Alliance Science

Are You an Old Dog?

Even old dogs can learn new tricks.

As a big proponent of adult learning, especially for sales people, I've recommitted to a particular training program after a rewarding hiatus.  On returning, I met some new attendees -- some new to selling, some new to the training, and some who claim to have been attending this particular brand of training for 30 years.

It's fun to watch each person interact and participate.  I get to learn about their learning styles, their personalities, their sales and social skills, and their learning skills.

It's funny how more-learned people (and I've been guilty of this, too) are sometimes actually less able to receive than the new or less educated. 

Are you a skilled learner?

Photo Credit:  About Sailing (Ronn)

 

Are You Ready to Sell, Tomorrow?

What is your one-day plan?

You've heard of a marketing plan, a business plan, and maybe even a 90-day action plan, but do you have tomorrow's plan ready?

• Is your list of people to contact ready and does it include telephone numbers, background, contact info, purpose of the call, expected outcome and is it prioritized?
• Have you outlined your day's purpose and expected outcome as it relates to your Key Performance Indicators (number of connects, number of appointments scheduled, number of presentations, number of sales)?
• What's on your To-Do list?
• Is your To-Do list prioritized and scheduled?
• Have your appointments for tomorrow been confirmed?
• Have the attendees of your appointments been given meeting agendas, expected outcomes and directions as necessary?

What's missing? Please comment.

Photo Credit:  Randy Redig

Top Appointment Setting Tips for New Sellers

What are your top 5 tips for a new salesperson?

Jill Konrath who is busy at Selling to Big Companies answered and re-asked a great question, "If you were mentoring a new salesperson, what would be your top five sales tips and how did you learn those?" 

Brian Carroll, author of a book I'm currently reading, "Lead Generation for the Complex Sale," answered Jill's question with his own tips.  Here are mine:

Top Apointment Setting Tips for New Sellers

1. Target a niche market, the more specific the better.   Sure, you can market to 3 or 4 niches.  Focus on one niche until you get momentum before you tackle another, though.  Don't be afraid of losing business -- the riches are truly in the niches.
2. Research and target the top 150 companies or prospects within your target niche.  Use a CRM or contact manager and create a file for each target prospect.
3. Schedule your calls to your niche market first thing every day.  Your highest priority is to set at least one appointment a day with a decision maker so why not make it task #1 of each day?  You keep appointments with clients, co-workers and prospects -- remember to set an appointment with yourself to profit-seek each day, too.
4. Become an Expert Resource to your targeted niche and communicate to your niche target 3 or more times a month, every month.  Use direct mail, seminars, teleseminars, free workshops, newsletters, and publish articles, to name a few approaches to nurturing the relationship. 
5. Leverage your time and prospects into 2 to 3 times as many appointments with Advisor Alliance Partners.  Meet weekly with a strategic mastermind with the primary purpose to intentionally set appointments for each other.  The group should be no more than four professionals targeting the same ideal prospect. 

Jill asks, "how did you learn these tips?"  Find out how by ordering the hot report, "The 10 Big Breakthroughs in a Salesperson's Life."  Then tell Jill What you think!

 

Know your Q, R, and S's

What do you do to maximize the follow-up activity of your group presentation?

Thursday, April 10th, Misti Burmeister launched her first book, From Boomers to Bloggers, and celebrated Inspirion Inc.'s 3rd anniversary party.  One of Misti's friends, sales trainer and business coach, Steve Dorfman, kept the party going as Master of Ceremonies. 

After refreshments and networking, the celebration started with an opener by Steve followed by a conversation ice-breaker as attendees were encouraged to meet someone new and discuss what they did both professionally and personally.  After Misti's presentation and testimonies from clients, friends and supporters were made, Misti recognized employees and her book editor with comments and gifts.  Afterward, while the crowd was feeling grateful and generous, Steve used a masterful technique to facilitate interaction and ongoing conversation between the attendees and Misti after the event. 

Reaching into his coat pocket for a pen and card, he commanded the audience to bring out a business card and to write one thing they learned about generational differences in the workplace.  Then he asked everyone to print the letters Q, R, and S.  Next, he instructed the audience to circle, "Q," if anyone had a question for Misti.  Likewise, he asked participants to circle, "R," if they had a referral for Inspirion Inc.  Finally, he suggested listeners to circle, "S," if they were interested in having Misti speak at an upcoming event.

What Steve orchestrated was the beginning of a great follow-up system using Neuro linguistic Programming commands and auto-suggestions at the right time during the presentation.  The secret to success of the campaign, of course, will be in the timely and consistent follow-up activity after the event. 

Close First and Ask Second

Get your prospect to agree upfront to NOT have to think about it, consider it or get back to you.

The Selling Sherpa, Patrick Williams, suggests that when you get the fluff-off, you need to make sure you know why.  That's not his point, but that's what happens if you set yourself up for the possibility of "maybe" as an outcome to a sales call.  The Selling Sherpa makes an excellent point of avoiding mutual mystification during any communication with anyone.  It's your duty as an effective communicator to shine a bright light on any vagary so as to make sure it's seen in stark relief.  Summary and clarification during every step of a conversation is vital.  In most cases, it's best to act like Lieutenant Columbo to diffuse any possible defensiveness when you clarify any comment that is unclear or allows your prospect to proceed uncertainly.

 

Close for the accepted outcomes, first.

Begin your conversation with an agreement upfront on how long the conversation will take, an agenda, and the expected outcome for the next step.  For instance, "Joe, as we agreed when we set the appointment for this meeting, we'll spend the next half hour helping me understand where you are, where you want to be, your current options to fix your problem and if and how you want me to help. Is there anything else you want to accomplish?  Joe, to save you and me from any misunderstanding or wasted time, let's make sure that at the end of this meeting, we'll either agree on either how to move forward on fixing your problem or make this our last conversation about your present issue.  In other words, 'maybe' or 'I'll think about it' really means, 'no'.  I'm OK if you don't think I can help you.  You won't hurt my feelings.  Let's just make sure we're clear on why not, if that's the case.  I'll accept whichever decision you make, just not 'I'll get back to you.'  Fair enough?"

This way, you have permission to directly eschew your prospect's timid politeness or indecisiveness.  Yes or No?   

Photo credit:  Nancy Chow

What Must a Salesperson do to Close the Gap between Marketing and Sales?

What's the difference between Marketing and Sales? 

Marketing consultant, Laura Lake, defines marketing as "everything that you do to reach and persuade prospects" and sales as "everything that you do to close the sale and get a signed agreement or contract."  Anonymously authored blog About How To suggests "Marketing = Sizzle" whereas "Sales = Closing."  Duct Tape Marketing says marketing is "getting someone who has a need to know, like and trust you" and sales is converting someone with an unfulfilled need who knows, likes and trusts you into someone who will "try, buy, repeat and refer."  Information Marketer, Robert Middleton, analogistically describes marketing as getting to 2nd base and sales as bringing in the home run.  Finally, I like Karl Goldfield's personal definitions which includes a take on Business Development:

Business development is the accumulating of partnerships that will help you sell.
Marketing is the establishing of credibility that will help you sell.
Sales is the act of selling. Selling is the ability to receive money for an offering.

 

In an earlier post, "Do Salespeople Need their Own Web Presence?," I suggest that, especially for companies with distinctive marketing and sales departments, each salesperson should develop a personal brand. 

When prospects decide to become customers, what are they buying, your company and service or you?  Who are your Advisor Alliance partners promoting, the company or service or you?

If marketing's job is to build credibility, trust and familiarity for the company and its brand, how do they do it for you, the trusted advisor from whom the customer is really buying? 

Who's promoting you?

Digital Selling VS Analog Selling

How well can one develop a relationship with a prospect and sell their product or service without meeting or speaking on the telephone?

Photo: Peter Mertens

As many Seth Godin readers do, I often read the posts from which other bloggers trackback their responses to Godin's pearls of wisdom.  After reading Mr. Godin's post, I read trainer and blogger, Jason Womack's thanks for inspiration in which he mentioned he was presenting to a roomful in nearby capitol, Washington DC.  Then somewhere during my blog trekking to find examples of Internet radio business interview websites, I stumbled across, guess who, again in the same day.  I must have liked what he had to say because minutes later I found myself on the phone leaving Jason a message inviting him to lunch or dinner if he could squeeze it in on short notice.  Genuine as he is, Jason politely called me back to thank me for reaching out and even though he was understandably booked this trip, we agreed to talk within the next few weeks.  We may turn out to be strategic referral partners or clients of one another and most likely new friends.

Friend and Buzzter, Geoff Livingston, sourced other bloggers to understand how to transcend the limits of the digital Web 2.0 (there, I said it) approach to developing personal relationships.  He sites Ms. Toby Bloomberg's question, "when was the last time you talked, listened, laughed and learned with" your clients and Aaron Brazell's friendship with Shashib which started from Twitter tweets.  It seems you can only get so deep through public correspondence alone.

How does one use Social Networking to enhance Sales?

Journalist, Elaine Appleton Grant, reports on how to use Facebook and Linkedin to enlarge one's network.  Wallstreet Journal staff reporter, Shelly Banjo, shares on how to get the blogosphere to comment about your product.  I'm still trying to figure out how to automatically set appointments to discuss a prospects needs through social networking sites without picking up the phone or showing up.  Please post your comments on how this is done.

What does this have to do with the post title referencing Analog VS Digital?

Check out the picture posted above.  Which side appears to be more interesting?  Which side is more real?  I see "Digital" to be like social networking limited to blogging, tweeting and video logging for all the world to see.  "Analog" is personal, face-to-face interaction, telephone conversation, email and IM exchange.

What do you say Geoff, Toby and Aaron?

What's a Sales Breakthrough?

How much time, money, lost income potential and misery could you save yourself if you learned about career-altering breakthroughs most salespeople never experience?

Information Marketing Guru, Robert Middleton, asks the question, "What is a marketing breakthrough?"  Being a happy owner of The "Whole Shebang" Marketing Package which is centered around the InfoGuru Marketing Manual, I experienced a breakthrough to which I had often given lip-service but apparently did not understand the true meaning.

A breakthrough is any sudden or significant advancement, development, achievement, or increase that removes a barrier to progress.  Of course, a breakthrough is only acknowledged when the barrier to progress is recognized either before or after the breakthrough behavior occurs. 

In my case, it was over 3 years of wisely suggesting, "the riches are in the niches," before I understood the full gravity (literally -- prospects started falling from the sky) of that maxim.  It happened when I boldly hyper-curtailed my target market into a micro-niche.

What's a sales breakthrough?

Often, sales breakthroughs are defined as achieving anomalistic or platau-breaking sales revenues.  As this may be true, I've personally witnessed many sales breakthroughs after I had a change in attitude, behavior, belief or knowledge, usually for enough time until I experienced a quantum leap in results which made my breakthrough apparent.  Evidently, I had to encounter enough frustration before I made a change.  This impetus usually came with a great cost of time, money and opportunity. 

How much would you pay for sales secrets you're never likely to discover on your own?

Robert deservedly charges up to $249 for his breakthrough generating advice mentioned today.  I'll give you my 10 Big Breakthroughs in a Salesperson's Life for FREE.  In fact, when you order now, Robert is permitting me to GIVE AWAY the first paradigm-shifting chapter of his $99 plus InfoGuru Marketing Manual.  Why?  Because you'll buy the manual.  You should -- it's more than worth it.

How can Another Sales Professional in Another Industry Increase Your Brand?

Popularity by association

In a post about the stars of "Gilligan's Island", David Dalka  aptly derives the power of associative branding from an amusing news item involving the prohibited pot smoking habits of now-aging hottie, actress Dawn Wells, who played one of America's favorite girls next door, Marianne.  The original source, Yahoo Buzz Log cites:

The story stirred a tremendous amount of interest in Search—but not about Dawn Wells. Instead, lookups skyrocketed for Tina Louise, the va-va-voom redhead who played Ginger on the show. We registered an astonishing 13,076% rise in demand for her name (compare that to Wells' 5,860%). Just the thought of Mary Ann triggered all these luscious old memories of Ginger, Ginger's photos, and Ginger's legs. Searchers also boosted "tina louise news" and "tina louise now." What would the Professor say?

It appears that chatter about Marianne brought on more than twice as much pubescent re-collection of Ginger. 

Isn't there a similar effect on sales or interest in a product when it's worn or used by a celebrity?  Doesn't trade news or the popularity or notoriety of a well known competitor increase interest and demand throughout the industry?  If this is true, wouldn't a salesperson's memorability be increased if he were recommended by a popular and trusted advisor? 

• Imagine the magnifying effect if more than one reputable advisor introduced you to their client or prospect
• What's the affect on your relationship with the referred prospect when these advocates revisit with them?
• How much more successful will you be in completing business with recommended prospects from trusted advocates?

What can you do to be 3 times more popular?