August 28, 2010

social media and selling

I’m asked constantly about the usefulness of all the social media (SM) tools available now to promote sales. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are just a handful of the methods available today and the list keeps growing. Here are 5 keys I’ve used and seen clients use in the San Francisco Bay area to maximize their sales with social media:

1) SM is a “no-pay time” activity. That means salespeople should never manage their SM campaign during traditional business hours when they could be meeting or talking with prospects instead. I see lots of salespeople tell their boss how busy they’ve been, all the while sitting in a front of a computer feverishly updating their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles so they can avoid making phone calls.

2) Limit the time you spend maintaining your campaign. Every SM expert I’ve met or read says that SM can be managed effectively in 15 minutes or less per day. Many say 5 minutes per day once you’re set up.

3) Offer some useful information. Unless you’re Giada or Emeril, your prospects don’t want to know what you ate for dinner. They do want to know something useful in your area of expertise. If you frequently provide useless information, you condition your readers to ignore your posts.

4) Integrate SM with your other marketing and prospecting activities. Use calls to action to move your prospect from your SM touch to other more traditional marketing touches. Invite your Twitter followers to attend a public presentation or webinar (like I’m doing at the bottom of this newsletter). Tell your Facebook friends about an article you’ve written and link to it. Offer a promotion to your network (like I did last month with Rich’s Business Information). Invite your friends to tell their friends about your newsletter. And of course, make sure your email and phone number are easy to find. SM alone is unlikely to produce results without other marketing efforts as support.

5) Measure the effectiveness of your campaign by tracking conversations. If you’re reading this, odds are you don’t close sales without having a conversation with someone first. None of my clients sell products through Amazon or Ebay. Even if you do sell some items online, you probably use them to whet the appetite of your prospects and talk with you to later buy your core product or service. If your SM activities aren’t producing conversations, you need to change or stop your campaign. Period.

Ever been curious to know if sales trainers actually drink their own Kool-Aid? Do they walk the walk or do they just talk a good game without following the guidelines they train others to do? Come hear me and several other Bay area sales trainers/consultants provide insight into how they’ve grown their business on September 29^th in Pleasanton. Register here.

Good Selling,

Chip Doyle

925 984 9114

August 5, 2010

start with a list

In 2001 I was at risk of going out of business. The dot com bubble was bursting and companies no longer had money set aside for training. My random networking and cold calling wasn't paying off and I was beginning to question my sales abilities and the viability of this business.

In quiet desperation, I went to the Castro Valley library on a Saturday to research specific companies that I felt had a better chance of doing business. I knew never to conduct market research during business hours. Business hours are reserved for prospecting, not research. I asked the librarian if they had a list of companies in the Bay area that were a particular size and worked in a specific market. She said "Oh, you mean a prospector's list?" to which I replied "There is such a thing?"

Within 2 hours I had accumulated a list of 25 companies, the names of the CEO's, telephone numbers and website addresses (if they had one in those days). Over the next three weeks, I closed 2 of those companies for enough sales training business to keep me in business. I can honestly say that I probably would have given up on this business had those 2 clients not come about. Now we do more than just train salespeople but one of my first recommendations to almost every
client I have is always to start with a prospect list.

Keep your list fresh.

Asking for referrals is great! Put those people on your list. Attending trade shows is fine but put those people on a list. The point is to have a list of prospects that you can call as soon as you show up to work. No further research is necessary. No more investigation or web surfing is required. Just call these people on your list. The more updated the list, the more connects you will have. Old lists get stale when companies and people move.

I worked with a client in 2001 and we spent hours refining a brilliant cold call script. We had every objection handled and every eloquent question listed. I spoke to my client a week later in anticipation of exciting results. Instead he admitted that he had only made one call in the preceding week. He had been doing research on who to call. And then shortly after that, another client explained that the call script she had been using wasn't working because we had planned for her call a different target market. Since then, my first recommendation has always been to start with a list...

In celebration of 10 years in this business, I'm delighted to reveal the source of my first list at the Castro Valley library. It was a company called Rich's List which has now evolved into Rich's Business Information. And because I've been a loyal client of theirs I'm able to pass along a discount to you if you purchase lists from them. I won't make a dime if you buy a list from them but I do recommend them as an excellent resource.

Sandler ONLINE is coming! Online access to excellent new material, audios, videos and quizzes. This excellent addition to our materials is for existing and previous clients ONLY. And we are delighted to offer an early adopter discount of 50% to 20 clients. If you are falling off the Sandler wagon and regressing to your old way of selling, this could be the right solution. Get in touch with us now to arrange a demo and decide for yourself. A "No" is fine. Our feelingswon't be hurt (just no think-it-overs)...

Good Selling,

Chip Doyle

June 29, 2010

Mid-year planning

He who fails to plan is planning to fail - Winston Churchill

Prospecting plans are more than a necessary part of a salesperson's tool kit. The planning process creates accountability and a sense of teamwork for salespeople. Good plans also improve the salesperson's outlook and motivation. By measuring the results of a plan, salespeople can identify what's working and what isn't and adjust accordingly. And last but not least, planning and accountability insures activities that fill the pipeline are not subordinated to client fulfillment work. This one drives me nuts. As an example, seller-doers (people like CPA's, consultants, architects, engineers, etc) pray for business but as soon as they get some, they complain that they don't have time for business development. This is just a sophisticated way of admitting they don't have a plan.

You can be a part of your own plan or part of someone else's - David Sandler

The year is almost half over and odds are you've made some progress towards your prospecting and sales plan. If you don't have a prospecting plan yet, stop reading here and start planning!

Planning has pitfalls

Unfortunately there are predictable traps that I see clients fall into related to planning. Occasionally they will use the planning
process to procrastinate action. I also see salespeople that fail to adjust plans over time based on new information or tracked results. Planning is not a one-time activity. It's a recurring process. Not every week, but certainly every six months.

More frequently I see plans with no priorities or activity sequences specified. John Argenti, author and founder of the Strategic Planning Society said "A plan is a list of actions arranged in whatever sequence is thought likely to achieve an objective." Make sure you assign priorities or some sequence in your planning process.

"It is almost always the decision maker that makes the decision work, not the choice which makes the decision work." - David Sandler

I also see companies attempt to build consensus around an ideal plan. It never happens. There's no need to try to build the perfect plan. The key is to get your salespeople on the right course so they canrealize the benefits of the planning process.

Good Selling,

Chip Doyle

May 26, 2010

risk taking in sales

I recently attended a luncheon for alumni of Raychem Corporation (my previous employer 10 years ago) to catch up with old friends and hear a presentation about how many of my colleagues at Raychem had gone on to become CEO’s. A survey was conducted with all these CEO’s and the data was impressive. Approximately 140 people had become CEO’s of at least 1 company. One common theme emerged from their survey responses and comments: Almost every CEO stated the importance of having worked in a company culture that encouraged risk taking.

So if you want to be a CEO someday, go work for a company that encourages risk taking. But if you are in sales, you already have ample opportunities to take risks and start your CEO training. 2 common examples of risk taking that many salespeople are reluctant to try include:

Disqualifying a prospect – Salespeople fail because they continue to call on the same indecisive prospects hoping for a sale when they should be finding new prospects that are committed to fixing problems the salesperson can solve now. In 22 years in sales, I’ve never seen a salesperson fail in their profession due to inadequate follow-up but I’ve seen hundreds get fired for having a stale pipeline of prospects that they swear will buy any day now. It may feel risky to disqualify someone, but that is the secret to selling success.

Augmenting a prospecting plan with a new method – Many salespeople rely on activities that feel “comfortable” rather than branching out and diversifying their prospecting. Instead of attending unfamiliar networking events, cold calling CEO’s or doing public speaking, they rely on other techniques they are familiar with. A recent survey shows that people would prefer abstaining from sex for a month over cold calling for a week. Calling a CEO or speaking in front of a large group may feel risky, but the results can be startling. A salesperson will never know unless they are willing to get outside their comfort zone and take a perceived risk.

“If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business” – Ray Kroc

Take some calculated risks in your sales approach and get back to new business development in 2010. Never take a risk you can’t afford but remember the perceived risk is usually much worse than the actual risk.

Speaking of risks, our 8 week Foundations Program starts in June. If you're feeling risk averse but frustrated with prospects that use the information you give them to shop you against your competitors or are sick and tired of sending proposals to prospects that never buy anything, this may be the right first step. We'll need to speak with you first to insure this is a fit. But go ahead, pick up the phone and call Hilmon or me at 510 693 0000.

Good Selling,

Chip Doyle

April 13, 2010

Simplified sales forecasts

Learning to accurately forecast sales is a sophisticated process, critical for firms that must allocate manpower or resources to satisfy customers. So you can imagine my frustration when I meet a new client whose sales force has been arbitrarily assigning “percentages” to each account in their pipeline and then wondering why the team misses their own forecast. Even if one top salesperson seems to be somewhat accurate in their predictions, they rarely have a process that can be adopted by other salespeople.

There are 2 primary components to accurate forecasting. 1. Information gathered from the prospect. 2. Actions the prospect has completed. In simple terms, it’s not just what they tell you, it’s what they’ve done. Accurate forecasting is not based on how many times the salesperson has called or presented. “Wearing down” a prospect is an ineffective sales technique and a poor use of the salesperson’s time.

Information gathered might include examples such as company information, competition, impending events, deadlines, pains, problems, costs of the problems continuing, job title of decision makers contacted and so on. Most effective pipeline evaluation tools I have seen use about 25-35 metrics to evaluate closing probability and timing.

Actions speak louder than words but not nearly as often – Mark Twain

Actions the prospect has taken is the most commonly omitted portion of forecasting. If you believe Twain’s quote, you’ll see the value of including actions the prospect has taken to evaluate closing probability and predict deal timing. Actions might include such basics as: sending you a specification, making a small purchase, paying for an analysis/design, conducting a trial, evaluating a prototype, including your firm on a qualified vendor list or even something as simple as attending a meeting or tour at your location.

We recommend clients use actions taken by the prospect as the most reliable metrics to predict future sales. If you are in a long or complex sales cycle, wasting precious resources on prospects that never buy can have immense consequences.

February 26, 2010

Sales Culture - language

The sophistication of language and culture are highly related. Eskimos have several words for "snow" to depict the substance they have become so familiar with. If you've watched curling on the Olympics, you've heard English speaking participants use terms and phrases like sweeping, burning, skip, rocks, hammers, draws, and biters. I know the common definitions of these words but I'm still trying to figure them out in curling! Wikipedia contains an excellent overview of the linguistic relativity principle also known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. The implication is obvious. Refining the vocabulary that your organization uses to describe their selling efforts will impact their sales culture.

It is easy to detect the signs of a weak sales culture. Firms that inter mix or confuse terms like marketing, selling and business development rarely have a strong sales orientation. Vocabulary that fails to distinguish between branding, advertising and lead generation are also indicators of an ineffective sales culture. If verbs like "prospecting" or "selling" are rarely used or even have a negative connotation, a sales culture may be non-existent. Sophisticated selling cultures use terms like monkey's paw, sales template, call-to-action, pain, behavior, prospecting plan and post-sell.

However, don't expect your team's vocabulary to change overnight. Understanding a new language as well as changing culture, requires incremental application and time. Like the Eskimo that sees the subtle difference in snow, your people will begin to appreciate and utilize their new comprehension of sales through your long term reinforcement of more discerning language.

In This Section

The Sandler Selling System^® methodology gives us a common language, as well as sales process, that allows for more precise communication. The Sandler® process helps both the sales personnel and management to debrief both the good and the bad sales calls and the ultimate new loan origination. To put it simply, the Sandler Selling System makes our sales personnel look much different to the prospect than our competition, who is using a potpourri of the classical sales pitches.

First Capital is dedicated to the application of the Sandler Selling System in its new business origination process and we appreciate your support and professionalism.

David H. Pendley
President