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Five Strategies to Deal with Gatekeepers

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training 10 Jul 2014 0 comments Tags: cold calling, gatekeepers, growing selling skills, prospecting, sales training, selling skills

Who gets through and who doesn’t? Only the gatekeeper for the decision maker decides!

When attempting to contact your important decision maker, at Northbound a person we like to call Mr. Big Cheese, it can be very frustrating to have a gatekeeper “get in the way”. Naturally, the larger the organization, the more likely that Mr. Big Cheese will have someone whose job it is to decide who gets thru and who doesn’t. But don’t despair.

Coming up against a gatekeeper doesn’t mean you have to retreat. With a few simple strategies, you will be able to safely negotiate your way through to your valuable prospective customer. Here are things to keep in mind:

1—Respect the gatekeeper’s role . . . Whether it’s a receptionist, an executive assistant or another subordinate, it’s important to realize that gatekeepers are being paid to filter people out and protect the time of Mr. Big Cheese. Not all people of course—just the ones who they feel wouldn’t be of great value to their boss. Contrary to popular opinion, they don’t hate all salespeople — just most of them. And for good reason. Most do a poor job of patiently explaining how Mr. Big Cheese would benefit from speaking with them. Use empathy when speaking to them such as, “I understand that part of your role is to figure out what’s relevant or not for Mr. Big Cheese.” Understanding that they are simply doing their job will go a long way to connecting with them and reduce defensiveness.

2—Sell them first . . . When you approach a gatekeeper, it will take more time because of the additional effort to sell them first. If you can convey the potential value that your product or service might bring to Mr. Big Cheese he or she is much more likely to let you pass through. A few months ago, I was faced with a very good gatekeeper named Arlene. When I asked for the President, she politely but firmly explained to me, “I’m sorry but I can’t put you through until I know what it’s regarding”. I noted to her that I respected that she was trying to ensure that the President’s time isn’t wasted. I then engaged in a conversation with her similar to what I would with a Mr. Big Cheese. I treated her with respect and carefully explained why it would make sense for Mr. Big Cheese to speak with me briefly. After a few moments, she came back with, “Michael, based on what you’ve told me, I’ll put you through.” I complimented her on the way she handled things and ever since, she recognizes my voice and is warm and friendly.

Remember though that you are only selling the gatekeeper on the benefits for Mr. Big Cheese to speak with you. You are NOT selling your product or service. Yes, the gatekeeper decides who gets through but they are not the economic buyer.

3—Don’t bulldoze them . . . Gatekeepers have the power and authority to shut you out. Trying to muscle your way through them will almost surely backfire. If you irritate them, it’s human nature for them to want to help you less.

4—Call before 9 A.M. and after 5 P.M. . . . I’m not a huge fan of calling prospects on their cell or well outside of business hours—prospects need their personal time too—but calling between 8 & 9 A.M. and between 5 & 6 P.M. will often allow you to dial direct to Mr. Big Cheese’s desk and speak to them while things are less frantic.

5—Be assertive . . . Salespeople sometimes invite gatekeepers to question the purpose of the call by sounding well, like salespeople! One of the concepts we teach in Northbound’s “Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese” workshop is that you are one business professional contacting another on Equal Business Footing. Ask for your “Mr. Big Cheese” as you would if you were calling a colleague—firmly and assertively. Often reception won’t even question your authority to speak with your prospect.

When all else fails—If you’ve tried the above and the gatekeeper is stubbornly shutting your efforts down, you could try this very bold verbiage: “Would you knowingly stand between Mr. Big Cheese and (the major benefit of your product/service)?” Yes, it’s bold, but you’ve got nothing to lose at this point and it has opened the door in some situations.

In summary, if you treat gatekeepers with the respect and patience they deserve, you will be rewarded (most of the time!) with an opportunity to connect to Mr. Big Cheese.

If you or your sales team would like to learn how to master this technique and learn dozens of other proven strategies to improve your prospecting results, check out our “Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese” workshop. For pricing or more details, contact Michael Caron at [email protected] or 416.456.1440.

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

4 Ways to Keep Your Team Engaged

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Training 23 Jun 2014 0 comments Tags: engagement, growing selling skills, increased sales, sales leadership, sales management, sales productivity, sales strategy, sales training, selling skills

This great article from Fast Company discusses how sales training delivered by the right means, is critical in getting your sales team performing exceptionally.

Although Fast Company is one of my favourite reads, it doesn’t often have articles focused around business sales so when I see one, I usually jump on it. This one hits on many important criteria to raise a sales team’s effectiveness through engagement and more specifically, through sales training. Some of the writer’s points that strike me are:

Great training can help prevent boredom.
Make it ongoing rather than something on your checklist.
Build acquiring new selling skills into an internal competition or at least make it increase someone’s status.
Make training convenient through remote learning in bite-sized pieces.
Use a blended approach of online (including virtual classroom) and live classroom training.

Sales training can be an investment for your sales team with an extremely high return-on-investement but only if it’s done properly by using some of the ideas in the Fast Company article. Read the full article here.

I’d be happy to have a casual discussion of how Northbound can make your team perform better. Contact me @ 416.456.1440 or [email protected].

Cheers,

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

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.

Is “Death of a Salesman” Jumping the Gun?

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Salespeople, Training 05 Sep 2013 0 comments Tags: consultative selling, growing selling skills, sales training

I just read a very well written article in Profit from Mark Stuyt which spells the end of salespeople who customers have counted on in the past to be sources of product information. I couldn’t agree more. Salespeople can expect to find it increasingly hard to entice customers to engage with them if they don’t provide any value over what a few minutes of web research can do. Salespeople, on the other hand, who have been well trained to take a true consultative approach will find the transition to the new world of selling much easier.

Why? Because they will be able to uncover the problems, issues and needs with a potential buyer and armed with this deep knowledge and their industry experience, give advice on solutions that fit. A great salesperson can also help a customer see problems and opportunities that they might not even realize they have.

I recently read that the average buyer will be 65% of the way through the selling process before engaging a salesperson. If you are not much more than a “talking brochure or website” as a salesperson, there is nothing you can help the customer with and you will be left out of the process. This points to a need for sales professionals to be just that … more professional.

Exceptional training has never been more important!

Six Tips for Coaching Salespeople to be Productive Again

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training 28 Apr 2011 0 comments Tags: consultative selling, growing selling skills, sales leadership, sales management, sales productivity

Everyone who has been selling for a while knows sales can be a roller coaster. The peaks and valleys of sales are a fact of life. One of the most challenging tasks is coaching a veteran salesperson that has reached a plateau and is struggling. Or worse, has reached a performance level where they are satisfied or they have earned the right to not do the things they used to do when they were building their business.

Earning a comfortable living is a goal for most people but in the sales world, it can lead to a salesperson becoming complacent and “plateauing”. Having trained and coached thousands of salespeople over my career, I see all too often the fat cat sales rep who built up their customer base from relentless new client development but now is living off the recurring sales. New business growth grinds to a snail’s pace.

Each situation will be different but one common sales coaching theme is clear. The sales manager needs to find out what will motivate the stalled individual to determine the type of coaching required. What works in one situation may not work in another.

Sales coaching will vary depending on the development levels of the individual. Some sales managers prefer working with senior salespeople because it is more interesting and rewarding for the manager. Others prefer to work with less experienced salespeople. The real world is that you must coach all levels. Each situation is different and the manager must adjust his or her sales coaching techniques to be effective.

1. Get up close and personal to understand what is important to them at this point in their career. Ask open ended questions in an informal setting. Find out if anything changed in their life, what sales activities are they doing, what sales activities are they not doing, what is the legacy they want to leave behind? Do they want to grow as a sales professional? Will they be happy 10 years from now if they aren’t one stick better than they are today?

2. Next you must observe the plateaued salesperson in a selling situation. It’s the only way to be sure they are using good fundamental selling skills and not cutting corners. You can’t coach from a spreadsheet. And to borrow from the world of sport, you can’t coach from the dressing room. You need to see them on the court or on the ice. When you’re sure they’re solid in the field, coach them in account strategies. Good selling skills are a means of executing good account strategies.

3. Account strategy coaching can be done in the office and to suit your schedule. Start with their existing accounts and review their current levels of business at key accounts and their sales plan for gaining new business.

4. Plan ways to get additional resources that will help solidify and/or expand their position at key accounts and top prospects. This will include executive bridging calls with senior executives and technical specialists.

5. Concentrate your coaching efforts on accounts with high potential or high visibility, or accounts that provide a unique learning opportunity. We are looking for an opportunity where the plateaued has a reasonable chance to succeed. This will build confidence.

6. Finally and most importantly, schedule monthly review sessions with the plateaued sales rep to review progress, give feedback and make adjustments. This is critical!

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