Your homework for this week:

1) Come up with a scale question that will help uncover an area that you have a competitive advantage in.

2) Use it on your sales calls this week.

You should have your own list of questions that you constantly refer to in sales calls. If you don’t have any pre-written ones, these will give you a great start!

Northbound’s workshop “Questions Are the Answer” teaches you and your team the consultative approach to selling then helps you create dozens of powerful questions that you can immediately use to grow your sales. For more information or for pricing, contact Michael, [email protected].

The 20% Solution to Better Sales

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training 13 Dec 2023 0 comments Tags: closing ratio, funnel management, increased sales, prospecting, sales training, selling skill improvements

The concept of compounding works for investing – in both your finances and your sales career.

Most everyone understands the power of compounding. In a nutshell, small increases in anything multiplied by more small increases over a long period of time produces a hockey stick curve of massive increases. Compounding can produce powerful increases in your sales results too. That is, small improvements in your selling skills from sales training and equally small increases in your activity levels can produce massive increases in overall sales.

Let’s take a look below at the different stages of a sale for a typical salesperson who we will call Kevin Kloser.

Like many salespeople, Kevin makes outbound prospecting calls and attempts to connect with decision makers. In this case he makes 100 calls (and/or emails) monthly and, on average, ends up connecting to 20 prospects equaling a 20% contact ratio.

Out of the 20 conversations, he generates enough interest for 4 of the conversations to lead to meetings – a 20% booking ratio.

Finally, with a closing rate of 25%, 1 out of 4 meetings results in a sale. This example is a 4 step funnel, meaning there are 4 distinct steps between first contact attempt and conclusion of the first sale. You may have more or fewer stages in your selling process but the concept remains the same regardless.

Now, let’s see what happens when Kevin does some good sales training (and more importantly implements it). Kevin learns how to leave better voicemails and uses other powerful strategies to increase his connection rate from 20% to 24% immediately.

This results in connections to almost 9 more people. He learns how to engage the customer on the phone in such a way that they want to learn more about his product or service. This bumps up his number of meetings booked by 20% which now equals almost 7 when combined with his higher contact ratio.

When in “discovery” meetings, he gets better at uncovering the customer’s true issues, challenges and problems and is able to connect his solutions to these in a compelling way. This causes his closing ratio to increase from 25% to 30%. Armed with fresh and proven ideas, increases of 20% in these skill areas are very realistic. In my experience, it’s not uncommon for salespeople who apply themselves to become 100% better in these areas!

In addition to growing his skills, Kevin also learns how to manage his time better so he can make 20% more contact attempts through phone calls, emails or social selling platforms. The “Kloser + 20%” column below illustrates what happens to Kevin’s sales results. Incredibly, he has more than doubled his sales!

Can you get 20% better?

I’m confident that you can if you’re committed. After mentally making the commitment, the next step to doubling your sales is to get yourself or your sales team some great training. Click here for a complete list of workshop topics that Northbound can deliver to your team to help you with your own “20% Solution.”

Happy Selling!

4 Reasons Why We Don’t Set New Year’s Resolutions

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Executives, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training, Uncategorized 07 Dec 2023 0 comments Tags: goal achievement, goal management, goal setting, growing selling skills, increased sales, new year's resolutions

There are many reasons (excuses!) most people don’t get around to it. Here are the 4 biggest.

By Michael Caron, President Northbound Sales

Of course, at this time of year, many of us are thinking about what we’d like to accomplish in 2024. Like a lot of people, we might call them New Years resolutions. Just over 40% of North Americans set at least one New Year’s resolution. Sadly, most people fail to reach them by the end of the year but don’t let this stop you as studies have clearly shown that you always get better results with a goal than without.

Some of you already know that setting goals works. If you’re a reader of sales-enhancing literature, you’ve surely read lots on the power of goal setting. If you consistently set written, realistic goals with all the other necessary components for goal success, then read no further. If, however, you are one of the 60% of the population who is convinced, continue reading to help overcome your resistance.

A powerful question is, “If setting goals is so great, why do less than half of us do it?” I don’t know what the statistics say for the number of us who exercise, but I suspect they are similar. Both are activities that undoubtedly produce immense benefits yet seem to elude the average person. There are 4 main reasons why we don’t set goals.

#1 – Fear of Failure

The dreaded F.O.F. Many of us are stopped by the thought that, “If I set a goal and miss it, I will feel like a failure.” What is not understood is that having a goal always gets better performance than not — even if the goal is missed. What’s key is the need for goals to strike a balance between being too hard and too easy. If you’re hitting your goals all the time, it means that it’s time to raise the bar. You need to be challenged more to sustain growth and generate that feeling of accomplishment that salespeople thrive on. If, on the other hand, you are consistently missing your goals and all the other components of good goal setting are present, it’s important to reduce your goals to something more realistic. If your goals are simply too out of range, you will give up and they will no longer provide the power to motivate.

Also, what people who fear failure might not realize is that failure is necessary for growth. Knowing what not to do next time can be very valuable. Winston Churchill said, “I would rather fail my way to success rather than be a successful failure”. Failing can be the greatest learning experience.

#2 – Procrastination

To misquote Alexander the Great, “Why do something today that you can put off until tomorrow?” The art of procrastination is worthy of an article of it’s own (put title and link here). Setting goals, while incredibly powerful, isn’t something that has the urgency of other countless day-to-day tasks crying out for attention. Disappointingly, like other important but low urgency life enriching activities like exercise, learning and family, we put goal setting in the “when I have time” category.

#3 – “I’ve done OK without them”

If you’re satisfied with a just “O.K.” life, then this is a perfectly good excuse.

#4 – “I keep them in my head”

When teaching our “Bulls Eye! – Setting and Reaching Your Goals” workshop, I often hear this one. My immediate response is a query on the individual’s goals in key areas. The typical responses are some vague generalities with no time frame, no plan and most importantly no answer as to “why?” For the immense power of goal setting to be released, they must be taken out of your head and written down. The mere act of putting something in writing solidifies your brain’s ability to focus.

Your homework: Get yourself in a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted. Write down the biggest sales failure in your career to date. What were the negative outcomes? What were the positive outcomes? (yes, you will find some if you look hard enough) Lastly, what did you learn?

An M.I.T. study found that the 3% of a graduating class who had set clear, written career goals upon finishing school, had cumulative net worth 20 years later than the entire other 97% combined!.

With a little bit of effort and discipline to avoid the classic goal setting obstacles noted above, you too can turn your dreams into reality.

Click here for more information on the “Bulls Eye – Setting and Reaching Your Goals” workshop or contact Michael Caron at [email protected] or 416.456.1440.

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