The Lazy Salesman
The Lazy Salesman in Jan 2002, The Worst Customers
I Ever Had, Fill the Funnel, Negotiation, Collecting NOs, Thinking Time, Number
76 of my Selling Manifesto, Change Now!, Sales Job Interviews, Fail, Cluetrain,
Action, The Perfect Customer, Integrity, Closing, Objection Handling,
Summarising, Objectives, Rapport, Networking, Decisiveness, Qualifying.
The Lazy Salesman in Feb 2002, Thinking
Aloud, Positioning, Honesty, Move On, Practising what I Preach?, Doing
the Business – Networking, Issues and Personal Wins, Small Acorns, 4:2 Rule,
Conscious Competence, Question, Listen, and Summarise, Sales Teams, Hunters and
Farmers, The Competition, The Truth about Selling!, What’s in it for Me?
(WIIFM), The Best Salespeople I know, Presenting, Calling High, Networking
Again, Birthday – Ghost Story, Little Things make a Big Difference, Difficult
Customers, Prospecting, Hot (Cheesy) Tips, What Irritates me as a Client.
The Lazy Salesman in March 2002; Who
Wouldn’t I Work For?, Sex Sells, End Users, Cheesy Closes, High Risk or Low
Risk, High Level Contacts, The Hook, Contact K.I.T., Pricing, Risk, Contracts,
Selling Something You Don’t Believe In, Corporate DNA, Good News, Rejection,
Calling High Level Contacts, Good Days and Bad Days, In the Client’s Shoes (The
Observers learn the most), Advance not Continuation.
The Lazy Salesman
in April 2002; Wait and They Did Come!!, Persist or Walk Away, Prospecting
from Cold, Wait and They will come!, Stamina, Involve
the Audience, One Thing Each Day, Luck, Good Selling Organisations, Be your Word,
Be
Honest with Yourself, More Corporate DNA and Zipf’s Law, Smile, Exceed
Expectation, Shut Up Tony, Cardbox, Grassroots Selling, Persist and Have a Dream, Pick an Onerous Task, Guilt, Style, Good Will, Mind
Expanding Questions!, Tenacity and Lunch, Recovering
Lost Momentum, Competing Customers, Selling Pranks.
On Saturday I
wrote about Wait and They Will Come!
“My gut feel tells me there’s a lucky break about to happen. I will be open to coincidence, and
serendipity pointing me in the right direction.”
Well it
happened. A phone call today and reward
for the work I did months ago and was getting no return on.
Moral of the
story. Use your gut feel. What you put out returns, Eventually!
It’s a tough
call. If you don’t get it right with a
customer, do you go back and get it right, or do you qualify out.
I think it
depends on how many suspects and prospects you have and if you can afford to
walk away. If you have a lot of suspects
and prospects and the energy to work through lots of them then get a YES or a
NO and move on. You may annoy some
clients by pushing for a YES or NO but if your market is big enough it won’t
matter in terms of you achieving your target (with integrity!!) which after all
is your main objective.
On the other hand
it could be you doing something wrong which could be improved on to improve you
ratio of Suspects to Prospects to
I still say,
Luxury of Choice.
By prospecting
well and making lots of contacts, you give yourself the choice of whether to
persist or walk away.
This seems to be
one of the most commonly asked questions,
“How do I
prospect or build a market up from cold?”
Personally I
don’t believe in cold calling unless you’re in 100/25/4/1 market.
100 calls=25
contacts=4 positive outcomes=1 sale.
It’s also called
collecting NOs. You need to collect 21
NOs to get a YES in this case!
So what’s the
alternative to Cold Calling?
Firstly why am I
against Cold Calling?
Well if there’s a
way that’s more efficient wouldn’t that work better?
Cold Calling is
soul destroying and energy wasting. Who
needs it?
Why will someone
who you’re going to cold call be remotely interested in what you have to offer
unless it’s something so amazingly unique that they’d be a fool to turn it
away.
And they mostly
turn away ever great products/services!
If you want to
learn an “Elevator” speech, something you could say to someone in 30 seconds
that will so WoW them they’ll be gagging for your product then you go try it.
Me, I’d rather
network.
The key problem
is what medium are you going to use to contact a cold call?
The phone will
generally get blocked with a voicemail or a P.A.
Email hardly gets
answered from friends, let alone an apparent SPAM.
Mailshots? I’ve never bought a thing from a
mailshot. Straight in the bin.
My first piece of
advice. See every person you meet or
know as having 2 contacts for you. That
includes family and friends. Try it for
just today. Set an objective for someone
or company you’re trying to get in touch with and ask everyone you are contact
with how you could do this. Also ask
each person you know for two contacts anyway!
You would be
amazed at how few contacts it takes to get to anyone in the world. There’s actually an experiment to test
this. Check this out at Columbia University. Every group of 12 I have ever trained, all
know at least 4 CEOs or Senior directors of large companies who they have as
relatives or close friends. I ask the
same groups to name someone famous, like Bill Gates, The Pope, Prime Minister,
and we work out in the group who could get us a meeting with this person. Usually it takes just one step to get to
anyone, using a training group of 12.
I’ve started
completely from cold here in
Target a company,
and work out how you’d get to speak to someone in that company by asking the
people you know for who they know in that company. Think laterally. You’d be amazed who of your family friends
and colleagues will have contacts in your targeted company.
Once you have a
name in the company, call them up and say something like,
“My name is [insert your name here], and [insert the person who gave you the contact
here] suggested I give you a call. I
have [this amazing product] and I’d like to briefly meet with you to discuss
it.” If they say no, ask them who else
in the company you could talk to about it.
Either you get to meet with them or in 90% of cases a contact who will
be of more assistance.
Be sensible about
this. You don’t have to get every senior
director every time, just someone in the company who will point you in the
right direction.
And remember when
dealing with big companies, they don’t work as one cohesive entity. If you’re blocked on one attempt, go another
way round. And guess what, when the
person who originally blocked you hears your name again, they’ll begin to think
you’re worth talking to.
It’s not easy,
but it’s a damn site easier than cold calling.
And of course, Grow from what you Know.
I just thought of
that phrase!
Grow from the
market and business you know.
Start easy. Start
with the ones who already do business with you.
Get an easy lazy
break with someone help pointing you in the right direction.
Having not felt
well for the last 2 weeks and especially the last few days, made me think about
there being only so much you can do to sell.
Sometimes you have to have a lucky break.
This phrase of
“Making Things Happen” which I remember first coming from John Harvey Jones.
My Sales Manager used to beat my up with the phrase often enough. That’s why I’m writing all this and calling
it The Lazy Salesman, just so you don’t feel like you always have to “Make
Things Happen”
Sometimes things
just happen rather than making them happen.
Sure there’s nothing like Action Action Action. But sometimes there is more to life than
“Making Things Happen”
What about
appreciating things as they are?
My gut feel tells
me there’s a lucky break about to
happen. I will be open to coincidence,
and serendipity pointing me in the right direction.
We used to be trained
a lot with Body Language and I was for a while training Body Language. Nowadays I just say, use your gut feel.
So I’m using my
own gut feel, which tells me to keep doing what I’m doing, training and writing
and other things are coming my way if I’m open to them.
I feel exhausted
tonight. It reminds me of the several
occasions when I’ve worked overnight or over weekends to get a proposal written
and delivered.
I suppose I
learnt if from my University days of writing several essays overnight and my
two project, all of which I left to the last minute, as ever!!
The difference
with this is I don’t have to write it or have any deadlines, but it’s
interesting to see what I can write when I feel that same kind of exhaustion.
Stamina to hang
in there and get the thing written on time.
I suppose the
lesson is, don’t leave these things until the last minute, but it’s the way I
work and I’m at my most creative.
The only reason I
have the stamina is because I’ve done it before and I know what’s possible.
And sometimes,
physically (and mentally) you just have to hang in there.
You are not there
to present to the audience, they are there to get something out of you.
So just remember
that the next time you’ve put together yet another shit boring PowerPoint
presentation of 100 slides to ditch it and involve the audience instead.
Just do at least
one thing each day which contributes significantly to your target.
Have I really
missed this one out so far?
Luck.
Of course the
greatest part of selling is luck.
Being in the
right place at the right time.
You and the
client being in the right mood at the right time.
There are so many
variables in a buying/selling process that you can only influence a few of
them. The rest is down to fate and luck.
Of course Gary
Player, the golfer, said “The more I practise, the luckier I get.”
Most of my sales
success has been down to luck.
I really can’t
say that in some circumstances I did anything I could particularly claim as
“Good Selling”. I was just lucky.
You can of course
create an environment where you get more lucky, by generating more leads and
prospects and by networking. Coffee with
friends and colleagues.
Also, putting out
to the world, and telling people what it is you want. On numerous occasions luck has come my way by
telling people what I want. For example,
2 Wives!!
I now want £15m!
Can anyone help
please?
I strongly
believe that good selling organisations concentrate on the product (or service)
and the interface with the client/customer. And that’s it.
Sounds simple
doesn’t it?
Then why do so
many supplying organisations fart around with all the crap in the middle.
The
reorganisations (of the same people), the crappy internal memos and emails, the
bureaucracy and paperwork, the choking atmosphere of a choking company.
How do companies
get this way?
Surely you have a
product, or you develop a product and then you go sell it.
Product and route
to market.
Where do all the
other bits in the middle come from.
It’s good to see
some companies such as Southwest Airlines giving the other airlines such a good
kicking. And ask yourself why is Southwest Airlines doing so well when most
others are doing so badly?
I’m guessing
they’ve cut the crap in the middle.
It’s been very
interesting and educational for me to work for large companies, and then to
move to a part of a company that was being run like a small 20 person company,
and to appreciate costs and priorities and just getting on with it.
And now I have my
own one person company, even more. Keep
my costs low, offer value, good cash flow, and grow. Don’t get blinded by the sparkly lights of
greed.
Do what you say
you’re going to do.
People remember.
Telstra my phone
and Internet supplier still haven’t come back to me.
A quote I was
expecting came in late.
I group of people
I was training didn’t turn up.
Fine. What impression does it leave.
Can they be
trusted by me with future business?
Would I recommend
them?
I’ll give most
people a second chance, but they start on the back foot with me.
Having said that,
there’s a few people I called over the last few weeks who I owe an overview
which I haven’t written yet, so I’m not perfect on this by any means.
I reckon the
number of emails I send out to the number I receive back is between 5 and 10 to
1. I don’t get it. I’d have thought it’s polite to reply to
emails.
Put it this
way. Service level is low. People are too busy to care. People don’t reply to emails, and if they do
they reply days and weeks later.
If you want to
stand out, certainly with me as a customer, do something outstanding.
And guess
what? It doesn’t have to be that
outstanding to stand out because the level of service is so low.
When somebody
replies to me immediately by email I notice.
Perhaps your
customers notice as well?
Be honest with
yourself at least.
Are you doing
enough activity to generate the business you want?
Or are you doing
things to make yourself busy and distracted.
Are you
prospecting enough?
Are you making
enough calls?
Are you
networking with colleagues and friends.
Go on, be
honest. Take a few minutes to work out
what your top priorities are for generating business in the future and if
you’re doing enough for future business.
I’ve already
written about Corporate DNA in March 2002.
Companies that
inherit their attitude from their founding fathers and continue to behave the
same no matter what and no matter how many generations.
I was with a
company today, and they behaved the same today as they always do, no matter
which division worldwide you deal with.
It’s
amazing. I have to ask myself do I want
to work with this company or not because they’re certainly not going to
change. At least I know what I’m
getting. It will never be any different.
Ask yourself
which partners and customers you want to work with, and what is their history
of behaviour because it ain’t going to change!!
And check out Zipf’s Law. This law is used to predict the rise and fall
of civilisations, cities, and companies.
It’s amazing to realise that companies follow a mathematical progression
in spite of what management attempt.
Maybe because of what management attempt! It’s kind of reassuring the know that you
have seen all this corporate bullshit and reorganising before in your company
and other companies and that it’s following a predictable mathematical
progression.
Also a bit
depressing and at the same time exciting to know you have this knowledge.
Maybe computers
should run the company at senior management level!
Smile!
J
There’s nothing
like exceeding the expectation of a client.
Doing something
beyond what they expect.
Get back to them
sooner than the expected.
Give them
something.
Remember
something they said and find some information or contact about what they said.
The problem is
that many companies use these words “Exceed Expectation” in their bullshit
Mission Statements or customer satisfaction statements.
It’s crap unless
employees want to “Exceed Expectation” or see a reason to do it.
It only takes
small things to Exceed Expectation.
I talk too much.
I get over
excited and yak on.
Today I was the
customer, but I still talked too much and didn’t listen enough.
I didn’t find out
enough about my supplier, what he does, his history.
I even forgot to
offer him a coffee.
Let’s put it down
to over enthusiasm!
Remember, shut up
and listen!
Write all your
contacts’ details on cardbox cards.
Put them in a
cardbox.
Now put in 12
separators and label them January through to December.
Also add 1,2,3,4
for the weeks of the current month
And decide when
you’re going to call your contacts.
After you’ve
spoken to a contact, slot their card into the week or month you’re going to
next call them.
Even the bad
contacts!
Your selling is
as good as the contacts you make on a regular basis.
Whilst you’re
talking to people on the phone, make notes on to the card, both business
related and personal parts of the conversation, so that the next time you speak
to them you have a note of what was said, especially their personal details.
Now I know that
some people use Outlook and other software tools, but I swear there’s nothing
as good as a card box. You can
physically pull out all the cards for this week or month and take them with you
and make calls, and play with them, order them.
You can also
include friends and colleagues to make sure you’re calling them on a basis that
works.
Go on, give it a
go. A card box and cards and separators
costs nearly nothing.
There’s probably
one lying at the back of your office stationary cupboard.
Good news travels
fast.
So now another
few clients are looking at buying on the back of my previous success.
This is very
interesting because in classic selling, you go to the top of the organisation
and get the senior executive, “The Decision Maker” to mandate it. But that
would have caused resentment in the divisions.
I prefer to pick
off divisions one by one and build up some momentum, some good news, so that
everyone willingly wants some of the action.
This also happened
a big client, where several people had tried to sell to the senior executives
of a big company, and failed. Shit or
bust, and they bust.
I built something
up through the grassroots, got a division interested, got another division
interested and hey Presto, the big chief and other divisions are interested.
Grassroots does
not mean end-users, who are very difficult to sell to.
But you can often
find divisions in a company who will listen and are enthusiastic.
Their enthusiasm
spreads quickly.
They also become
your coach and internal salesperson.
I’ve recently had
2 very senior managers offering to act as coach and internal salesperson.
And come to think
of it, that’s one of my greatest selling skills.
Identifying and
getting on well with the key influencer.
I don’t do it
deliberately, it just seems to work out that way.
Luck.
I had a dream of
going to
And now it’s
coming true.
I’d targeted a
client for some work in
I’d had several
contacts with the client.
I had setbacks
and a slow down.
I’d decided to
back off and go for some other clients first.
And suddenly out
of the blue they’ve contacted me to arrange a May date.
Great and
unbelievable.
It seems to be
about having a dream and persisting with the dream.
Sometimes not
directly pursuing it but thinking about it a lot.
I am amazed at
how often my dreams come true.
And if you don’t
have a dream then you can’t have a dream come true!
Got a proposal to
write which you keep putting off?
Letter or email
to send which isn’t quite perfect yet?
Important phone
call to make you keep putting off?
Website to write
or update?
I have the
solution. Find something more onerous
than the thing you keep putting off , and hey presto you start doing the less
onerous thing!
The challenge of
course is to find something more onerous than the thing you keep putting off!!
A few suggestions
Tax
Returns!! Nothing gets me doing other things
than the thought of doing my backlogged tax returns.
Find someone you
really hate, to call. That will help you
with all the other calls.
Housework. This can work against you. You start doing the housework instead of the
task!
Same with
cleaning the car out.
Thank you letters
for the presents and thank you letters.
Clearing the
garage out.
That does it for
me. I think I’ve hit on something
here. The Lazy Salesman and Motivation.
All I need to do
is make a list of things worse than selling and the parts of selling you hate,
and you’ll take to it like water in a
desert.
Is there
something hanging over your client or customer that is stopping them contacting
you?
I just realised
that sometimes there’s something they’ve not done, like paid an invoice,
responded to an email from a while back, done an action, and because they feel
guiltily they don’t contact you.
I can think of
one recent example where I sent my Selling Manifesto to about 60 colleagues and
friends for comment, and I’ve lost touch with a few of them since. And one or two have apologised for not
contacting me, as if the next contact can only be comments on the document I
sent them.
Contacts with
someone can be for different areas and at different levels.
Don’t let one
area of non contact stop all the other reasons for contact going on.
The only person
who can change in this is you.
So go on, you
make the contact.
Most customers
complain that they don’t have enough contact from the selling organisation, even
when we think there’s too much and it’s intrusive.
Think about
it. Wouldn’t be great and a nice touch
if the Real Estate agent you popped in to see for some information, actually
called you to let you know they’re thinking about you and doing something. What if we all followed up on every contact
we made, be it working or social.
Just an email, a
thank you, a person to put them in contact with.
Imaging how
powerful and big your network would be if you followed up on every contact you
made with every person you came into contact with.
So have a think
about it. Is there something hanging
over a client that’s stopping them making the contact they owe you?
What gets you
remembered?
You have to do
something that gets you remembered with clients and customers.
Your business
card.
Your looks
Your
attractiveness
Your clothes
Your hair
What you say
What you carry
with you
What you give to
the client
It has to be
something that differentiates you and fixes you in their mind.
It can sometime
be something negative. Better to be
remembered for something negative than totally forgotten.
If you look at
all successful people, they all have something that gets them remembered.
It may be
something they deliberately do or it may be accidental.
Work on your
memorable style, your branding of you.
Of course there
has to be some substance behind your memorable style.
Style alone can’t
do it, though for some people I can think of, style alone does seem to work
rather effectively. Not everyone likes
them or admires them, but it sure works.
There’s nothing
like creating good will with a customer to then have them for life.
I was just
thinking this when the Chinese Herbalist didn’t charge me because I needed to
see him in 2 weeks time after I’ve taken the herbs and there was no point in a
consultation today.
When I offered to
pay for the session today he insisted it was ok, and also gave me the name of
the guy who designed his business cards.
Now that’s
goodwill.
Thanks Robbie.
A couple of
questions to ask a client when you’re with them that might expand their
horizons and make your relationship with them more interesting.
And another type
of question you can ask if you’re feeling brave.
The more I think
about it from yesterday, the more I realise it’s about Tenacity.
Hanging in there
when the going gets tough.
Bouncing back.
What to do when
you don’t feel like doing it.
Letting go and
moving on.
Next.
Maybe reframing
what selling is all about.
Last week an
experienced salesperson told me how he took his son with him for the day to see
what he does.
His son said,
“Dad, I want to be in Sales because all you do is phone people up and take them
to lunch!”
Now this sales
guy has the attitude that selling shouldn’t be an onerous task.
This reminded my
why I’ve called my writing “The Lazy Salesman”, not because it’s about being
Lazy, but it shouldn’t be onerous or difficult or hard work.
So phone some
people up and go for a coffee and/or lunch.
That’s good
advice for myself as well.
I’ve lost
Momentum.
I’ve had a great
few weeks delivering and selling, and now I’ve lost momentum for the last
week. And thinking about it, isn’t this
what selling is all about?
It’s not about
the things you should do. We all know
most of the things you should do.
You can buy a
book on it. You can go on numerous
training courses (many of which I run!)
But it’s about
recovery.
Recovering from
setbacks. Recovering Lost Momentum. Recharging your battery.
How?
Well all I can do
is give myself as an example.
I try and turn
the negatives into positives. That
doesn’t mean being positive.
If I don’t feel
like making the calls today and networking, or writing a proposal, then what
could I be doing that positively contributes, given the mood I’m in?
Firstly, having a
break, going for a walk, doing some exercise, playing FreeCell, is all about
recharging and Thinking Time. I did have
one of my best ideas yesterday in the midst of all this.
Secondly, if I’m
finding it hard to concentrate, what are the things I can do? Cleaning up my email is a good starter. It needs doing occasionally. Rather than playing FreeCell all day,
updating my Outlook Address book is at least something similar for me which
will have output and content at the end of the day. A few other ideas,
Yin and
Yang. Opposites. Try and set things up that you can do when in
opposite moods.
Cycling and
Windsurfing is a good example. When it’s
windy, Windsurf, when it’s calm, Cycle.
In selling, I
find myself phoning, networking, delivering, preparing material, or in the
other space, thinking and writing. I
find it difficult to write for other people when I’ve lost momentum, but
writing my WebPages like this on selling, which contributes to my notes, is
something I now enjoy, especially when I’ve lost momentum.
As I’ve said
before, when I interview Salespeople, I want to know about the deals they’ve
lost more than the ones they’ve won. I
want to know about how they recover and bounce back from setbacks.
It sure is easy to
pick up the phone and meet people when you’re on a high. It’s a lot more difficult when you’re not.
So try to do
things which contribute to the cause but which aren’t onerous when you’ve lost
it.
It moves in
cycles. It won’t be the same in a few
hours, days or months time, but sometimes that’s how long it takes.
Again I’ve said
this before, but in Michael Lewis’s book The New New Thing,
about Jim Clark the founder of Silicon Graphics and Netscape, his greatest
ideas and achievements were during his quiet period in The Doldrums on his
sailing boat. He came back rejuvenated
with new ideas and momentum.
There’s nothing
like competing customers to help drive your business.
I realised I just
did this today to get one customer to pay an invoice that another customer had
already paid. I told the first customer
that the second had paid even though I’d delivered my course at a later date
than the first customer. In this
situation it worked.
Playing them off
against each other is great, because often you have more knowledge than most
about what’s going on either in an industry or similar customers in a common
area, like District Councils in a County or State, who all want to hear what
the other is doing, or seek your opinion on it.
Come to think of
it I’m in that situation right now, where having one client has helped hook
other clients who are interested in what the first client is doing. Of course you mustn’t break confidentiality
but there are many things a client would be happy about other people knowing. They often want to help you with other
clients.
Becoming an
expert on the grapevine and network is often what clients like you for. Your people knowledge and opinion. Of course you have to be careful about what
you say about others. Never say
something about someone that you wouldn’t want them to know, because it will probably
get back to them anyway. I give out this
advice but do I practise what I preach, do I hell. I love a good gossip.
Mind you, if I
don’t like someone then I don’t like them.
It’s rare though.
The only April Fool’s
trick I can remember being played at work was one I thought of!
My company ICL
had just had yet another logo redesign.
This time it was a Scandinavian company suggesting a softer more
colourful approach. Our logo and
business cards was redesigned with random colours! Our business cards randomly came in a choice
of 5 colours! Each pack of business
cards had the ICL logo in 5 colours.
Depending on your customer, you could give them one of Purple, Green,
Gold, Brown, Blue (I think those were the colours)
At the same time
I’ve often wondered why companies that give staff company cars don’t insist
that their employees have the company advertised on them given that it’s the
company paying for the car.
So I combined the
idea and went to the Branch Manager and asked him to send out an April 1st
spoof email memo telling staff that in view of the new logo design, the company
was insisting that company car owners put the ICL logo on the side of their
car, but given the new company colours, they would have a choice of 5 colours
to match their car!!
You should have
seen the storm it provoked!
One of my more
creative April Fools.