Written by Jerry Dean S on 14 June 2010
I just spent the last 5 days flying to Germany and back for two days of meetings. With the normal flight delays etc. that was 18 hrs. over and 20 hrs. back plus all of the challenges of shifting 7 time zones and it was totally worth it.
All too often in this internet age people think that you can do it on line with something like “Go To Meeting” or just email and text, make no mistake it is not the same. I would love to debate this with anyone, these tools certainly have their place but the relationships that are built with a face to face interaction just can not be done remotely.
These skill are not just for sales folks, unless you are a day trader or online marketer that is a complete one person show, you have to work with and rely on others to be successful.
I spend a fair amount of time on the phone or connecting via email from my desk in my home office, but when I do get to the corporate office I make a point of talking to everyone that I can. In fact I usually make a list of people that I want to say hi to, so I can check them off. If you are in sales this is the same thing you should do when you visit a customer, stop in a say hi or at least drop your business card, with a quick note, to everyone you can think of at the account.
A while back a person that worked for me was looking for a new job with in the company, I suggested a few folks to reach out to via the phone. Instead she sent a couple of emails and copied me on them.
This is not a personal communication, this is a business transaction that happens between competing tribes. Members of your tribe would want to see a personal touch. Imagine if you were in your home town, hundreds of miles from your house and you did not stop in to say hi to your parents, or at least called your best friend and let them know you were there but did not have time to stop in today.
Life happens between people in your inner circle, if you don’t work to build that circle you are going to be very alone. Certainly you are going to have different circles, a small tight one of friends and family, a larger circle of people that you work with, and a much bigger circle of folks that you interact with.
The closer that people are to your inner circle the better they will work with you, and trust you. In the end this will reward you not only with sales but with relationships that make your job more fun. You still have to be trustworthy, faking it won’t cut it here in the long run.
Time to run again, at least this time it is only in Chicago.
Posted in Business, People, Sales, Travel | 1 Comment »
Written by Jerry Dean S on 03 June 2010
They say that lighting never strikes the same place twice but that is not enough to stop you from thinking that it could. About 4 weeks ago my home took a lightening strike, it blew out several feet of electrical wire, put some holes in my gutter and wiped out $1,500 of electronics, that has taken me weeks to get straightened out.
Last night we had another thunderstorm roll through, pretty typical, 60 MPH winds and a really spectacular lightening show on the tail end of it.
The interesting thing is the physical reaction that you go through, even though the odds are astronomical of taking a second strike within a few weeks, that does not stop you from expecting it. The human mind is a terrible thing to fight against, pain or fear really can not be forgotten very quickly. Once you have seen the negative effects of something and felt the pain you will fight, on the basic instinctual level, to not let it happen again.
This is why so many people are afraid of taking risks, the results of the failure are typically so uncomfortable that we will not risk it again. Twenty years ago I got the 24 hr. flu, (dry heaves, diarrhea, the works) after eating a delicious piece of pecan pie, and although I know that this was not the cause, it was the lunch meat, I still can’t hardly eat pecan pie and it used to be my favorite.
In business we want every one to take responsibility for their actions and then hold people accountable. If you are not following through on commitments or are conducting business in an unethical way, you should absolutely be held accountable. But all too often this is carried out to the extreme. Punishing people for failures is a sure way to make sure that no one will take any risks, including being innovative.
Corporations would do much better if they would use the failures as a learning experience, evaluate the outcome while celebrating and rewarding the risk takers. If people don’t try new things and take some risks, you can be assured of just getting the same old results.
Start up company’s often innovate and create new technology, while they are small, when there is no one waiting to slap you around for making a few mistakes.
If you are punished for trying new things you will learn to avoid the lighting by doing nothing new. The good news, you won’t fail as an individual, but you will also never create anything new and really reach your full potential. With out creativity, you are just on the downward spiral to turning your business into a commodity.
As an employee, look for a company that supports risk taking, and as a company learn from and celebrate the failures.
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Written by Jerry Dean S on 02 June 2010
In Negotiation 101 we talked about having your pricing plan established, now we can begin the real negotiations, the trick here is to walk away at the end of the day with both the deal and a customer that is happy, the overused “Win Win”.
Through out the negotiations it is very important that you maintain your products value, if you are willing to give it away for nothing, that is what the customer is going to think it is worth.
This starts way before the price is even discussed, if you are willing to do what ever the customer asks, with nothing in return you start to look desperate. Remember the dating game, if you don’t play a little hard to get you look too eager. When you get the go ahead for that first meeting with the customer and they ask when can they meet with you, don’t say “Any time next week”. Propose a couple of times that will work for you, your time is valuable so make sure the customer knows this as well, don’t lie or try to pull one over on them but propose some times that will work for you. If you need to change to meet the customers needs that is OK but you will be setting the stage for an exchange of valuable items, today your time for their time and in the future your product for $.
The conversation might go like this:
- Salesperson “I will be in town next Thursday and could meet with you at 10:00 in the morning or 2:30 in the afternoon”.
- Customer “I am busy then but could meet between 11:00 and 1:00″.
- Salesperson “I can do that if you let me buy you a sandwich at 11:30, in the cafe”.
Sure the customer is getting a free lunch but he is giving you his time in a neutral environment, you will have a much better opportunity to connect with this customer on a personal level.
The key is to not give things away with out something in return, this is not to make sure that the customer is paying you for everything, it is to show that you are bringing something of value to the table. What you get from the customer does not have to be cash, it can be some piece of information, her time or access to another key influencer in the purchasing decision.
This is a negotiation and you have not even started to talk about the product or price, the relationship has been set up, you are giving the customer something and they are giving you something in return. When the time comes to talk price, you will have established that you and your product have a value and the customer will be much more willing to part with some of his cash to get it.
Your goal is to build a trusting relationship with your customers, it then becomes your job to show the customer new things that will help them achieve their business goals and not to do anything that destroys that trust, like trying to squeeze some more profit out of them, or sell them something that does not meet their needs just to get the sale.
When a customer trusts you to do right by them and knows you will help them solve their problems, they will continue to come back to you for products and solutions. In the end sales is really about relationships, when your product is similar to your competition, the customer will buy from the person that they know and trust. People buy from people that they like, if they don’t trust you they won’t like you and you can say goodbye to your sales.
Next Post Negotiation 103 – Haggling
Prior Post Negotiation 101 – Setting Your Price
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Written by Jerry Dean S on 31 May 2010
We all need to negotiate at some point or another, if you are a professional sales person you need to start this early on, long before you ask for the sale or the customer asks you for the best deal.
There are two basic ways to sell something, what I call transactional sales or relationship sales. The transactional sale is a one time deal, you may be able to engage in this type of sale if you are selling your own house or getting rid of the old TV on Craig’s list but if you want to stay selling in a single business for more than a few months, you had better be working on relationship sales. It costs on average 7 times more to sell to a new customer than to an existing one, if you are not working to keep them once you get them you are throwing away money. That is why they say the money is in the list, this applies to every business, be it internet marketing or capital equipment sales.
What price you sell your product for in a transactional sale does not matter, so you can pull off the gloves and push for the maximum price for your house or other item, the only risk you have is loosing the sale. This risk is still great but you only have to manage today’s transaction, “who cares if you screw them over, you will never see them again”. This is why so many people have a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to sales men, (think used car).
The risk of sticking it to a person that you might someday want to sell something else to, really helps you set the price you are willing to charge for your product. The key here is to be consistent. Most company’s set the price or discount that they will offer a customer taking into account three primary things.
- How large is the deal.
- How committed is the customer to continue buying from you.
- How competitive the deal is.
This really needs to be the order that the discount is prioritized in, if your product sells for $5,000 and the deal is for $10 million, you are going to be pretty aggressive in your pricing.
If the deal is for $500K but they are committing to purchase the same amount every month for the next year and a half, you are also going to be very aggressive but you may hold back a few points since you are not going to get all of the cash at the same time. The steady revenue stream has some great benefits, so treat this customer right and the long term relationship will pay off.
If it is a very competitive deal you may have to drop your price to get in the door, but be very careful here, this is where the most money is left on the table not only for this sale but for your future sales with this and your other customers.
If you are in a commodity business you may think that price is your only negotiating point, but there are many other values that you can bring to the table, customer service, on time delivery, financial terms. All of these things should be part of the deal when it comes to throwing in more $.
There are two big problems with selling low to get the business,
- The customer knows how low you will go and is not ever going to want to see the price go up.
- The risk that your other customers will hear about it is almost 100%, and you will have burnt up a ton of your trust with them.
It is very important to have a strategy in place for how you are going to set your price and then be consistent. If you need to sweeten a deal, do it with something other that $, “90 Days Same As Cash”, or throwing in “A Trip For Two To The Bahamas”, (I would buy that one right now).
Next Post “Negotiation 102 – Establishing Your Value”
Posted in Business, Negotiation, Sales | 2 Comments »
Written by Jerry Dean S on 28 May 2010
Anyone that thinks traveling for a living is fun has not been on a 3 hr. flight in an Embraer 145. This glorified cigar tube with wings is a dreadful torture device, that should be outlawed. I am 6′-2″ and wear a 50 Long suit coat, my shoulders barely fit through the doorway and I have to walk with my head down as I go through the plane, and when you are looking at your feet as you walk you can’t see the exit sign that is even lower than the ceiling. (Damn that hurt!) Every time I walk on one of these I have to stop and take a cleansing breath to control the claustrophobia that is creeping in from all sides.
On a 3 hr. flight you have at least a 50/50 chance of needing to use the bathroom, a London phone booth is bigger. If I set on one of the window seats, I am left with a C like curvature to my spine that takes days to straighten out. That leaves the single isle seat as my only option, where I can get wacked into each time the flight attendant walks back to the galley to get the next drink, (no room for a cart on this thing).
So this is the start of my campaign to boycott this throw back from the days when the average man in this country was 5′-4″ and still walked hunched over, not today’s 5′-10″. Come on pitch in and help me out, it will only cost you a little cash, and think of the comfort you will be providing the elevation challenged fliers of today.
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