Did You Know That You Have The Right To Fire Prospects?

Have you ever invested time, talent and energy into a presentation for a prospect that you later find out has no money?!  Yes, I have, and it is a big downer.  There is a lesson in this however and it is this:

When do you want to find out that your prospect has no money, can’t make a decision to buy, has no real need for your product/service, doesn’t need it till next year, just wants your info . . . on and on we could go.  Most of the time, traditional selling does not adequately flush out these important issues until days, weeks, or even months until after the selling process has begun.  This puts the sales professional in a high risk situation where valuable time could be wasted on opportunities that have no chance of becoming orders.

It is better to qualify hard during the initial meetings with a prospect asking tough questions about money, decision, need, and other qualifying issues.  If the prospect fails this initial qualification process, then you have the right to “fire” the prospect and move on to those that will buy from you.

Are the People You Currently Have On The Bus The Ones To Take You To The Next Level?

When I am meeting with potential clients, I almost always ask this question and when I do, almost always the answer, given with much difficulty, is “I am not sure”, “That is a good question”, “I don’t think so”.  When sales managers reflect on the sales talent they have, in which the business is depending on to produce revenue it needs to survive and grow, there can be pain in the reflection.  Yes they have some top performers, but there are also those salespeople that don’t quite deliver.  The sales manager works with these people, trains these people, goes on sales calls with these people, coaches these people, helps them set good goals and at the end of the year, again these salespeople miss the mark.  Now the sales manager might be faced with some difficult decisions that he/she rather not have.

It is a fact that not all people in this world are created with the gift of selling and yet many of these people can find there way into a selling career.  I am a firm believer that industry and product knowledge can be taught and learned over time by just about anybody, but the art of selling is different.  You can teach it, train it, coach it, role model it and in spite of all this effort, those people that do not bring certain gifts, behaviors, and abilities to the table up front will have difficulty trying to perform at a high level in sales.

I recently performed a talent assessment for a client and had the tough task of informing him that based on the results of the assessment, he did not have a strong sales team and that he could do much better with better talent.  I was concerned that even if we trained the salespeople he has, their performance improvement would be marginal at best.  Any investment in such training might not deliver the return he would expect.  Yes, the assessments could have been wrong, but the client did not dispute the results and in the end, agreed that investing in training would not be wise at that time.

I don’t know if you believe in assessments, but I do.  They provide an objective data point on the natural gifting of the person and while the results are not the final word, they do help provide information that can assist with the interview or development plan.  There is nothing wrong with a person that is not gifted in sales.  There is something wrong if this person finds themselves in a selling career.  It is wrong for this person and the company that hires him/her.

 

I Love Giving Sales Presentations! But Not Everybody Pays For Them.

I love giving sales presentations!  And I am good at it.  I just need any living, breathing, human being say, “Would you give me a presentation?”, and I was all over it.  I loved preparing the message, assembling the PowerPoint slides, creating the WOW factor.  I felt good about the time I spent on preparation, and it was a lot,  because I am a salesman and this is what you do: give sales presentations so customers will buy from you.  Then came the delivery!  My customers loved it.  They would pick up some new ideas on how to do things.  They were impressed with the level of my understanding and they would let me know, “Wow, that was great presentation!”  Once the presentation was done, I would pack up my materials, head to my car, and drive back to the office feeling like I was doing a great job for my company. . . Wait a second!? . . . Where is my paycheck?! . . . I was a 100% commissioned salesman so if I didn’t sell anything as a result of the presentation, there was no paycheck!  But it was a great presentation and I spent hours preparing it! . . . Maybe I shouldn’t like giving presentations so much because I am here to tell you I gave a bunch of them for free!

Some customers bought so I was able to earn a modest living, but my hourly wage when I factored in all the time I spent presenting to customers was less than I would have accepted if you told me out right that this job will only pay this per hour.

Then Dave Sandler taught me a lesson that changed my selling career forever.  For the first time I learned that the best presentation is the one you never give.  That is a tough lesson to swallow for someone who loves to give presentations.  But the lesson rings true.  When I was making presentations to anyone who was willing to listen, I maybe closed three to four orders for every ten presentations given.  But each presentation consumed valuable time whether it resulted in an order or not.  The Sandler lesson taught me to only give presentations to customers that you know ahead of the presentation will buy after the presentation and then only if the customer wants the presentation.  In other words, the business is closed before the presentation is given!  It is all about qualifying the customer before they get the goods.  I am not there yet, but the really good Sandler salespeople close 100% of customers that receive their presentation.  So, instead of making ten presentations to close three orders, they give three presentations to close three orders.  The income in each scenario is the same but the time invested hugely benefits the Sandler method.  Now the hourly rate begins to enter the ranks of the really good sales professional.

Are People Born With The Ability to Sell?

It is true that some salespeople just seem to have what it takes right from the beginning.  It is almost like these people are born with certain inate qualities that support the necessary behaviors high performing sales people must consistantly engage to have success in the world of sales.  When you ask how these high performers do it, it is often difficult for them to explain.  It is even more difficult for them to pass on their skills to others because, unless the ‘others’ have the same inate qualities, the high performer’s lessons may not translate.

Unfortunately, most of the people in the world of professional selling are potential high performers waiting for for someone or something to unlock the potential within.  Until this happens, these salespeople will be average, maybe good performers for months, years, even decades.  If only the high performers could just pass on what it is they do to achieve their selling success to those who have the potential!

It is amazing to me how many people in the world of professional selling have never been trained on how to sell.  O.K., so maybe they went to a seminar or two thinking that as a result, instant transformation into a high performing salesperson would take place.  From my experience, businesses and corporations believe if their sales people become experts on the products and services they sell, that would translate into ability to sell.  Therefore, most of the ‘sales’ training is on the products and services that they will sell rather than the actual communication process that occurs when the sales person and prospect meet.  And, unless these salespeople have the inate qualities described above, they settle into their average performance and the years begin to go by with their high performance potential locked up and unavailable.

Maybe that is why I got into the sales training business.  There is nothing more rewarding to me then to see a professional salesperson develop a selling system that unlocks their potential and they join the ranks of the high performers!