Tag: Selling

Why do customers stall?

One thing I take a lot of pride in is that I was able to have some of the best years (at that point) of my sales career during the 08′-12′ Great Recession. While many of my counterparts were frozen (rightfully so- it was brutal) in how to move forward in that business environment, I was busy doubling down on my craft and subsequently finished many of those years as the #1 sales person in the organization. I don’t say that to impress you, but to impress upon you that there are opportunities to be had during this time. You just have to begin using the right strategies & stay in the right frame of mind moving forward.

Today I want to share some strategies on how to move deals through your sales cycle that may have stalled.

In consultative sales you’ve got four outcomes: a sale, a no sale, an advancement, or a continuation (another word for stall). As with any type of selling, you want as many sales as possible, limited amount of no sales (they happen), absolutely no CONTINUATIONS/STALLS, and more ADVANCEMENTS than no sales.

Some examples of continuations from a prospect: “call me next week”, “send me a quote and I’ll follow up with you”, etc. Anything where there’s a perception of a next step, but there’s no commitment or plan on what that next step may be. An advancement is where there is a solid commitment on what the next steps are, and a commitment on what you, as the sales rep, and the prospect will be doing.

What we don’t want are continuations- when you get one it’s important to be able to identify whether this is a STALL or a CONDITION to not moving forward. A condition would be any legitimate reason as to why the prospect cannot move forward- examples would be; there’s an approval process, another decision maker needs to be involved, a payment stipulation (bonus coming). It’s easy to identify stalls- if you’ve done a good job in your presentation, things line up- you’ve gained agreements along the way, and then all of sudden once a decision needs to be made, you’re given reasons that just don’t seem consistent to what’s been discussed and agreed upon.

Now-think about your projection. How much of your pipeline, or past opportunities, suffer from stalled opportunities? Opportunities- where you may believe you have a chance, but you can’t identify why they haven’t moved forward. They seemingly string you along.

If you are like most, stalled opportunities easily account for 30% and 50%. In a tough market one of the biggest returns you can reap is to reduce the impact of stalled decisions; however, to jump start a stalled sale, you must understand the cause of the stall. Here are a few common causes to investigate:

Lack of connection to a the most important issues to the prospect. Unless your solution increases savings, improves aesthetics, home value, comfort, efficiency, sound, and security, or some other looming implication, you can expect a stall. When purse strings tighten, homeowners will only spend on matters that impact them the most.

A sales rep only has reengage and ask three questions to uncover issues:

  1. Why do you want this solution?
  2. Why are those problems important to solve?
  3. Why does this matter to you?

Lack of perceived value. Most people can really only juggle five or six critical issues at a time. We all live with problems that we don’t need to solve today. However, competing priorities are constant. Can your prospect articulate the value or impact of addressing the issue? If your solution, from your prospects perspective, doesn’t have enough value to get in his top three or four, you get stalled or put on the back burner. Ask the prospect to quantify the impact of resolving the issue. Better yet, ask her how the solution will impact her personally.

Lack of differentiation. Lack of differentiation will cause the prospect to spend more time evaluating, which translates to a stall. If you are unable to differentiate on features and solving problems, you will be forced to differentiate on price.

Decision authority. Decision authority is one of the most common causes of stalled decisions. It’s important to ask yourself, “Has the person you’re in contact with made this type of decisions before? When and how?”. Understanding their decision authority and decision making process early in the conversation will help identify whether you are dealing with a STALL or a CONDITION.

Risk. Making a decision involves risk. The prospects perception of risk can span impacts like lost budget flexibility,(do we forgo our Cruise this year??), lost time, or fear of making the wrong decision. As a prospect gets closer to making a decision, the risk becomes greater in her mind. Common tools for alleviating risk include supplying references, using reliable third-party data, and demonstrating return-on-investment analysis.

My hope is that you can take these above strategies and immediately apply them to begin helping your prospects move forward.

Thanks for stopping by and remember- the best earn the sale!

Are you selling behind a boring company mission?

Does your company have a mission/vision statement?

How's this for inspiration?

Does your company have a customer service credo?

Does your company have stated values?

These are the principles that your company has set in place to act as guideposts for employees and customers. Every good company has them and most I’ve found are just boring. Same points you see everywhere..”to be a leader in our industry”…”provide exceptional customer service”..blah blah blah. I’m not suggesting it’s not important and I agree that you have to start somewhere, but I see very little originality.

So my question is this.. What’s YOUR Personal Mission Statement?

Customers are faced with many products and services that are all vying to be numero uno. Set yourself apart, be original, go out on a limb and tell your customer what they can expect from you..personally. One of the most challenging and thought-provoking exercises that I completed early in my sales career was my personal mission statement. I later adapted this into a customer promise that I share with many potential clients. I challenge you to complete one for yourself. Set yourself apart from the pack.

This will take time. Here is a great tool to help you along and to help generate ideas: Personal Mission Statement Builder

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Find your Pony to Blow Past your Goals!

I was asked to present a few points to our sales team recently. Here is what I shared below. Hope you find some tips you can apply and use to immediately drive results.

Find your Pony to Blow Past your Goals!

Pretty Awesome Pony!
Pretty Awesome Pony!

Two little twin girls, named Pessimist & Optimist where having a birthday soon. Pessimist told her mom and dad that she wanted a new bicycle. Not just any would do!  A red bicycle with pink tassels and a sweet banana seat was what was in demand.

Little Ms. Optimist told her parents “whatever you get me I’m sure I’ll love!”

The birthday arrived and every friend was in attendance. Little Ms. Pessimist was given her new bike; however it wasn’t as she demanded. This new bike wasn’t red but in fact was orange; the tassels were not pink but were green. “This is the worst birthday ever!” she lamented.

Cute little Ms. Optimist was presented with a large box manure. Her eyes filled with excitement as she began to grab this manure by the handful throwing it in the air. Handful after handful digging in anticipation, she finally looked up at mom and dad and exclaimed:

“With this much manure there has got to be a pony in here somewhere!”

You may feel like your digging through your own manure right now; customers not calling back, manufacturing issues, competing priorities, stress, etc. There can be a Pony in most situations. You just have to keep digging.

How can you find excitement in the day to day?

  • Take stock in what you DO have. It’s easy to take things for granted when you live in the sales trenches daily.
  • Challenge yourself to expand into new areas. Writing is a new area for me that has challenged me beyond belief, but has proven to be extremely rewarding. What areas can you expand into in your professional life?
  • Think short term to build momentum for the long term. I read a great quote earlier this month by Tom Peter that said “Excellence is not an aspiration; Excellence is the next 5 minutes.” Go do big things.. 5 minutes at a time!

Be objective about your business!

In the minutia of day to day it’s easy to let your emotions hang and carry from activity to activity. One bump in the road and you start saying “I told you so” to yourself. Driving your business solely on emotions can lead to cynicism when things don’t go your way. Cynicism is the kiss of death in sales.

Remember this: Killing objectivity in your business is not murder, its suicide!

Know your numbers and the ones you can impact: How many leads do you need? How many conversations do you need to blow past your goals? What is your closing %? Etc.

Take note of the numbers that you CAN impact not the ones that you can’t. If you can’t control the number of leads that marketing provides, measure how many referrals you collect. You can’t control the leads that answer the phone, but measure the number that do and how you convert. Find your Pony in the numbers!

Twitter-ize your sales process

I’ve had a love affair with Twitter as of late. Twitter has challenged me to write short valuable messages. Twitter allows only 140 characters. Trust me; it’s a challenge to get your point across in 140 characters.

I’m sure there are areas in your sales process that are unnecessarily long, drawn out, time intensive. Find ways to cut it down and become more efficient in your sales activities. Don’t take 1 hour to do a 30-minute task. Compress the time it takes to hit your goals. You may just find that you blow past them…

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Sales Bit: 8 Closing Guidelines to get sales this week!

8 Closing Guidelines to get sales this week!

 

Closing  is one aspect in sales that separates those who will enjoy a long prosperous career and those who end up making excuses for lack of results. My experience in complex selling situations and face to face consumer sales have taught  me that regardless of what type of selling you are doing there are closing guidelines that are universal. Closing doesn’t have to be difficult for you or your customers, but often that’s exactly how we make it. Here are 8 guidelines to getting agreement…

Closing isn’t slick, it’s not something that you do TO someone, but rather WITH someone.

Closing starts from the minute that you say hello with making a connection with the customer..not when you begin your service or product presentation. Some would argue it even starts before hello in pre-call planning.

If you’re not a product expert or an expert on your competitors you’ll never have the success you really want in closing. (what does your competition offer in service, reputation, product quality, how are you better?)

It’s always been helpful for me to view objections as questions.  Rephrase them in your mind and they are much easier to handle. For example: “Your price is too high”..I hear it as “Help me understand the value for me? You can go through many of the common objections that you hear and rephrase them. Write them down and train your brain!

Always position your response to the best interest of the customer. If you can’t, you’re selling for you not the customer. Customers pick up on this.  Put yourself in a position to make a professional recommendation, “Based on what you’ve shared to be important, here is what I recommend.”

Ask questions! You will not know what is important to the customer if you’re not asking. (be more creative than just asking, “what’s important to you?”, too obvious!)  I’ve seen sales professionals present too early and way too often in areas the customer has no interest. In these situations solutions are rarely built around needs, but rather just thrown out to see what sticks.

Ask for the sale! Sales professionals who aren’t confident closers rely on their product knowledge and presentation expecting customers to just say “yes”.

 

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable in closing situations. That means being prepared to ask tough questions to know exactly where you and your customer are in the process. Challenge a stall by asking “What hesitations do you have?”, or “What risks do you foresee with moving forward?”

There are volumes of material that has been written on closing techniques. I encourage you to continually study and improve on this area of your sales game. Send me an email for a list of books that have helped me gain the right closing mindset

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Sales Bit on W.I.N.’ing

W.I.N’ing

 

How often do you spend time in tasks not related to sales or selling activities. Organizing your desk, reading reports, fooling yourself into thinking that you are doing pertinent pre-call planning etc… Yes, I hear ya…you can’t work with a messy desk. Get over it!

The bottom line is that its easy to get caught up in non-essential tasks that end up to be just busy work. Winners in sales have a “What’s Important Now” mindset, or W.I.N.

When you feel that you’re not focused just ask yourself “What’s Important Now”

There are people who: Watch things happen, Make things happen, or Wonder what happened..

Which one are you?

 


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Sales Bit on Confidence

Sales Bit on Confidence

 

In my experience coaching sales reps, building confidence is a topic that comes up time and time again. Sales can be tough and with the amount of rejection sales professionals hear confidence often dips. The ability to maintain confidence will make or break any sales professional. You develop confidence in yourself by taking risk and pushing through. Build confidence in your product by becoming a product or service knowledge expert. Talk to past customers and ask them about their experiences. Build a list of testimonials to cement the confidence you build in your product. Surround yourself with confident people.

By developing a process of maintaining and building your level of confidence you will have a much greater influence on your customers and the people surrounding you. People like and gravitate towards a confident decisive person.

Success breeds confidence, but which comes first? That is the trick. We’ve all heard the “fake it till you make it” cliche. Sometimes confidence can be faked, but more often than not you can see right through it in selling situations. Focus on building lasting confidence.

Here are some tips to conveying confidence :

  • Maintain Eye Contact
  • Facial Expression and reaction- Acknowledgement
  • Tone of voice and pace- be strong, upbeat, don’t talk too fast
  • Be a product knowledge expert
  • No wimp words- Ask well thought out questions

Look for situations around you to practice building confidence in your presentation and conversations. The reel tape that you play in your head should revolve around successful scenarios not potential failures. Often times sales professionals lose the sale in their heads long before they arrive at the customer.  Starting off I’ve found  that it’s helpful to focus on being process oriented rather than goal oriented. For example, in building rapport use a simple process that has worked for me:

F.O.R.M.

F. amily (the customer, where they are from, etc)

O. ccupation (how long in position, etc)

R. ecreation (similar hobbies, do for fun)

M. e (transition to you or your message)

To build good rapport you must have good FORM. It’s easy to remember..

Confidence will come with practice, but don’t let any lack of confidence prevent you from starting. Jump right in and begin your process to confidence.

 

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