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Use Pete the Parrot to Help You in Sales Calls

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople 23 Jun 2014 0 comments Tags: cold calling, consultative selling, growing selling skills, increased sales, prospecting, sales management, sales productivity, sales training, selling skill improvements, selling skills

Is using an imaginary exotic bird to help you close more sales as ridiculous as it sounds? Maybe. Maybe not. Read on to find out.

The number one problem area for sales teams in terms of technical selling skills is doing the “feature push.” A feature push is the nasty and deep rooted habit of simply telling our customer about some of the wonderful “features” of your product, service, company or even of yourself. Some examples that I hear all the time are:

“Our company is the biggest in the industry.”

“We have unique technology called (Insert something here that nobody’s heard of) that’s very unique.”

“We have 12 locations.”

There’s nothing wrong with features. They often represent real competitive advantages. The problem comes when salespeople leave it up to the customer to figure out how these features can help them. The consultative approach to selling, which is generally accepted to be the most effective selling methodology, says that customers only make purchases in order to solve a problem.

Going back to sales training 101, we probably learned about features and benefits. In it’s simplest form the difference is:

Feature = How something works

Benefit = How it can help

For example, an executive at Black and Decker was famously quoted as saying, “At Black and Decker, we don’t make 1/2″ drills. We make 1/2″ holes!”

In the middle of a sales call, it can be hard to remember to follow up a mention of a feature with the accompanying benefit(s) and that’s why I recommend that you use Pete to help. Let me tell you about him. (This story might not be 100% true but it’ll help you remember about Pete!) Pete is a parrot who I bought years ago at a pet shop for only $100, a deal compared to other parrots. When I asked the pet shop owner why Pete was so cheap, he explained that he can’t say anything anyone wants.

Curious, I asked him what he does say. He explained that he used to belong to a salesperson who used to spout off about nothing but features when in front of a customer and that because Pete couldn’t stand it any longer, he finally started squawking, “So What?” after the salesperson’s feature pushes. This forced the salesperson to keep explaining until it was clear to the customer how the feature could help him solve a problem, challenge or issue. “PERFECT. I’LL TAKE HIM!” I said.

While you can’t borrow the real (cough . . . eh um) Pete for your sales calls, you can borrow the imaginary Pete anytime you’d like. In fact, I would recommend that he quietly sits on your shoulder on your next sales call. It’s like having a sales trainer with you without the cost. Any time a feature comes out of your mouth without a related benefit, Pete will squawk out “So What?” reminding you to keep going into the specific benefits to the customer.

One piece of advice. Don’t talk back to Pete in the middle of a sales call. It’ll kill your closing ratio!

If you’d like to learn how to use Pete and other techniques in improving your sales team’s performance, I invite your call or email. 416.456.1440 or [email protected]

Have fun with Pete!

Michael

How to Leave Voicemail Messages That Resonate with Prospects

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Training, Salespeople 11 Jun 2014 0 comments Tags: cold calling, growing selling skills, increased sales, prospecting, sales training, selling skills

Over 90% of prospecting phone calls end in voicemail. Here’s how to use them to your advantage.

By Sian Henderson
Program Delivery Director, Northbound Learning

As frustrating as voicemail is when making chase calls to prospects, it’s the norm and unfortunately, there is an inverse relationship between the size of a company and the ability to connect in person. That is, the bigger and more attractive the prospect company, the lower the chance of your prospect picking up the phone. Like everything else in the prospecting process, you should measure your results in this area. The number of contact attempts divided by the number of connections with your prospect is called “contact ratio.” Sales reps that I’ve worked with report contact ratios on the high end of 30% and a mere 2% on the low. With voicemail confronting you so often, how can you increase your chances of being called back? Here are 6 common mistakes to stay away from:

1) You don’t actually leave a message

I had to get this out of the way because I still run into some salespeople who have been trained (poorly albeit) to “never leave a message”. This makes no sense. Why would you give up the opportunity to get your valuable message into your customer’s ear? I actually prefer to get voicemail on the first attempt. Why? Because it paves the way for my next call. It gives the prospect the purpose of my call and what’s potentially in it for him to have a conversation with me rather than just catching him off guard. Think about it. When you are interrupted from doing something by an incoming sales call, what’s the quickest and easiest way to get back to what you were doing? That’s right—by saying no. Have you ever quickly said “No thanks” to a telemarketer or a door canvaser and then thought later, “Hmm. I might have been interested in looking into that actually.” Even if it may be something you might be interested in buying, the natural knee jerk reaction is to say no. By having your prospect listen to a well crafted voicemail prior to speaking with you, it can prevent the knee jerk reaction.

2) You don’t have a Compelling Business Reason (CBR)

There must be a reason and perceived benefit for the listener to take time out of their busy day to have a conversation with you. Too many salespeople position the voicemail around how great they or their company is instead of what might be in it for the prospect to call you.

3) You ask for too much

Your first goal in a chase call or voicemail should be to have a two-way conversation. Salespeople shouldn’t ask for a meeting without having first established G.A.S.—that is, value that they may be able to Gain for the prospect, future issues they may help them Avoid or current problems that they might help them Solve. A voicemail should be requesting a very low commitment—a brief conversation to see if there might be a fit between some challenges the prospect has and your company’s capabilities for instance.

4) You “wing it”

Some salespeople are against using a phone script. Common reasons are, “It sounds so fake”, “You can’t predict what the prospect is going to say”, or my personal favorite, “I like to mix it up so I sound fresh”. Unfortunately, these same people have little success in booking appointments and after listening to them in the field, it’s easy to see why. Their voicemails are all over the map: convoluted, weak and generally pointless in nature. Yes, some people sound like they are reading when they use a script but only because they haven’t put the time in to practice it until it sounds natural. I do a little bit of amateur acting and on the first read-through of our scripts, it’s terrible. I sound 100% like I’m reading and I am! After rehearsing my lines hundreds of times over, however, it becomes a different story on opening night. A high priced Hollywood actor would never ask to roll the cameras until they know their lines down pat and neither should you.

5) You leave too much time in between voicemails

If you call your prospects once every few weeks, it’s easy to become forgotten. On the other hand, if you only leave a couple of days in between your calls to a prospect, you will be forefront and they will feel more compelled to respond. At the end of each voicemail you should say something like, “If I don’t hear back from you by say, end of day tomorrow, I’ll try you again at 10:15 on Thursday.” Your prospects will get the idea very quickly that you’re not going to be giving up anytime soon. Strike a reasonable balance between being persistent and pesky.

6) You act too submissive

If you act like a lesser business person begging for the prospect’s consideration, you have reduced yourself and the prospect can lose respect for you. You are one business person requesting to speak to another business person to see if there may be a mutual benefit of working together. Approach the call from an Equal Business Footing (E.B.F.) perspective. Picture how you might speak to another person you meet in a park while walking your dogs together. You wouldn’t be pushy or threatening. That’s how you should think of your prospect when you’re leaving a voicemail. If you sound relaxed, confident, open and honest, your prospect will be much more likely to want to speak with you.

Northbound’s “Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese” workshop teaches your team how to dramatically increase the number of meetings booked with potential new customers. To enquire about fees and details, contact Michael at 416.456.1440 or [email protected].

3 Steps to Handling Discount Requests

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training 04 Jun 2014 0 comments Tags: consultative selling, growing selling skills, increased sales, negotiation, sales process, sales productivity, sales strategy, sales training, sell more in less time, selling skill improvements, selling skills

Dealing with a discount request while maintaining profit margins and closing the sales requires delicate balance.

By Michael Caron, President, Northbound Sales

Despite your best attempts to sell value and remain firm on your price, some clients will press
ahead with their request for a discount. After a solid attempt from you to reassure them that your price is fair, if your prospect is still pushing for a discount, you have a choice. Walk away from the business because you want to maintain your price or slowly start to give concessions in an attempt to win (or save) the business.

If you want to give concessions, following a simple system will ensure a profitable negotiation.

Your First Step
The first step, always, is to find something else to give up that doesn’t reduce your price. Free shipping. Extra manuals or training. A client profile on your Web site. What you choose will be specific to your business, your markets and your client base. The key is to have the list of things you’re willing to offer prepared in advance, so you can draw on it during the negotiation.

It’s hard to think creatively in the heat of a negotiation, so planning ahead can give you a ready-made solution that leaves both you and the client feeling satisfied with the transaction.
Your goal is to maintain the price integrity of your product while delivering extra value to the customer with a service that does not cost you anything (or very little). For example, if the customer asks you for a discount consider offering them following instead:
1. An unconditional money back guarantee
2. Free shipping
3. Payment terms
4. Payment with credit card
5. Free training CD’s or in house training by you on the product
6. Access to a public seminar or trade show your company is sponsoring
7. Free set up (if you are a printer/embroidery/promotional products company)
8. Future discounts based on volume: the company will pay full price today and receive a discount on a future order. You can also do this as a gift certificate for them to use later.
9. Free electronic copies or hard copies of your help /training manuals
10. Upgraded support levels
11. Participation on your client advisory board or panel

About half the time, your customer will take you up on the offer to provide a “non monetary concession.” The other half will continue pressing for a price discount because in today’s
marketplace it has become all too common for one supplier to attempt to trump all others by lowering their price. In many cases, your clients are being trained by the competition and other vendors to demand lower pricing from you. It’s a short term strategy, and it does little to benefit buyers but that doesn’t make it any easier to assure prospects they’ll get equal or better ROI by paying more.

Sometimes, a prospect just wants you to lower your price, and you (with your company’s support) will need to consider doing it.

Your Second Step
If you feel you have to give up a discount in order to close the sale, do yourself a huge favor and always ask them one of the two following questions first: “What is important to you about an x% discount?” or “Why is an x% discount important to you?”

These questions will flush out any last details that could help you find a different way to structure the terms and pricing. This allows you to keep your price while letting the customer walk away with their needs met as well. If, however, you ultimately do have to reduce your price, make sure to follow these two rules:

Never reduce your price without getting something in return. Getting something in exchange for a pricing concession is key to managing customer expectations that future discounts will not be easily dished out. As with the “no money” concessions above, what you get in return for a price reduction will be unique to your business and markets. It could include references or case studies, a bigger order, introductions to senior level executives or cash up front, etc… Again, whatever you ask for, prepare the list in advance so you can respond quickly and
smoothly.

Your Third Step

Nothing is worse than coming to an agreement on price (especially a reduced price!) only to find out that your prospect is still looking for other concessions. Be sure to get a firm verbal agreement from the customer that this discount is all they will need to get the deal done. Try asking them something like “I’m not sure if I can get you this price, but if I can, is it fair to say that we can go ahead?” or “I’m not sure I can get this discount for you. If I can, though, are you willing to ….?”

By asking them this last question, you can ensure you get
all the issues on the table first, giving you the chance to deal with them fairly once and for all. So what goes after the “willing to”…. in that question? I believe that if you must, absolutely must reduce your price to win the business NEVER let that price drop without getting something in return.

Try some of these best practice ideas for finishing the question… “I’m not sure I can get this discount for you. If I can, though, are you willing to ….?
1. place your order today?
2. provide full payment up front?
3. place a larger order?
4. provide me 3 qualified referrals / introductions?
5. give us a testimonial or case study?
6. allow us to sponsor the event you are organizing?
7. invite me to the event you are having for their clients?
8. provide me space in your newsletter for a monthly column?
9. provide my company an exclusive purchasing arrangement?
10. introduce me to additional departments or internal decision makers?
11. have us in for a “lunch and learn session” with your staff ?

This step is easy to do if you have conviction. The first step to finding better clients – ones that focus on value and not price – is making sure you are 100% confident that you are delivering such a high value to the marketplace. Confident that all buyers will want to own it at full cost. When you do believe this, you will not have any trouble asking for something valuable in return for your price discount.

Remember that what you ask for does not have too be of equal monetary value. In fact it can be free for the customer to provide as long as it has value for you. The goal is to employ reciprocity – you will gladly scratch the customers back as long as they are willing to scratch yours! Creating equality in your client relationships ensures that you will have a long lasting
trust based relationship which reduces the amount of “shopping” the customer does each time they need to order. This increases your profits, decreases your sales cycle and encourages referrals.

You and your team can learn to produce stronger relationships and more equitable and profitable business interactions with Northbound’s “Win/Win Negotiations” workshop. For more information or pricing, contact Michael Caron at [email protected], 416.456.1440

3 Sales Lessons from the Wolf of Wall Street

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training 01 May 2014 0 comments

And lying to your customers isn’t one of them . . .

This week, a good friend of mine in the insurance business suggested I sit in (virtually through webcast) on a keynote that Jordan Belfort, the “Wolf of Wall Street” was giving, ironically, to the risk management industry. Even though I haven’t seen the movie yet, I had heard pieces of his story that were intriguing enough for me to eagerly log on and here him in real time. I’m so glad that I did. I pulled 3 pieces of wisdom that are completely applicable to sales in any industry — yes — including yours. It’s important to note that Jordan was, and would likely have continued to be, incredibly successful in his business without his ethical transgressions.

To be clear, I truly believe that strong integrity is not only the right way to operate as a human being, but is also an asset that helps you sell more in the long run. The following insights have nothing to do with Jordan’s admitted crossing of the integrity threshold. They are, rather, three of the many things that he did right and very, very well.

1) Drive Trumps Intelligence

Jordan spoke of the ragtag group of misfits he recruited from the streets of New Jersey. To quote him, “None of them were from the deep end of the intelligence gene pool.” He didn’t hire them for their I.Q. The drive to succeed and more specifically, the deep desire to make oodles of money was most important.

Do you need to have a high IQ to be successful in sales? I frankly haven’t see any studies to answer the question but from what I’ve observed in working with top performers, simply put, no. I’m a perfect example of this! Does intelligence help? Of course. But it’s not as critical as most people think.

2) Selling is a Science – Not an Art

After listening to him speak for 2 minutes, I had to watch the entire webcast (despite it being during my prospecting time – my bad) as he is a highly captivating speaker. I was hooked even further when he went to the whiteboard and starting explaining his sales methodology! He found it easy to sell to high net worth individuals as could his partner but nobody else on the team could. Logically, he thought that if he could “crack the code” on what he was doing differently, he might be able to get others to follow the process.

In the keynote presentation, he quickly drew his selling model on the board and the good news for all of us is that it’s not rocket science. If he had just resigned himself to the flawed notion that “some people have the knack to sell and others don’t,” he would never have cracked the code and scaled his business.

3) The Science Can Be Learned

The “Wolf of Wall Street” was careful to explain many parts of the movie which were embellished. Interestingly, he only noted one area that wasn’t given enough attention to reflect reality — the Herculean effort to turn his menagerie of misfits into top sellers. In the movie, he says everybody just started selling like crazy. In reality, it took months and months of training, coaching, and inspiring. Eventually, after much hard work, his team became the best sales force on Wall Street, which as we all know, has some pretty decent competition in the top sales talent arena. As Northbound’s slogan says, “Great salespeople are made, not born.”

Do you have high intelligence? That’s a trick question to see if you were reading carefully because doesn’t matter anyway! Do you have deep drive and ambition to build a great career in sales? Yes? Great! This means that if you systematically and consistently take action to learn proven selling methods, you can become the “Wolf” of your own street. You too will enjoy immense success as Jordan Belfort did — maybe not to the same financial extent but because of your ironclad integrity, you’ll have the added benefit of skipping the jail time piece of his incredible story!

Check out Northbound’s workshops that will teach you street tested strategies to build your sales by clicking here. For more information or pricing, contact Michael Caron at 416.456.1440 or [email protected].

How to Reverse Engineer Your Sales

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Salespeople, Training, Uncategorized 16 Apr 2014 0 comments Tags: funnel management, prospecting, sales process

Using some simple math, you can figure out precisely what “inputs” you need to get the required “output” — your sales target! 

As a sales trainer and coach, the first place to start when growing sales results is to do some basic homework. The homework I’m speaking of is the analyzing of their current sales process including the number of key sales activities to produce one sale. We need to know what’s happening now in order to determine what improvements are needed.

There are 3 main components to an effective salesperson or sales team:

Activities – Are you doing enough of the key activities that drive sales? For sales involving acquisition of new customers, these typically include generating new leads through traditional or inbound efforts, making contact attempts, doing discovery meetings, presenting proposals, following up etc.

Skill – Do you have the required skills in the various required areas? Do you know how to engage a potential customer with a clear, concise and compelling message? Do you know all the steps in a discovery meeting that will uncover the challenges, issues and needs of the customer? Can you effectively move a customer towards a commitment? Do you handle all objections deftly?

Attitude – A great attitude is required to sustain the above. Without tenacity, optimism and a willingness to continually learn, burnout often sets in.

We call this the “Northbound Sales Performance Triad.” While attitude is difficult to measure, the other two components of the triad can be determined with a little effort.

Sales is a process and like any process, it can be broken down into steps and each step can be measured. And just like anything – improving your golf score, saving money or making more sales – things always get better when you measure them! Can you imagine trying to drop your golf score by only knowing what the final tally was at the end of each game?

The first place to start is by “slicing and dicing” your sales process. This is also called a “funnel analysis.” Then track two things: the number of key activities you do and your conversion rates which are the percentage of activities that lead to the next step in the sale. If you haven’t tracked these things in the past and have no data, an easy way to estimate your funnel is to work backwards.

Do your calculations on making one sale only. Ask yourself, “What key activity happens right before making a sale?” Often this will be presenting a proposal. Then ask, “How many key activities do I need to make 1 sale?” If you need to present 4 proposals on average to make 1 sale, then your closing rate is 1/4 or 25%. Keep working your way up the funnel asking the same questions until you get the top. You will then know approximately how many activities you need to make 1 sale. The top number could be the number of prospecting calls or leads required to make 1 sale. Here is a completed reverse funnel exercise for a very simple sales process.

Having done this exercise with hundreds of people over the years, I can tell you that this number is often quite shocking! It’s not uncommon for salespeople to discover that their current activity level is terribly out of sync with their sales goal. Logically, if they keep doing what they are doing, it’s a mathematical certainty that they will miss their sales target.

If you’re in this situation, you might ask, “What can I do about it?” don’t get too discouraged. I’ll discuss the “20% Solution” in my next blog post.

If you or your sales team could use some help in mapping out a prospecting plan that will take you to your sales goal, check out our Power Prospecting workshop. Contact Michael for more details at [email protected] or 416.456.1440.

The Challenger Sale is Highly Overrated!

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training, Uncategorized 24 Feb 2014 0 comments Tags: consultative selling, growing selling skills, increased sales, sales productivity, sales training, selling skills

Does the bestselling book on sales provide new insights?

Geoffrey James is one of the best sales expert bloggers and is the sales go-to guy for Inc. magazine. I’m pushing this along because he and I are in sync on the bestselling book, “The Challenger Sale” in that it’s mostly a retread of proven selling concepts combined with some original and flawed advice. It’s a good example of how attractive the marketing of “new selling ideas” can be. I know the industry very well and frankly, there aren’t any groundbreaking new methodologies that I’ve come across since Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling research and findings which Xerox sponsored over 25 years ago.

My advice is rather than looking for the flavour of the month, get your team mastering the fundamentals — setting goals, managing their time, prospecting, presenting and closing — by engaging in great training followed by relentless practice and implementation. Check out Geoff’s article in Inc. here.

When Was the Last Time You Checked Your Phone?

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Salespeople, Training, Uncategorized 19 Nov 2013 0 comments Tags: email management, priority management, sales training, time management

I bet just a few minutes ago! This is a great article inspiring us to change the nasty habit of checking our phone hundreds of times per day into something more meaningful. So many of us mistake being “busy” with being productive. Salespeople, by nature, are very prone to this “busy-ness” syndrome. Doing things that get you closer to you goals is the key and checking emails and texting incessantly doesn’t usually help. Click here to check it out.

Our “Goal Aligned Time” workshop teaches powerful email management strategies and other time saving ideas.

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