We all think a lot about differentiators in respect of the solutions and services we sell and our position in the marketplace.  But what differentiates you?  What makes you indispensable?  We know that you are a sales god, driving home deals and bringing in the numbers, but guess what, so is Bob down the corridor; so are a lot of people.  It’s great that you bring in the business and nothing can replace that, but these days you need more if you are going to get on (by the way, if you’re happy bringing in the numbers and have no ambitions beyond selling and making a lot of commission, that’s fine, but there will come a time when you’re after that dream job and all of the other candidates are as good as you – you’ll still need to differentiate).

Business Creativity and You

No longer can you turn up, do your job and expect your career to grow.  As a good sales person, good results will help you to keep a job, but to climb the ladder you need to stand out.

An excellent start, to get you in the mindset, is Seth Godin’s new book Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?  The latest in a long line of excellent books by one of the interweb’s most popular bloggers, this book really sets the tone in terms of what is required to stand out from the crowd.

Whatever you do, check out these Linchpin links:

• The Linchpin Manifesto
• The Linchpin Posts
• Linchpin Audio Book Extract One: You are a Genius
• Linchpin Audio Book Extract Two: Surrounded by Bureaucrats

Linchpin is all about being creative, which, if it doesn’t come naturally to you, will require practice.  Creativity is not just about poetry and flower arranging, it’s about coming up with new ways of doing old things, solving problems in a way that other people haven’t thought of.  It’s a powerful tool for the differentiator.  You take the initiative, you drive change, you create new visions of old work, you give more and you get more.

But you have to start somewhere.  A great way to get going with creativity, is to learn to mindmap.  It’s a tool that I use all the time whether I’m writing for The Seller or trying to work out a new direction for a campaign.  And best of all, it’s easy.

• What is mind mapping anyway?
• And how do I use it?
• Free mind mapping software

You can even use mind mapping to increase the amount of information you retain from reading. A great book you might want to apply this to, to help you with your creativity, is ‘The Creative Habit’ by Twyla Tharp, an excellent guide to developing creativity and retaining it for life.

Finally, there are loads of management tools that you can use to help you analyse all kinds of situations.  Some of them are complex, but many of them are very simple to use, just dive right in there and have a go.  You’ll learn far more by doing.  You can find a great learning resource for all manner of mind tools here.

So, get out there, develop your creativity, apply it and become a Differentiator – but don’t blame me when you’re indispensable.

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I know what you’re going to say now. You’re going to say that it would be criminal to stop in their tracks a prospect who is baying for a meeting. And you’d be right. So what to do? What I always recommend is the Backpedal™.

What is this secret piece of sales magic? It’s simple. Let the prospect lead. Let them demand a meeting. Agree the date and time. Then BACKPEDAL. The key Backpedal phrase: “Before you go, let me just ask you one quick question”. Then you ask your qualification questions, leading one to the other in a conversational style.  If the prospect objects, you simply say that this is information you need in order to be prepared for the meeting. In a worst case scenario, you can always email them for clarification on any points not covered.

If they don’t qualify, then you have several options. If they are not the right person, you can ask for their help to include the right people in the meeting. Don’t exclude them; get them in the meeting as well. If there is no opportunity there, you can make a decision on whether you think that it is still worth making contact; perhaps a coffee before work or a lunch would be more appropriate for a casual introduction. Whatever you do, keep your backpedal casual and friendly.

Why do this? Because if you spend your time visiting unqualified prospects then you are really visiting suspects, which means that you are not fulfilling your potential. It’s vital to be sure that each and every meeting you have has clearly defined objectives, is with an potential sponsor, influencer and/or decision maker and that you have gathered enough information to present your solution in context. Otherwise you’re just shooting in the dark.

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I know we’ve said it time and time again, and it sounds trite, but there is a lot of truth in the old mantra that, if you don’t know where you’re going, you can’t know how to get there. Here are some helpful links to inspire your planning of sales and personal success for 2010 and some advice on how to make the most from high-impact New Year’s resolutions.

• Are you motivated to get the best from next year?  A Productive Seller favourite, ZenHabits answers your top 20 questions on getting motivated and overcoming bad habits.
• Are the people around you helping or hindering your success? Now is the time to decide.
• Think about changing your working processes (trust me, process is a critical success factor, the other is activity) and becoming a more productive seller.
• Take an opportunity to think about your brand and how it is affecting your success.
• Explore ways to improve your sales effectiveness that you may have overlooked in the past.
• Get above the clutter.

High-impact New Years Resolutions

What you are looking to create for your New Years resolution is a list of top level projects (like “expand into European market”) that are underpinned by actionable items (like “write advert for French speaking telemarketer”). If you can’t sit down and do it, it isn’t an actionable item. e.g. “Write Novel” is not an actionable item, it is a project. “Research Babynames.com for main character first name” is an actionable item: providing you have the time, energy and resources available, you can begin an actionable item immediately.

The reason I mention this and underpin it with repeated examples, is that so many resolutions are broken because they contain no substance, hence are not actionable. “Get Fit” is far easier a resolution to break than “Attend gym on Monday and Thursday evenings for 1 hour workout”, providing you have – of course – defined the items that will make up your workout!

Essentially, start broad and then focus on details.  Keep the above at the front of your mind and you can’t go wrong.

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all of you.

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Comprised of articles, videos and podcasts, there should be enough here to keep you chewing for a while (am I carrying the pie metaphor too far?!). Enjoy.

Think about the life of a salesperson new to your organisation; put yourself in their shoes. They may be experienced sales professionals who are new to the industry or at the very least new to your product-set. Chances are that they have moved from another organisation where they had built a solid pipeline and formed an established support structure around them. Will they have this when they arrive at your Company? Probably not to begin with.

What are the risks for your business?

Leaving new sales recruits to fend for themselves results in:

• De-motivation and subsequent loss of talent
• Underperformance, costing you valuable business
• Poor return on investment in recruitment
• Poor return on the time that you have invested in recruitment
• The de-motivation of your existing sales team, again costing valuable business

How do I keep the salespeople that my business needs?

• Firstly and most importantly, don’t overpromise. If you know it will take six months for a new salesperson to start bringing in deals, tell them that. Misinformation breeds resentment and de-motivation, especially when it’s linked to income. Use an agency that is staffed by experienced industry professionals who will take a responsible attitude to recruitment.
• Give them a warm pipeline to start out with. Nothing will bring a new salesperson up to speed faster than direct exposure to potential customers. Don’t leave them clawing their way up from nothing. Build their ability, confidence and motivation by giving them a warm pool to explore. Not your best clients, because new people are still an unknown quantity, but a list of good potentials. Use a telemarketing consultancy to help them gain some quick wins.
• Train them. Don’t leave them to learn for themselves. Internal product training is great, but make sure it is linked to customer needs. Sales theory changes and there are always new ways of doing things. Think of training as an ongoing investment, because if you are not capitalising on new techniques, you can guarantee your competitors are.
• Use an independent mentor. Bad habits spread like a virus from existing to new personnel. Don’t leave it solely to existing staff to coach your new people. You have a vision of where you want your Company to go. An experienced external mentor can analyse your position in the marketplace, translate this into an effective sales strategy and help your new salesperson to drive your vision from the outset.

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So what can you do to be sure that you run productive sales meetings:

1. Define a Clear Purpose

If you don’t know what the meeting is for, how can anyone else. Have a clear, detailed agenda that focuses on the SSS principle:

- Solving: with everyone in one place you have a tremendous opportunity to use combined experience and intellect to solve problems. Don’t take over; there’s nothing worse than a meeting where one person monopolises the conversation – it’s ineffective, irritating and will alienate your team.

- Sharing: ultimately, you want each salesperson to perform as well as they can. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is knowledge and resource sharing. It is part of fostering a team culture that will ultimately increase the success of your organisation.

Create space for people to talk about their successes and failures in an open, encouraging environment. Remember, failure is as valid as success in this arena – don’t admonish salespeople who’ve made mistakes. Being able to share these mistakes openly helps your organisation to avoid them in the future and ultimately drives achievement.

- Skills: Again, it’s all about collaboration and shared experience. Use role-play and discussion to address known areas of difficulty or weakness; you can use the same approach to help salespeople feel comfortable with new products or markets too. Don’t admonish or embarrass – avoid focusing on particular individuals – or your efforts at development will seem punitive.

2. Create Ownership and Accountability…Positively

Have a dedicated laptop, with a projector, on which you record agreed objectives throughout the meeting. Everyone can see the list as it develops and you can quickly email it to the delegates or post it on the intranet. Make these objectives the starting point for your next meeting.

By doing this you help to create a culture of continual improvement, with individuals having ownership of objectives, because they helped to define the list, and being accountable to colleagues for actioning list items.

3. Focused, Protected Time

It sounds obvious, but I have sat through so many interrupted sales meetings. On a similar note, I have even seen a sales manager duck out of a personal review session – leaving a member of his team in tears having just announced the loss of a loved one – to take a call from a client!

Sales meeting time is sacred. No mobiles, Blackberry devices, iPhones or anything else. All electronic devices (except your presentation equipment!) turned off; all staff instructed to avoid interruption unless the building is on fire!

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Not just the name either.  You need to find out as much information as possible about this person so that you can tailor your approach (if you’re not doing this, we’ll talk about it in another article very soon).

Google seems like the obvious answer, but the problem with using Google for this kind of prospect research is that you need information in order to find information. 

We all know how much job titles vary from one organisation to the next – two people, both with a sphere of influence that covers your product area, can have completely different job titles.  Without the specific format you’ll spend the next hour reading generic company articles.

This is where another free resource comes in – Linkedin.  This Business Social Networking site is not just a fantastic way to network and promote yourself, but it is also a great way to get your hands on the semantics of a title, peculiar to your prospect organisation.  And the great thing is that (and we are getting a little bit naughty here, sorry Linkedin!) even if an individual name is not listed, by having a quick scan through the roles listed in the geographical area of the prospect’s head office, you can quickly identify either your contact title, or the title individual who will know them.  If their names are listed, great.  If not, here’s the solution:

1. Search the Company that you are prospecting.

2. Go through the results and note any titles you are interested in – BE ACCURATE.

3. If you can’t find the stakeholder, can you find the title of someone who will know them?

4. On Google, search the title using Boolean phrases. If you don’t know about Boolean searching, here’s a quick overview:

- Put “speech marks” around phrases e.g. ” Business Development Manager”, where you want to search for those words in that order

- use the plus sign ‘+’ to prefix words or speech-marked phrases that must be included. This is particularly useful where you are searching for a company and a job title.  Here’s an example:

5. Look at the top results, visit the pages and use the “find in this page” facility in your browser (if you don’t know where it is, have a look in your help file) to locate the stakeholder title you found at Linkedin.

6. Peruse until you hit upon a name. If you don’t, simply try another title.

7. Once you’ve got their name, combine it with their title in a Boolean search and a whole World of information should open up for you.

Happy prospecting!

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Check out these ideas and free (and/or low cost) resources to help you beat the market.

• The critical focus for you has to be your client-base.  The key to surviving the recession is to diversify your sales pipeline.  If you are reliant on a few large clients to bring in your target, then you are vulnerable.  Use all of the points below to grab new clients, in new areas.  Spread your risk, then if one market drops, you still have a rich pipeline to keep the deals flowing.

 

• Don’t sell on discount.  If you drop off this cliff who knows how far you will fall! It’s about value, not price.  Focus on the added value that your product and your company brings. Educate the prospect that cheapest is not necessarily best. Highlight the hidded costs of the competition (remember to make sure that what you say is well founded; we are not in the business of slating the competition) that they haven’t thought about. It’s the old principle of fear, uncertainty and doubt – but it works!

 

• You’ve heard me mention methodology before.  If you haven’t got one, you need to get one.  The Productive Seller recommends Keith Eades’ excellent The New Solution Selling (Amazon.co.uk link). At the very least, you’ll gain a fresh perspective on selling and boost your motivation. At best, you’ll add a whole new dimension to your selling and even to that of your company.  Nothing will boost your sales career (and if you’re not thinking about job security, you should be) like driving the success of not just yourself, but your whole team.

 

• Jill Konrath (author of Sales 2.0 mainstay Selling to Big Companies (Amazon.co.uk link)) has a series of free two-minute video tips for salespeople too.  Take a look and you’ll be taking the first step on the path to reinvigorating your sales greatness.

 

• Never forget the basics.  Remind yourself of the critical points of professional selling with this great free video.

 

• In a recession, selling is all about having a powerful Return on Investment case for your prospect.  Check out this great free article by Michael Nick et al, authors of the definitive book on the ROI selling (Amazon.co.uk link).

 

• Look at your goals and your motivation.  The road ahead is tough and you need to stay focussed.  We’ve mentioned it before, but here’s a great free article from Zenhabits on motivation.

 

Finally, if you’re feeling burnt out, don’t worry.  In the next few weeks, we’ll be running an article on the practical things that you can do to deal with sales burnout.  

Click our RSS Feed and get free updates on the latest articles and advice.

Keep your chin up and sell smart.

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It’s all about personal productivity for sellers and a plethora of associated topics. You’ll get methodology ideas, tips, reviews, recommendations, questions….and who knows what else! All targeted towards helping you unblock that bottleneck at work and at home and be as effective as you can be.

I aim to create a community of salespeople and other interested parties so that we can share ideas and experiences to drive personal productivity and help us achieve our goals – career related and otherwise – always keeping one eye on an effective work/life balance.

Interested in contributing, or just want to know when we go live – drop me a mail.

More soon….