Sales Blog with Sales Tips

There are a million myths about the selling profession. What’s most frustrating is that many “sales trainers” dole these out as quality sales tips.

Here are 10 of my not-so-favorites presented in no particular order.

Myth #1
Salespeople lie more than buyers. The math on this one is simple. A sales professional has a lot more to lose by lying than a buyer. As an example, I’ve asked dozens of professional buyers if they’ve ever lied about pricing. I haven’t found any who said they hadn’t engaged in this practice. A salesperson would be committing sales suicide to lie about a price.

Myth #2
The internet will replace all sales professionals. Ever see a website find a decision maker or uncover a prospect’s budget? How about discovering a buying time frame or learning about the competitive landscape?

Myth #3
Ninety-two percent of our communication with customers is through body language. If this were true, then phones, emails, text messages, marketing collateral, etc. would be virtually useless.

Myth #4
If you can just get your foot in the door, you’re halfway there. If this is how you get an audience with prospects, you’ve already alienated them. They aren’t listening to a word you’re saying either.

Myth #5
ABC (Always Be Closing). People are hardwired to resist being pushed. Push enough and they’ll run – and not toward you. The close is merely the final and natural step in a well-orchestrated sales process.

Myth #6
People buy on price. Price is always a consideration, but it actually ranks number five for buyers in study after study. Availability, risk, service and quality are more important to a buyer than price. Buyers ask about availability and price because we can immediately give them hard numbers on these items. Risk, service and quality are learned through relationship and time.

Myth #7
There is a stereotypical sales personality. If that were true, a pre-hire sales test would exist that could effectively weed out the non-sales types. There isn’t such a test (i.e. one that works) because all successful sales professionals are different.

Myth #8
Sales professionals only care about making money. Studies show that income ranks below a number of other factors such as job satisfaction and professional growth for sales professionals just as it does for people in other occupations.

Myth #9
Sales is just a game of numbers. This might have been true 15+ years ago – but not today. Sales is an information and relationship game. Quality, not quantity.

Myth #10
Working for the best vendor or supplier means you’ll win the sale. Creating a relationship with a prospect that is based on your good character and work ethic gets the business. Besides, the prospect decides who is the best vendor.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

This is part two of a two part series containing sales tips on how to educate your customer on two important issues. For those of you who missed my last sales blog post, I discussed training your customers in relation to discounts.

You won’t normally see these kinds of sales tips in other sales articles or in another sales blog because I’m challenging you to take control of customer behavior. As sales professionals, we too often allow ourselves to be dominated by the customer. We have more influence than we think in defining our relationship with them. This sales blog post and my last are but two examples.

“Teach them the right way when they’re young and impressionable and you’ll avoid future problems.”

Fred’s Sales Tips
As is true of my last sales blog post, Fred, my German Shepherd, assisted me with this sales blog post. He made me realize he had been training me for years instead of my training him. All dog owners understand this principle. Unfortunately, we allow our customers to train us in ways that can hurt our sales effectiveness.

Customer Training Sales Tips #2 of 2
One of the many ways we unconsciously train our customers is in the area of accounts payable. Most companies require that a customer’s bill be paid in order for the salesperson to be paid their commission or to keep their commission. For this reason, most sales professionals are interested in selling to customers who pay their bills in a timely manner.

With new customers we frequently let them “slip” a bit on paying their bills. We don’t want to stir up the waters. They might pay their first invoice in 40 days, their second invoice in 60 days and before you know it they’re paying in 90 days if we’re lucky. By not intervening with their accounts payable department and even shutting off delivery of products and services, we are subtly educating our new customers that we are one of those suppliers that isn’t a stickler on payment. We jeopardize our commissions. Personally, I hate working for free.

You have to let your customers know from their very first order that you are not one of those companies that takes a “whatever-whenever” attitude on being paid. The bean-counters at your customers know which suppliers will let them “slide” and which ones won’t. The earlier you train your new customers that you aren’t one of the “sliders,” the sooner they will learn to put your invoices in the “pay now” pile.

Sales Blog Epilogue
As with sales tips #1 of 2, customers are like children. Teach them the right way when they’re young and impressionable and you’ll avoid future problems. You and your company have a right to be paid promptly for the products and services you provide. Remember, teaching your customers these “rules” for doing business will improve your relationship with them in the long run and make you more effective and profitable.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

If you read my last post you know that I am a big proponent of calculating how much money you want/need to make on an annual basis as a primary goal for sales professionals. This principle should also be used by sales managers to motivate their people. It’s simple, determine what your income goal is and then see what you need to do in order to achieve that goal. This sounds easy to calculate, and is, by using the following formula. Reality check: Calculating the goal is easy, getting there is where the real work comes in. As we all know, if you don’t have a target…

Your Total Pay = Your Base Salary + Your Annual Commission

Let’s break it down one more step.

Your Total Pay = Your Base Salary + 12(Monthly Average Order Total X Commission Percentage)

Using the assumptions above you can calculate how much you need to sell each month to reach your annual income goal by using the following formula.

Monthly Average Order Total = (Your Total Pay – Your Base Salary) / (12 X Commission Percentage)

Here’s an example.

Debbie wants to make $83,000 per year, her base pay is $45,000 and her company pays her 15% commission on each order. How much does she need to sell each month to reach her goal? (And you thought you’d never use those word problems from junior high algebra.)

Monthly Average Order Total = ($83,000 – $45,000) / (12 X .15)
Monthly Average Order Total = $21,111

Debbie needs to sell $21,111 per month to make her annual income goals. How she is going to do it is where the real work comes in.