Sales Blog with Sales Tips

Profiling. I’ve grown uncomfortable with this word over the last few years. But profiling is actually a very good thing in sales. The ability to profile is a competence we need in our sales skills arsenal.

Have You Ever Asked Yourself This Question?
Who are my customers?

I was guilty of selling for years without seriously asking myself what my ideal customer would look like. It’s so simple, but I missed it. I didn’t fully grasp what kinds of prospects I should be stalking (uh oh, there’s another term I should probably avoid) or the types of customers I should be spending time on.

Sales Tips For Properly Profiling, #1
With some help from my sales manager – yes, they actually can provide assistance – we sat down and defined the ideal target account and customer for my company and myself. The key word in that last sentence is “myself.” Profiling the perfect prospect or customer means that they’re a good fit for your company and they’re a good match for your skills and background. Make sense?

You’re probably thinking your company has already done this little exercise. Are you kidding me? Of course they haven’t. I don’t think I’ve ever known of a company that really knows exactly where their best opportunities lie. The reasons for this could fill many sales blog posts.

Sales Tips For Properly Profiling, #2
Once I profiled my optimal customer and prospect, I then needed to know how to invest my time. I knew by then that not all customers and opportunities represent the same potential. To treat them all the same means you’re thinking like a politician. These days, that is not a good thing.

Our customers and opportunities can be separated into 4 categories. Once we’ve put them in the correct category, it becomes clear how we should allocate our time. We will also give them a different level of service according to their category.

People who put down $100 bills at the tables in Vegas get a better level of service than those who put down $1 bills. There’s a reason they segment customers. It makes them more money.

Sales Tips For Properly Profiling, #3, Segmentation

1. The Why Bothers? These customers represent less than 5% of your business and 90% of your headaches. Invest zero time in them. Hope your competitors take them. Fire them. Now.

2. Target Accounts. You’ve profiled these highly qualified prospects and you’re not spending enough time on them. These are your competitors’ key customers. Spend time on them, but know it will take a long time to land them. But it will most assuredly be worth the trouble.

3. Your Key Accounts. These are the customers you’ve profiled that represent 80% of your business yet represent only 10-20% of your account base. We have to take care of the hand that is buttering our bread, but in actuality, these accounts don’t need as much hand holding as you’re giving them. Use some of this time to attack your target accounts.

4. Maintenance Accounts. They represent 10-15% of your business and 40-45% of your account base. These are your mom and pop accounts. Don’t let them suck up more than 25% of your time. We can waste time on them because they are easy, comfortable and always there.

Sales Blog Epilogue
I was spending too much time on customers that weren’t fattening my billfold and not enough on the kind of prospects that could. How I used my time was dictated more by what was comfortable and convenient rather than what was going to build my business.

Now start profiling.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

There are two highly overrated myths about sales. Unfortunately, most sales professionals operate as if they are both true.

Myth #1, First Impressions Will Make Or Break A Prospect
Recent research is showing that first impressions in sales are not nearly as sacred as we once thought. We can screw up that first 30 seconds a little and live to see another day with the prospect.

The reason for this is easily understood as we explore Myth #2 below.

Myth #2, Without Extraordinary Verbal Skills, A Salesperson Will Never Make It
The 1990’s model of selling required all of us to be “silver tongued devils.” We all know the type, “Mark could sell someone his own underwear; he is such a smooth talker!”

Prospects hate this kind of salesperson.

Why We Can Discard Myth #1 And Myth #2

• It’s 2010. Buyers realize they don’t need you to have Ryan Seacrest’s gift of gab; they need a sales professional who is knowledgeable and can actually help them with their points of pain.
• During a recession it’s what we know, not what we show, that matters to decision makers who are trying to rebuild their businesses.
• Most companies are aggressively reducing the number of suppliers they rely on and the size of their purchasing departments. Robin Williams is great to watch on late night TV, but if all we have to offer our prospects is a well-crafted monologue, we’ll find ourselves out on the street.
• While relationships are critical, buyers are aware that our ability to help them is more important than our ability to speak like Zig Ziglar and wear a suit.

It’s Global
Our prospects focus on our “go power,” not our “show power.” They’re doing this because they are operating in a more challenging global market than ten years ago. Our ability to perform a stellar introduction or speak like Barack Obama is slipping on our prospects’ scale of what’s important.

Sales Tips Wrap Up
Sure, our first impression is important. But it’s not everything. We can recover from a bungled one. Prospects are looking for value.

Sales Tips Post Script
There is an additional benefit when we are more realistic about the significance of first impressions. It gives us the freedom to relax a little when approaching a prospect for the first time. In the process, we ironically become more effective at first impressions.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

When I was a little boy I used to play checkers with my twin brother. He always beat me. It made me mad. Then one day my dad observed us playing checkers and said, “Scott, you always lose because you expect to lose.”

Even though I was just seven or eight years old, his words ignited a 500-watt light bulb in my head. In my short life, I had never considered that my brother wasn’t beating me; I was beating myself.

Most Of Us Do This To Ourselves In Sales
It has been my observation, after working with hundreds of sales professionals over many years, that the majority of salespersons defeat themselves too.

What do I mean by defeat? We expect to lose the sale. We don’t see ourselves winning a sales contest. We know we’ll never be the number one salesperson in our region. We are sure our employer is not competitive in our industry. We have no faith in our sales skills. We question if our customers like us.

We’re not even confident we’re in the right career.

You’ve Undoubtedly Wrestled With Some Of These Questions
All of us deal with these kinds of doubts. It’s when an expectation of failure – or even mediocrity – becomes our modus operandi that we are in the danger zone.

There is no magic to sales success. There is no perfect personality or magical skill required either. I can tell you unequivocally that the two major differences between sales superstars and the also-rans are:

Diligence. Sales leaders keep doing the things that need to be done long after others have left work early. The last time I checked, diligence doesn’t require any kind of super power.

Planning. The big guns in sales always have a plan. They know where they’re going and how they plan to get there. You don’t need an MBA from Harvard in order to make and work a plan.

This Isn’t About Positive Thinking
Let me be clear, this sales blog post is not about the “Power of Positive Thinking.” Just thinking positive thoughts won’t make you successful. That is an enormously weak and outdated concept.

The precursor to success is always competence. Competence is created by hard work and having a clear course of action.

Sales Tips Wrap Up
You might look at the top producers in your organization and think you will never be in their position. Please, don’t take yourself out of the game.

You can be a sales superstar if you realize you already have what it takes. Tenacity and the ability to create a blueprint for success are the ingredients.

Just for the record, I started beating my brother in checkers on a regular basis soon after my dad ignited that light bulb in my head.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer