Sales Blog with Sales Tips

Do you ever ask yourself if you’re really cut out to be in sales? Ironically, the number one question I receive is from individuals who are currently not in sales. They ask some variation of, “Do you think I’m cut out to be a salesperson?”

Your non-sales buddies probably ask you the same question.  Do you ask yourself the same question sometimes?

Sales is a soft science and I don’t ever want to say yes or no to that inquiry. The person asking the question could be the one out of 100 who, while breaking all sales rules, might be profoundly successful. I’ve seen it a number of times.

Sales Advice For The Undecided
Whether you’re contemplating a career as a sales professional or questioning if you should remain, the following quote will provide an answer. It’s a test. Read the words below and ask yourself, “Does this describe me?” If it doesn’t, sidestep sales as a career choice, because you will be unhappy and unfulfilled as a sales professional.  You’ll feel like an imposter.

Sales can reward nicely. However, it can be a punishing daily existence for those who don’t have it in their blood.

Sales Tips From Niccolo Machiavelli
“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of [laziness]. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”
— Niccolo Machiavelli

Does This Resonate With You?
When you read these words, do they fill you with a sense of passion and motivation for action?

Do Machiavelli’s thoughts make you want to say, “That’s right!” as you read them?

Does this quote inspire you to think of personal opportunities where bold and assertive action is summarily called for?

It’s Your Decision
Not everyone is hardwired for sales. It’s okay not to follow a sales path.

I encourage you to be candid with yourself when taking the litmus test above. If you don’t pass, there is no shame. But find a career that inspires the same kind of fire in you that a sales professional finds in Machiavelli’s words above.

Further reading:

• The 10 Steps Of A Sales Professional’s Employment Life Cycle
• 4 Reasons You’re Proud To Be A Sales Professional
• Why You Want To Stay In A Sales Career

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>©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer

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We all have customers that are a pain in the tail end. It’s part of being a sales professional. However, there is a class of customers that goes beyond annoying. I’m talking about the kind that stalk you, cause stress and can even be scary to deal with.

I call these Crazy Pill Customers (CPCs).

We’ve all had them.

10 Common Attributes Of A CPC

1. They suck time out of you like a vampire sucks blood.
2. You are never able to provide  enough help for them.
3. They don’t listen to good advice.
4. They want you to believe every one of your competitors is gunning for their business.
5. “Free” would not be cheap enough for them; their purchases are small and they pay slowly.
6. They escalate every problem to your boss, your boss’s boss…
7. Every sale you make to them has a problem and it’s always your fault.
8. Their need for additional information is unending and knows no boundaries.
9. They are bipolar; you’re either a demon or an angel depending on their mood.
10. Everyone who works at that company is unhappy and not fun to work with.

Sales Tips For Handling Crazy Pill Customers
No one can tell you how to handle your accounts. However, if you have a handful of customers that have a majority of the ten attributes above, fire them! They’re a ball and chain.

Why They Need To Go
It’s an irony in sales that we frequently spend the majority of our time on high maintenance, low volume customers. I think the reason for this is that our best customers are cooperative, understanding and professional. They’re sane.

Over time CPC customers tend to orbit closer to us while our best customers orbit much farther out, getting less of our attention. Losing the CPCs frees us to spend time on the accounts that butter our bread and gives us time to find new ones that will do the same.

It Isn’t Easy
It’s hard to walk away from CPC’s because of the immediate revenue they may provide, albeit small. By jettisoning them, you will regain your sanity, free up time to find new quality business and build a stronger bridge with the customers that aren’t taking crazy pills.

Further reading:

• Bad Accounts are Like Weeds
• Fire a Customer for Fun and Profit

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©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer

I’m going to write about something today that is profoundly obvious, no one will disagree with, and many of us are probably guilty of not doing.

Let Me Provide Some Groundwork
I think most of the sales professionals who read this sales blog know what pacing is. This is when we mirror a customer’s speech rate, volume, voice tone, energy and even body language when talking face to face with him or her. There are numerous advantages when doing this. It provides a way for us to “sync up” with the customer. When we are good at pacing, we are able to speak the language of the customer in all of its dimensions. It enhances communication, and this is always a good thing.

A Little More Groundwork
Whether we are an inside or outside sales professional, the phone is one of our primary communication devices. Many people don’t realize that outside sales professionals spend a significant amout of time making appointments, providing customers with information, fixing problems, etc. via the phone. All of us have to be good on the phone to be successful in sales.

Now Let’s Put It All Together
What are most sales professionals guilty of? We forget to use pacing when we’re on the phone with a prospect or customer. That’s right. We almost instinctively know to pace when we’re face to face, but we completely forget this important concept when we’re on the phone. And we all spend a lot of time on the phone.

It Gets Even Better
When we talk with customers on the phone, all they receive is our voice. Our body language cues are lost. As a result, we may get an even bigger payoff when pacing ourselves on the phone than when we’re face to face with a customer.

We already know how to pace. All we need to do is apply these same skills on the phone to greatly improve our communication skills. Simple…and powerful.

Further reading:

• Why a Bullet in the Head Frequently Kills [or, Your Brain Is Your Greatest Asset In Communicating With Customers]

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©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer

In the 1973 movie, Magnum Force, Harry Callahan (played by Clint Eastwood) says his now famous line, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

No matter how inflated our ego is or how much we suffer from low self esteem, we all have two things in common: a key selling strength that must be optimized and a key sales weakness we must navigate around. It’s how we are put together by the big man upstairs. No one is exempt.

Highly successful athletes, politicians and actors are examples of people that showcase their greatest strength and do their best to conceal their greatest weakness. The key to all of this is that they know these things about themselves.

Since sales success is so critically dependent on a number of skill sets, doesn’t it make sense that we should be aware of our greatest strength and use it to our advantage? At the same time wouldn’t it be helpful for us to be cognizant of where we are not strong?

Tiger Woods is generally considered to be one of the best golfers that has ever lived. He acknowledges that his short-irons are a weakness for him, but he also knows that he can hit a driver like no other. Guess what his game strategy is? He uses his driver (his strength) in a way to avoid as many short-iron shots (his weakness) as possible.

We might be tempted to ask, should we work on our weakest sales skill in order to make it stronger? Yes, but I have a few rules for this:

1. We must work on our weak area only after we are sure that our strongest area is razor sharp. Our strongest area is our money maker.
2. When in front of a customer we must be sure to leverage our strength to the maximum; this is not a time to be experimenting with improving our weakness.
3. We can and should use a coach (e.g., sales trainer, sales manager) to help us with our weak area.
4. We can’t always avoid exposing our weak area, so we should ensure that we have at least an adequate and acceptable strategy for handling it.

Sales professionals can be either weak or strong in the following areas: prospecting, account management, presentations, customer meetings, product knowledge, account planning, time management, record keeping, etc. This is a concept where sales management can play a valuable role in helping their individual team members fortify their strength and manage their weakness.

Now go to work on making your sales strength even stronger and your weakness manageable.

© 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer