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Bill Caskey: mailto:[email protected]

Bill is a sales development leader and experimenter. His ideas about selling are convictions about life, money and meaning. He has coached sales professionals and executives for over 20 years. And his philosophies and strategies have fueled explosive growth in sales and profits for clients.  Click here to learn more about Bill Caskey.

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“How Can I Regain Control of a Sales Process That’s Out of Control?”

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I got this question from one of my clients last week. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is a common problem for sales professionals–especially in complex (long) selling cycles.

Let’s start at the top. You are in sales to solve problems. The solving of your customer’s problems will pay you GOBS of money (more money than merely ‘selling them stuff’ will). You must recall that there is a natural order to life in sales.

Problem. The Process. Then Product.

When you begin a process, the customer problem should be at the top of the agenda. Every time you meet with your prospect, you start with “can we review the pain?” (Maybe not those exact words, but you get the idea).

The reader’s conundrum comes later in the sales process when things drag down–momentum gets lost. Here’s the revelation: The velocity is lost because the original problem has worked it’s way down the priority list. It’s nowhere on an agenda. It’s not top of mind anymore.

In fact, I’ve seen sales processes that get bogged down–and when I ask the seller, ‘when’s the last time your reviewed the customer’s problem?’ they say, “not since the first call.”

Hmmmmm. Something odd going on here.

The main reason you’re going through all of this work is not even talked about anymore???!!! Lesson: You must keep going back to the original reason–the primary purpose of the sale. Revisit the pain, often.

They Won’t. You Must.

But the prospect won’t do this on his/her own. You’ve got to do it. So that was my answer–unglamorous as it was. No cool, one-liner. I didn’t even resurrect the late 60’s sales move of, “if I could show you a way, would you buy today?” Just plain talk about what’s really happening.

==We’re going to be doing more ‘ask the coach’ in our blog. So fire up your fingers and pose your toughest challenge (or email us).

The Missing Link in Sales Training (shhhh….it’s a secret)

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We get asked often, “How are you different than other sales trainers?” Good question. My answer includes the Missing Link in Sales Training. For 18 years we’ve kept it a secret. Now it’s time to share. Here’s the answer: 

Most sales training programs focus on two aspects of the sale’s process: saying and doing. Traditional sales training teaches us what to say and what to do. If you need more sales, make more calls. If you’re not closing enough business, try the Pending Event Close. The problem with these approaches is that they miss the one fundamental element that will exponentially increase the return on sales training investments.

That fundamental element is training sales people to THINK differently. Most sales trainers have it backwards. They teach the words and behaviors first (or only). The flaw here is that if the rep’s thinking is obscured, no word, behavior or process will ever work.

Example.
You as CEO or sales manager say: “Our sales people need to get in front of more CEO’s at our prospects.” You tell them to do it (behavior) and you give them some tips on what to say.
Problem: YOUR SALES PEOPLE ARE FRIGHTENED TO CALL CEO’S. THEY ARE INTIMIDATED. THEY FEEL INADEQUATE.

Your sales training program had better work on that problem first. For a sales training program to be successful, its content must be heavy with thought- changing strategies.

If you change how you think, the words and behaviors take care of themselves.

Money, Money MONEY!!!

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by Bryan Neale

Question:  What did your parents teach you when it comes to talking about money with others?

Answer: “Don’t talk about money with others. Don’t ask them how much they make. Don’t ask them how much they paid for their house. Don’t ask them how much money they save. Just don’t talk about money.”

Now flash forward to your current role as sales professional. Suddenly your parent’s insistence that money is a taboo, private matter is suddenly getting in the way of you closing deals. You don’t like talking about the money. You avoid it and hope they don’t ask. You put pricing on the last page of the proposal. You don’t talk about it at all before sending them your quote and they fall out of their chair when they get your pricing.

So what’s going on here? Unfortunately many sales professionals suffer from ATTAM: Aversion to talk about money. If you’re one of them, you’re likely losing deals and opportunities because of it. So what to do about it:

Here are a few ideas:
1-Accept It: It’s the way you’re wired. You’ll need to face the fact that you don’t like discussing money before you can fix it.

2-Share Your Uncomfortableness With Your Prospect: Just be real and tell your prospects how you feel. “We need to talk about the money and I find that’s not always a comfortable subject.”

3-Make Yourself Talk About It: Make it mandatory to talk about the money before you leave the call. If you leave without it, call ‘em back and tell them you need to meet again. Don’t ever send pricing without talking about it first.

4-Relax: Money’s just money. It has no REAL value. It’s nothing more than a piece of paper or a computer screen with numbers. We humans are the one’s who put the emotion into it.

The best sales professionals put the Moose on the Table when it comes to talking money. It has to happen. Just realize that it may be counterintuitive to how you’re hard-wired. The good thing is, you can always change your thinking. And when you do, watch the money in your life grow exponentially.

Modern Sales Training–What’s Smoke? What’s Real?

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Since we train business sales organzations, I thought I’d devote one post to the notion of sales training. (This applies not just to the sales team, but to the technical team, the executive team and the customer service team. All need good training).

I realize a lot of sales managers (VPs of Sales and the like) read this blog. And I also know many of you are looking for ways to train your people. Moreover, I know we aren’t the right sales training company for everyone, so I thought I’d give you some hints on what to look for when you get ready to invest in your people.

–1  Is the sales problem clearly identified? Great question…seldom answered. Because no one wants to look deeper at the real issue. Here’s a tip. When you identify a problem–say, not enough prospecting activity, then look in two places for the cause: a) the mechanical and b) the conceptual.

The mechanical is ‘I don’t know how to do it’ and usually gets back to lack of skills. The ‘conceptual’ means ‘I don’t have the capacity to do it,’ meaning too much fear…poor inner game…lousy self concept. Every sales problem has a ‘conceptual’ component to it. I know many of you hard-hitters think this is psycho-babble. Sorry, but it’s not.

–2   Reinforcement. If you’re going to train, you have to reinforce. You can do this through meetings and phone calls, or, better, you can do it through technology–podcasts, blogs and video blogs. In your business it may be difficult to introduce a topic through the PC, but you can surely reinforce it. I just set up a podcasting service for one of our clients who wanted to get our content out to their large, remote sales force. Podcasting is easy.

–3   Measurement. Inspect what you expect. Most sales programs have very little measurement. We’re sometimes guilty of that as well. Your return on investment will be higher if you inspect behavior and measure results. You can’t just look at how sales training impacts revenue. You have to look at the soft inputs, too. Things like: Are your people having better conversations? Are your people more confident? Is your team discarding prospects from the funnel if they aren’t real? Those are clues too.

If you’re a sales leader, take heed. Some of your competition is using training and professional development as a hiring point. Are you investing in your people? If done properly, investing in sales training will pay back 300-1000% as an ROI. Where else can you get a return like that? Take these three tips and implement them in your world. Or, call me and I’ll walk you through how to do it.

I Was Tedious–And They Said ‘No.’

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Not sure what got into me…but during a sales call recently, I spouted, rambled, and opined. All to the detriment of the outcome. I was tedious for the listener. I lost the deal, but I hope you can learn something from it.

When communicating with another (as we do every hour in sales), the message received has little to do with what’s “intended” by the transmitter. And has more to do with how it’s heard and understood by the receiver.

The Advanced Seller (which, apparently I was not on that day) articulates the message in a manner consistent with how people take in information. There are three lessons in all of this.

1. Chunk.  If you have several points to make during the transaction, tell them that specifically. Say, “I’d like to go over three things (not ‘several’) with you today, first—, second,— and third.” Then get into the details of each. That way they know what’s coming and will already be taking mental action on your points. Communication is a path–you have to let them know they’re on a path. You do that by giving them the highlights first.

2. Introduce Outcome. (Stephen Covey says, “begin with the end in mind.”) At the beginning of a conversation in which you want some action at the end, you have to say, “after we’re done today, maybe we can explore how or if we should talk further. Does that sound appropriate?” The idea here is to tell the listener that we will have a specific outcome after this dialogue.

3. Finish With Future. At the end of the discussion complete the circle by saying, “what do you want to do next?” or “how would you like to proceed from here?” Have an action plan that you can both stick to. Never let things hang in la-la land.

By doing these three simple things, you’ll no longer be tedious, but will be efficiently articulate in how you communicate. And you prospect/customer will understand you better.

Be a student of exquisite communication. If you’re a manager, listen to your sales people as they talk to clients. Don’t hesitate to call them out (coach them). It will help them get better–and help your company generate income. Communication is the key. Use these three lessons as a forum to discuss their skills.

“Safety is the final danger…”

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–RUMI

Every day, a sales professional is faced with danger–not physical danger–emotional danger. Think about it. Fear of rejction. Fear of loss of deals. Fear of non-acceptance. You can discount these feelings, but that only serves to make them more paralyzing.

So what? How do you change? Move through them.

We’ve always taught that the way “out of your comfort zone” is to move through the danger. But, that sounds scary. It can be but only if you fail to reconstruct reality.

The reality is that these kinds of dangers won’t kill you. They WILL make you stronger. So how does one reconstruct reality? Simple. Each of these dangers has one thing in common. Do you know what it is?

It has to do with the orientation of your reality. In all of these cases, the dangers are all ME oriented. We are all so concerned with how “we” look, how “we” will be thought of that we get consumed with fear.

No mention is made of the real issue and that is ‘how does our fear affect our prospect?’ A true sales professional is able to ‘set the ego aside’ long enough to do what’s right FOR THEIR PROSPECT. Begin a list (yes, another list). On that list, write down how your fear affects your ability to solve the prospect’s problem.

When you take yourself OUT of the equation, you’re left with a “you orientation.” And that, friends is the way to move past your fear and expand your comfort zone.

Easy? Yes. Simple? No. But it’s a start. RUMI was right–safety is a danger. When you feel the fear, you have a choice–shrink to safety–or reconstruct reality to allow you the power to move through it.

A “Shut Up And Listen” Story…

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Received this success story from a reader who is a medical sales exec. He had just read an article I published on the 5 Mistakes Sales People Make. His lesson was from mistake #1–Shut Up And Listen.

“I attended a trade show recently where I worked our booth for several days. I flatter myself as being a “seasoned problem solving pro”, however, after two days of constantly “throwing up” on customers with the features and benefits of my product, I read your article and changed my approach for the final day of the meeting. 

It was unbelievable what problems I discovered when I closed my mouth and opened my mind to their problems. With just asking the simple question, “how do you see this helping you?” a totally different dialogue emerged where the prospect identified problems they were having in how they were currently doing things. The prospect felt better about telling me the truth- no pressure from me. I felt much better because I discovered problems that I never knew our prospects were having. Lesson learned – sales will follow when problems are solved.

Well done. We hear this all of the time…our ego gets in the way of the prospect buying. Selling is simple. Don’t screw it up by overdoing it!

Rule #12 – No Persuasion

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This is from my very own Trainer Rule Book. Over the next few days, I’ll give you some of the rules we teach our clients who ask us to help them grow their business.

[NEVER COERCE PEOPLE PSYCHOLOGICALLY.]

Our freedom is most dear to us. When you, as a sales professional, begin to encroach on that freedom, you become the pain and you won’t make a sale. But the problem is that you won’t make it…not based upon the product or pain…but based on your approach.

Tell people upfront, ”It’s ok if you decide not to pursue this….let me know and I’ll be gone.” Give them an out. They’ll find you’re the only safe person they have to talk to. Stop being a master persuader and start being a master communicator and qualifier. That’s what separates the wannabees from the super achievers. No more persuading and defending.

How is this relevant to me and my business? Take a moment and examine your language in the last customer encounter you had. Was it full of platitudes, claims and opinions? Was it self serving? Or, better, was it real communication–not trying to convince or persuade–but trying to have an honest conversation.