Month: November 2010

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Increasing Sales and Productivity: Action and Fundamentals

Article Contributed by Sharpenz

We recently surveyed dozens of sales managers about tools and solutions they use to help their sales teams be more productive and successful in selling. When I analyzed these expert sales managers’ feedback, the key ingredient or “secret” to high sales productivity is ACTION!

Ernest Hemingway said, “Never mistake motion for action.” This is so true in sales! We can be in motion but not going anywhere. Action means productively moving forward.

The activities of planning, preparation, research, reworking value propositions, and putting together effective presentations are all important. But without action with clients or prospects, those activities are insignificant.

Successful sales professionals take action when others don’t and actions that others won’t.

The sales professionals we work with to increase selling skills intellectually agree with the tools, steps and behaviors we outline and practice. What makes the difference in results is that the most successful people immediately put these ideas, skills and tools into action in sales calls. And they make sales. The others make excuses why they couldn’t use them, get caught up in busy work and then are surprised when sales don’t happen.

Another important aspect of success and sales performance is focusing on the fundamentals.

Michael Jordan, undeniably a long-term example for sports performance, said, “You have to monitor your fundamentals constantly because the only thing that changes will be your attention to them.  The fundamentals will never change.”

The same is true in our professional business careers: if we want to increase our sales productivity, we need to give attention to the fundamentals of great communication, preparation and follow-up.  These are timeless, universal fundamentals.

Want to increase your sales results and success?  It’s really not a secret after all…move beyond activities that are just motion. Take purposeful and consistent action and focus on the fundamentals!

What selling fundamentals or action can you take today to set yourself up for success this week? Let us know in the Comments section. Now, “Just do it”!

About the Author:

Sharpenz is dedicated to providing sales managers the resources and tools they need to energize, engage and equip their sales team to sell more each week. Our 30-minute power sales booster meetings help companies increase sales by providing the right tools and training – fast. Designed with the busy manager in mind, Sharpenz ready-to-go sales training kits will give your sales team the opportunity to grow and earn more – all in a half hour of power.  To learn more, visit www.sharpenz.com and sign up for your free ready-to-go sales training kit today!

Categories
Communication Skills

Focus on the WIIFT for a Powerful Presentation

Article Contributed by Sharpenz

A while back I had the opportunity to work for nearly two days with the best-of-the-best sales pros in a client company. We spent our time together focused on taking their game up another notch with a workshop titled “Powerful Presentations.” One thing I noted is that really successful people generally are very open to new ideas and skills that will allow them to be even more successful!

A key idea I shared in this workshop was that our sales presentations are more powerful when we focus on WIIFT – What’s in it for Them – from the open of the presentation through the close.

To engage your audience, it’s incredibly important to tie the message about YOU into what it means to THEM. Who wants to listen to 10 or 15 minutes of background on the speaker and their company? Do you really care if they have been in business for over 75 years? About three minutes into the “background” about you, they have disengaged – you can see it in their body language. Instead, focus on WHY it is beneficial to them that your company has been in business so long. Will it mean a better product? Or more expertise that will solve a problem for them?

Initially there were some skeptics in the group who weren’t sure the WIIFT was THAT important. Until the first practice presentations began and each professional had to sit through all the other presentations. Being on the other side allowed them to feel what its’ like to have a lot of information shared AT them and not tied specifically TO them.

As we ended the workshop, these successful sales professionals commented that it IS powerful to make our message not about us – but that it is hard to do! The more successful and experienced we are, the harder it may be to do something different. To send a message adapted to our audience, with only enough detail that is important to them and then to link WHAT we do into WIIFT statements is not easy. But it is worth the effort for an engaged audience!

How much effort does it take to link the WHAT of your message to the WIIFT? Post your comments and let the rest us know we are not alone!

About the Author:

Sharpenz is dedicated to providing sales managers the resources and tools they need to energize, engage and equip their sales team to sell more each week. Our 30-minute power sales booster meetings help companies increase sales by providing the right tools and training – fast. Designed with the busy manager in mind, Sharpenz ready-to-go sales training kits will give your sales team the opportunity to grow and earn more – all in a half hour of power.  To learn more, visit www.sharpenz.com and sign up for your free ready-to-go sales training kit today!

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Don’t Waste a Challenging Economy

Article Contributed by Jeff Beals

While many indicators point to an improving economy, it’s far more difficult to attract clients now than it was a few years ago. Perhaps worse, many economists expect the job market to remain challenging into 2011 and possibly beyond. Credit is still hard to obtain and consumer confidence is far from robust.

When times are tough, the phones aren’t ringing and the low-hanging fruit has already been plucked. That leads many to pull back and reduce their work intensity for fear that their efforts would end up being applied in vain.

That’s the wrong response to a challenging market. In times like these, smart professionals develop new products, become more innovative, embrace creativity and market themselves harder than ever.

If you’re not working on as many projects as you would like right now, use the extra time to sharpen your skills. Read business books and invite people you admire to lunch, so you can “pick their brains.” Perhaps you’ve been thinking of developing a new product. This is a great time to work on it. Use the down time to reexamine what you do. Try to see your career and your business from different angles in order to find more effective ways to accomplish your mission.

A long time ago, the great businessman Henry Ford visited a beef packing plant in Chicago. Ford took great interest in the way workers processed the beef from whole carcasses into small cuts of ready-to-sell meat. As he observed, it occurred to Ford that if the process was reversed, all the cuts would go back together to form a whole steer carcass again. The metaphorical light bulb switched on in Ford’s head. “I can build automobiles this way,” he thought. Ford returned home to Detroit and promptly created the famous assembly line.

What can you learn from the methods other professionals use in their industries?
A challenging economy is no time to stop marketing. History shows that those companies and professionals that stay in front of their clients are the ones that prosper when good times return.

During the 1920’s, Ford was selling 10 vehicles for every one sold by Chevrolet. After the Great Depression, Chevy held the sales lead. Why? Marketing. Chevy didn’t let up during the bad economy. The same thing occurred in other industries. Before the Depression, C.W. Post dominated the breakfast cereal market. By the end of the Depression, Kellogg was number one.

Never let down times or any self doubt cause you to slow your efforts to foster relationships, build your brand and acquire new clients.

Business is cyclical. If it always moved at top speed, when would we have the chance to reinvent? Put your ideas into action now, because there might not be much time to finish them before things start booming again.

About the Author:

Jeff Beals is an award-winning author, who helps professionals do more business and have a greater impact on the world through effective sales, marketing and personal branding techniques. As a professional speaker, he delivers energetic and humorous keynote speeches and workshops to audiences worldwide. You can learn more and follow his “Business Motivation Blog” at http://www.JeffBeals.com.

Categories
Planning & Management

Multi-tasking: How to Take the “Crazy” Out of Crazy Busy

Article Contributed by Sharpenz

If you consider yourself a “multi-tasker” and often reply “crazy busy” when people ask you how you’re doing, then you should listen up. A recent analysis from the business research firm Basex, estimates that extreme multi-tasking costs the US more than $650 billion a year in lost productivity.

So what can we do to minimize multi-tasking and get more done? We recently came across two sources for ideas:

1. The Power of Focus for Women, a book by Fran and Les Hewitt, presents 10 focusing strategies. Many of the ideas are not just for women. Les adds a man’s perspective at the end of each chapter.

2. Business advisor and author, Timothy Ferris of  The 4-Hour Workweek. Now his philosophy is definitely Gen-Y – and many of us baby boomers consider it radical. And yet, as we read through his ideas and blog at the fourhourworkweek.com, there were several very practical ideas we can implement in addition to some from the Hewitts.

In addition to these written resources, here are a few other anti-multi-tasking ideas to consider:

1. Outsource what you can. No matter what your income, there are things that are worth the cost to have someone else do versus the time and energy it would take you to complete. It is amazing how inexpensively some things can get done. Each time we add an out-source I think, “Why did I ever do that for this long?” Virtual Assistants are extremely reasonable and can help so much!

2. Prioritize each morning. Then address the most important items first.

3. Set time aside for you and the things that you are passionate about. At the Sales Expert Summit last month, Danita Bye said that “just because I am competent in something, doesn’t mean I am passionate about it.” If you aren’t passionate about something, why are you trying to multi-task with it?

4. Delegate. This is different from outsourcing. Delegating means it is someone at home or work that you can assign a responsibility or activity to…and not pay them extra to do it!

5. Minimize the number of times your emails are received, both on your computer and on the hand-held. Alice Kemper schedules hers to only be received every 60 minutes. A lot of people thought she was nuts. But guess what? She now is more in control of her time and schedule. Unless we have life-or-death matters being emailed to us, why do we need to be interrupted every 3-5 minutes?

For all you multi-taskers, this is a lot to consider – you aren’t going to change your habits overnight. Choose just one of these tips to work on, and see yourself go from crazy busy to just productive!

About the Author:

Sharpenz is dedicated to providing sales managers the resources and tools they need to motivate and equip their sales team to sell more each week. Our 30-minute power sales booster programs help companies increase sales by providing the right tools and training – fast. Designed with the busy manager in mind, Sharpenz’ ready-to-go sales training kits will give your sales team the opportunity to grow and earn more – all in a half hour of power.  To learn more, visit www.sharpenz.com and sign up for your free sales training kit today!

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Why Buyers Don’t Like Salespeople

Article Contributed by Mark Hunter

If buyers could get by without salespeople, do you think they would?  It is an interesting question if you stop and consider the role of the salesperson. Of course, considering the role in an abstract way is one thing, but what about when you consider it from a personal perspective?  What happens as a salesperson when you put your emotions aside for a moment, relax, take a deep breath and honestly ask yourself, “What role do I play with my buyers?”

When I ask salespeople what value they bring to their buyers, I usually get a typical answer that is full of a lot of smoke puffery.  When I ask this question of buyers, and in particular professional buyers, I get an entirely different answer.   For professional buyers who see a wide variety of salespeople, the value they place on them is usually very minimal.  Are you wondering why?

There’s one simple reason that can sum it all up:  Most salespeople bring to their buyers only information. Interestingly, information is something any buyer can gather from other sources. At the end of the day, you as a salesperson must ask yourself, “Am I merely a conduit of information?”  If you are, then you’re wasting your time, your company’s time, and your customer’s time.  You might as well just email your buyer the information and then go play golf.

If you can’t as a salesperson honestly lay claim to problems you’ve helped your customers overcome, then you really have to begin questioning the role you play.  Yes, I’m being quite harsh, but with the advent of technology and communication, the role of the salesperson has changed. If you as a salesperson have not recognized and embraced this change, then you are nothing more than the walking dead.

Buyers don’t want people who bring them nothing more than information. They want solutions. Unfortunately, because buyers often have far too much to do, they don’t even know what their problems are or what challenges their company is facing.   This is the role the salesperson needs to play — the role of helping identify the problems, whether blatant or obscure, and turning them into opportunities you can solve for the customer.

So how do you go about identifying problems? You as the salesperson must become an investigator – someone who is determined to find out what really is happening in an organization, industry and global marketplace.  Then, you need to show your customer how what you found is impacting them now or will be impacting them in the future.

Start this process by shifting your focus. Instead of just delivering information to your customer, begin to ask more questions.   A very simple rule I tell salespeople is for every minute you spend gathering information to share with a customer, you need to spend an equal amount of time developing questions to ask that customer. Don’t develop questions for which you already have the answers or could easily find the answers.  In fact, those are the wrong type of questions.

Instead, you need to develop questions to which you don’t have answers. More than likely, these will be questions to which your buyer doesn’t have answers either.  By asking these questions, you’re helping move the buyer to viewing you differently.  Your role is to be seen as the one salesperson who is genuinely committed to helping them move themselves and their company to a higher level. This may be by growing their sales or helping them reduce their costs.

When you can clearly identify ways you’ve helped your buyer achieve either of these outcomes, then you will know you’re no longer the type of salesperson that buyers love to hate. Plus, you’ll be growing your bottom line at the same time.  And that’s a lot better than simply doling out information!

About the Author:

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” helps individuals and companies identify better prospects, close more sales and profitably build more long-term customer relationships. Since 1998, he has consulted nationally and internationally with thousands of salespeople and global companies. You can follow his Sales Motivation Blog at www.TheSalesHunter.com. You can also connect with him on Facebook www.facebook.com/TheSalesHunter, Twitter www.twitter.com/thesaleshunter, and Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/markhunter.