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.
The Lazy Salesman in May 2002: Contact, Resource Availability
Close, Hardware Store, SPACER, My own Call Reluctance, Greetings and
Handshakes, How much to you care?, Advancing after a Good Meeting, What Goes
Around Comes Around, Concept to Cash, The Perfect Supplier, Follow-Up, All Talk
and No Product, Elio the Photographer, Battles and Wars, Dissatisfied Customer,
Crooks, Exhibition Leads, Small Acorns Conversations, The P.A font of all
Knowledge, Practising What I Preach, Don’t Let Things Drift, Human Touch,
Dreams Really Do Come True, Find Your Market.
The Lazy Salesman in June 2002: Lost Leaders, Loss Leaders, My
Sales Call Reluctance, Can you talk?, Cover your bases, Selling Should be
Effortless, 9 out of 10 people just
aren’t interested, Selling Picks and Shovels, Tony the Café Owner, Playing 2
games of chess, Selling Ratios, Professionals Sort, Amateurs Convince, Onerous
Tasks, Marketing your website, Internet Marketing, Struggling On, Time, where
does it go to?, Prospecting is Non-Urgent and Important, Sell Better or Qualify
Out!, Easy to do business with, Is
Selling Manipulating?, Big Coincidence, Revenge Referrals, Engaging, Can you
help me?,Trial Close.
The Lazy Salesman in July 2002: Small Things, Hang in There,
Selling Motivation, Stick at It, Gap in the Market, More
Contact, Anticipation.
The Lazy Salesman
in August 2002: The Perfectionist Salesman, What would you do if money was no object?, The True Cost of Business, Good Clients,
Run Like Hell
if you see a Bow Tie, I have a dream, Heart and Soul, Check is out with former buyers, Good Job Multiplier, What’s Your
Job?, Ask what is the key issue, Keep Prospecting.
Saturday 31st August 2002
Today’s theme
across my writing is perfectionism.
And it’s just as
much a disease in selling.
We don’t call
people until we’ve know exactly what to say.
Consequently we don’t call.
We don’t write to
people for fear of sending something not totally correct. Consequently we don’t write.
We don’t phone
senior clients until say the right thing.
Consequently we don’t phone them.
It’s overcoming
that perfectionism, that fear of failure or saying the wrong thing.
Treat it as a
numbers game and if it goes wrong, move on.
But at least make
the contact even if it’s not perfect.
Friday 30th August 2002
It’s an expansive
question I recommend asking clients, to find out what the real issue is.
And I forgot to
ask myself what would I do if money was no object.
So I’m out
spending $100m tonight.
Whoopee!
Thursday 29th August 2002
What is the true
cost of business?
The King of
Training (I am merely a prince) Charles Pinsent, says it’s a factor of 6
initially, and in fact it’s really another factor of 6.
In other words
the true value of something is 36 times its price.
I wonder where Charles
get his figures from and I’m sure he makes most of them up, but when I’m
sitting at the back of the training room calculating Charles’s pearls of
wisdom, he’s usually right.
(As an aside he
says that a Salesperson always has 21 prospects they’re working on. Rubbish I thought, but every time I’ve looked
at my sales history, I’ve always had 21 customers or 21 opportunities)
Back to the real
thing. Medina Apartments Australia are
about to find out the true cost of business.
See my August Blog for today.
They’re screwing
me for $400. Actually, Brisbane Medina
are screwing me for that amount.
And when I work
out the cost of my revenge, guess what?
It’s looking like
Charles is right.
The future
business I was about to book with them is about $2400 with the bookings I’m not
going to do with them in Sydney and Brisbane.
I’d estimated the
future business I was going to book and other people I’d put at $10,000, but
I’m going to revise it up slightly to confirm Charles’s theory.
It’s now at
$14,400.
You know
what? I think the King is right again.
And all for
$400. They’ve won the battle and lost
the war because of an obstinate nail.
Think about the
business you mess up by being petty with clients.
How much is that
costing you in real terms?
On a different
tack, I must make sure I don’t waste more than $400 of my time pursuing this
matter.
Don’t people love
to tell what great bargains they get, but how much emotional and actual time
have they used to get that airline upgrade?
Wednesday 28th August 2002
Just thinking of the best clients I’ve ever had.
They are fun, we can have a laugh.
We enjoy doing business with each other.
They are decisive.
They trust me.
We can talk about things other than work.
They give me referrals and tell me what’s happening in the rest of their
organisation.
They listen to me.
We can talk openly with no hidden agenda.
I am there to make a profit and they are there to get value. We both knew what we want.
Actually come to think of it, nowadays I can more pick and choose what I
want, so I’m happy with my clients.
As Tom Peters says somewhere in his book in which I can’t find quote,
“Life’s too short for bad customers”
If you have bad clients it means you haven’t got enough good clients in
the funnel to give yourself “Luxury of Choice”.
Tuesday 27th August 2002
Someone asked me today how you deal with a difficult and awkward client.
What I’m reminded off is when I was new to sales, and I noticed a middle
aged, bow tied, consultant doctor walking towards the demonstration we were
giving.
My advice nowadays is RUN LIKE HELL (or hide)
Every hospital has that know-it-all, thinks they’re God,
little-knowledge-on-computing-is a-dangerous-thing type, who can be easily
identified by the suit and bow tie.
Get the hell out, quickly.
Life’s too short to have it ruined by the obnoxious know it all surgeon
who automatically thinks they know it all on every other subject in the world.
How do the drugs reps cope with them?
Sunday 25th August 2002
Wouldn’t it be great if selling organisations had passionate products with passionate employees lead by passionate management, attracting passionate customers and clients. Great products and services.
The whole selling/buying process would have useful products and services
whereby price is used to adjust and take account of the difference in
features/function of products and services.
Pure Economics.
In the meantime we have salespeople!
Saturday 24th August 2002
We hired a car today, from Rolo Car Hire in Brisbane.
Business run by a father and son.
They engage you in conversation, they explain things.
They want your business, they want you to come back, they’re interested
and curious.
They upgrade you to a better car without even asking.
The last lot we had in Bayswater Car Hire, have employees who are
miserable and don’t care.
They don’t trust you, they check the car with suspicion afterwards.
They’re inflexible unfriendly and cheap.
One wins on cost the other wins on value.
When the chips are down, it’s value and the relationship that wins every
time.
The heart and soul of the owners are in their company, employees at
Bayswater really don’t care, it’s just a job and employment.
It’s a real challenge for organisations with employees somehow having
them treating customers and clients with passion.
When we phone up to book a room, I wish to God they would try and
negotiate with us rather than just say this is the price, goodbye.
I’m sure the owners would rather have a full hotel with some of the
clients paying a bit less than a half empty place with the same fixed costs.
Thursday 22nd August 2002
I noticed that when Zig Zigglar presents on tape, his voice and phrasing
with southern American drawl are catchy even before you consider the content.
Ggggowwwwwwwwlllllllllllsssss (Goals)
A guy the other night just used the word Faaaaannntastic as his catch
phrase.
He tongue in cheek described everything as Faaaaaaaaannnnntastic.
The audience mostly loved it
I wonder what my catch phrase will be!!!!!
More importantly it make you think about having a memorable style,
something that gets you noticed and remembered, and most of the speakers I
witnessed the other night had a memorable style, and not something that was
necessarily up to date.
Thursday 22nd August 2002
When I’m training a group, I invariably find that there are people who’ve been clients and sold to by the types of organisations they now work for.
Makes sense that you may work for your supplier or the same type of
industry in future years, especially in I.T.
It’s a good test of what works with clients to ask them what worked and
irritated them when they were the client.
Which suppliers did they like and why?
Which types of proposals and tenders did they like and which did they
hate.
What irritated them as clients?
All useful guidance when selling to organisations.
Wednesday 21st August 2002
I’ve just realised that two of the people I’ve worked with where they were the client, and I was supplying sales training, have moved to other companies.
Having had a good relationship with both of them, not only has it lead to
more business with companies they worked for, but the potential is enormous for
work or advice and contacts with the companies they now work for.
What it has made me realise is that if you do enough good work for enough
people, you must hit a critical mass where work is self-sustaining just from
people moving on and remembering you for what a good job you did for them, and
you got on well with them.
They then invite you into their new employers or point you in the right
direction.
Self sustaining work and selling.
I like it.
Of course it won’t work every time, but that’s why you need more
prospects and more delivery in the pot, to create this critical mass.
Tuesday 20th August 2002
Your job is to
sell!
Not to plan or
write or create or do all the other stuff.
It’s to get out
there and prospect and sell.
Network if you
wish as a means of selling, but the more people you meet on a regular basis the
more successful you will be.
Not just in
selling.
Monday 19th August 2002
Sometimes we ask
too many questions and go down a path that is a red herring and the wrong one
for the client just because it’s our hot issue.
So how do find out
what the key issue is?
ASK!
What is your key
issue?
If money were no
object what would you do?
If there was one
problem you could solve what would it be?
You get the
drift.
Sunday 18th August 2002
If
you don’t keep prospecting you won’t make your target or have any business.
It’s
something we never get round to which in Steven Covey terms of “7 Habits of
Highly Effective People, is important but not urgent.
I
liken it to making your will. It’s
something you keep putting off and never get round to doing, because there are
more urgent and important things to do.
But,
it will catch up with you in the end, so go prospect and/or network.