Sales Training: Keeping a customer part 1 – Problems – how easy it is to be proactive

“But if we tell all of our customers about (INSERT SOMETHING THAT WENT WRONG), we will be needlessly upsetting the apple cart. Why not just let the people it effects contact us.”

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard a top ranking executive say something suprisingly similar to this. Worse, I watch sales reps shake in fear at the thought of sharing problems with customers. HEAR ME SCREAMING FROM THE ROOFTOPS! TREAT YOUR CUSTOMERS WITH RESPECT. Here is a thought, tell everyone when an issue arises and explain what you are doing to fix it.

BE PROACTIVE!!!

Send an e-mail, make phone calls, post it on your website, list it on the login screen of your service. and make sure everybody knows from you and not the irritation of discovering the issue for themselves. Some thoughts:

1. The people it effects will appreciate your candor and not have to go through the pain of disocvering the issue for themselves. They avoid wasted time trying to troubleshoot other things besides your problem. Best of all, they know you are working on it and did not have to go out of their way to notify you of the issue. Nothing is more irritating than calling someone about a problem and having them respond with, “We are aware of that.” Well, why did you not bother to tell me? While they might not be happy with the issu, at least they respect you as a business partner.
2. The people it does not effect will be grateful that you are so forthcoming and prepared. Why? Because if anything ever did come up that would cause them concern, they know you are the type to be up front and let them know. This is a tremedous advantage when looking at time. Now you have shown respect to someone who is not hampered by a problem.

When people are wooed by your competitors, the issues they had with your offering are not what gets them thinking about leaving. The way you handled an issue is what sticks in their mind. If you are a professional that shows the customer that you are looking out for them first and all else second, it will not be forgotten. A better price, a neat feature, they cannot succumb to these enticements, for the greatest benefit has already been delivered…trust.

Sales Training: Opening sales doors – The long haul, then consultative, and then done?

Again, I need to preface with one of my philosophies. If you have not read the last post, or had the “privilege” of sitting with me and talking sales after a couple of glasses of wine, you probably have never heard my opinion of closing. The greatest sales people are not deal closers, they are door openers. They see the first sale as a starting point, not the end, and no matter how you color it, closing has a sense of finality.

I ask all of the sales leaders reading this to think about what it takes to hunt. Prospecting is a thankless task, and finally one gets to qualify a contact extensively and uncover an opportunity. Then, to flush out the conditions of the sale, the requirements to make a difference, and the management of any possible objections. This process involves really getting to understand someone and what they are trying to accomplish. It involves become trusted and liked by that person. WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU DO ALL OF THAT AND THEN BE DONE?

When you are finally done proposing and you have the opportuntiy to foster a long relationship between your company and another, it is time to start planning for the marriage. Plant seeds early to get what you want, a reference and referrals. It is critical to gain access into your contacts inner circle. People tend to run with others like them. If you develop a relationships with one person in IT, they will usually gain you access to other IT professionals. If they are trusted in their circle, you are welcomed by implied reputation. This can be even stronger within a company. Here the results can help you gain access. Doing a good job in one department can often gain you access to another. It can also make it easier to up sell or cross sell as the opportunity permits.

So, what do you do if you are not closing? The answer is easy, but takes some dedication. This is well worth the effort, since every customer you do this with can equal hundreds and hundreds of cold calls. Call them and thank them a day or two after the sale. Follow up via e-mail weekly, and remember those little news articles and tips you found and shared as you were cultivating the lead? Do not stop sending them. Call monthly and ask what benefits they are seeing. If they do not know, find out and take that data and develop a study. People appreciate these things, and once the data is confirmed, they will not only let you share it, but help you find people in their network to share it with. If this sounds hard, guess what while the answer is easy, at first doing this well is challenging. Like everything else however, it becomes second nature after time. Nothing, and I mean nothing, helps endorse a sale more than a colleague telling you why you have to do something NOW!

Sales Training: Integrating CRM-SFA into the sales team Part 1 – A cry for Web 2.0 and now Sales 2.0!

This next set of posts is going to focus on leveraging your sales tools and programs to train and ramp up new initiatives and new hires. We will also dive into the relevance of using these tools to continually educate sales people on the process developed to best manage leads, activity, and your pipeline. With so much to cover where I think it is most important to begin is with helping your team define the difference between selling and non selling activities.

So often people assume that selling activities involve communicating with prospects and customers, and non selling activities is everything else. While I agree that selling activities include communication, what most sales people forget is it also includes the strategic and tactical steps needed to ensure that those communications produce the desired results. Without goals and assessment, a high volume of sales rarely come to fruition.

So let us splice activity into the two categories:

Selling:

1. Calls
2. Meetings
3. Some E-mails
4. Web presentations
5. Reading of account history for pre-call planning
6. Studying notes and determining the next objective
7. Creating goal questions for meetings
8. Reading account history for gaps in knowledge
9. Determining value proposition for a customer
10. Crafting value propositions based on customer requirements
11. Meetings with your team of superiors on a specific account

And now your non selling activities:

1. Updating notes in CRM
2. Updating accounts and pipeline in CRM
3. Weekly team meetings
4. Weekly forecast meetings with superior
5. Trainings
6. Reading e-mail
7. Working with support on issues
8. Customer service calls
9. Delivering reports to management
10. Setting up your activity for any given day
11. Designing and writing non selling e-mails

With Web 2.0 tools jumping into the market, many of your non selling activities can be reduced if not eliminated. Landslide, a product I recommend, offers a VIP assistant who enters data for you. This means your reps can make a phone call or send an e-mail to your VIP and have activity, accounts, pipeline, contacts, or anything else in the system updated. Landslide calls their system a “Workstyle Manager” because their focus is on the rep not the customer. This time saving tool not only frees the rep from tedious non-selling activity, but also increases the likelihood that reps will properly update information making it more valuable later in the process.

They also have built the entire sales process, including media and training into the system, so you can send items like, data sheets, email templates, and testimonials directly to the contact. Rep’s can review trainings or best practice documents relative to what they are trying to accomplish, reducing their dependency on others and speeding up their ability to deliver. Also, they have WebEx built into the system so you can immediately get people into meetings for web demos and collaboration. This can cut away much of the time wasted on non selling activity, but also improve and intensify the selling activities.

Web 2.0 also gives the new wave management power tools for educating and delivering information. Many of my team members, old and new, read my blog for educational purposes. I also am networked on LinkedIn, and on Skype or free to chat on IM 24/7. This allows me to share my knowledge with my teams in friendly and more passive modes. Sometimes the boss can be daunting, even when the intent is to be helpful. Social networks and blog posts are softer ways of getting information to your more timid reps.

Back to the control of a new way of managing data. With cleaner and more common data management, and a defined sales process with training, meetings inevitably become more focused, which tends to make them shorter and of greater value. A final parting shot is that when people feel they have resources in the proper place, they ramp up much quicker. Empower your reps and teach them to stand on their own two feet, or at least the new Web 2.0 abilities.

Book Review: “Selling To Vito the Very Important Top Officer” – Anthony Parinello

Delivery: 7

Anthony Parinello is a master trainer and salesman. He attributes all of his success to a turning point in his career. This moment is when he decided to start at the top of the food chain with “VITO”. He developed a system that will get you meeting with the top people in an organization and aid you in developing lasting relationships.“Selling To Vito” might be the worst name in history for a book, but what Parinello lacks in witty phrase turning; he quickly makes up for in compelling ideas with strong messaging to back it up. This is another top of the read list for anyone with the courage to heed his advice.A few minor complaints:

1. He likes to coin phrases and name his prospects a little too often. He dilutes his message a bit with the touch of cheese and his 1980’s style vernacular. This will quickly turn off the young sales reader, and it will be a shame for his concept and messages are pure.

2. There is not enough “story” in the writing. It is a bit too much system and not enough substance. Again, this makes it hard to keep turning the pages. If I could make one suggestion to a legend of the circuit, and it is pretty ballsy of me to critique a master, but since this is a review I have to speak from the heart. My suggestion would be to add more tales of success that utilize the process and remove a bit of the spoon fed instructions. At times it feels a bit insulting.

3. While the baby boomers are still in power, they are slowly starting to retire. When the 60’s and 70’s babies start take control of the corporate world, the electronic real time super highway reality of life will eliminate his mailing methods. My generation is plugged in, and it will take talented e-mails that are permitted to get through to make your point. While communication is getting more and more immediate, it is also getting harder to get messages through the gateway. While Parinello will probably attest that this is why to send a printed letter, I can assure you that my colleagues trash every letter we get. Personally, if it is not a bill or a check, my mail is meaningless and gets filed in the cylinder.To any young readers out there, I recommend fighting your way through these potential read stoppers and get through to the substance of this book. Find ways to get your message to the top.

Concept: 8

Parinello’s methods are not exactly original, but what he does is create an easy to follow system that will work for anyone with the smarts and guts to do it. My only concern with his concept is how little he stresses the ability to collaborate with groups. I believe when you are working with the top people, it is imperative to work every contact to the north, south, east, and west. He mentions many times how “VITO” has his trusted advisers, but never suggests using them as partners as well.He defines the technical members of the team as burdens to the sales cycle. There is a disdain and trust of these members of “VITO”’s team. I think there is some truth in his opinions, and heeding his advice will serve you well. I would only add that if you develop ways to maximize your relationship with everyone in an organization, you will only continue to prosper.This one point aside, Parinello’s concepts are spot on.

Message: 10

Listen to the man and adopt a strategy that gets you to the top of the corporate hierarchy. Parinello is absolutely, ABSOLUTELY, 100% COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY CORRECT when he says that this will speed up the hierarchy and win you bigger and better sales. It will also speed up the “No” process by eliminating endless time chasing deals that were never there, or you never had a chance of winning. My favorite point that he makes is one of my favorite mantras (My quote):“A Sales Champion does not close deals, but opens the door to long term relationships.”He states this many times in his book and every time it made me smile. He had a quote that, may be my new favorite. It speaks to the work ethic of a Sales Champions:“If you want to win all the awards and enjoy the prestige and commission checks that it brings, then begin to do your sales work part-time; start working half-days. That’s right just pick twelve hours each and every day and work ‘em.”

Overall score: 8

Anthony Parinello does not need me to tell him he wrote a good book. I present this review to all of you that are struggling to get past the influencers and evaluators in the market. Jump start your career by reading this book and using some of his methods. The biggest point he makes, and one that you have to embrace to succeed is that you can establish equal business stature with top officers by speaking their language and understanding their needs. Give them benefits and they will give you business.

Jill Konrath makes one unbelievable point

To date I have not posted from another blog. The reason is not important, but for the first time I was compelled to send my readers to another brilliant mentor. Here is the start of her post, and I insist you go read the rest.

Beyond Value: How to Become Invaluable to Your Customers

As sellers, we’re continually told to sell value and to let our prospects know about all of our value-added services. After all, that’s how we’re going to win the sales. Right?
Not necessarily. Value is relative. It’s in the eye of the beholder. So much depends on how the decision makers you’re dealing with perceive “value.” And even then, selling “value” may be totally ineffective – or not enough to make the difference.
To be successful in today’s business environment, you may need to become invaluable to your customers.

Basically customers can be segmented into three different types based on their perceptions of value and what you can do to increase your sales effectiveness when working with them.

Continue reading “Beyond Value: How to Become Invaluable to Your Customers” »

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, helps sellers crack into corporate accounts, shorten sales cycles and win big contracts. She is a frequent speaker at national sales meetings and association events. For more articles like this, visit http://www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com . Get a BONUS Sales Call Planning Guide ($19.95 value) when you sign up for the Selling to Big Companies e-newsletter.