Sales Blog with Sales Tips

My “buyers are liars” mantra has never made me particularly popular in groups that include purchasing types. It’s been my experience that buyers tend to make up little stories about pricing in order to finagle better pricing out of sales professionals.

However, today’s sales blog post is not about their lying; it’s about ours. I recently found myself on the receiving end of a salesperson who was lying like a career politician.

The Setup
My mother-in-law recently died. My wife and I went to a large, respected funeral home and made all the arrangements. We signed all the paperwork. We paid everything in advance. Signed, sealed and delivered.

Fast-forward six months. The “funeral director” (i.e. salesperson) called my wife and was disheartened to report that he had accidentally failed to have us sign a “necessary form.” When queried as to exactly what that form was, he – shockingly – didn’t have a good answer.

It gets better. This guy wanted my wife and I to travel to his office to sign this “necessary form.” Both my wife and I are not new to slight-of-hand sales techniques. We told him we would be happy to sign the form if he came to our house at a time that worked for us. We also told him not to bring his sales pitch book. He assured us this wasn’t going to be a sales call.

The Day Of Reckoning
At the appointed time, the salesperson came into our home and immediately started to pitch us on all the available “pre-need” services my wife and I should be buying. Am I looking that old these days? My wife and I were, to say the least, not particularly surprised that he launched into sales-mode once inside our house.

In short, we bought nothing more from this funeral home, signed his “necessary document” and gave him the boot.

I must admit I felt sorry for him. Very sorry. I’m serious. Let me explain.

It Wasn’t Him
It wasn’t the salesperson’s idea to come up with this scam. It was the creation of the sleazy sales management at the funeral home. No doubt he was coached on how to implement this ruse, accompanied by a plethora of supporting sales tips.

He was just a young pup, maybe 22-23 years old. He couldn’t have come up with this on his own.

This company was promoting a detestable sales scam in an attempt to reach their short-term sales goals. Is sales management that myopic? The answer for this particular company is yes.

Sales Blog Epilogue
I feel we are seeing a slow elimination of this kind of shell game in professional sales – thankfully. It hurts all of us in the profession. It stereotypes us as unethical. And shame on the clueless and inept management that devises, promotes and teaches this kind of junk.

What should you do if you find yourself in a sales job that is encouraging this kind of behavior? Quit. You’re better than that. Working for an organization that advocates this kind of lame trickery will only sully your reputation in the end anyway.

Further reading:
Corporate Dysfunctional Sales Behaviors In A Recession
Sales Managers and Dysfunctional Work Environments
Dysfunctional Work Environments

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Thanks for being a reader of Sales Tips Blog by Scott R. Sheaffer. I hope you and your family have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.  My next regular post is scheduled for Monday, November 30.

Scott

Confidence in sales is severely overrated. Confidence is nothing more than a byproduct. Many of the sales tips we receive tell us all we need is confidence. Nonsense.

Why Confidence Alone Doesn’t Work
There are racecar drivers who try to be competitive through confidence alone. Their race speeds are not up to par. They simply aren’t competitive. They don’t measure up. They feel anxious when racing.

These drivers frequently operate under the repeated delusion that once a race is started (versus practice), they will suddenly blossom into world-class drivers and their fears and inabilities will disappear. The adrenalin of the race will carry them through, they think.

These Drivers Aren’t Fooling Anyone
Why would an underperforming racecar driver think the strain and difficulty of a race would suddenly make him or her a great driver? Adrenalin doesn’t improve high-level technical skills; it hurts them.

Instead of continually deceiving themselves about their fears and limitations, these drivers could be using these same fears and limitations to steer them toward tools and resources that would make them better.

Why Fear Is Our Friend
Oftentimes we don’t approach sales any differently.

We might be fearful and ineffective when meeting CEO’s of large corporations. We tell ourselves “we’ll just power through it” by being confident.

We might experience tremendous anxiety about making an important customer presentation because we feel our presentation skills aren’t up to speed. We respond by revving up our confidence – as if we could just push a button and receive “instant confidence.”

How We Can Use Fear
Fear is nature’s way of telling us we are not prepared. When we are fully prepared to meet with a Fortune 500 CEO or when we have an important presentation ready and rehearsed – we have little anxiety.

Preparation and competence kill the fear monster. When the fear monster has been tamed, then confidence is free to flow. Just like there can’t be a waterfall without water, there can’t be confidence without preparation and competence.

Everyone Deals With Fear and Weaknesses
A recent study of corporate executives (i.e. CXO’s) reveals that they feel incompetent and fearful about 20% of the time. Most of them respond to their fear and incompetence by formulating a plan to address the issues. They treat fear and inability as a guide to improvement.

Sales Blog Rx
Fear is our signal that we need to work on a specific inadequacy. Once we tackle a deficiency, then confidence can legitimately flow. Confidence never comes before ability. Quit wasting time chasing it.

Further reading:
The Not So Subtle Difference Between Confidence And Positive Thinking In Sales
8 Sales Tips To Help Control Nervousness When Presenting

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I believe we have completely lost our way on which KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators, i.e. metrics) are important when measuring our performance in developing new business. I’m going to introduce a KPI today that cuts through the fog.

First, Some Not-So-Fun Facts
The following three numbers will come as no surprise to experienced sales professionals.

Only 3-4% of voicemails left by salespersons for prospects are returned.

Only 1% of phone contacts with prospects culminate in a sale.

Only 3-5% of direct (i.e. on-site) prospect contacts result in a sale.

It’s Broken
Everyone who does any volume of prospecting knows how ineffective conventional cold calling is. We don’t even like to talk about it. Sales managers assign new account goals knowing what they’re doing is really assigning a task, not a goal.

The problem is that sales managers and sales professionals aren’t paying attention to the yield they are getting on their new business development efforts. “Prospecting Yield” is a simple and accurate indicator of prospecting effectiveness.

Prospecting Yield Defined

Prospecting Yield = Total Revenue Generated ÷ Number of Prospects Contacted

The resultant number will tell us what the average revenue is for each of our prospecting contacts for a defined period. A high Prospecting Yield indicates higher efficiency in the prospecting process.

There are a number of common variables missing in the simple formula above. The missing variables tell us everything we need to know about why Prospecting Yield is a useful and important number.

The Missing Variables
Close Ratio. Who cares what our close ratio is if our average order size is a nickel? This number is worthless.

Average Order Size. Average order size only tracks the prospects that ordered. Scenario One: A salesperson makes 1,000 new business contacts and closes two orders with an average order size of $2,000. Scenario Two: A second salesperson also write two orders with an average order size of $2,000 but does so by making only 50 contacts. The yield (or efficiency) of the second sales professional is twenty times that of the first.

Number of Orders.While any smart sales manager doesn’t want to see members of his or her sales force get the majority of their business from a handful of orders, 200 orders that average a couple of dollars each aren’t going to get anyone promoted.

The Wrong Focus
Sales management and sales professionals are guilty of viewing the process of new business development as the end game, the goal, the task to be completed.

It becomes a feel-good exercise of activity. Since most of us have concluded that conventional cold calling doesn’t really work, we focus on the mechanics instead.

Sales Blog Rx
The following is a prescription for prospecting success. It also will shine light on the true effectiveness of a business development program.

Stop seeing only the nuts and bolts of prospecting; the goal of prospecting is revenue – i.e. nice-sized orders.

Use Prospecting Yield to measure prospecting performance. Note: This KPI is increasingly more accurate as the number of contacted prospects grows.

Create a standardized prospecting process that uses best practices that have been learned from the rainmakers.

Sales Blog Epilogue
We have to realize that quality of prospecting, versus quantity, is what yields the highest results in 2009. Prospects want us to know about their company, their industry, their needs and even their points of pain before we initiate the first contact. Higher Prospecting Yields will mean fewer prospect contacts – but with much higher net results.

Further reading:
Prospecting By Going-Through-The-Motions, Part 2 of 4

>You can automatically receive Sales Tips Blog by Scott R. Sheaffer >by email< or >by RSS<.
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>©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer

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Are you satisfied with your sales results?
Kay Ray can show you and your team how to reach
your objectives and unlock the door to success.
thekayray.com