Sales Chump

Now is the time of year when salespeople revisit their client base and make decisions about how they will prepare for the coming year.

What do you do to be ready?

Here are some thoughts -

1. Visit your current customers and find out what is going on with them
2. Create a profile of your ideal client
3. Develop a sales plan for approaching other companies/individuals who match that profile
4. Start working the plan
5. Evaluate at set intervals to make sure you are on the right track

How does that sound? There are two issues here. One is making sure you have a good relationship with your current clients. After all, you want to keep them. So don’t neglect them. The second issue is defining your target market. Knowing what your ideal client looks like can help you define that market. Usually your ideal client looks like one or more of your current clients. Another reason why visiting with them is helpful.

Give it a shot. I’ll be curious to see how it goes.

Now that we are in the last few days of 2008, it’s time to start setting sales goals for 2009.  Setting goals is very important for your success.  It forces accountability and should help map out your path to success.  Just as sales calls need a script, you need a trail to your goals as well.

I like to set lofty yet obtainable goals.  Unrealistic goals can leave you demotivated and discouraged.  If you like to shoot for the starts, set two goals:  your lofty but obtainable goal and your BHAG (big harry audacious goal).  There is nothing wrong with two goals or two levels.

Break your goal out on a time-line.  You have to set smaller goals within your large goal or your large goal will be forgotten about.  You will have your yearly goal but then set weekly, monthly and quarterly goals within that year.  Don’t just take your annual goal and divide it by 12.  Think about the different times.  Are there certain months or times of year that are better for sales?  Are there certain months that are worse for sales?  Do you already have a 3 week vacation planned in the summer?  Keep these factors in mind when breaking down your time-lined goals.  It can be a consistent number at each interval but it will work better if you take all the factors into account.

Goals are great but how do you figure out what that magic number is?  High sales numbers sure do look and sound good but what specifically needs to be done to get there?  Set an amount you like (10-20% higher than 2008 for example) and then back your way into that number to really see how obtainable it is.  Sales is all numbers and figures so this should be no different.

You should be keeping track of all kinds of numbers and figures on a daily basis.  These include;  how many calls you make a day, how many doors you knock on a day, how many people come in each day, how many prospects you make, how many appointments you make and of course how many sales you make.  You also have to know what your average sale is worth. 

I’m going to keep these numbers simple (your numbers will vary but the concept will remain the same).  Let’s say you make 100 cold calls a day.  That results in 10 appointments and one sale.  That sale is worth $1,000.  Your annual goal is $150,000.  You will need to find out how many sales you will have to make first, so simply divide 150,000 by 1,000 = 150 sales.  That means for 150 sales you will need (150*100 calls= 15,000) 15,000 cold calls.  That’s (15,000/252 sales day in the year=60) 60 cold calls a day.  If that is easily obtainable, your goal needs to be raised.  If that is impossible, it should be lowered.

With the correct figures you should be able to set a goal, hold yourself accountable on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, and hit your yearly figure.

As we dive further into our FO’s (frequent objections) and after tackling the lack of a need existing objections or the knee jerk objections, we move on to the next set of objections likely to come up.  These objections you will run across will containe authority or responsibility issues.  They include but aren’t limited to:

• My boss isn’t going to authorize this
• I have to consult with…
• That’s not my area
• We have to use so and so
• That person isn’t here anymore

Most of them all group into one category and can all be handled the same way for the most part.  The biggest concern here if you’re getting some of these objections, you need to ask yourself: Why did I think this was the person who handles this?

Did you assume they handled this for the business?  Did you ask enough questions?  Chances are you assumed they handled and didn’t ask enough questions.  We want to try and not have these objections come up at all.  We can do this by asking the right questions at the right time.

I have to consult with… or My boss isn’t going to authorize this

All three of these mean you aren’t talking with the decision maker.  This could have been prevented by asking more questions in the beginning.  Don’t get me wrong… I work with large national accounts for big companies and run into this time to time regardless of how well I asked questions as some people will keep things hidden until it’s go time.  Nonetheless there are questions that you can ask before you get these objections that are much more effective before rather than after:

• Who else is involved in the decision making process?
• What do you think your boss would have a problem with?
• I understand you have to consult with other people and sometimes they will come up with some other questions, what time would be good to speak with all of the decision makers at the same time?
• Where do you see the other people involved getting hung up on this?

That’s not my area or That person isn’t here anymore

The “that’s not my area” and “that person isn’t here anymore” is simple.  You just need to figure out who you should talk to.  There are simple questions you can ask to get where you need to:

• My apologies, who’s area would that be?
• Who took over [person]’s position?

Those are simple enough and shouldn’t deter you away from proceeding.

We have to use so and so

This is a hard one.  Depending on the situation they might have to.  I have run into prospects that require you to do a ridiculous amount of advertising with them in order for them to use your services or they have a relationship with a competitor.  Use common sense and caution with these.  It can be tricky to not look cocky or arrogant with your response.

• When did you set up that kind of exclusive agreement? (chances are it’s not exclusive and this will open it up)
• What would allow you to be able to use someone else?

As you can see these questions answer why they have to use someone else without asking directly “why do you have to use them?”  That comes off rude a bit even if there’s no intention to be rude.

As in my other blog, don’t fear objections, welcome them.  Objections are good.  These are just a couple common objections or FO’s as I like to call them. Don’t give up on the first objection but use judgment.  There’s a difference between no and NO!.  Prospects have it in their gut reaction to reject you.  You have to fight through these false objections and work through them.

For those of us that aren’t rolling in the dough (that means you if you’re looking for sales tips) we are probably still cold calling and trying to build our prospects.  In this process we run into the knee-jerk objections:

• Not Interested
• We are satisfied with whom we have now
• Already have someone

Sometimes these can be a pain to get through but there are some steps to get around them.  My first question to you is are you talking with the correct person?  Often times you’ll get the gatekeeper or a receptionist that is trained to hang up on telemarketers or sales people regardless of the service.  These contacts at the company aren’t going to know if their interested, if their really satisfied, etc.  So before giving up let’s first make sure we’re talking with the right person.

Once we have confirmed we are talking with the correct person and we are still getting these objections there are steps to get the customer to open up and tell you why.

We’re Not Interested Objection

If this is the first time that the potential customer is talking with you and this is the first thing that comes out of their mouth… well how can they be?  You haven’t said anything interesting yet.  Dig a little bit into the objection:

• Are you not interested because you’ve already handled this?
• Are you not interested because you’re too busy to talk at the moment?
• Is this not the right time of year to talk with you about this?  When do you look at this?
• Are you not interested because you don’t use this service currently?

These questions can get to find out if they’re not interested or if they don’t want to talk to you.  It could be a busy time of the day or month and you’re timing is off.  Use common sense in timing… don’t call restaurants during lunch and dinner, don’t call hotels during check out times, etc.

We Are Satisified With Our Current Supplier Objection

Of course they’re satisfied or they would have called you.  They don’t realize they’re unsatisfied because they don’t know something better exists for them.  This is a good objection though.  It shows they do have interest in services you provide as they already have them, just with someone else.  So how do you show them things that they want that they aren’t currently getting?  Open ended questions.

• What about your current supplier do you like?
• What is one thing you wish you could change about your current supplier? (build on this answer if your service provides this change)
• Have you always been with this provider?  What made you choose them?

You can build on those core questions.  Listen to their answers.  They will lead you into how to build value in your company and service.

We Already Have Someone Objection

This one is better than the one above.  As they stated they have the service but they didn’t state they were happy with that provider.  You can use the same line of questions to get answers that will lead you into the next step of the sales process.

As in my other blog, don’t fear objections, welcome them.  Objections are good.  These are just a couple common objections or FO’s as I like to call them. Don’t give up on the first objection but use judgment.  There’s a difference between no and NO!.  Prospects have it in their gut reaction to reject you.  You have to fight through these false objections and work through them.

Open ended questions can be the most important tool sales reps have to determine customer needs.  Too many times will sales reps just talk and talk and never find out a prospects true needs.  When this happens, the sale is usually not made or money is left on the table.

You wouldn’t expect a car salesman to show you every car on the lot, with every option, in every price and in ever color.  How inefficient is that?  The sale is likely to be lost unless the car they want is the first one shown.

All sales should be viewed this way.  The product you’re selling much likely has multiple options, terms and pricing.  How do you know what best fits the customer’s need without asking open ended questions?

When you ask open ended questions, questions that require a response that is more than yes or no, it allows the customer to open up.  You should be able to determine their wants, their concerns, their needs and other things that are on their mind from these questions.  Make sure you take good notes and even repeat certain things to make sure you fully understand.

Below are several open ended questions.  Use them and watch your customers do all the talking and you do all the listening.

• How has the economy affected your business?
• What is your competition like?
• When you go over your monthly expenses, are there any that remain constant?
• Where do you see your business in five years?
• What got you into this type of business?
• If you could freeze any of your expenses, would you do it and why if so?
• When you got into business, what were your expectations?
• When analyzing your expenses, do you look for ways to improve your bottom line?
• Have you entered into fixed contracts before? How did that work out for you?
• What do you think about having the ability to protect your upside while taking advantage of the downside?
• What type of protection are you looking for?
• What are some of the things your current supplier does that you like?
• What are some of the things you would like your current supplier to provide that they don’t now?
• Who else is involved in the final decision?
• What risks do you want to avoid?
• What other factors come into your decision making process?
• Other than price, what other things are you concerned with?
• What time frame are you looking at?
• What steps do we need to take to move forward?