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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Always keen on free resources, it didn’t take long for us to spot that the Aberdeen Group have released a comprehensive report comparing data on key sales metrics such as win ratios, sales cycle length, deal value and profitability of sales teams that are process-centric and use social media for selling vs sales teams that continue to sell without adopting these new approaches.

Like it or not, Sales 2.0 is here to stay, and we’re all going to have to get with the programme. Check out the report to see what all the fuss is about.

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If you’re not at one with GTD, I suggest that you check it out forthwith. Sample these excerpts from David’s newest book, ‘Making it all Work’ as a free taster.

And if that’s whet your whistle, here is a video of David talking to the boffins at Google. It’s quite long, but very informative, and of great use to us Productive Sellers.

I’ve used GTD principles as part of my personal productivity system for years. Where the challenge comes is in adapting the framework of GTD to meet your individual needs and to work with the technology that you have available. I’ll post shortly with some free on-line resources to help you manage everything, but for now here is a technologically agnostic tutorial from GTD Times to get you started on GTD for salespeople.

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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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It’s the old sales story. You like selling, you’re good at selling, your company recognises this and wants to clone your approach across the whole sales team. Makes sense doesn’t it. So what do you do now?

1. The first thing that you need to do is set expectations. Successful sales managers are the same as anyone else, they need time to do their jobs – in this case MANAGE.

The organisations with successful sales managers are those that free up their sales managers’ time to coach, inspire, mentor and manage.  If your organisation is pushing you to do your old selling job, while giving you the responsibility of a team – just say no. You can’t do it. No-one can.

You must help the business to understand that a successful sales team needs a dedicated manager. I’ve seen teams where the sales manager still sells and the problems are huge and manifold: the manager has no time to deal with the individuals that comprise the team; no time to provide individual feedback and direction; worst of all, the manager competes with their own team for business – and it’s them assigning the leads! How can that conflict of interest lead to a motivated, productive sales team?

2. Flip this on it’s head for a moment. You organisation can’t be at loggerheads with you about this. They need to support you. Again, this is part of you setting their expectations from the start. If you didn’t do this and you’re already committed, take a step back. Are you being as effective as you could be? Do the issues in point 1 resonate with you? It’s time to draft a management strategy and take it to your boss. Demonstrate to the business that it can have a great salesperson or a great sales manager – it can’t have both in the same person at once.

You may not have much/any management experience. The organisation needs to recognise this and provide a supportive environment.

Great examples include: a mentor from within the existing management team; an external coach to aid your transition to management as well as your ongoing development; some initial management training; books and/or e-learning to supplement and reinforce your other learning and development activities; membership of an official body, again providing access to information and support; a budget to support the learning and development of your team (I have found this to be nigh-on non-existent in SMEs).

3. So what about the actual managing. Well, the fact that you are reading this site means that you are concerned about performing your job well. With management this means not being dictatorial. You are not there to command, you are there to add value to your team, using your experience and knowledge to help individuals iron out their weaknesses and exaggerate their strengths.

They will have strengths that you do not. This is an inaliable fact of life. The best managers employ people better than them and help them to get on with it. Do not (as I did when I started managing) be upset if a team member suggests a strategy etc. that you had not thought of. This will happen and it is a good thing. What you bring is a sounding board to these ideas – use your experience to distill these ideas and combine them with your own and those of the other team members to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Then your team will not just survive, but will thrive.

One additional point on this: never….ever take credit for a suggestion that was made by one of your team members. Always give credit where credit is due – there is nothing wrong with explaining the additional contribution that you have made and demonstrating how you have incorporated this idea into an overall strategy.

Down the other path, darkness lies; you will damage your credibility with your team and your manager. Credibility is one of the foundations of good management.

4. If you do not have a clear vision for where the company is going, you will not be able to translate this into a clear vision for your salespeople.

Gain an in-depth undestanding of your company’s goals and ensure that your manager works with you to create from this a clear sales strategy. Hold this strategy at the core of your management approach and make sure that everything you and your team does is contributing to this.

Communicate it clearly to your team and make it the foundation of reviews and ongoing development.

Only if you do this can you provide a clear demonstration of return on investment for your efforts. At the end of the day, it is return on investment that will measure your contribution to the business, hence the effectiveness of your role.

Good luck!

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So what to do if you’ve suddenly found yourself out of work.  There are many steps that you can take to give yourself a leg-up:

1. Think about personal branding. Putting in a few hours effort can really reap rewards in terms of demonstrating your professionalism.

2. Network, network, network. Use that personal branding effort.  Contact everyone you know, using Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, the telephone (remember that!) and let people know that you are looking. Direct them to your profile/blog etc. They may not have worked directly with you for years, so you have a great opportunity to re-define their vision of you.

3. Check out Jill Konrath’s (of Selling to Big Companies fame) free (I’ll say it again, FREE) resource to help you get back to work faster.

4. Sell yourself.  No, I don’t mean at an interview.  I mean turn your job-hunt into a sales campaign:

- Don’t rush in.  Make sure that you plan your pitch before-hand: what questions are you going to ask to get the prospect talking, how will you uncover pains, what will you ask to investigate the reasons behind those pains and finally, how will you create a vision where employing you can help solve their pains

- Research the company. It sounds so obvious, so why doesn’t everyone do it? Trust me, they don’t. Get on the Web and find out everything you can about the company and the individual you are calling. Do you know anyone that deals with this company. Call them and leverage their inside knowledge. Perhaps they can even make an introduction. You don’t know until you ask.

- Get all this down on paper and try it out with a trusted friend or colleague.  Use your plan as a prompt for your call, but don’t read directly from it, unless you are an accomplished voice actor!

- Prepare your collateral. Write an email template that you will use in response to requests. Include some bullet pointed benefits of employing you. Remember to underpin them with hard evidence where you can. You will tailor each email before you send it, but it’s good to have done most of the work beforehand. Helps you to avoid getting bogged down when you should be on the phone.

- Prepare a short profile of yourself and a full CV. If you aren’t confident doing this, get help. Friends, colleagues, even professional services. One word on your CV, slight embellishment through appropriate language is one thing, lying is another. Don’t do it. It will come back to haunt you and may cost you your career.

- Make sure that it is consistent with your personal branding. You need to present the same front on Linkedin, email, CV etc. Iron out any disparities and be sure to include URL’s to your online presence in your CV, profile and email copy.

- Phone up Sales Managers, Sales Directors etc., and pitch yourself. Remember, questions, questions, questions. If they are talking, then you are building trust, getting inside their head and buying yourself time to think about what you are going to say next. It’s a telemarketing fundamental, but don’t come off the phone without having agreed a next action that you control. Retain control wherever possible. If they say they will do something for you, get their agreement to accept a call from you.

- Finally, another obvious one. When you say that you are going to do something, do it. Send the email when you said you would, call back on-time etc. These are simple things, but if you don’t do them it speaks volumes about you.

Good luck and happy hunting.

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