Treat Everyone Like He/She is the CEO

Two quick stories:
 

I was managing a new office building at the beginning of my career.  A major tenant was moving in that night and I always stayed around for big moves.  I had changed into my jeans and was sitting with my head janitor when two flustered men came storming in to our building office. We figured they were part of the moving crew. They literally started hollering at us.
 

“We left our keys behind!  We need keys and we need them now!  We don’t have any keys!” Read More

Trial Closing

A core element of a number of well-respected training programs is something called the trial close. In effect, a trial close tests the prospect’s commitment to the sale prior to absolutely asking for the order.

Let’s say we are selling an investment product. After walking through the discussion, we might stop and ask something like . . . Read More

Fear. The Salesperson’s Friend.

Several years ago, at the University of Chicago, we conducted a test of high performance salespeople to see if we could identify some common characteristics and behavior. One of the more interesting elements that came up was “fear,” as in fear of failure. Read More

Three Minutes and I will Never Forget Her!

We spend a lot of time talking about “emotional connectivity” and how the world’s great communicators and salespeople are often able to touch other people emotionally, consistently raising their moods when they touch them. We also know that many studies have shown that emotions are contagious, and that the person with more positivity and energy is likely to raise the mood of someone who is in a neutral to negative state. People who can raise other peoples’ moods are very special. They are held in very high esteem in our culture whether in entertainment (picture Jon Stewart or Oprah) in business and in our personal lives.

I always like to stop and appreciate such gifted people and soak up their positive energy because they are so invigorating, and you never know when they are going to pop up . . . could be a new friend or a waiter or even a cashier. But last week I ran across someone who reinforced this dynamic more quickly and more powerfully than I have experienced in years. So I want to share this story . . . a little longer than usual but hang in there with me. Read More

K.I.S.S. to S.M.M.M.

Most of us are familiar with K.I.S.S. . . .”Keep It Simple Stupid.” Put a bit more delicately, it is usually much more effective to communicate and support one or two compelling points, particularly when selling, than to roll out every feature and benefit in our tool kit.
 

Elementary, right? You would be surprised how eager many salespeople are to run through the entire gamut of neat stuff they have to offer. Why not? They are proud of their product and services and they want to make sure they don’t miss anything. Read More

Time Really is Money! How Great Salespeople Leverage the Often Hidden Power of Saving a Client Time

As salespeople, we are usually selling our product or service into the context of a larger process. Say, for example, we are a realtor who wants to represent a home buyer. All of our competitors are going to come in with the same commission cost. And all of our competitors are going to say they are experienced in the market and know how to negotiate the best deal. But as most of us know, there is a lot more to buying a house than that. Read More

Understanding Your Customer’s “Father-Figure Impact”

After you have gotten to know your customers well enough, a great way to gain even more insight relative to their value systems and psychology is to ask how they grew up and, specifically, about their fathers. (A non-threatening way to broach the subject is to first offer a little insight about your own upbringing and your Dad’s role therein.)

The reason this is so interesting is because fathers often set the achievement blueprint in people’s minds relative to business, that is, what constitutes proper business behavior and success, also often setting the tone for how people want to be treated. Read More

Unplug, Refresh, Grow Stronger!

August is a classic vacation month for many families. The kids are done with summer sports and everybody piles into the car for the lake. Unfortunately, these days, two other bits of equipment inevitably join the trip . . . our cell phones and our computers. That’s OK, unless . . . we really keep working all the time.
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Closing With an “Ace in the Hole”

As most of you who have been selling awhile know, a prospect often wants to say yes, but needs just a little more encouragement to make a final commitment.

A great technique for the final push over the goal line is to pull out an “extra” benefit right before asking for the order. Here is an example. Read More

Mentoring vs. Management Feedback

We received some great feedback last week to our questions about management vs. mentoring.

We asked salespeople, “If you could ask your company for one resource that would help you sell more/better tomorrow, what would it be?”

The responses to this question concentrated on a number of different topics. Read More

Mentoring vs. Managing (Continued)

We had an unusually strong response to last week’s column when we suggested the difference between mentoring, which is guiding salespeople toward their highest potential with innovation, ideas and wisdom, versus more clinical sales management, where goals are set and salespeople are basically pushed to hit them on their own. Naturally the salespeople who read our column appreciated the nuance, but even many sales managers commented that the best management approach combines both mentoring and structure.

Anyway, this week we thought it might be interesting if we took a poll which might result in some good information for anyone interested in selling through relationships.

So here are our questions: Read More

Sales Management vs Sales Mentorship 

One of the things we like to ask managers when we are invited to advise sales teams is whether they are sales managers or sales mentors. We are not just arguing semantics . . . the difference can be profound in terms of salesperson development and production.

Sales managers can tend to see their jobs as trying to drive a team to higher levels of production, a bit like a jockey tries to whip another two lengths out of a racehorse. The idea is that if the manager can just get the salespeople to make more calls, try a little harder, push a little further, the numbers will take care of themselves. The irony is that high-Drive salespeople do not need to be pushed . . . they push themselves, relentlessly. What they may need is new ideas, new ways of approaching their craft, different combinations of resources . . . in other words some coaching and mentoring. Read More