My Mom was a funny lady and during my youth, she was constantly throwing riddles at me.
Some of her riddles came in pairs and the pairs typically had a point.
One such pair of riddles has been a huge lesson for me as I have gone through life. Here they are. (more…)
A few weeks ago my three-year-old daughter was attempting to pet a small dog and the dog turned around and bit her as hard as he could. There are a few important things I learned from this experience. First, my daughter was not hurt, but she was scared. Second, my daughter is the sweetest, kindest calmest little girl, but that did not matter. Finally, the biting incident has changed the way my daughter looks at dogs of all sizes and she will probably never change back.
By Veronica Truong
A sales template is defined as the step by step set of interactions you want your prospect to go through because it will give you a clear competitive advantage or otherwise increase the chances of you winning the business. An efficient sale system enables you to consistently achieve a desired outcome or set of outcomes without wasting time, energy, money etc. The most effective sales templates are basic enough to accommodate for change (focused on each stage of the sales meeting). Having critical reviews of each step is important because it takes out the guess work and decreases the time of reinventing the process. (more…)
Peter Ostrow talks about the importance of integrating sales training and customer relationship management. Companies who integrate see more reps meet their quotas, and experience an overall increase in revenue. To learn more, visit www.sandler.com.
Aberdeen Group recently conducted a study to find out exactly what methods, processes, and sales training practices yield the highest amounts of met quotas, customer loyalty, and overall generation of revenue. Utilizing empirical data collected from over 835 interviews and surveys with end-user organizations, Aberdeen Group developed an online assessment tool, enabling users to find out exactly what their strengths and weaknesses are in their sales training efforts.
Watch the video below to find out more about assessment tool, and click here to take the five to ten minute survey.
Let’s admit it. No salesperson likes making cold calls. Prospecting is perhaps the most stressful and anxiety ridden aspect to sales.
This fact brings us to Sandler Rule #7, “You Never Have to Like Prospecting, You Just Have to Do It.”
Sandler Trainer Bill McCrary explains that when people say they don’t mind prospecting, what they’re really saying is they are willing to tolerate the short-term anxiety and awkwardness in order to meet their goals. To avoid the inherent stress and frequent sense of rejection involved in cold calling, remember to focus on the end results and that prospecting just comes with the territory,
Sales isn’t for the faint of heart. You don’t just encounter negativity on a fairly frequent basis. In many cases, it is your job to sniff it out and address it immediately.
Sandler Rule #3, “No Mutual Mystification,” deals with an issue that often plagues sales professionals–“happy ears.”
When a salesperson has happy ears, it means that they only hear what they want to hear. While this may allow the salesperson to leave almost every meeting with a good feeling, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will close the sale. As a salesperson, your job isn’t just to pick up on the positive cues; your job is to reveal and address potential roadblocks, conflicts and ambiguities with the prospect before they become a larger problem later in the sales cycle.
Listen to Mike Crandall in the above video, and take a minute to reflect on your last few sales meetings. Have your happy ears kept you from completely clearing up the situation for you and the prospect? Have you been adequately recapping conversations? If not, pick up that phone and clear things up. Otherwise, your happy ears will have made an unhappy customer down the line.
By Jim Dunn
Why should we buy from you? What makes you different than my current _______? Why should I invite you in to see me? We are already doing business with you so why should we look at this new product /service?
Sound familiar? A bit tired of hearing this? Get used to it. This is simply what customers and prospects say to sales people. And we can’t fault the prospect/ customer for asking the question. They don’t have time to waste, and they need a good reason to spend time with salespeople who know how to sell value–whether through a meeting or to view a new product or service.
We also know that people buy emotionally. In fact, we know that people are motivated to action by moving towards what they want, or they move away from what they perceive as pain (something that can hurt).
Here is the problem: sales people try to get appointments by discussing features and benefits (intellectual not emotional), or use “I’ll be in the area, can you see me?” The outcome? Lack of new appointments. Or if a prospect is interested in the product/service the objection often is “your price is higher than your competitor.” Most everyone (your competition) has basically the same features and benefits or with slight differences. Thus, we have become a commodity.
So what is the remedy? Sound different, be different and influence towards what we know about human behavior. We need to know our customers and prospects so well that we can tell them in 30 seconds what we do, what problems we solve and why they would want to invest more time to hear if we can be a good fit.
How do we do this? Let’s structure a good pain pitch with three elements.
1: Make it personal to whom you are speaking (is it a CEO, CFO, what decision maker?).
2: Use emotional words (frustrated, concerned, difficulty with, excited about); remember people are motivated by gain or moving from a problem (pain). Use these words either in a 3rd party story, such as “some of my clients have made a change to our product because they were frustrated by the amount of times they had to slow down production or even shut it down to change the current part.”
3: Take it away. Ask a question in the negative, such as, “I’m not sure this is an issue for you?” or “you’re probably going to tell me that this isn’t an issue for you?”
Watch what happens. Prospects are not accustomed to sales people asking questions in the negative. People hate to be sold or have sales people sound so positive; this approach is different. What’s the goal? Get the prospect to “admit” to an issue. That’s all, or disqualify early without wasting a lot of time with someone. If the prospect says they have a problem, then we’ll discuss the next strategy later, if not, then perhaps we need more bonding, trust, whatever to enhance the relationship.
Jim Dunn is a Sandler Trainer located in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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