Sales managers… What are you doing for your staff? I know you hold training session, set goals, monitor performance, and keep people accountable. We all do that, but what separates great sales managers form the average is the ability to help sales people build good habits, learn discipline and follow a system.

I know we want every sale to be form fit to the customer based on a relationship we have developed and leveraged over time to help us develop an ideal solution for each client. And I also know that most sales people will use this desire for appointment customization and relationship building to fight you on the development of any sort of system, but I am here to tell you this could not be further from the truth. systematization is central to effective selling. It keeps us on track, it prevents us from forgetting key steps in the process, and it ensures we are efficient with our time.

So ask yourself: Have I helped my staff to develop a solid selling system that works? 

This does not have to be complicated, but it helps to have a strategy. Imagine a football team trying to play a game with no pre-set plays? Are they inflexible and unable to customize when playing from the playbook? No, but they do have a set of pre-set strategies they can implement. My goal for my staff is to provide them a strategy in the form of a framework to follow and then give them a series of plays to run based on what they find that way they feel free to do what they need to but they are never far from the known path.

For an appointment setting call for my staff the framework looks like this:

Rapport

Motivation

Qualification

Payment

Start Date 

Referral

I have them write this on a piece of paper and make sure they have covered every point before asking for an appointment… The “Plays” are how we move from point to point depending on how things are going…

So let me ask you this: Does every member of your team have a well thought out strategy or are you letting them shoot from the hip?

People are going to think I’m crazy for saying this but it’s true. Great selling is 100% about caring…Think about the best buying experiences you have ever had. Did it feel manipulative? Could you see the crazy awesome closing techniques they used? or did it feel very natural and “good”? We think we are helping people by sharing all the awesome features and benefits we know and showing off our expertise and product knowledge  but I feel like Theodore Roosevelt nailed it when he said: “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

For me the absolute best buying experiences have been with salespeople who really got to know me. They were not technique laden ”hunters”, “killers”, or “closers” (believe me I’ve done this long enough that I can spot them!). They were genuine people who took an interest in me, my problems and goals and set out to present me with well thought out solutions.  All of them had good habits and techniques, but they were not relying on those skills they were building relationship.

A great example of this is the real estate agent who sold me my house. When we met for the first time he sat down and talked to my wife and I, but also took the time to talk to my kids and really try to understand what all of us were looking for. He then laid out his plan. First time out 5 houses absolutely no offers. Next time out 3 houses no offers, but we will really like these houses. Then on the third time out 2-3 houses and a solid offer on the house we would buy. To be honest at this point I was like NO freaking way! How does he know this?

So the first time out we looked at 5 houses and he did not sell one bit. He was in the background watching everything. He watched my kids, listened to my wife an I talk about what we liked and when we left he would ask questions. What really blew me away was when I’d say things like: “I really loved that deck!” and he would say yes it was very nice but did you see Sophia trying to get up and down those steps? Me… Ya I guess I did. They were really steep and there was no rail. We looked a a lot of nice houses all very different and we had things we liked about all of them though it felt like a productive day.

The next time out 3 houses and we loved them all… same story. Lots of questions and interaction paired with great feedback. Third trip out 2 houses and an offer.

Now he did a lot of things right and there was good technique, but he built trust and we sent referrals later. He did a good job not just because of his skill but because he was a good guy, a professional, and was sincerely interested in helping us get a home we would love.

I do not care what you sell… your customers have goals, dreams, and desires and if you focus your sales strategy on these things you will close more sales. If you are looking for a good read on how to master building relationships and hone your technique I highly recommend Joe Girard’s How To Sell Anything to Anybody. This book has had a very powerful influence on my selling style and helped me mature from a skillful sales person to a true professional.

I’d love to hear about your GREAT sales experiences or tragic failures and how you think caring played a role in that experience… As always I promise to replay back and keep the conversation going!

-Brad

I’d like to share a classic story of how to NOT close a sale. I was shopping at Costco with my friend Terry the other day for a few things we needed for the office, and like most people I love Costco because I generally find several things I never knew I needed until I serendipitously stumble upon them. Such was the case on this day. While walking the isles looking for external hard drives, and a few other relatively inexpensive items I stumbled across a special events vendor selling a Murphy Bed that was built into the coolest book-case/ cabinet I have ever seen. This thing was beautifully designed and engineered and I REALLY liked it. I spent probably 10 minutes looking over the three display models, commenting on the features I saw particular value in and complementing the salesman (who I later found out owned the company) on the quality of the product. I was even talking about where I would like to have this product in my house. I was basically sold on this product, but now I will probably never buy one!

Why you might ask?

I ask the man for some sales literature and a business card and as I walked away he said “That’s too bad… I thought you were a customer!” My first thought was What the hell! Are you serious? Do you REALLY expect me to drop 5K on a product I just stumbled upon in Costco without talking to my wife or making some kind of plans for how to pay for this? The words that came out of my mouth as I looked over my shoulder were briefer though…  ”I was…”

Not “I am” or “I will be” just a simple “I was”.

I understand what he was trying to do, he was trying to close a sale, but a close like this almost never works. In fact its poor sales skills like this that got this blog started nearly 5 years ago. What he should have done was temperature checked me before I left with a simple question like how would you like to have one of these in your home, and then saw where I was in the buying process, collected my information and followed up in a day or so. This simple change could dramatically improve his close rate and the reputation surrounding himself, his company, and sales force. People don’t generally spend 5K on something they saw for the first time in a Costco. They may on your sales floor, but that’s a different scenario… I came for that product, I am interested in it, and I wouldn’t be there if I did not on some level want to buy it. It is important as sales people to understand the purpose of each event you are in. Are you generating leads or closing sales? when you are asking yourselves these questions keep in mind your customer, your product and your venue. you could have a very different sales cycle on your showroom floor, in a home show in a high-end neighborhood, and in a suburban Costco. That doesn’t mean there are not buyers in all of those locations. What it means is that you may have to approach buyers differently in each location understanding the individual wants and needs of that market.

I am sure this guy was just frustrated… He had probably shown that product to 500 people who were all very interested and didn’t buy. What I experienced was the result of that frustration. However, what he should have done was stepped back and analyzed what was happening and come up with a new strategy. My suggestion would be lead generation, I would still close for sales, but if I couldn’t get it I would go back and add 40

0+ names to my database and follow-up with great customer service. It’s not a fast buck, but I am SURE my way would have sold a few more beds and at 5K each I think it’s worth the effort.

What would YOU do?

Have you had an experience with a salesperson for a quality product that went terribly wrong? Share your experience in the comments. I’d LOVE to hear about it!

I want to start this post off by thanking my friend Sean for sending me this link. I have fallen out of the habit of writing like I should during our busiest quarter of the year at work, and this was just the thing I needed to get me going again. The funny thing is I have had this same talk with several of my sales people in the last week as we were planning out the new “plan year” for them.

 The subject of that talk was what I call the 10% principle. In my experience the difference between the top and bottom performer on a team is usually less than a 10% difference in conversion percentages. However that small difference in performance can equal 200% or more difference in salary. On my team my top producer converts leads at about 7% and my bottom at about 4% and the difference in what I pay them is… well lets just say its a lot since several of my staff read this blog.

 So that brings up the question how do you get that 10% improvement? The same way you eat an elephant. One bite at a time. To see how I teach my staff to break down their conversions take a look at my article Start With the End in Mind. This article will give you the basics on how to dissect and analyze your conversion data. Once you have done that find the places you could do better in and try to get 1% better in one area this week, then next week pick a different area and try to improve that area by 1%. Over time these little 1% differences in your conversion funnel will pay huge dividends over time.  

This is one of the pivotal principles I teach my staff. With out this level of understanding of your conversion data I do not think you can maintain  longterm success or make significant improvement.

If you did not watch the 212 Degree video it is worth 2 minutes of your time… Click here!

http://www.allaboutnews.com/vc.php?a=y&b=13&i=81&rs=a6e379cc950b4c73