‘Why’ – The Most Important Question

 Articles, Management, Negotiating, Prospecting, Selling  1 Comment »
Nov 282011
 

Salespeople: do you know why you should undertake a task? Do you have a reason you can convey to customers that explains why doing something is beneficial? Has your sales manager explained to you the ‘why’ of what you are being asked to do or shortchanged you in the interest of simplicity and saving time and only given you the ‘what?’
Managers: Have you explained the ‘why’ to your teams? People who know why they need to do something, why they need to do it a certain way or in certain timeframe do it better as they are armed with a reason, rationale or logic. Take the time.

Asking ‘why’ also helps instill continuous improvement by questioning why something is done in a certain way and if a better process could come to be. Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story Of Success has a detailed briefing on the risks of ‘soldier mentality.’ For example, Korean Airlines’ poor safety record in the 20th Century is partly attributed to pilots, co-pilots and other personnel never questioning an order and never examining the ‘why.’ It makes for interesting reading.

Myth: Customers Value (The cheapest) Price Above Anything Else

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Nov 272011
 

 

 
 
This is one of the conundrums of selling. Salespeople fear that all customers want is to obtain the lowest price or else… or else the customer will proceed to buy from someone else.

Several months ago I wrote about a pre-emptive approach to selling one’s value, as well as justifying one’s price. http://www.alighaemi.com/wp/?p=747

 

It might bear repeating the lowest price is not always the winning bid. In fact, more often than not the lowest price is not the winner. Product price point is a little like setting employee salaries. So long as the employee believes his or her salary is fair, and so long as it is near industry average and provides a level of comfort the amount goes away as a deciding factor and factors like relationship with one’s manager and co-workers, growth, learning and respect become job satisfaction criteria. In the same way, as long customers feel that they are not being taken ‘for a ride’ and have received fair value the selling conversation will shift from price to criteria like needs’ satisfaction, reliability, after-sales support, prestige, name brand and more.

 

There is always someone or something that is less expensive in one’s category. Yet, the cheapest steakhouse is not always the most popular. There are plenty of diners that serve steak, but they are nowhere near as popular as the more expensive steakhouses. Does Prada sell more hand bags or ‘Joe?’ A Chevy will transport one from point A to point B. Yet, people still buy and drives Acuras, Lexuses and even Porsches. Indeed, the most expensive mobile smartphone is the most popular, Apple’s iPhone.

 

Salespersons need to remove the pricing-only mindset from their heads. Sell the value of the product or service and become comfortable that a less expensive alternative exists, and will always exist, and yet there is a market for other (more expensive) options – ones you might be representing.

 

Don’t Lose Yourself

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Nov 012011
 

Many a sales technique teaches salespeople to adapt to a methodology and process and follow the ‘rules’ to a successful career and riches.

These sales courses are often beneficial and instructive, no doubt. I have both taken and taught many and remain a supporter of process and methodology.

I sat through a 317 Consulting training recently, which talked about, among other things, Verbal Aikido. Sandler Sales calls it Match & Mirror. These refer to the idea that a salesperson should match his or her words, tonality, posture and emphasis to a prospect’s. They reasonably argue that relating and bonding between buyer and seller are important.

 

Be that as it may, one point should not be lost. Unfortunately, it often is. Salespeople should not override their own personalities to become someone they are not. I often tell my salespeople that there is not one path to success and they should make their personalities work for them. Do not become someone your personality does not allow you to be. Improve yourself, invest in yourself, learn and grow, but do not become someone you do not enjoy being. It will adversely affect your sales.

Do not let your personality become subservient to a script. It is important to remain genuine. After all, every sales training will also tell you to not come across as phoney.

 

 

 

Types Of Marketing Techniques

 Articles, Marketing  2 Comments »
Oct 312011
 

 

 

How many different marketing techniques could you name? Broadly speaking, ignoring the sub-types (like say Guerrilla Marketing), here is a list many of which complement one another and intertwine:

1- Content Marketing: The essence of marketing is propagating content towards a target audience and creating a response and emotion – need or want. Think corporate brochures, but also think more modern and digital techniques as described below. Even media marketing is a type of content marketing. Why did they have a blast in Las Vegas in The Hangover and not in Saskatoon?

2- Program Marketing: Devising programs and incentives to attract one’s target audience to one’s goods or services. Every large corporation has programs to entice its customers or channels to engage and get involved. The goal here is to create a win-win mix.

3- Mail Marketing: Mail as in postal mail. Higher budgeted perhaps, but more and more special and exclusive. American Express occasionally sends out electronic goods to its top borrowers. A corporation I worked for mailed out wine bottles to top customers, while another sent PlayStation Controllers with the promise of a console to follow if certain requests were met. Even simple invitation and seasonal cards are part of this type of marketing. The word ‘chachka’ comes to mind here.

4- Internet Marketing: sub-types include SEO (Search Engine Optimization) where a name, website, key word(s) or description is propelled towards the top of a search engine results (search for ‘best drink in the world’ and lose faith in the Internet when Vodka comes up). E-mail marketing including spam and legitimate opt-in mailing list to an interested targeted audience. With the latter getting the frequency is paramount. Sending too many messages will result in consumer dissonance and legitimate opt-outs, while too few messages lose their efficiency and certainly might leave a potential unfulfilled. Newer and prevalent marketing types that are related are Mobile Marketing (the returning Beavis & Butthead have an exclusive mobile presence on Virgin Mobile phones) and Social Media Marketing, which has transformed Facebook or Twitter from places where people connected to places where brands grab and measure audiences. Adobe, for example, has an active and dedicated group dedicated to measuring, monitoring and engaging buyers, customers and happy/unhappy users on Social Media.

5- A favourite of marketers is Event Marketing. Companies appear and participate at relevant fora where the company’s target audience might be present. Marketers target both horizontal (usually competitive or complementary goods and services) and vertical (value chain) potentials for their business. There is a whole outsourced industry that has sprung up to facilitate event marketing from hospitality and transportation to banners and printed material.

Clearly, all sales are part of the marketing mix (and vice-versa) whether they are inbound, outbound, internet-based or face-to-face. Marketing is about relevancy of material and message.

Perhaps a future article will deal with analytics and monitoring software that has sprung up around marketing. These include the data processed, measured and sold by Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and others.

Do any of these marketing types not belong here? Could you add more?

It’s Time To Become A Dynamic Business

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Oct 132011
 

I attended the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012* ‘Dynamics Businesses’ event at the Toronto Congress Centre earlier today.

In addition to Microsoft representatives, the event featured Roger L. Martin, the dean of Rotman School Of Management, and Mario Bartolozzi, Vice President of Information Systems at LS Travel Retail.

Here are several things that the speakers noted:

  • Successful companies do a number of things exceedingly well. It is not just one thing that a company does well. If it were only one thing it would be copied and replicated. The secret to the success of industry leaders is that they do a system of processes exceptionally well.
  • Microsoft asserts that Dynamics AX 2012 is designed to for Flexibility, Diversity (of business), Simplicity (of processes, reduce redundancy and automate) and Empowerment (of employees), which the company believes is what successful modern businesses need to cover.
  • Incidentally, Martin insisted that, unlike any other business on the planet, the software business is infinite and has no limit. Software can fit anywhere and do anything and the sky is the limit.

 

*I do work on behalf of Microsoft

 

An Effective Presentation

 Articles, Selling  Add Comments »
Oct 052011
 

In the same way that an effective salesperson makes the customer the focus of his conversation, effort and work – as opposed to talking about and focusing on himself or his company – in order to succeed, an effective presentation is all about the customer. The focus should be on translating all the knowledge of the customer to a presentation about the customer.

 

One simple way of accomplishing this is to ask those present at the presentation which topics they would like you to cover, what they would like to see or hear and which steps need to be covered. Your questions will demonstrate your knowledge of the customer’s environment. However, the danger one runs here is that the presentation, along with all the facts the seller has gathered, will go awry and the agenda and its flow will turn to incoherence.

 

Solution? Suggest the topics, ask whether they cover everything the audience expects, add/augment/complement or subtract the presentation accordingly.

 

Both the seller and buyer are happy.

Businesses Still Complaining About Taxes

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Sep 262011
 

Many companies commission research and surveys in order to gain publicity and drive their agenda. Line-of-business software vendor Sage has announced the results of its second international business outlook survey, Sage Business Index. The study, carried out by Populus on behalf of Sage, was conducted as part of a multi-country research program.

News:

“Survey findings revealed that Canadian small business owners showed optimism in  the prospects for their businesses and the country’s economy as a whole. On a scale of 0-100, where 50 is neutral and values above 50 reflect optimism and those below 50 denote pessimism, business owners rated their own prospects at 59.38 and for Canada’s economy at 56.09.”

Not News (because it is a never-ending refrain):

“…government bureaucracy and legislation (52 percent), tax relief (38 percent) and government’s handling of current economic challenges (26 percent) were ranked the top three worst aspects of doing business in the country.”

Ironically (because businesses want help, but don’t want the government to have the means to be provide it):

“Canadian businesses, particularly those with fewer employees, expect more support from their government. In fact, 63 percent of surveyed businesses responded that the Canadian government is not providing them with enough help”

The Sage Business Index survey reports are available at www.businessindex.sage.com .

 

Sales: A Numbers Game?

 Articles, Marketing, Selling, Uncategorized  Add Comments »
Sep 152011
 

If you believe the B2C marketers sales is a numbers game. Cast as wide a net as possible and reap the maximum rewards.

Case in point: the credit card companies. Their mantra: offer the most number of people, the highest amount of credit, sit back and watch the filled out applications come in.

Sales technique: adorn the mass mailing with words like ‘exclusive’ or ‘limited’ or ‘deadline’ or ‘act now’. ‘Limited’ as in limited to 3,000,000 Canadians.

At which point does one cross from sales technique to cattle call territory? When will the government step in to regulate industries-gone-wild and their untrue statements?

 

*Things That Need to Go Away: Marketing that the company knows is false, the customer knows is false and the regulator allows.

How To Work With A Recruiter And Get A Job – An Interview With Kristin Condon

 Articles, Management, Selling  2 Comments »
Sep 092011
 

Kristin Condon is a Toronto-based recruiter specializing in sales positions. We picked her brain on what recruiters recommend and look for, how to get a job and the state of the job market.

 

 

– Kristin, could you elaborate on your experience and career thus far. What is your area of focus?
I have 13 plus years of recruitment experience – both agency and corporate. My current area of focus is sales recruitment of all levels, for all industries.

– What is some advice you would offer to individuals seeking a sales role or seeking a team management role? What traits are needed and what background is desirable?
This all depends on the level of role and industry – and there may be specific experience needed or required for example industry experience, inside sales management experience over outside, et cetra. Overall, most sales management roles are looking for leaders that have previous experience managing a team, someone who has previous experience as a proven salesperson and someone who is passionate about coaching and mentoring others.
As for Salespeople, desirable traits are previous experience, motivation, drive and being incented by money is key. Any sales metrics where they can show and prove their success – ideally on an incline in their career is key, that is how each role provides new and additional experiences. As far as advice please make sure to have voice-mail on your cell phones! So many salespeople do not and be sure to leave your name and number when you leave a message. Have firm handshakes, know your metrics like what is your sales quota, did you meet it or exceed it and if so, by how much, were you number one on your team? What was your average sale size? What was the sales cycle? Who do you sell into? Et cetra.

– What does a recruiter look for when interviewing, filtering and assessing a candidate for the above-mentioned roles? What would a recruiter appreciate from the candidate?
The ideal candidate is someone who is truly looking for a partnership. They value the recruiter and what the recruiter can do for them which is to get them in front of the decision-maker, give them all the necessary details so that they can properly prepare and give them feedback afterwards whether good or bad. A recruiter needs the candidate to have the right attitude – positive, thoughtful – and to know what they want. It is very difficult to help candidates that are looking for any role in any industry and don’t know what type of role or environment they like or at what they have excelled. A candidate needs to prepare properly. At the end of the day a sales interview really is a sales meeting. It is up to the candidate to sell himself to the hiring manager and to close the deal – or at least get to the next step in the process.

– Conversely, what are the bigger mistakes or faux-pas you have seen from candidates?
Candidates that try to wing the interview and don’t prepare; are not specific in their answers and are vague rather than giving specific examples; that are negative about past employers; that have too many excuses about why they were not successful and that have jumped around too much.

– Any recommendations or thoughts for individuals who are interested in a career change into sales or group management?
You need to expect to start at the bottom. The best sales role to get into is a hunting or business development role even if you only do it for a year or two. It will give you great insight into sales and help you evolve.

– How is the market as of today? What is the job market outlook for candidates in your territories?
Great! Sales is one of the best roles to be in – no matter what the market looks like, companies are always hiring sales people – they help grow the bottom line (smiles)!
Kristin can be reached at Kristin@salestalentagency.com or by calling 416-605-5964.

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