Successful sales professionals are well rounded individuals who work as much on their sales techniques as their personal issues. It takes an emotionally stable person to connect well with many individuals. And we all know connecting with many individuals from various backgrounds and behaviors is what it takes to make it in sales.

It is easy to be judgmental and angry over things that people do seemingly to you. The more difficult path is a broadened perspective recognizing that it may not be what it appears. It is the stronger person who is able to be compassionate and loving and truly in touch with their healthy emotions.

Broadening your perspective requires a patient, tolerant, and compassionate mind, a mind open to exploring alternative ways of seeing and acting. Broadening your perspective helps you perceive possible reasons for things that occur in life. Though there is no perfect antidote to anger - patience, tolerance and compassion (PTC) helps manage it.

The following saying gives me a better perspective on situations:

Please provide me with the patience to listen, understand, and accept that life is simply not perfect, but through patience I can see life as perfectly simple. Give me the tolerance to appreciate the ups and downs of my daily tasks. And as long as I am working with people for a greater cause, I will always be tolerant and understanding of their situations. Allow me to demonstrate my compassion and loving kindness in all situations and to all people. I speak these words because life is short and wish to live a peaceful and happy life. And I wish the same for others.

Let’s examine how we can apply these sentiments to a real life situation...

How often have you encountered a prospect who, when you’re at the closing phase, tells you something like…

• “I am not the final decision maker.”
• “I’ll need to talk to my partner.”
• “There are a few people in my division I need to speak with regarding this idea.”

If you’ve heard one of these lines, you’re not alone. In sales, we are often faced with the daunting task of generating new business; yet, speak to people who cannot make the ultimate decision.

Situations like this are inevitable because you are dealing with the human factor. People as a general rule want to feel important; they like power. It is very easy for pseudo-decision makers to manipulate a salesperson into believing they can make a decision when in truth they cannot.

The Relay Game

Success in sales weighs heavily on how efficiently your message is delivered to the top decision maker. When a message you deliver becomes a part of a ‘relay game,’ you’re almost certain to experience frustration and lost sales.

The relay game, for those of you not familiar with this term, is when a manager says they have decision-making power, but they actually relay your ideas to someone in the power seat that gives them the ultimate ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and relay the decision back to you. Quite often they play the relay game and then act as if the decision were there own.

In my sales training workshops, we focus on getting to the proper decision maker from the start. “How is this done?” you ask. Read on.

Get To The Proper Decision Maker

Sales professionals often find it easier to speak with middle managers in the corporate chain, as their willingness to listen to sales pitches is much greater than that of the top-level executives. Your first step in getting to the final decision maker is to analyze your market and determine the highest person in the chain of command.

A middle manager holds little value when it comes to making the final decision. Don’t get me wrong. There are always exceptions to the rule, but for the most part follow this rule: Identify the top-dog, head-honcho, the chief, captain, commander, or any other creative name held by the person who can say ‘yes’ to your idea.

Get to the C-Level

If you are not speaking to the C-level (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.) person in your...

Why Politicians Make Great Sales People

It's that time of year and I am always fond of watching the crazy politicians at work.  Inconceivably McCain, Obama, and Clinton may be the greatest sales professionals ever.  Why you ask?  Quirky as it may sound they listen, or at least someone on their campaign staff listens.  I cannot determine who is responsible for listening but it happens.

Watch their inteviews and live conferences to thousands.  No matter the audience their message is slanted to appeal.  It amazes me the power of listening to your audience and how it impacts the success of any campaign.

In your sales campaigns you have to listen to your audience.  Three important principles to remember while listening in any sales situation.

Clients usually know the differences between their vendors. They know that company A is cheaper than company B and that company C has a better customer service. If sales professionals wish to truly meet the needs of their clients, they should not only know what their clients know about their competitors, but more…

The Competitive Analysis

The purpose of a competitive analysis is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, establish strategies that will provide you with a distinct advantage, and discover any of their weaknesses that you can use to leverage during the sales cycle.

Your primary goal when performing a competitive analysis is to identify the key differences between you and your competitors so you can take advantage of those differences when selling your products or services.

How do I Gather Information about My Competitors?

There are several different ways to go about gathering information about your competitors. The following four tips will help you find the right information without a lot of extensive work:

1. The Internet

• Research their website

The information published on their site is likely to include most of the general information you are looking to gather

• Perform a general Internet search

Use a search engine to turn up product reviews, purchasing information, and other details not readily available on the company website

• Use a market intelligence database

A market intelligent database such as Hoovers or D&B will allow you to gain additional information about your competitors if they have a profile listed...

The cost of replacing an employee averages between one and two times the candidate's salary plus benefits. So for a $50,000 salary the cost of losing that candidate ranges between $65,000 and $115,000.

The cost is higher in sales departments, where the loss of productivity, revenue, cash flow, and even clients is astonishing. Whether your sales team is quitting or you have to let people go, turnover costs are painful.

You must stop the bleeding, tourniquet the turnover, and repair the wound. Just because you are letting people go versus having employees quit, doesn’t mean you truly understand the health of your business. Many managers think, “I have turnover because my team is not meeting quota and slacking.

I had to let them go.” Believe it or not, some people do things to get fired rather than quitting. Getting fired may not be good for a recommendation; however, it often does allow for an unemployment claim.

So ask yourself, are your employees trying to get fired? Stopping employee turnover encompasses...

How often have you encountered a prospect who, when you’re at the closing phase, tells you something like…

• “I am not the final decision maker.”
• “I’ll need to talk to my partner.”
• “There are a few people in my division I need to speak with regarding this idea.”

If you’ve heard one of these lines, you’re not alone. In sales, we are often faced with the daunting task of generating new business; yet, speak to people who cannot make the ultimate decision.

Situations like this are inevitable because you are dealing with the human factor. People as a general rule want to feel important; they like power. It is very easy for pseudo-decision makers to manipulate a salesperson into believing they can make a decision when in truth they cannot.

The Relay Game

Success in sales weighs heavily on how efficiently your message is delivered to the top decision maker. When a message you deliver becomes a part of a ‘relay game,’ you’re almost certain to experience frustration and lost sales.

The relay game, for those of you not familiar with this term, is when a manager says they have decision-making power, but they actually relay your ideas to someone in the power seat that gives them the ultimate ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and relay the decision back to you. Quite often they play the relay game and then act as if the decision were there own.

In my sales training workshops, we focus on getting to the proper decision maker from the start. “How is this done?” you ask. Read on.

Get To The Proper Decision Maker

Sales professionals often find it easier to speak with middle managers in the corporate chain, as their willingness to listen to sales pitches is much greater than that of the top-level executives. Your first step in getting to the final decision maker is to analyze your market and determine the highest person in the chain of command.

A middle manager holds little value when it comes to making the final decision. Don’t get me wrong. There are always exceptions to the rule, but for the most part follow this rule: Identify the top-dog, head-honcho, the chief, captain, commander, or any other creative name held by the person who can say ‘yes’ to your idea.

Get to the C-Level

If you are not speaking to the C-level (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.) person in your...

This article is part two to Power Questioning for Sales Professionals.  Be sure to check out part I before reading this article.

There are five parts to great communication skills. Listening, Questioning, Body Language, Speaking, and Interpreting. Communication skills are the defining attribute of a top sales person with questioning skills at the center. These are also components of the public seminar Intellectual Sales Process™ For New Business Development.

Four Questioning Categories

For those of you who have attended the seminar, Intellectual Sales Process™ For New Business Development. you have heard me break down Close and Open ended questions into four categories.

Open-Ended questions come in either Broad Scoped or Narrow Scoped and the Close-Ended category also offers two choices with first, Alternative Choice and second, Single Outcome.  

1. Broad Scoped Open-Ended
2. Narrow Scoped Open-Ended
3. Alternative Choice Close-Ended
4. Single Outcome Close-Ended

The first two types of questions are fully described in Power Questioning for Sales Professionals, Part I.  In this article, we take a look at numbers three and four, Alternative Choice Close-Ended and Single Outcome Close-Ended and when and how to use these types of questions.

3. Alternative Choice Close-Ended Questions

Alternative Choice Close-Ended (ACCE) ...

How often have you encountered a prospect who, when you’re at the closing phase, tells you something like…

• “I am not the final decision maker.”
• “I’ll need to talk to my partner.”
• “There are a few people in my division I need to speak with regarding this idea.”

If you’ve heard one of these lines, you’re not alone. In sales, we are often faced with the daunting task of generating new business; yet, speak to people who cannot make the ultimate decision.

Situations like this are inevitable because you are dealing with the human factor. People as a general rule want to feel important; they like power. It is very easy for pseudo-decision makers to manipulate a salesperson into believing they can make a decision when in truth they cannot.

The Relay Game

Success in sales weighs heavily on how efficiently your message is delivered to the top decision maker. When a message you deliver becomes a part of a ‘relay game,’ you’re almost certain to experience frustration and lost sales.

The relay game, for those of you not familiar with this term, is when a manager says they have decision-making power, but they actually relay your ideas to someone in the power seat that gives them the ultimate ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and relay the decision back to you. Quite often they play the relay game and then act as if the decision were there own.

In my sales training workshops, we focus on getting to the proper decision maker from the start. “How is this done?” you ask. Read on.

Get To The Proper Decision Maker

Sales professionals often find it easier to speak with middle managers in the corporate chain, as their willingness to listen to sales pitches is much greater than that of the top-level executives. Your first step in getting to the final decision maker is to analyze your market and determine the highest person in the chain of command.

A middle manager holds little value when it comes to making the final decision. Don’t get me wrong. There are always exceptions to the rule, but for the most part follow this rule: Identify the top-dog, head-honcho, the chief, captain, commander, or any other creative name held by the person who can say ‘yes’ to your idea.

Get to the C-Level

If you are not speaking to the C-level (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.) person in your...

BypassingThe Gatekeeper, Reaching the Target

The following eight tips are proven ways to get around the gatekeeper. Not only have these strategies worked for those I’ve trained, they've also been effective for me, personally. I would enjoy hearing what has worked for you, too. Email Dennis.

1. Sales Research
2. The Get Around
3. Be Creative
4. Timing
5. Use Commonalities
6. Voice Mail
7. Customer Referrals
8. Kindness, Respect Humor

One - Sales Research

1. Research. Knowing with whom you want to speak with prior to ...

Learn How to Effectively Use Silence to Your Advantage

Haveyouevermetsomeonewhotalkssomuchthatwhenthey*gasp*finallycomeupfor
airyou’rerelieved? Have you ever been in a conversation where you never got a word in and finally resigned yourself to simply smiling and nodding so you could politely end the conversation?

A lot of salespeople incorrectly believe that to win over prospects and close a deal they must verbally beat their prospect into agreement submission; they mistakenly interpret silence as their enemy.

Silence says more than a line in your sales repertoire

Silence is an immensely powerful tool if you know how and when to use it. Typically, people perceive silence as an uncomfortable and awkward break in conversation so they instinctively insist on filling the silence. Once you learn how to use the power of the pause, you will be able to lead your prospects and customers into filling the gap of silence with valuable information.

Why, When, and How do I use silence?

There are three essential tools to using silence effectively:

1. Understanding Why silence is important
2. Knowing When to use silence
3. Learning How to use silence

Understanding Why Silence is Important

After asking a question, the average salesperson...

Brainstorming is by far the best way to unlock the human brain and cultivate new ideas. It is important for you to remember the art of brainstorming is not found in linear thinking it is found in global thinking.

What is meant by the idea of "Global Thinking"? Global thinking is NOT taking an idea and thinking of it in its exactness, but the complete opposite. Take an idea and think of it in its inexactness.

Example Of Inexact Thinking

A marketing team is attempting...

Time is equal for everyone, so why is it that some people get so much more done in the same amount of time?

In following list of the top twenty time wasters for salespeople, note those that cause you difficulty.

If you've experienced the emotional highs and lows of being in the profession of sales, you’re not alone.

The selling profession has numerous energized individuals, yet an unbelievable amount of depressed people. How many times have you felt on top of the world when you landed a big account that throws you over quota for the month or year? Yet how many times in the same month or quarter have you become emotionally drained because you feel like you can't give your product away? Again, you are not alone. Consistency can help to alleviate the ups and downs of our profession.

I once had a sales manager that would tell me “Sales is all about managing the peaks and valleys in your emotional day. Don't let the valleys get too deep and keep focused on the emotions of what it's like to win." However, there is no cliché, which prepares one for the downturn of an emotional day. How can someone regurgitate a cliche, like 'the grass is always greener’ or ‘don't worry things can't get any worse, so they've got to get better’ and expect people to feel better? Clichés won’t get you through difficult situations; action will.

Sometimes in life, as in sales, we actually create worse predicaments for ourselves.

The theme of this article is how to stay focused on consistent sales activity. What does that mean to you? Staying frantically busy? Or, picking one activity and doing it repeatedly? Success is not really in either one. It is something far greater. And it is the key to unlock your greatest potential.

Consistency is a key component to all recipes for success.

Lessons From Golf

Because I enjoy athletics, I will use a parable from the world of sports to help you understand what it takes to achieve greater sales success. You turn on your television and popping up on the screen is the unmistakable image of Tiger Woods. You see him decked out in his Sunday red colors, which he enjoys wearing as he confidently strolls down the fairway of the 12th hole. You hear the commentators talking about the dynasty this young man is creating. Curtis Strange remarks, "Tiger Woods was born to be great and his skills surpass his years." All the while Tiger’s lead increasingly grows. It is almost the end of the tournament and a victory is all but certain. At that moment, thousands of voices from around the world speak quietly together saying, "he did it again." Many people, who have never played golf, as well as those who have, take for granted the dedication required to reach Tiger's level of success.

Consistently Tiger spends countless hours working to perfect his skill. He toils on every angle of his game. Often he encounters a difficult shot but pulls it off with a spectacular hit. For this, many call him lucky. What you may not realize is that Tiger practices each specific shot both in reality and i

Why Politicians Make Great Sales People

It's that time of year and I am always fond of watching the crazy politicians at work.  Inconceivably McCain, Obama, and Clinton may be the greatest sales professionals ever.  Why you ask?  Quirky as it may sound they listen, or at least someone on their campaign staff listens.  I cannot determine who is responsible for listening but it happens.

Watch their inteviews and live conferences to thousands.  No matter the audience their message is slanted to appeal.  It amazes me the power of listening to your audience and how it impacts the success of any campaign.

In your sales campaigns you have to listen to your audience.  Three important principles to remember while listening in any sales situation.

Communication skills are the defining attribute of a top sales person. There are five parts to great communication skills. Listening, Questioning, Body Language, Speaking, and Interpreting.

These are also components of Intellectual Sales Process™ For New Business Development which also happens to be a currently running public seminar where I will be speaking.

Listening Skills

This article will help you with your listening skills.  Listening to a person when they talk shows commitment, caring, interest, respect and builds rapport. I have yet to find a top-producing sales person who doesn't have superior listening skills.

Have you experienced someone acting like they are listening, but you can tell their eyes are not in focus and they are not truly listening? When you ask them to repeat back what you said, they have a difficult time. People even think they are listening and may be able to repeat what you said but they have not truly understood you.

If you, as the salesperson, are not fully active in listening to your clients and prospects, you will miss opportunities at the least and encounter angry customers at the worst.

There are three different states of listening:

1. Passive Listening
2. Intermediate Passive Listening

3. Active Listening

Passive Listening

Passive Listening (failure to pay attention to verbal and non-verbal communication, basically absorbing very little information):

This phase of listening could also be named, 'I Don't Care About You' or 'OOPS I Didn't Catch What You Said'.

I got semi-cured of this years ago when I was young and on a sales call. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the gentleman's name I was selling to. So I performed what I call the 'Stick Foot in Mouth Trick.' You probably know what I'm going to say. I grabbed my piece of paper confidently looked down attempting to make it look as though I was being organized and asked, "How do you spell your name again?" He responded, "That would be B-O-B" Talk about embarrassing. My wit quickly...

This article is part two to Power Questioning for Sales Professionals.  Be sure to check out part I before reading this article.

There are five parts to great communication skills. Listening, Questioning, Body Language, Speaking, and Interpreting. Communication skills are the defining attribute of a top sales person with questioning skills at the center. These are also components of the public seminar Intellectual Sales Process™ For New Business Development.

Four Questioning Categories

For those of you who have attended the seminar, Intellectual Sales Process™ For New Business Development. you have heard me break down Close and Open ended questions into four categories.

Open-Ended questions come in either Broad Scoped or Narrow Scoped and the Close-Ended category also offers two choices with first, Alternative Choice and second, Single Outcome.  

1. Broad Scoped Open-Ended
2. Narrow Scoped Open-Ended
3. Alternative Choice Close-Ended
4. Single Outcome Close-Ended

The first two types of questions are fully described in Power Questioning for Sales Professionals, Part I.  In this article, we take a look at numbers three and four, Alternative Choice Close-Ended and Single Outcome Close-Ended and when and how to use these types of questions.

3. Alternative Choice Close-Ended Questions

Alternative Choice Close-Ended (ACCE) ...

Clients usually know the differences between their vendors. They know that company A is cheaper than company B and that company C has a better customer service. If sales professionals wish to truly meet the needs of their clients, they should not only know what their clients know about their competitors, but more…

The Competitive Analysis

The purpose of a competitive analysis is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, establish strategies that will provide you with a distinct advantage, and discover any of their weaknesses that you can use to leverage during the sales cycle.

Your primary goal when performing a competitive analysis is to identify the key differences between you and your competitors so you can take advantage of those differences when selling your products or services.

How do I Gather Information about My Competitors?

There are several different ways to go about gathering information about your competitors. The following four tips will help you find the right information without a lot of extensive work:

1. The Internet

• Research their website

The information published on their site is likely to include most of the general information you are looking to gather

• Perform a general Internet search

Use a search engine to turn up product reviews, purchasing information, and other details not readily available on the company website

• Use a market intelligence database

A market intelligent database such as Hoovers or D&B will allow you to gain additional information about your competitors if they have a profile listed...

The cost of replacing an employee averages between one and two times the candidate's salary plus benefits. So for a $50,000 salary the cost of losing that candidate ranges between $65,000 and $115,000.

The cost is higher in sales departments, where the loss of productivity, revenue, cash flow, and even clients is astonishing. Whether your sales team is quitting or you have to let people go, turnover costs are painful.

You must stop the bleeding, tourniquet the turnover, and repair the wound. Just because you are letting people go versus having employees quit, doesn’t mean you truly understand the health of your business. Many managers think, “I have turnover because my team is not meeting quota and slacking.

I had to let them go.” Believe it or not, some people do things to get fired rather than quitting. Getting fired may not be good for a recommendation; however, it often does allow for an unemployment claim.

So ask yourself, are your employees trying to get fired? Stopping employee turnover encompasses...

Selling is an energy driven business. Success goes to those who understand how to work closely in group selling environments. To understand the ideas covered in this topic, we will answer:

1. What is a sales workgroup?
2. What is individual cohesiveness as it relates to workgroups?
3. What are high-energy attitudes?
4. How do you maintain high-performance?
5. Who should implement workgroups?
6. Why are they important?
7. What procedures are involved in establishing efficient workgroups?
8. What impact does a high performance workgroup have on your organization?

Why Politicians Make Great Sales People

It's that time of year and I am always fond of watching the crazy politicians at work.  Inconceivably McCain, Obama, and Clinton may be the greatest sales professionals ever.  Why you ask?  Quirky as it may sound they listen, or at least someone on their campaign staff listens.  I cannot determine who is responsible for listening but it happens.

Watch their inteviews and live conferences to thousands.  No matter the audience their message is slanted to appeal.  It amazes me the power of listening to your audience and how it impacts the success of any campaign.

In your sales campaigns you have to listen to your audience.  Three important principles to remember while listening in any sales situation.

Successful sales professionals are well rounded individuals who work as much on their sales techniques as their personal issues. It takes an emotionally stable person to connect well with many individuals. And we all know connecting with many individuals from various backgrounds and behaviors is what it takes to make it in sales.

It is easy to be judgmental and angry over things that people do seemingly to you. The more difficult path is a broadened perspective recognizing that it may not be what it appears. It is the stronger person who is able to be compassionate and loving and truly in touch with their healthy emotions.

Broadening your perspective requires a patient, tolerant, and compassionate mind, a mind open to exploring alternative ways of seeing and acting. Broadening your perspective helps you perceive possible reasons for things that occur in life. Though there is no perfect antidote to anger - patience, tolerance and compassion (PTC) helps manage it.

The following saying gives me a better perspective on situations:

Please provide me with the patience to listen, understand, and accept that life is simply not perfect, but through patience I can see life as perfectly simple. Give me the tolerance to appreciate the ups and downs of my daily tasks. And as long as I am working with people for a greater cause, I will always be tolerant and understanding of their situations. Allow me to demonstrate my compassion and loving kindness in all situations and to all people. I speak these words because life is short and wish to live a peaceful and happy life. And I wish the same for others.

Let’s examine how we can apply these sentiments to a real life situation...

If you've experienced the emotional highs and lows of being in the profession of sales, you’re not alone.

The selling profession has numerous energized individuals, yet an unbelievable amount of depressed people. How many times have you felt on top of the world when you landed a big account that throws you over quota for the month or year? Yet how many times in the same month or quarter have you become emotionally drained because you feel like you can't give your product away? Again, you are not alone. Consistency can help to alleviate the ups and downs of our profession.

I once had a sales manager that would tell me “Sales is all about managing the peaks and valleys in your emotional day. Don't let the valleys get too deep and keep focused on the emotions of what it's like to win." However, there is no cliché, which prepares one for the downturn of an emotional day. How can someone regurgitate a cliche, like 'the grass is always greener’ or ‘don't worry things can't get any worse, so they've got to get better’ and expect people to feel better? Clichés won’t get you through difficult situations; action will.

Sometimes in life, as in sales, we actually create worse predicaments for ourselves.

The theme of this article is how to stay focused on consistent sales activity. What does that mean to you? Staying frantically busy? Or, picking one activity and doing it repeatedly? Success is not really in either one. It is something far greater. And it is the key to unlock your greatest potential.

Consistency is a key component to all recipes for success.

Lessons From Golf

Because I enjoy athletics, I will use a parable from the world of sports to help you understand what it takes to achieve greater sales success. You turn on your television and popping up on the screen is the unmistakable image of Tiger Woods. You see him decked out in his Sunday red colors, which he enjoys wearing as he confidently strolls down the fairway of the 12th hole. You hear the commentators talking about the dynasty this young man is creating. Curtis Strange remarks, "Tiger Woods was born to be great and his skills surpass his years." All the while Tiger’s lead increasingly grows. It is almost the end of the tournament and a victory is all but certain. At that moment, thousands of voices from around the world speak quietly together saying, "he did it again." Many people, who have never played golf, as well as those who have, take for granted the dedication required to reach Tiger's level of success.

Consistently Tiger spends countless hours working to perfect his skill. He toils on every angle of his game. Often he encounters a difficult shot but pulls it off with a spectacular hit. For this, many call him lucky. What you may not realize is that Tiger practices each specific shot both in reality and i

Learn How to Effectively Use Silence to Your Advantage

Haveyouevermetsomeonewhotalkssomuchthatwhenthey*gasp*finallycomeupfor
airyou’rerelieved? Have you ever been in a conversation where you never got a word in and finally resigned yourself to simply smiling and nodding so you could politely end the conversation?

A lot of salespeople incorrectly believe that to win over prospects and close a deal they must verbally beat their prospect into agreement submission; they mistakenly interpret silence as their enemy.

Silence says more than a line in your sales repertoire

Silence is an immensely powerful tool if you know how and when to use it. Typically, people perceive silence as an uncomfortable and awkward break in conversation so they instinctively insist on filling the silence. Once you learn how to use the power of the pause, you will be able to lead your prospects and customers into filling the gap of silence with valuable information.

Why, When, and How do I use silence?

There are three essential tools to using silence effectively:

1. Understanding Why silence is important
2. Knowing When to use silence
3. Learning How to use silence

Understanding Why Silence is Important

After asking a question, the average salesperson...

Intellectual Sales Process™ New Business Development

This is the first article in  the New Business Development series. As I stated in my earlier letter, throughout my years of sales training and consulting experience, I’ve met with hundreds of successful organizations who all had at least one thing in common – they were not achieving their full sales potential. I discovered that, at the root of this challenge, the vast majority of these organizations do not have a systematic process for developing new business.

Do You Have a Clearly Defined
New Business Development Strategy?

If organizations do not have a clearly defined new business development strategy, sales professionals are forced to rely upon their own individual processes to accomplish organizational goals – this can lead to various challenges, a few of which are:

• Inconsistent Sales Message
• Missed Quotas
• Low Productivity and Morale
• Mismanaged Resources
• Inaccurate Forecasting

While we all can agree that the above challenges are a concern, they are only the hint of a much larger problem. The lack of a clearly-defined new business development sales strategy leads to:

• Missed Revenue Projections
• Increased Turnover

• Limited Long-term Success

Properly Manage Your Sales Pipeline

It is absolutely imperative that organizations have unified and consistent new business development procedures to properly manage their sales pipeline.

Sales leads need to be generated based on specific guide...

In a recent iSales™ workshop, lead generation was one component of the training. A participant asked the question: “How do I fill my pipeline with the right types of leads?” Sales professionals usually spend between 20 to 45% of their time prospecting. Consider an average week. Twenty to forty percent of one’s time spent prospecting equates to approximately 12 hours per week seeking out new business.

In a study we conducted, we found that 31% of the leads in a professional’s pipeline did not fit their ideal customer profile; that means that almost four hours of every week is wasted on chasing leads that will never turn into viable business opportunities. Consider the impact on even a small organization with 10 sales professionals each wasting four hours per week on bad leads – that’s 40 hours per week and 2080 hours per year of wasted time. That equates to 260 days of lost productivity per year. This is staggering!

The challenge for many people and organizations is how to minimize bad leads. Here are three things you can begin doing today to positively impact your success in creating quality new business:

1. Establish an Ideal Customer Profile
2. Scrutinize new leads based on the Ideal Customer Profile

3. Test lead sources before purchasing

1. Establish an Ideal Customer Profile

In the iSales Process™ for New Business Development workshop we teach professionals how to build a unique Ideal Customer Profile. This article is not the proper forum to teach you everything about building your own Ideal Customer Profile, but you can certainly build a good working model. Here is what you need to do:

Put together a list of the top 20% of your customer base. To create Ideal Customer Profile, the first calculation you make is to take your total number of customers for this year and multiply this number by 20% to reach the total number of customers to...

Prospecting is the step in the sales process where you evaluate the quality of the leads you’ve generated and decide how fast you need to follow up with them, if at all.

Challenge of Communicating with Decision Makers

During a recent iSales Process™ for New Business Development seminar we conducted for a group of top level sales professionals, an attendee posed this interesting prospecting question that is worthy of talking about in this week’s article.  Her challenge, not unlike many professionals we meet, was focused on how to properly communicate with the decision maker.

Here is her prospecting question…

In the last article from the New Business Development series, we looked at the Steps to Generating Interest with Prospects Immediately while prospecting. This fourth article builds upon what we discussed and learned in the last article as it relates to speaking with the decision maker.

Identify Prospect’s Needs

The Dangers of Low-Hanging Fruit

Here’s a little truth about low hanging fruit:

In the past years, I've pondered the same questions I asked at the beginning of the article. The whys and why nots have always gotten me. I've heard all the excuses; have probably said a good portion of them in my time. You know the traditional...

While at the airport today, weather got the best of the flights, delaying everyone. An angry guy, booked on my original flight, was in front of me demanding the customer service agent book him on the next flight immediately.

Problem

The Problem: no flights were going out right away. The more aggravated this guy got the less helpful the agent was. I could see her frustration level changing; however, she kept her composure absolutely under control.

He was so irritated he couldn’t see how he was affecting the one person who could help him. She told him she could book him on the 9pm flight or he could try the other airline. He stomped away livid.

Finally it was my turn. I walked up to the..

Selling is an energy driven business. Success goes to those who understand how to work closely in group selling environments. To understand the ideas covered in this topic, we will answer:

1. What is a sales workgroup?
2. What is individual cohesiveness as it relates to workgroups?
3. What are high-energy attitudes?
4. How do you maintain high-performance?
5. Who should implement workgroups?
6. Why are they important?
7. What procedures are involved in establishing efficient workgroups?
8. What impact does a high performance workgroup have on your organization?

If you've experienced the emotional highs and lows of being in the profession of sales, you’re not alone.

The selling profession has numerous energized individuals, yet an unbelievable amount of depressed people. How many times have you felt on top of the world when you landed a big account that throws you over quota for the month or year? Yet how many times in the same month or quarter have you become emotionally drained because you feel like you can't give your product away? Again, you are not alone. Consistency can help to alleviate the ups and downs of our profession.

I once had a sales manager that would tell me “Sales is all about managing the peaks and valleys in your emotional day. Don't let the valleys get too deep and keep focused on the emotions of what it's like to win." However, there is no cliché, which prepares one for the downturn of an emotional day. How can someone regurgitate a cliche, like 'the grass is always greener’ or ‘don't worry things can't get any worse, so they've got to get better’ and expect people to feel better? Clichés won’t get you through difficult situations; action will.

Sometimes in life, as in sales, we actually create worse predicaments for ourselves.

The theme of this article is how to stay focused on consistent sales activity. What does that mean to you? Staying frantically busy? Or, picking one activity and doing it repeatedly? Success is not really in either one. It is something far greater. And it is the key to unlock your greatest potential.

Consistency is a key component to all recipes for success.

Lessons From Golf

Because I enjoy athletics, I will use a parable from the world of sports to help you understand what it takes to achieve greater sales success. You turn on your television and popping up on the screen is the unmistakable image of Tiger Woods. You see him decked out in his Sunday red colors, which he enjoys wearing as he confidently strolls down the fairway of the 12th hole. You hear the commentators talking about the dynasty this young man is creating. Curtis Strange remarks, "Tiger Woods was born to be great and his skills surpass his years." All the while Tiger’s lead increasingly grows. It is almost the end of the tournament and a victory is all but certain. At that moment, thousands of voices from around the world speak quietly together saying, "he did it again." Many people, who have never played golf, as well as those who have, take for granted the dedication required to reach Tiger's level of success.

Consistently Tiger spends countless hours working to perfect his skill. He toils on every angle of his game. Often he encounters a difficult shot but pulls it off with a spectacular hit. For this, many call him lucky. What you may not realize is that Tiger practices each specific shot both in reality and i

More than fifteen years ago I sat atop my bed listening to a tape series by Zig Ziglar and with his unique voice and charismatic delivery he was saying, “You can get everything you want out of life, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

A few years later, I listened to a message delivered by Oprah Winfrey and she spoke of an idea called Random Acts of Kindness. Her message was clear. Do things for people without expecting anything in return. She mentions the value it has on one’s spirit and attitude. And, just the other evening I watched for the fourth time a movie called Pay It Forward. It is a story of a little boy designing an idea for his class project. The spirit of the idea is for him to do three nice things for people who couldn’t do it for themselves. Then he asks those three people to pay the favor forward to three new people and so on and so on... The boy sees this place of utopia as a perfectly realistic plan.

This time of year brings forth an array of emotions for so many. For some, this time of year is divinely spiritual, for others it is overly joyful, for some it is a time to share with family and friends, while many others experience extreme sadness for one reason or another.

***

It was a cold winter day in the small mid-western town. The winds were blowing...

BypassingThe Gatekeeper, Reaching the Target

The following eight tips are proven ways to get around the gatekeeper. Not only have these strategies worked for those I’ve trained, they've also been effective for me, personally. I would enjoy hearing what has worked for you, too. Email Dennis.

1. Sales Research
2. The Get Around
3. Be Creative
4. Timing
5. Use Commonalities
6. Voice Mail
7. Customer Referrals
8. Kindness, Respect Humor

One - Sales Research

1. Research. Knowing with whom you want to speak with prior to ...

Are you getting everything you can out of your accounts?

A recent Fortune Magazine report showed that 70% of salespeople’s accounts are only worked to 50% of their potential. This should concern sales managers and energize sales professionals.

What does this mean to you as a person in the profession of sales? You've got a lot of money out on the table and it's yours for the taking.

How do you earn more from each account? Here are seven ideas you can implement immediately.

1. Assess your relationships with your customers
2. Evaluate your accounts’ present purchasing tendencies
3. Compare current trends with total offerings available
4. Set a meeting with your clients to confirm current needs and create new opportunities
5. Realign newly determined client needs with solutions you provide
6. Make solutions as painless for the client as possible
7. Seize opportunities

1. Assess Your Relationships With Your Customers

As a sales professional, your biggest job is to create rock-solid relationships. Strong relationships are built on honesty, integrity, and...

Businesses today must focus their paradigm on the customer’s needs more than any other business issue.

A few years ago, had difficulty with our CRM package Goldmine™. The shortfall in the program is its inability to properly synchronize with a Windows® CE device. In case you not sure what a Windows CE device is, they are the little handheld computers like the HP Jornada or the Compaq Ipaq. They look like a PalmPilot but are as different as IBM is to Macintosh. Handheld devices are outstanding tools, but ineffective if you can’t properly move information between it and your main database.

So I began my quest to conquer this synchronization nightmare. When I looked in the selection of services on Goldmine, it clearly states ‘synchronize with Windows CE or Outlook.’ Either method of synchronization would work fine for my needs. I proceeded to sync Goldmine with CE directly and it wouldn’t sync the notes of each contact into my handheld device. No big deal; I attempted to solve this problem by syncing with Outlook and then with my CE device. Simple right? Nope! I click the synchronize button and it proceeds to move my entire database to my handheld instead of the selected query of 350 I wanted to move. By this time, I was completely frustrated. It only took you 30 seconds to read this paragraph, yet I spent four hours attempting to solve my problem.

I called Goldmine direct assuming they could correct the glitch. After being transferred around four times, a customer service rep answered the phone. I described my dilemma and his response was, “Well you should have bought a PalmPilot not a CE.” While recovering from that statement, he proceeded...

Sales professionals have to understand each customer and how to effectively relate to them on a human level. Salespeople too often assume they can just waltz through the door of a customer’s office, spew out a well-rehearsed elevator speech, and win the business.

A well-rehearsed elevator speech may work for a single point of sale. However, if you are responsible for building long-term relationships with customers, it is sheer and ineffective. Customers buy for three primary reasons...

This article is part two to Power Questioning for Sales Professionals.  Be sure to check out part I before reading this article.

There are five parts to great communication skills. Listening, Questioning, Body Language, Speaking, and Interpreting. Communication skills are the defining attribute of a top sales person with questioning skills at the center. These are also components of the public seminar Intellectual Sales Process™ For New Business Development.

Four Questioning Categories

For those of you who have attended the seminar, Intellectual Sales Process™ For New Business Development. you have heard me break down Close and Open ended questions into four categories.

Open-Ended questions come in either Broad Scoped or Narrow Scoped and the Close-Ended category also offers two choices with first, Alternative Choice and second, Single Outcome.  

1. Broad Scoped Open-Ended
2. Narrow Scoped Open-Ended
3. Alternative Choice Close-Ended
4. Single Outcome Close-Ended

The first two types of questions are fully described in Power Questioning for Sales Professionals, Part I.  In this article, we take a look at numbers three and four, Alternative Choice Close-Ended and Single Outcome Close-Ended and when and how to use these types of questions.

3. Alternative Choice Close-Ended Questions

Alternative Choice Close-Ended (ACCE) ...

Why do you ask the questions you ask?

Why do you ask he questions you ask?  Most likely, it’s because you were taught to ask questions in order to receive information. Unfortunately, the majority of us are trained at an early age to ask closed questions, and never break the habit.

Closed Questions or Open Questions

Whether you have children of your own, or you borrow some, observe how most people speak to children. In many cases, a dialogue with a child can sound something like this:

“Are you having a good day? Do you like soup? Does it hurt? Do you know you could have hurt yourself? Did you do your homework? Are you ready for your test? Do you like school?”

There may be a few open questions interspersed in the mix like, “What is your favorite sport or subject in school?” However, the majority of conversations are closed.

Why do we do this to kids? I’m not a child psychologist, but if I were to guess it is because we don’t give children enough credit for their intellect. We fail to stretch children’s minds. In our attempt to love, we don’t want them to feel uncomfortable when they do not know the answer to a question, much less understand the question.

Closed Questions

As most people mature they spend their youthful lives listening to adults formulate closed questions. It is safe to say we are a product of our upbringing and environment.

Does this mean we cannot alter bad habits we’ve learned in life? Absolutely not!

Am I saying that closed questions are wrong? Not exactly.

Closed questions have their place in human communication especially when we are attempting to diagnose a problem or pinpoint a specific

Communication skills are the defining attribute of a top sales person. There are five parts to great communication skills. Listening, Questioning, Body Language, Speaking, and Interpreting. These are also components of Intellectual Sales Process™ For New Business Development which also happens to be a currently running public seminar where I will be speaking.

A friend owns an entertainment company, which specializes in corporate grand openings. She jokes that she is not the salesperson, and I have to agree. Because her business requires her to prospect new clients, she quite often asks for my help. The other day I was talking with her again about open-ended versus close-ended questions. She finally had an "Ah, ha!" experience with the difference between the two.

This difference between open and close ended questions may seem quite simple to many of you, but you may be surprised to find out how many in the sales profession still do not have a clear grasp of these basic questioning skills.

Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions often start with words such as:

• what,
• tell me about,
• share with me,
• and how.

Open-ended questions should bring about descriptive answers from your prospect not a 'yes/no' answer.

Close-Ended Questions

Yes or no answers, or short non-expressive...

This article is part two to Power Questioning for Sales Professionals.  Be sure to check out part I before reading this article.

There are five parts to great communication skills. Listening, Questioning, Body Language, Speaking, and Interpreting. Communication skills are the defining attribute of a top sales person with questioning skills at the center. These are also components of the public seminar Intellectual Sales Process™ For New Business Development.

Four Questioning Categories

For those of you who have attended the seminar, Intellectual Sales Process™ For New Business Development. you have heard me break down Close and Open ended questions into four categories.

Open-Ended questions come in either Broad Scoped or Narrow Scoped and the Close-Ended category also offers two choices with first, Alternative Choice and second, Single Outcome.  

1. Broad Scoped Open-Ended
2. Narrow Scoped Open-Ended
3. Alternative Choice Close-Ended
4. Single Outcome Close-Ended

The first two types of questions are fully described in Power Questioning for Sales Professionals, Part I.  In this article, we take a look at numbers three and four, Alternative Choice Close-Ended and Single Outcome Close-Ended and when and how to use these types of questions.

3. Alternative Choice Close-Ended Questions

Alternative Choice Close-Ended (ACCE) ...

Learn How to Effectively Use Silence to Your Advantage

Haveyouevermetsomeonewhotalkssomuchthatwhenthey*gasp*finallycomeupfor
airyou’rerelieved? Have you ever been in a conversation where you never got a word in and finally resigned yourself to simply smiling and nodding so you could politely end the conversation?

A lot of salespeople incorrectly believe that to win over prospects and close a deal they must verbally beat their prospect into agreement submission; they mistakenly interpret silence as their enemy.

Silence says more than a line in your sales repertoire

Silence is an immensely powerful tool if you know how and when to use it. Typically, people perceive silence as an uncomfortable and awkward break in conversation so they instinctively insist on filling the silence. Once you learn how to use the power of the pause, you will be able to lead your prospects and customers into filling the gap of silence with valuable information.

Why, When, and How do I use silence?

There are three essential tools to using silence effectively:

1. Understanding Why silence is important
2. Knowing When to use silence
3. Learning How to use silence

Understanding Why Silence is Important

After asking a question, the average salesperson...

In the past years, I've pondered the same questions I asked at the beginning of the article. The whys and why nots have always gotten me. I've heard all the excuses; have probably said a good portion of them in my time. You know the traditional...

While at the airport today, weather got the best of the flights, delaying everyone. An angry guy, booked on my original flight, was in front of me demanding the customer service agent book him on the next flight immediately.

Problem

The Problem: no flights were going out right away. The more aggravated this guy got the less helpful the agent was. I could see her frustration level changing; however, she kept her composure absolutely under control.

He was so irritated he couldn’t see how he was affecting the one person who could help him. She told him she could book him on the 9pm flight or he could try the other airline. He stomped away livid.

Finally it was my turn. I walked up to the..

Time is equal for everyone, so why is it that some people get so much more done in the same amount of time?

In following list of the top twenty time wasters for salespeople, note those that cause you difficulty.