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Are you Presenting AND Communicating?

 
Do you consider yourself a great presenter AND communicator? It’s a tough question to answer honestly.

The fact is, if you want to communicate a message that sells, you must both present well, AND communicate well. Strangely, communication is a selling skill that is often overlooked: How to get others to listen to you. Or better stated, WANT to listen to you.

All your life you heard the lesson: It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it.

Presentation is what you say.

Communication is how you say it.

Here’s a great way to clarify communication skills. Think about the teachers you had in school. Sometimes the most brilliant ones were the worst communicators – and as a result, left you short of both education and inspiration.

Now, think of the teachers you loved. You couldn’t wait to get to their class, and you hung on their every word. In fact, you still remember him or her and you talk about them. They were great communicators.

Here are several “check in” questions to get you thinking about your communication – and I’ll throw in a few challenges:

• How clear is your delivered message? Not how clear to you, but how clear to them.

• What’s the attitude behind your spoken words? What’s the tone of your words? How do they sound?

• Are your gestures in harmony with your words and your delivery? Do your gestures indicate and confirm a relaxed, confident style and a belief in what you are saying?

• How succinct is your message? Short and sweet or way too long?

• Does your message or your words sound scripted or insincere? “Conversational” is the best communication strategy.

• How organized is your message? Are you fumbling or on a roll?

• Does your message have a start and a finish? A finish that ends in a commitment from the prospective customer?

• Do you make solid and consistent eye contact? Especially when asking for the sale or confirming the offer.

• Are you making statements or asking questions? Who are the questions in favor of? NOTE WELL: Questions create interactive dialog, and will tell you, both by body language and gestures, the level of genuine connection – the smiles, the willingness to talk and tell the truth.

• Are you asking for confirmation that what you’re saying is completely understandable?

• Do you talk too fast? Only your recording yourself will tell you that.


• Are you using industry buzzwords and acronyms that could create misunderstanding? Classic example of miscommunication.


And the ultimate self-tests of communication:
• Have you ever recorded your meetings so you can hear your own communication skill level? Most salespeople have not. It’s too scary!


Here’s a Tweet I really liked: A passionate message without clarity will fall on deaf ears. #communication

The object of communication, especially sales communication, is for others to UNDERSTAND your message, AGREE with your message, and then TAKE the correct ACTION. To buy!

Onward & Upward!
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After the loss.

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You can often learn more from your failures than your successes.  If you will just take the time to honestly reflect, and then decide how to improve. Lost sales, failures, hurt!  But they can be remarkably beneficial as learning experiences.  Each loss holds a lesson that will help you become better!

So let’s start at the other end of the spectrum.  YES, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of closing a sale!  It’s one of those YES! Moments where you leave the meeting and when no one can see you, you pump your fists up and down with a wonderful feeling of victory.  It’s the best. Whether it’s a large or small sale we celebrate first and then we try to think about how we won so we can replicate our success. That’s great and it’s the right thing to do, but the fact is, there is often much more to be learned from losing a sale.  The challenge is, most salespeople don’t want to reflect on their losses because it’s really not very comfortable.

Some salespeople will ask a prospect why they lost a deal, but they typically don’t get a straight answer. In fact, according to sales research data, prospects tell salespeople the complete truth about why they lost less than half the time.  Additionally, research has shown that salespeople learn the complete and accurate truth about 40% of the time because most don’t even ask about it. In other words, in 60% of lost sales situations, salespeople don’t have a complete and accurate understanding of why they lost.

What follows are 5 guaranteed, proven ways to ensure you learn everything you can about why you lost a sale, and how to learn and grow from that knowledge:

1) Early in the sales process, tell your prospect that you will conduct a debrief (regardless of the outcome of the sale). In order to make the prospect comfortable and illicit honest and, more importantly, actionable feedback, you should let the prospect know early in the sales process that regardless of the outcome, you will be conducting a post-decision debrief call at the end of the process.

2) Schedule a separate debrief call. Don’t do the debrief in the same meeting in which you got the bad news! When you hear about a loss, prospects have one goal in mind: to get rid of you as quickly as possible. Instead, schedule a separate debrief call after you have accepted the loss and (this is important) let the prospect know that you will not try to change their decision.

3) Use a debrief guide. Research has shown that salespeople who use a debrief questionnaire have a 15% higher close rate than those who do not. It’s simple to create your own debrief guide or you can ask for help from your manager, mentor or colleagues.  Just create a list of 5-10 open ended questions and let the conversation open up from there.  Questions like, “how did you feel about our ability to deliver on the promises I made in the proposal?”, or “tell me how you felt about how we priced our service?”  These sorts of questions uncover pure gold for future sales.  Just make them open and honest and not manipulative.

4) Take responsibility. Make sure that you really want candid feedback; prospects will know if you don’t. Don’t get defensive, and PLEASE don’t debate with the prospect or try to resell them.   (If they start to re-think their decision because of your professionalism, just let them do it.  They will let you know if they might be willing to take a second look.  But that’s THEIR call; you just want to learn from your loss.

5) Drill down for specifics. If their answers are vague, they may be nervous about you trying to re-sell them.  Put them at ease by promising that’s not your purpose here; that you just want to learn and grow from the loss. So follow up vague answers with questions like “How do you mean?” or “Can you please give me a little more detail on that?”  Other great questions for obtaining valuable feedback include asking, “How can I do better with my next prospect?”, “Is there anything you feel we should change about our offering or how I presented it?” or “Is there any other advice you could give me?”  These are strong questions and your prospect will be flattered that you respect them enough to ask them.

So you can indeed learn a great deal from a lost sale.  You just have to be willing to swallow your pride a little and make the debrief happen.  Win or lose, with a lost sale debrief, you can win every time!

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Sales Breath!

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It’s embarrassing, it’s obnoxious, and it kills deals dead.

“Sales breath” is a term used for many things but to me it boils down to this; sales people saying the wrong things and the wrong times and say those things WAY too much.

I’ve been on live coaching calls with sales reps that exhibited sales breath and it has always been one of the most painful things to sit through that I can imagine.  The worst part is most don’t even know they are doing it!

Here are to top reasons for sales breath and the lost deals they lead to.

  1. Insecurity. Even sales people who are usually confident, can sometime fall prey to insecurity in a sales call.  In these moments they (subconsciously) use a tsunami of words, data, facts and figures to avoid dealing with whatever conflict is making them insecure; like maybe an impending “NO!”   Instead of balancing tactical talking with strategic listening, they believe that their fire hose of words will protect them from what they imagine is a threat. They refuse to turn the conversation over to the prospect.  I’ve done it, we’ve all done it and it’s never served us well. Confidence along with a little humility, combined with great listening skills is what will move the sale along.
  2. Poor preparation. Simply put, the less you know about your service, or the prospect and their business, the more empty words you’ll have to use to communicate.  You are reduced to shallow small talk rather than connecting on a subject like your prospects favorite pass time which you found out about on Facebook or LinkedIn.  That’s pretty weak!  With a little more prep-work the night before, using the wealth of resources we have at our fingertips the ability to learn about our prospects background, their company, even their hobbies,  there is never any reason to have to resort to small talk.  When there are things, important to your prospect, on which you could really be connecting, nervousness and empty words go away.
  3. Stress. This one is often overlooked but it’s a proven scientific fact.  When we are tired and/or stressed we tend to ramble and our ability to concentrate decreases. Our brains will respond to mental fatigue by producing more words with less impact. So get enough sleep, exercise, eat right and be on top of your game.  Feeling great is the ideal foundation for a great conversation.
  4. No plan on how you will run your call. After researching the prospect, do you have a plan for how you will run the call.  If not, your counting on luck and that’s not what pro’s do.  You need to have a plan that includes, how you will open the call, what line of probing questions you will use, what possible solutions you will present, and how you will take the sale to the next step.  Even if your plan gets derailed, (and they do!), you must go in with a call plan every time.
  5. Lack of humility. Some people think the things they say are profound and important. When they talk, they experience a rush of good feelings and they often fall in love with their own words. They may use catch phrases, acronyms and complex language to impress their prospects.  More often than not, bloviation leads to the prospect looking at their watch! You’ve officially lost them. Being expressive is nice, but good relationships require us to be receptive to others.  Being humble, knowledgeable and confident, all at the same time, is an ultra powerful skill set.
  6. Holding their attention. It’s important to move quickly and efficiently to find your prospects pain or area of desired gain.  While some salespeople hop around from one topic to another, others quickly get to the core of a customer’s need, solve it and close the sale. Remember, you are competing for your prospects attention.  He/she may be looking into your eyes and nodding, but they may not be listening to you at all.  They may be thinking about that quote they forgot to work on, or the meeting they have later with their accountant, or whatever.  The fact is, business owners are very busy and their minds are going 100 miles an hour.  Your challenge is to get to the point and focus on their problems, challenges and areas of opportunity.  Get their attention and get them talking.  When they are talking, they are focused on you.  If you are talking, you can’t be sure if you have their attention or not.
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“The Natural”

In selling, there’s pressure.  Perform or be gone.  And this pressure can kill your effectiveness.  But pressure doesn’t have to be a negative.  Trust me, if you’re good enough, you don’t feel pressure except in knowing your performance will render it a total non-issue.

I want to share an incredible story that will bring you back to the very essence of selling.  The essence that, if we can remain true to it, will propel us beyond any pressure to perform.  Our  success will simply take care of itself.

I have always loved the outdoors. Hiking, camping, rafting, all of it.  I see a Bass Pro Shop or REI and I have stop in to so see what’s new.

A few years back, I was planning to take on a new section of the Appalachian Trail.  So in gearing up for the trip I went boot shopping and ended up relearning one of the most fundamental selling truths that has ever existed.  Yes, it was that big!

Bass Pro Shop has virtually EVERYTHING for hiking.   So I stopped in to look for boots which I’ve always had problems with.  I went over to a MASSIVE wall of hiking boots.  I was thinking about my last experience hiking, when I hear a voice behind me ask “Looking at boots?” I gave a very obvious answer of “Why yes.” Mr. Eager sales guy then said “Well, let me show you what we got.” Out of an entire wall of boots, he pointed out one very sturdy but heavy boot and began to explain its features; waterproof, ankle support, locking speed-laces,  feature after feature, and on and on he went. It also just happened to be the most expensive boot they sold.  As my eyes glazed over I realized I really didn’t want to listen to this guy.  So I cut him short with a “let me look around a bit,” and left.

A few days later I stopped into a much smaller specialty-hiking store near Hiawassee, Georgia. Tiny little place packed with gear.  I stood looking at a display of only 7 models of boots when I heard a voice from behind, “Looking at boots are ya?”  I actually smelled him coming before he got there. Firewood, incense, and a clear hint of marijuana; lets just say, his scent arrived before he did!  I was about to send Mr. Fragrance on his way when he said “bro, I love to hike, you too?” He called me “bro”. I was 54 years old so that made me chuckle.  There stood a 20-something, quintessential “mountain hippie” guy. “You hiking the AT?” he asked.  I told him, yes, my last trip was the first 18 miles of the Appalachian Trail. I told him how beautiful it was and about the bears I saw, and the story about the night I left my beef jerky in my backpack.  “Bro, I love “The Trail!”, it’s got some gnarly hikes.” So he asked me what I liked, where I went, how my equipment fared and, finally, why I was in his store.  I shared that I’ve never found a boot I really loved. They are either too stiff or too soft.  They either don’t breath, or they let water in. And they all give me blisters, especially when bouldering. “Bro, I get it. You’ve been using those old stiff, Swiss ankle boots right?”  Yep, I said. Then he said “check this out” and took  down a boot that looked more like some strange hi-top basket ball shoe hybrid boot.  “Bro, this boots the s*!t, fits like a glove and moves with you when you boulder.”   I put them on and was blown away.  They felt like nothing I had ever worn and I could not wait to try them on a hike.  The guy was spot on in finding and addressing my needs, and before you knew it I had dropped a cool $300 on a new pair of boots.  I didn’t even care about the price.

As I was checking out I said to hippie dude “you’re good at this.”  Good at what he asked. Selling, I said.  I have been selling for years and man, you’re a natural.  He looked confused, “I don’t sell bro, I just really love to get to know people and find out what they they love about the outdoors, what they need, and then I show things that  I know will work for them.”

BOOM! There it is. I realized, in that moment, that I had forgotten one of the oldest and most important tenets of sales, persuasion and even leadership.  And how could I?  I’m a man who has made the study of selling a life’s passion? It honestly freaked me out. What we think, feel or say about our idea, product, or anything else is largely irrelevant. We do not “convince” people to buy an idea or thing.  Rather we should simply relate to them, uncover their needs and address those needs. It’s so simple we dismiss it!  What I had forgotten was that, whether you’re selling boots, advice or fractional ownership of a jet, people buy emotionally, then use facts and data to justify their decision. I already knew this but this experience was the purest example of the principal I had ever seen!

I’m pretty sure that guy had never read a single sales book or attended a single sales training.  He didn’t need to; he was a natural.  He just naturally connected emotionally, and offered his ideas with enthusiasm and sincerity.  I never for a moment felt like I was being “sold.”  He defined the very essence of what selling should be and that experience changed me forever.

Onward & Upward

Ben

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Selling “systems” don’t work!

Like you, I’ve been through countless sales training’s.  And I’ve  also trained a lot of sales people through the years.  And virtually all sales training’s involve some sort of “system.”  Now, at this stage of my selling career, I’ve come to some conclusions with which I’d like to challenge you.

Let’s look first at the positives of “selling systems.”

  1. Selling systems give us a road-map for each sales call.  It helps us to organize our thoughts and how we will diagnose our prospects needs.
  2. Selling systems give us a platform from which to present our solutions.
  3. They give us the structure we need to come across as organized and professional.
  4. They keep us focused on our goals and make the time we spend with our prospects more efficient.

All good stuff right? 

So let’s now consider the downside of “selling systems.”

  1. In general, selling systems are manipulative. And when prospects feel like they are being manipulated, you’re done.
  2. Selling systems are overly rigid. My skin crawls to think of a sales person sitting in front of prospect thinking to himself, “am I on step 4 or step 5?  Did I miss step 3?”  What a nightmare!
  3. Selling systems are about the sales person and their goals and not so much about the PROSPECTS goals. Which is why you are there!
  4. Selling systems detract from the kind of quality interaction and genuine dialog that leads to a beneficial outcome. You’ll notice that I did not say, “leads to a sale.”  Whatever outcome is best for your prospect is what you want to make happen.  Even if that means they don’t buy your stuff.

So what’s the best way to run a sales call?  Have a system or not?

Anyone who has sold with me or has been trained by me knows I’m a huge fan of constant learning regarding selling.  And I study and believe in “selling systems” because they all have something good about them.  I just feel that systems are overused.  People think too much about the system and not enough about the prospect.  It kills rapport and sales.

So let’s agree to use a word other than “system;” let’s use the word “guidelines.”

Selling guidelines give you all the positives of the various selling systems while avoiding the downsides.  The following guidelines will indeed give you the best of both worlds:

  • Have a well thought out, client focused selling system (guideline) that works for you, but be willing to change it, or abandon it completely, based on how the sales call is going.
  • Prepare you butt off the day/night before your appointment.  Going in with a huge amount of pre-call intelligence will not only bolster your confidence, it will allow you to connect more effectively with your prospect.  Be the most prepared sales person they’ve ever seen!
  • For each call, take your guidelines and think about how they will be used based on what you know about your prospect.  You do know about your prospect, right. Type A’s don’t want to be led down a path, while analyticals will be more at ease with a little structure in the call.
  • Develop a “call plan” that serves as a starting point until you get into rapport with your prospect.  Then make their needs the absolute center of your universe.  They’ll feel your sincerity.
  • Never forget that the prospects needs and goals come first. Your selling guidelines should support that in every way.
  • If you find yourself thinking about your guidelines/system during the call, STOP IT.  Just be yourself and focus on the prospects needs.
  • If you have not mastered your sales call process, work a little bit into each call. Just enough to stretch you without taking your mind off the prospect.  Call it a “system” or a “guideline”, unless you can use them innately and modify them on the fly, don’t use them at all!

Just remember, being genuine is more powerful than any sales system.  But being genuine AND using selling guidelines/structure flawlessly is UNSTOPABLE!   I know it sounds like a contradiction, but it’s a fact.  Great sales people have a plan for every call.  But they can pivot on a dime and change strategies as needed.  Be prepared, be focused, have a plan, but don’t let any of that get in the way of you being you!

Onward & Upward

Ben

 

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Are you relevant? Or are you…

Outdated selling is about convincing (tricking) a buyer to buy.  At best, that style creates either a non-buyer or a reluctant buyer.  And if you are lucky you’ll occasionally stumble into the perfect prospect and that sale takes care of itself.  But what about doing things in a way that causes the buyer WANT what you have?   I mean really want it!

It’s more simple than you might think.  In fact, I’ll give you one word that pretty much sums it up:  RELEVANCE.

How do we become more relevant?  I hope it goes without saying that you must to know your product or service inside and out.  Next you do your research.  Seek to understand your prospects industry, competitors, market forces, challenges, opportunities and other aspects of their business.  The more of this knowledge you gain, the more “relevant” you become.  Add to that even more knowledge about your prospects specific company, and also your prospect himself/herself and your potential relevance is now even higher.  Think Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.

This knowledge will allow you to frame every question or statement in a way that is far more relevant to your prospect.  You’ll be speaking their language and relating to them in ways they will recognize as genuine.  You’ll be able to drop facts and comments into the dialog that show your prospect that you care enough about them and their needs to have done your research beforehand.  In short, you’ll be relevant.

And being relevant relaxes your prospect and allows for a truly meaningful exchange.  In this way, you are best positioned to quickly uncover needs and express your solutions without the “sales resistance” typical of most prospects.

Put another way, in the all-important initial meeting, use your relevance to establish a genuine rapport and get down to the business of uncovering your prospects needs.  Whether their struggles are positive, negative, or both, once you know, you can discuss how you can help them.  And because you have become relevant,  you will have their full attention throughout the meeting.

Conversely, if you are not relevant and just keep trying to “sell” them something, you’ll find them daydreaming, looking at their watch and looking forward to your departure.

So you have to be relevant to hold their attention.  Also, forget value. Your prospect gets to decide that one.  They see value in things that make their struggles/problems go away.  Little struggles = little value.  big struggles = big value.  So think in terms of relevance instead of value.  If your solution is highly relevant to your prospects situation, they will place great value on it and more importantly, they’ll WANT IT.

If, however, your solution offers no relevance to your prospects needs, it’s time to move on.  Simple as that.  Don’t try to create a connection where there is none.  You and your solution are either relevant or not.

If you have true solutions to offer,  you now must master is the relevance of the solutions you propose.  You may have 20 great solutions within your offering and you know they all would help your prospect.  But here again, relevance is the key.  Limit your discussions to those solutions that your prospect (not you) see as relevant to their needs.  Forget about all the rest.  I know it’s hard to do but trust me; prospects don’t care about all your other “stuff.”  The moment you start talking about things that don’t address their burning needs, that’s the moment you start losing them.  In fact, you may have them dying to buy from you after discussing 3 or 4 solid rock solid, relevant solutions, but if you go on talking about things that are, in your prospects mind, not relevant, you’ll probably lose the deal.  What a disaster!  You were positioned to really help them,  and then you chased them away!

So relevance really boils down to a simple formula:

Doing your research ahead of time in a way that allows you to quickly identify your prospects most pressing needs, then presenting those aspects of your solution, with relevance, that directly address and solve those struggles.

The more needs you find, the more solutions you can offer.  And the more RELEVANT solutions you offer the more your prospect is going to WANT to do business with you.

It’s all about knowing your prospect and what they need. It’s about knowing your product & what it has to offer. It’s about having options for your prospect and it’s about presenting them in a perfectly RELEVANT way that creates the desire to do business with you.

So start thinking about how relevant you are in every aspect of your sales process.  Relevance creates desire and desire creates sales!

Onward & Upward!

Ben

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The Golden Arrow

If I could only give one piece of advice.  I’ve mentored a lot of sales professionals through the years and with some, it will be a never ending process.  But recently I had a brief encounter with a young sales person who had just started a new job.  He was a very sharp guy.  Great look, great suit, great shoes.  He impressed me the moment we shook hands.  We were on an airport shuttle and struck up a conversation.  It was only about a 15 minute ride but we exchanged cards and he asked me the following question: “What’s one thing I can do to that would be a game changer in my sales production?”

I shared with him my Golden Arrow.  Public Speaking.  For free.  With a giving mindset.

Go out and find opportunities to speak,  Not in a selling way but in an educational way.  Groups and associations are always looking for speakers so the opportunities are out there.  Create a list of topics that people want to learn more about and that you just happen to know a lot about. (And if you don’t know a lot about something, go learn it!)  For me that includes things like: Health Care Reform, Workplace Safety, Employee Productivity, Human resources, Customer Service and others.

The magic of this is that when you speak before a group, and do a great job, you are immediately perceived by the attendees as “an expert”.

So you give an educational and entertaining talk, and then (very important) hang around after the event is over.  Inevitably, someone, or even several people, will come over to talk to you about what you do.  I’ve actually been surrounded by people after a speaking event exchanging cards and even setting meetings.

But again, the key is to go into this focused on GIVING rather than GETTING.  The “giving” mindset is what gives this such power.  The less “salesy” you are, the more effective you will be.  Its also a tremendous tool for building self confidence and polishing your speaking skills.  You win no matter what!

It’s is one of the most powerful networking tools available but it’s up to YOU to make it happen.  Your Golden Arrow.

Onward & Upward!

Ben

 

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Stop Closing The Deal!

In sales we always talk about “closing the deal.”  And saying this puts the emphasis on the closing meeting as the moment where we finally convince the prospect to give is that “YES.”

But I contend the closing meeting should actually be called the “confirmation” meeting.  You see, if you have done everything properly before the “closing” meeting, you really should just be confirming things that have already been covered and then presenting the numbers associated with the solutions you’ve already discussed.

My contention is this, the real sale takes place starting the moment your prospect first lays eyes on you, right through to the end of your  initial “Discovery” meeting.  It’s in those meetings that you learn about your prospects issues, challenges and unrealized opportunities.  And in those meetings, each time you found an area of need, you drilled down on it to find the emotional level pain that situation causes.  It’s then that you delivered your solution and gave your prospect hope and anticipation about not having to deal with that issue any more.

And if you have done this with 5 or 6 REAL issues that your prospect would love to see resolved, you have then created anticipation in your prospects mind.  You leave that meeting with your prospect thinking, “those solutions all sounded really good, I just hope I can afford it.”  That’s anticipation, and anticipation is one of the strongest emotions in sales.  By the time you come back to present your numbers, your prospect has been thinking about your solutions and hoping he can afford them because he knows he really needs what you’ve got.  That is, he know this IF you did a good enough job in the Discovery meeting finding the issues, drilling down to the emotional roots of the challenge, then powerfully delivering the solutions that would solve the issues.

So what we call the closing meeting is really just the meeting where we convince the prospect that the solutions he already wants, are worth the fee we will charge.  All this relates back to the power of the solutions you presented in that initial meeting.  The more powerful they were, the easier it is to cost justify your fee.  The weaker they were… well you know how that ends.

Just remember that is our job to find the issues.  And it’s our job to create value around our solutions.  Done properly, the closing meeting is just confirming everything and wrapping up some paperwork.  Now that’s an easy close!

Onward & Upward!

Ben