Sales Blog with Sales Tips

Always being the “nice” person and never creating any waves with your customers may not represent the best sales tips for your success.

Allow Me To Give You An Example From Hollywood
Freddie Prinze, Jr. is a well-known actor. Everyone likes him and he has stayed out of trouble. The same can be said for Nick Lachey, a well-known singer who used to be married to Jessica Simpson. He is also well liked and I’ve never seen him featured in a police mug shot.

So What’s The Problem?
The problem is that these two individuals are invisible. Name a really good piece of acting or bad piece of acting that Freddie has produced recently. Bought any Nick Lachey CD’s lately? Neither have I. Name even a bad song that Nick has produced in the last year. Can’t do that either.

These people are well liked, but they are invisible. Nothing about them stands out, good or bad. They’re not people you want to avoid, nor are they celebrities whose careers are of interest to most people.

These two “nice” guys take few risks with their careers. They like driving in the middle lane doing five mph under the speed limit. Consequently, they are consistently under the radar. This is bad for both celebrities and sales professionals.

Don’t Make This Mistake In Sales
“Nice” sales professionals are easily dismissed by prospects and customers because they don’t want to create any unrest or discomfort for anyone.

“Nice” sales professionals “share” customers with their competitors. They wouldn’t want to do anything to upset anyone. They treat their competitors with a little too much reverence.

“Nice” sales professionals are afraid to ask hard hitting qualifying questions that need to be asked regarding budgets, decision makers, competitors, etc.

“Nice” sales professionals don’t challenge customers with new ideas. As a result, customers never get fresh perspectives or new solutions on problems they are facing.

“Nice” sales professionals never try to up-sell, cross-sell, whatever-sell because they don’t want to push the customer too much. The customer could get offended.

“Nice” sales professionals always give the biggest discount possible on everything they sell because they want to be liked and feel secure in an account.

“Nice” sales professionals never seek out real decision makers because it could cause problems with recommenders and information gatherers.

Sales Tips For Success
Playing it safe never works in the long run. Take some risks. Shake things up a bit. Stand out and be memorable. Exude confidence – customers love it. It’s better to be memorable and selling, than “nice” and poor.

Invisible sales professionals only exist in a prospect’s business card file.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Without exception, every sales professional who is a great business developer (i.e. prospector) completely understands what I call the “Primary Principle of Prospecting.”

A Non-Sales Example
Have you ever built something and then looked back to admire your work? I know I have. Sometimes I look back on projects I’ve completed and think, “How in the world did I ever do that?” The completed project is bigger than what I first thought I could accomplish. A recent example is a book I will soon be publishing. I look at the completed manuscript and I can’t believe I actually typed that many words. My fifth grade English teacher would be so proud – she actually didn’t like me all that much, to be honest.

The Primary Principle
What allows us to build things that are bigger than we can imagine? The answer is found in the Primary Principle. It tells us that small efforts applied consistently over time will yield results well beyond what could have been initially visualized.  Think pyramids.

The Primary Principle of Prospecting is this same concept. Simply stated, prospecting a little every day will yield a larger customer base than you thought possible. Over time, you will be able to look back on your results with pride…and lots of commission.

The Key Element To Making It Work
The problem many sales professionals have with the Primary Principle of Prospecting is that it takes discipline. It’s like a diet. If we consistently eat the right things day after day we will lose weight and look great. We can then stand in front of the mirror and marvel at our reflection. In fact, we look better than we ever thought we could. This is the Primary Principle in action, but it takes daily discipline.

It Always Works
When we use the Primary Principle of Prospecting it always leads to success because over time you will find new business. It’s the law of averages. You know, the “even a blind squirrel runs into a nut every once in a while” thing.

I also like it because it spreads the drudgery of prospecting over time. A little pain every day isn’t so bad. No one should have to prospect for eight straight hours. I like the 60 – 120 minutes a day type of prospecting. This is a more reasonable pace and keeps you fresh.

The final benefit of the Primary Principle of Prospecting is that it keeps your funnel or pipeline full. If you prospect every day, your pipeline will never run dry.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Do you have a large customer base of mid-sized accounts or do you only have a few large customers you rely on? Your answer to that question will determine your success over the long haul.

Staying Power
I don’t think I’ve ever known of a top producer over an extended period who built a successful account base with a few large customers. What I’ve observed is quite the opposite. Sales professionals who are rainmakers do so year after year with a large number of medium-sized customers.

Experienced sales professionals know better than to put all of their eggs into two or three customer baskets.

The Problem With Selling To Really-Big-Companies

1. They beat you up on price. Everyone is after Really-Big-Companies so the downward price pressure is enormous.
2. You’ll waste lots of time on their government-like bureaucracy. And “may the force be with you” if one of your Really-Big-Customers is a government entity.  Double jeopardy.
3. Don’t be in a hurry to get your invoices paid; they aren’t.
4. They have people on the payroll to keep metrics on your performance. If you fall below their thresholds, you’re out. You’re a number. You have to watch your step on every order.
5. Since they eat up so much of your time, you can only maintain a limited number of these Really-Big-Companies as customers. Do the math. If you have three of these and lose one, you’ve just lost 33% of your sales. In short, you’re very vulnerable. A large account base of mid-sized customers allows you to spread the risk. Remember, 100% of sales professionals lose 99% of their customers over time because of normal attrition. I’ve seen too many examples of sales professionals who thought they were exempt from this universal sales law.
6. You’ll most likely be dealing with the purchasing department. Selling to purchasing departments is rarely a good thing from a sales perspective.
7. Whether you call it supplier reduction or vendor consolidation, Really-Big-Companies are constantly trying to reduce their number of vendors. See number four above.
8. You’ll rarely be selling to high-level decision makers, even if you are able to break free of the purchasing department. You’ll be selling chiefly to mid-level managers who are usually just information gatherers and recommenders.

Sales Tips Wrap-Up
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take big orders from Really-Big-Companies. To do otherwise is not too smart. What I am saying is that long-term, high producing sales professionals usually achieve their results with a large number of medium-sized customers. This kind of account makeup normally results in better margins, fewer competitors, time savings, reduced credit problems, less account vulnerability and better access to decision makers.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer