TG’s Sales Tips
So what is selling? That’s an interesting question. I don’t know any more.
Do we need salespeople?
What is good selling?
What do people want from a salesperson?
What does a company expect of its salespeople?
The best example I can give is when I’ve asked a group of people where they would buy a PC from for home. In a group of 12 the answers are normally clustered around a few answers.
The point is that clients and consumers all make their buying decisions in different ways. Their requirements for information are different and their assessment of what is the best purchase is all different. And the key point is that all the decisions are right for each person. All those methods of purchase work for each person. And the criteria are all different. Some want the absolute latest chip set, others want human interaction, some want the best package, others want the cheapest.
There are many definitions of selling. I’ve heard it said before that selling is just about presenting the facts. And in some cases that’s true, but in that case we could just advertise and point our clients to the website where all the facts are, or rely on word of mouth. Many clients are satisfied with that. They are happy to go to the website find the facts and buy. But many want a human interaction. They want to talk to someone. They want interaction beyond the WebPages and configurers. They want a “conversation”
The
Cluetrain Manifesto (the end of business as usual)
………….and there’s 90 more of these from the Cluetrain Manifesto (it’s a book, it’s a website)
This has set me thinking about the nature of Selling, what is it and what is it going to become. In the meantime until I have all the answers I’ve written a Selling Manifesto based upon my experience, and the ideas I’m going to steal from you all when you respond to the Selling Manifesto and knock it about and add some more. Until the “corporation” dies (see Gonzo Marketing – Chris Locke (part author of Cluetrain)), companies will continue to invest heavily in their salesforce and senior management. I can either subvert this or go along with it. I intend to do both.
Most people claim they don’t want to be sold to, and they can spot a rogue!
Two things have made me wonder about this. Firstly advertising and secondly what I call “The Gary Effect”.
In research people when asked if advertising influences them, people generally reply no. When asked if advertising is a good thing and does it influence others, the majority believe that advertising is a good thing and does influence others, but not of course them!
Secondly, in my Sales travels I’ve inherited Clients from previous salespeople. I’m always curious to ask the client who their favourite salesperson was. They always wax lyrically about “Gary” Gary was great, we got on with Gary, Gary understood us. Now I know that Gary made the most margin out of them and in some cases ripped them off the most, but they always loved Gary. Funny how they’re always called Gary.
The conclusion I’ve come to (it could change) is that some (and only some) people, clients, and customers want to deal with a human being and have conversations and relationships. Not all mind you! Malcolm Gladwell in his book “The Tipping Point” describes one way in which some salespeople are so naturally engaging. Many people like to buy from people
“A few thousand years ago there was a marketplace. Never mind where. Traders returned from far seas with spices, silks, and precious, magical stones. Caravans arrived across burning deserts bringing dates and figs, snakes, parrots, monkeys, strange music, stranger tales. The marketplace was the heart of the city, the kernel, the hub, the omphalos. Like past and future, it stood at the crossroads. People woke early and went there for coffee and vegetables, eggs and wine, for pots and carpets, rings and necklaces, for toys and sweets, for love, for rope, for soap, for wagons and carts, for bleating goats and evil-tempered camels. They went there to look and listen and to marvel, to buy and be amused. But mostly they went to meet each other. And to talk.
In the market, language grew. Became bolder, more sophisticated. Leaped and sparked from mind to mind. Incited by curiosity and rapt attention, it took astounding risks that none had ever dared to contemplate, built whole civilizations from the ground up.
Markets are conversations. Trade routes pave the storylines. Across the millennia in between, the human voice is the music we have always listened for, and still best understand.
So what went wrong? From the perspective of corporations, many of which by the twentieth century had become bigger and far more powerful than ancient city-states, nothing went wrong. But things did change.” (More Cluetrain)
So let’s cut to it here. I think in selling it comes down to 3 things. Within a surround of Integrity, and after all I believe selling is about making your target with integrity, these are the 3 key things which everything else fits into.
Qualifying
Conversations/Rapport
Networking
And there are two things missing which are Sales Planning (which can be incorporated into Qualifying) and if you, your Sales Manager and the Company want to do lots of Sale Planning sure go ahead and do it, there’s lots of methodologies and reams of paper on how to produce reams of paper, but at some point you have to go and talk to someone and engage with them, have a conversation, be human.
The other missing thing is self development. Check out No 57 and 65. Need I say more?
Qualifying is about knowing which business to go for. Business that will make you your target. It’s as simple as that. If you give a target to a seasoned and successful salesperson, they don’t go off and account plan, they don’t go and practise their Sales Skills. They say, my target is $10m how many will I have to sell to make that target and where am I going to find the prospects from? Am I going to sell 10,000,000 $1 things or 1 x $10m dollar thing? It’s instinct with a seasoned successful salesperson. They know from past experience how it can be done because they’ve done it before, even if they can’t see this year how on earth it’s going to happen. They qualify, naturally, not even on paper, they just know where to go.
Conversations and Rapport are about getting out there and talking to people. Face to Face, on the telephone, email, chat, newsgroups, bulletin boards.
Networking is Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Can you link any actor to Kevin Bacon in 6 steps by the films they’ve been in? In other words, how many links does it take to talk to the person you want to talk to. Research has shown is usually between two and four. Forget these slick methods of “getting past the gatekeeper” or things to say that will guarantee and audience with the person. Get one of their friends to introduce you to them.
Finally, try this exercise, sit at your desk and working outwards, think of everything you’ve purchased on your desk and beyond and what was the basis for each decision. I was amazed at how varied and sometimes trivial my buying basis was. Something the selling company could not have taken into account. What about you, what about your buying decisions?
How could you use those to work with clients and customers and people and humans?
TG’s Sales Tips – Sales Manifesto
“Salesman who spends all his time in chair, always remain on bottom.” (Unknown)
Engage in people’s personal wins.
“Every obnoxious act is a cry for help.” (Zig Ziglar)
What are you going to do Less of, and what are you going to do More of?
“If you don’t have a dream then you don’t have dream come true.” (Happy Talk)
“Dreams really do come true.”(Over the Rainbow, (my wedding dance song))
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” (Nelson Mandela (Marianne Williamson))
Find your voice and use it.
Tell the truth.
Don’t panic.
Enjoy yourself.
Be brave.
Be curious.
Play More.
Dream Always.
Listen Up.
Rap On.” (Cluetrain)
There now follows a run on Jim Rohn quotes, and I
don’t know who he is I just found the quotes and I liked them. I hope he’s respectable.