“If,you cannot get rid of,the family skeleton, you might as well make it dance.” George Bernard Shaw

The quote from George Bernard Shaw may not seem to have any relevance to sales and training but it does. It demonstrates an attitude that will serve you well in sales. That is to find out what your perceived negatives are and turn them to your advantage – make those skeletons dance!

You might confuse potential client comments as objections. You might hear:

• Your more expensive
• Your deliveries are too slow
• Your company is not big enough

And other such ‘objections’.

And if you do and your heart skips a beat then you ‘ain’t making the skeleton dance!’

Try being bold when confronted with:
“you’re too expensive”
and reply with
“Absolutely. We are because we can. We charge that because our clients are more than happy to pay those rates because of the results we generate. And let me tell you why………..”

Now that is a confident approach pre-empting any need to battle or overcome objections. It definitely negates any need for tricky sales closes.
Draw up a list of your perceived negatives and see how you can make the skeleton dance.

Note: Some of the concepts contained in this article were influenced by Barry Maher in his book: No lie:Truth is the ultimate sales tool. Check Barry out here: http://www.barrymaher.com/

My folks were down this weekend and they are always great for inspiration for a few blog posts. One that stood out for me was my mum telling me about her dissatisfaction with Sky (digital tv provider in the UK).

My mum rang to cancel her Sky subscription, partly  because it was not getting used, and partly because it then seemed rather expensive for what was being consumed. She had to run the gauntlet of questions for a few minutes to avoid the special deals only available to her if she continued to be a subscriber to get to a point where the contract was going to be terminated.

The You Are Too Expensive conversation

The young guy (YG) on the other end of the phone asked:

“I have to put down a reason for you canceling. What shall I put?”

Mum – “It’s too expensive”

(YG) “OK – I will put down that you can’t afford it”

Mum – “No, I can afford it, it’s just I don’t want to pay for it because in my view it’s too expensive”

(YG) – “OK i will put down you can’t afford it”

This went on for some time untill my mum agreed in exasperation and vowed never to go back!

The point is that you too may be using subtle word changes to change the meanings of your communications. And these might have a powerful impact, both positively or negatively on the way you are communicating to your intended clients.

As a start why not look at your sales process and see how that  might be read, understood, misunderstood and interpreted by your prospective clients and customers.

In that way, we might get to avoid the You Are Too Expensive conversation.

If you sell to the 21 – 39 age group then a recent study by the Zandl Group might give you some interesting perspectives on what you need to focus on.

Do It Yourself Culture:

Consumers are increasingly adopting a do-it-yourself mentality to save money. This can be seen in shifts in:

• Cooking v Eating Out
• Bringing their own lunches to work
• Making coffee at home V Starbucks
• Doing their own home repairs V Bringing experts
• Seeking out cheaper, more underground, original entertainment venues

Online Barter:

Consumers are looking to the following sites for financial relief.

• Craigslist to sell/buy/barter
• Ebay to sell/buy/barter
• Paperbackswap.com to exchange books
• Couchsurfing.com for free accommodation – worldwide

Stay in touch  with the trends if you want your business to be a success for 2010 and beyond……… if you don’t know where to start then try http://www.trendhunter.com/

It’s funny but as a sales trainer and consultant it’s very rare that I wear a tie anymore. And do you know what I don’t miss them one iota!

I was reading through a classic sales ‘text book’ from the early 1990′s recently and was caught by the Way that the advise has dated so much in just ten years. I won’t give the name of the book because it was once regarded as the best sales texts books available and it would not be right.

The suggestions when it came to dress were:

‘Mens suits should be solid blue or gray, pinstripe or chalk stripe or modest gray plaid. Wool or polyester that looks like wool, is preffered. The darker the suit, the more authority it carries, although black is funeral. Men’s shirts and ties are important. Generaly, shirts should be white or pale blue or have mdest stripes………The ages of the salesman and the customer he is facing will affect the choice of dress. For salesman, considerbly younger than his customer, particularly buyers over the age forty eight, it is advisable that the salesman adopt the high – authority pattern of a dark suit along with a white shirt.’

Wow!

What detailed and specific advice. What happens to buyers at the age of 48? Is there some well known  ‘professional buyer menopause’ stage that kicks in?

Do you think that is true in today’s modern business world?

Personally I don’t but I would love to hear your thoughts. Personally I think that you have to dress appropriately for the circumstances. And if you are in a sales situation you should take the time to find out the perspective of the person and company you are going to see.

Thinking like this is still quite prevalent.  I was at an event recently and chatting away to someone who said:

“This event seems to be better than the last one I went to in London. It was full of scruffy gits, who couldn’t dress properly and not one of them was wearing a suit!”

Beware of taking a short sighted attitude like this in todays modern business arena. Some of the most wealthy, dynamic, forward thinking business people I know would never dreamof wearing a tie, never mind  a suit. Some you wouldn’t get out of their flip-flops!  However, if you were selling to this guy (he was a Sales Director) you would never get anywhere without a suit as a minimum. It’s not right because we all like to believe we are judged on the value we bring rather than appearances, but it still happens.

My own personal philosophy was very much moulded in my teens and in particular one instance when I went to buy a car. WhenI was 19, I was fortunate to be in a position to go and buy a brand new Volkswagen Golf through the family business. Although I was technically a University student at the time this was to be a ‘company car’. The problem was I  dressed like a student. And not a very good one at that!

I remember walking through a few showrooms where the salespeople just ignored me as if I was not even there. Yes, I looked scruffy but I as good as had a cheque for £15,000 in my pocket to spend.  I never really found any one to take an interest in me and had to force myself upon a salesperson after I got fed up of looking around garages. I will always remember that lesson.

Be careful who you judge!

If you are in sales then dress appropriately. If in doubt you can’t go wrong with dressing smartly or one way of putting it is  to dress how the people who advise your potential client dress i.e their bank manager and accountant.

Don't discount your sales prices

When times are tough, the temptation is to consider dropping your prices. Don’t!

If you drop your prices you are only adding to your own difficulties. The table above shows the impact small changes in the price you sell at can have on your business.

Print it out from the screen or download it here

If you are having difficulty putting together a logical and emotional reason why your potential customer or client should use you then look at the quality of the questions you asked initially.

It may not be the definitive list of questions to ask but I guarantee you, that if  you have managed to get the answers to all of the following questions then you are well on your way to a sale.

• What is the customers/clients  situation?

• What is the customer’s perspective on the situation?

• What is the customer doing? Why?

• What does the customer want to do? Why?

• What are the customers perceived or stated needs?

• What are the unstated or unrecognised needs?

• What are the customer’s problems and the priority of each?

• Where do these problems have the biggest impact?

• What are the customers buying criteria?

• What does the customer like and dislike?

• What has the customer already said no and yes to?

• What is the customers decision process?

• Who are your competitors? What are your comparative strengths and where do you rank?

• What are the customer’s time frames?

• What should the ideal solution contain?

• What can you present to build your credibility

If you own a SPAR retailer consider a Subway franchise. If you are a huge department store, how about adding an old fashioned  gents hair cutting and shoe shine shop.

Maybe this is a step too far though?

If you are determined to set yourself up to fail I have drawn up the 7 key things you should say to yourself on a daily basis to ensure that you speed up your failure as soon as possible. Might as well get it over and done with right?

1. I can’t…………………….
2. I musn’t………………….
3. I haven’t got a chance.
4. It’s no use………………
5. The world is going to the dogs…..
6. There’s no point trying…….
7. You just can’t win…………..

Why not vote for the one that you think will help you fail the quickest?

Power Of Mind In Sales Training

One of the worst experiences at the hands of a so called professional sales person happened recently in a Portsmouth car dealership. See if you think they need sales training

“Can I help you sir?” Dave asked (name changed to protect the not so innocent)

I explained that I was just looking at the new Audi as I may be changing in anything up to 6 months and was interested in the new range. I was stood admiring one of the new range at the time.

“Come over to the desk Sir” as he led me to the far corner of the dealership where he proceeded to look straight into his computer. He made no eye contact with me at all as he asked “name, postcode, telephone number, email address”. Dave was so concerned with getting my details so that he could put me on the database that he made no effort to build rapport, ask me any questions and the worst sin of all – he took me away from the product. A product that I liked the look of, the more time I was examining it.

What happened next was comical for me but bad news for the car dealership owners. Dave went straight into a sales pitch that went something like this:

“Well I have great news for you. We don’t need to, you understand, because we have sold our quota this year but we are running some amazing deals if you are prepared to commit to buying something today.”

I inwardly chuckled. I had told Dave no more than 5 minutes ago that I was looking to change in about 6 months time and here he was, without doing anything to earn the right, he was running an old school sales tactic by me to close me down. Whats more he had not taken the time or interest to ask me any questions, match the car to my lifestyle or my needs, wants and likes. He had made zero effort to increase the urgency to buy now.

Dave explained that they were having a push for sales and if I was prepared to give him a commitment that day then there were some amazing, unbeatable offers available. Again I chuckled inwardly. I asked Dave what the offers were and he replied with:

“The thing is, I need to go and see my sales manager and he is a bit of a bulldog. I need you to do something for me and give me as much commitment to me as you can so I can get you the best deal from him”

I politely thanked Dave and explained that only 5 minutes ago I had told him that I was just looking, my buying cycle was planned to be around 6 months and that the little gold band on my left hand absolutely meant that I don’t decide to spend £32,000 on the spot!. However, if he would just give me the price of this absolutely fantastic offer that was too good to be true then I could be on my way and start to think about it. If it was too good an offer I would be back within the week. If it wasn’t I would keep in touch and would potentially buy from them in 6 months time.

Dave couldn’t find his manager to get the prices so he did the first and only smart thing he had done all day. He took me out for a test drive. All the way during the test drive Dave was telling me “I really want to sell you a car today”. He didn’t have to tell me, it was clear from every single thing he did. He had no real interest in what I wanted.

At one point Dave asked me what I did to which I replied “I run a sales training company in West Sussex ” . He smiled a big grin and said “I have done well, haven’t I? You only came in for 5 minutes and I have managed to keep you around for about twenty.”
I was beginning to feel sorry for Dave because the more time I spent with him the less likely it was that I would buy the car from him. The car was selling itself and I am more than aware that I can source it from hundreds of different sources via the internet. Local businesses have to understand that they have to put a huge effort into developing long term relationships. Would I recommend this dealership to anyone – plainly not!
It’s not all Dave’s fault though. He has probably never had any decent sales training that would show him the error of his ways. I am not taking all responsibility away from Dave. Any self respecting sales professional must understand that they are responsible for their own development. I am willing to wager that Dave has not read many sales books, does not listen to many sales programs as he drives to work in his company Audi. And what about the good old fashion skills of people reading, body language and behavioural flexibility?

We got back from the test drive and I was convinced about the car but far from convinced about the car salesman. The whole experience turned from comical to annoying and frustrating when we got back to the Audi dealership.

Dave – “ So what do I have to do to make you buy a car today?”

Me – “Just give me the unbelievable, fantastic, can’t be beaten price and let m go away and think about it. If it is so unbelievable then I will be back soon.”

Dave – “No you don’t understand. You have to give me some commitment so that I can go and argue with my boss that you are proper punter and not just a time waster.”

Me – “No Dave, that’s not how it works. I came in for a brochure as I was going to buy in about 6 months. You said you have a deal that’s too good to be true. Give me that price so I can go!”

This went on for about 5 minutes at which point I got up to go. Dave said that as I would not give him any commitment then the price would be the sticker price with no discount. By this time I couldn’t care.
I have had a few emails from Dave since. He is obviously oblivious to the fact that he enraged me towards the end with his terrible attempts at selling me a car and increasing the urgency of the ‘deal’. It is unlikely that me or anyone I know will ever buy a car from that dealership.

I bet Dave was chatting to his Sales Manger a few days later when they got to my name in his sales prospects list. “Oh, him. He was just a tyre kicker!”

Dave and his Portsmouth/Southampton dealership could really do with some decent sales training .

It may come as a surprise to you but your own worst enemy in a negotiation is yourself. Some people seem to spend hours seeking out the magic words that will help them win in any negotiation yet fail to look to see what they or their employees are doing wrong.

Two recent personal experiences highlight this fantastically well:

The hunt for my perfect lights:

Imagine how excited I was when I found out that the one of the only 2 sellers of the lights that I wanted for my new office were about a 10 minutes drive from my home. I rushed down there and recited my list to the chap on the counter -

“I will have 2 of the powered track, 4 of the light fittings, 4 of the special fixings, please”

After a few minutes of scribbling on a piece of paper he quoted me a price which I was expecting (based on the advertised R.R.P. ) but then added:

“But that’s before your 25% discount”

Hmmm. Thank You, I thought. That equated to about £100 which I was more than happy to take yet was not expecting.

In this store there is a real need for some retail sales training rather than negotiation training. If this one member of staff was to do this twice per day for 200 working days then he has just instantly lost his company £40,000 in lost profit. That’s just from one member of staff in one location.

This chap had just negotiated against himself.

The Perfect Fish and Chips:

One of the great things about living in England is the fantastic fish and chips we have. My local chip shop happens to be very good and as a naughty treat we use them every couple of months. The last time I went there there was a large sign up over the counter which read:

“Due to the rising food prices we have decided to reward our customers by reducing the cost of our chips by 30p.” That equates to about a 20% drop in price of one of their one and only products.

Was this a wise marketing move?

Absolutely not!

The shop owner had just negotiated against himself. When he is reviewing his profits at the end of the year and is blaming the economic downturn, the credit crunch and everything else going for his terrible year will he be right? Absolutely not!

You don’t always need sales or negotiation training if you can take control of your worst negotiating enemy – yourself.

I found long ago that traditional powerpoint presenations and sales training does more to kill off the key things I promote than anything else. It is rigid, linear and down right boring!

Don’t fall into these traps with your presenations:

He is a great big ball of energy that only knows fun and has quickly become part of the family — with all the emotional attachment that goes with it.

Apart from teaching me a few things about communications skills the search and purchase of Pemba has been an introduction to some superb business practices – most noticeable by my vet.

See if you can spot their skill from our tale of acquiring a suitable pet doctor!

We were looking for a vet and asked around the local community and some family and friends. One name kept popping up and as my wife had used them for her cats when she was growing up we decided to give them a try.

They were about 20 minutes drive away so before we went I drove past our local vet to see what they might be like.

I never found out.

The outside was tatty and dirty and just left me thinking that if they were prepared to let their business premises get like this then what care would they give my young puppy. Who by thgis stage we were a little attached to!

We arrived at the recommended vets a little apprehensive as this was Pemba’s first time out of the house and we were still training him to be responsive to us. We walked into a beautifully clean building with immaculately dressed sales/customer service staff (I deliberately didn’t use the term receptionists as I firmly believe everyone in a company is in sales).

We were shown into the vet’s office where we were greeted by a kind, cheerily faced male vet who warmly introduced himself to us. He told us all about his own black Labradors and how he adores them.

The vet then did a thorough health check, produced a detailed report on his first few months and gave us some free food, free wormer and invited us to call in (without an appointment) at least 1 per month to get Pemba used to the place. On these visits, the nurse would weigh him and make a fuss of him and get him comfortable in the unusual surroundings. We were also invited to a puppy party where he could socialize with other puppies.

The charge for all of this — Zero, free, nothing!! Up to this point the vet had made no sales out of us and there was no hard sell.

We took Pemba to his first puppy party and he came back with a goody bag including treats and a soft toy – all free.

My wife and I are quite attached to Pemba and our buying decisions where he is concerned have a large amount of emotion attached. He is now part of the family’.

Who do you think will be his vet for the rest of his life?

Of course. Our nice vet who looked after us.

Look out for part 2 where I will demonstrate the fantastic business practices behind this canny vets operations.

Remember – come back for part 2.

To be honest I wasn’t sure of the point of the rant and what he was taking offence to. The post was this one on persuasion .

The post was a quick quote from Dale Carnegie about human nature. The rant took offense to the terms ‘Influence, persuasion and convincing’ and essentially (I guess) tried to make the point that no one like to be sold to – they like to buy.

I would like to open this up to debate, especially to the sales training, sales consultancy and sales coaching industry.

My take on this is:

· I am a proud sales professional and would never, ever feel uncomfortable telling people this.

· I am a consumer and a business to business buyer and I love being sold to. Although there is an argument that it is only people in the sales training arena love to be sold to. What do you think?

· I love it when I see someone professionally show interest in me, ask me timely relevant questions and show/tell/demonstrate relevant features, benefits and outcomes that I was unsure of or better still did not know of. If they get me to visualise it then superb!

· I am grateful when someone points out that I may not know exactly what is right for me and then demonstrates why

· I am aware of bad practice and can detect BS a mile away. Sometimes I may even buy from bad salespeople but it is on my terms and only ever is it a one off transaction.

· I hold a high level education and have an MBA specializing in Buyer behavior and can argue the semantics of certain words with many of the ‘sales specialists’ around. I do not, however, lose sight of the fact that many of the people that go through my sales training are young, have never been on a sales training program before, have very little awareness of open questions, could not draw up a one page feature and benefits list on their products and services and are looking for the sales skills needed to help them sell. They would be cheated if I stood up and told them that it’s simple -

"Go back to the company and create an environment where people want to buy but don’t sell to them."

That’s best left to sales consulting with the company itself.

I am an avid user of ‘PULL’ marketing and sales techniques such as social media, information giving, blogs and video but that doesn’t make me lose sight of the fact that people do like to be sold to regardless of the words we use to make it fit with our 2008 conscience.

Selling in 2008 is about transparency, information, guarantees of quality to reduce buyer risk, follow through, integrity and honesty. Don’t lose sight of the fact that the people who attend our training courses need us to mould them and shape them in the best way possible. Don’t blind them with semantics.

Give them the platform to be the very best professional salespeople they possibly can be.

Your comments would be appreciated…………

From personal recent experience I would say the Post Office can urgently do with some sales training .

The papers and TV news have been filled recently with the subject of post office closures and how this will kill off many local communities. I can understand this and can only sympathise with people who rely on the post office for essential services.

What I can’t help is my feeling that largely the post office have brought this upon themselves with untrained and quite frankly appalling customer service / sales staff . I know that many of the post office counters operate as mini franchises but they should insist on some element of sales training or sales management training .

I recently went into my local branch to send a parcel to the USA. The man at the counter huffed and puffed his way through my request and looked at me like I had asked him if I could kiss his mother.

After a few minutes of huffing and puffing he came back with the words:

” We can do it but it’s going to be expensive and we will have to fill out a whole stack of paperwork”

Being difficult to put off I said OK.

After about 10 minutes of him reading through a few simple sheets of documentation I gave up and went to DHL Within 3 minutes I had completed the transaction with a nice customer friendly sales person and was on my way.

If I was giving training to the local branch of the Post Office to increase their sale s I would start with:

• Sales Attitude – people are busy and they want to be treated with respect and be made to feel that their business is valuable

• Sales Words – It doesn’t take much retail sales training to change the emphasis of the words the sales representative had used to something like:

“You would like it sent to the USA sir – absolutely. Consider it done. Based on the weight and your delivery requirement of 4 days, I’m delighted to tell you it will be there on time and probably early and it will only be £42.00.

There are a few forms to complete and I know them like the back of my hand so all we need to do is get you to sign here and here and I can fill in the rest for you.

Is there anything else I can help you with?”

If all post office staff received customer service training so that they could think like that then I am certain their sales would not be in decline.

I spent my last weekend at an Entreprenurial Get together of 500 people who had gathered to see some amazing guest speakers.

One of the highlights for me was Duncan Bannatyne. He spoke for an hour and then held an open microphone question and answer session.

Duncans speach was superb. I have to say he was not the most “polished speaker” you are likely to encounter but his talk was based on his real life experiences and his humour shone through. This just made the talk seem so much more natural.

One of the things that really struck me was that Duncan could not really say how he had done any of his huge successes any more than “Just do It” (or was that Nike?). He truly believes that anyone can emulate his success yet can’t really describe how to do it.

I guess that’s the mark of a true entrepreneur. Strong belief in himself and an attitude that it is can be doen. Just get on and do it!

The very first thing I do is remind myself and them of one of my favourite sayings from Dale Carnegie:

“There is only one way…to get anybody to do anything….And that is by making the other person want to do it”

That should be the basis of all ethical negotiation and influence training.

This short but powerful video introduces a fantastic tool for assisting traditional businesses in getting more sales and more profits from existing clients and prospects. The form used can be downloaded here:  Product and service matrix for increased sales growth