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Archive for December, 2010

Stay Committed and Avoid the Holiday Slide


By Bill Bartlett

The Sales SlideI was sitting in a coffee shop reading a book in early November when I overheard two salespeople talking about the current state of their business. One was explaining to the other that he looked forward to this time of year because all his customers were out of money and all of his prospects were going to wait until next year to purchase.

He went on to say that his boss fully understood that, “no one buys this time of year so he should just visit his customers and thank them for their business.” He concluded with the exclamation that he could “kick back” and enjoy the holidays like everyone else. I couldn’t help think that this salesperson was pioneering the ten month sales year.

I, too, experienced the same phenomenon during the first two months that I was in business in 1994. I began making my sales calls in November and December and heard the same stories about waiting until next year. With no prior experiences to draw from, the voices in my head said “makes sense to me” so I prepared for the onslaught of business in the coming January.

I attended a conference in January of 1995 where I spent time with fellow Sandler trainers. When they were asked about the state of my newly formed business, I exclaimed that I started my business at the wrong time of year since no one buys training in November and December.

My peers proclaimed that they had record sales in the same two months that I sold nothing. What was the difference? Further examination showed that the difference was my belief that the prospects were telling me the truth and my peers continued to ask questions that developed what we at Sandler call PAIN. I never made that grave mistake again and have had record sales each November and December in the 14 years since.

What a wonderful time of year! In this jolly stretch, when joy is in the air, we sense peace all around us. We greet each other warmly with happy tones in our voices that are saved for “the holidays.” Festive trees are being decorated, music is in the air, houses are lighted and everyone is settling into their holiday routines.

The stores are filled with shoppers, most with elevated anxiety, who are busily trying to buy gifts for the ones they love or the ones they must in order to fulfill a holiday obligation. As Christmas approaches, the calm, peaceful, joy-filled air turns to the frenetic, “let’s just get this done so we can get to the New Year.”

This not-so-subtle change in feelings creates a difficult quandary for the high performing sales person who is trying to fulfill a business mission by meeting with prospects to sell products and services.

You see, prospects do enter into a psychological state I like to call the “holiday slide” where they try to delay all purchases until the New Year because budgets have disappeared or the just want to enjoy the holidays without dealing with annoying salespeople! The problem is, all salespeople have quotas to meet, and the November 1st to December 31st timeframe is a prime time to finish the year strong.

Let me give you a few suggestions on the things you can do to avoid the holiday slide:

Check your belief system. If you believe that no one buys in this timeframe than you’re the problem, not your prospects

Revisit your commitment to success. If you have conditional commitment to success then you will buy in to the excuses that prospects tell you.

Stop using features and benefits to convince your prospects. Prospects never buy features and benefits unless they fit their PAIN, or compelling reason to buy. Stop selling intellectually and connect with your prospects emotionally.

Set goals for the November and December timeframe. If your only goal is to get through this period of time then you will achieve it. Set specific sales goals and raise the number of face-to-faces you have each week.

Find an accountability partner. If you have a weak belief system you should partner with someone who has a stronger one. Stop commiserating with losers.

Check your spine. If your spine is weaker than it should be, your prospects will always win. Stiffen your spine and realize that someone is getting rich in this timeframe–why not you?!

I want to close with a holiday wish for each of you who have read this column and sent me emails with your successes. I wish you health, happiness and good fortune in the New Year

Bill Bartlett is the president of Corporate Strategies & Solutions, a Sandler Training Center in Naperville, Illinois.

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Posted in Motivation, Prospecting, Sales Development | 2 Comments »

Video: Sandler Rule #3: No Mutual Mystification


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.

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Why Do People Have a Hard Time with the Word “No”?


By Carol Rosdobutko

You may not recall the first time you heard the word NO; however, that first time and the many times you heard it after all happened when you were a toddler.  You continued to hear the word NO through your childhood years and eventually it became ingrained in your psyche.

Let’s fast forward to you now as an adult.  Are you comfortable saying NO to someone?  It may be NO because you’re not interested in their product or service.  It may be NO that you don’t want to do something, go somewhere, or any number of other reasons.  For some reason we don’t like to say NO, however we sure are good at saying things like “let me think about it,” “I’ll get back to you,” “ sounds good but I want to talk to my spouse” or “ I need to talk to the committee.” There are infinite excuses.  Why are we so uncomfortable with being honest and just saying NO?

We don’t like rejection–plain and simple.  Let’s look at it from a salesperson’s perspective.  How often have you heard from a prospect who said they loved your product or service and could see how it would benefit them or their company, but they gave you an excuse as to why they couldn’t buy right then?  What if you were assertive–in a gentle way–and let your prospect know that telling you NO was perfectly alright.  In fact you’d be happy if they told you NO they weren’t interested rather than give you one of the many excuses that salespeople always hear.  Wouldn’t you feel better today knowing the file was closed rather than thinking you were getting the business even though your intuition was telling you otherwise?

Let’s look at it away from the work environment.  We’ve all done it – made some kind of excuse rather than say NO.  We might give an excuse because we don’t want to hurt people’s feelings by being honest.  Isn’t that an odd way of conducting our life?  We know we’re not interested; however we feel that we have to protect our family and friends from telling them how we really feel.  It’s interesting how we think we need to spare our family and friends from being hurt.  Is it the fact that we have such a strong desire to be liked the reason why we don’t want to “rock the boat”?

How do we overcome this aversion to saying NO?  First off, we have to figure out why we are so uncomfortable, which can take some coaching and self-study.  The next thing is to learn to say NO to the little things that may not have a big impact.  A good place to practice this is with those calls we all get at 6pm, just when we’re sitting down to dinner.  We don’t know the people calling and they don’t know us, so why not be brave and just say NO?

One of the most interesting things about not wanting to say NO is that we are the one who ends up getting hurt in the end.  How many times have you walked away from a meeting with a “call me next week” line and yet when you call, the person has completely disappeared?  They won’t answer your emails or return your voicemails.  And think about your personal life.  Have you ever tried planning a dinner party where it’s important for you to know if someone will be attending or not and you get a “maybe” or “I’ll let you know.”   What you didn’t know was that they had no intention of coming for dinner but they just didn’t have the guts to tell you NO.  Wouldn’t it be nice if people were just more comfortable with the word NO?  Letting people know they can tell you NO helps immensely because it puts both of you at ease.  Make it light-hearted by telling them “you’ll still love them even if they say NO.”  This is sure to illicit a chuckle.

Here’s the challenge for you in the next 30 days – every time you want to come up with an excuse rather than say NO, take a deep breath and “just say NO”.  What’s the worst thing that could happen to you?

Carol is a Sandler Trainer with Sandler Training Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Illustration by Rob Green

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Want to Stand Out in Sales? Work on Your 30-second Pain Pitch


By Jim Dunn

Sandler Sales Blog BlackberryWhy 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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