Happy Sales to You - With a Little Help From Your Government

After polling some of my colleagues, the business climate seems to be improving overall. I have 2.5 active clients as of this posting and they are all tracking upward. Some of the reasons include, but are not limited to:

Focus: An understanding of who buys and why and sticking to the knitting

Effort: More activity, constant activity attracts more sales and revenue
Pent-up demand: Demand for products and services caused by the recession
Business support: I know that it seems like an oxymoron, but the Michigan government is a friend of business (for the most part). We need to get to know the agencies and programs for business development and support services.

Matchmaking

A good example of the government helping small business is the Pure Michigan Business Connect program that matches small business with big buyers. I have been trying like the dickens to get in front of a major corporation to pitch my clients. Two of the clients have been invited to and event that includes education, private matchmaking meetings with buyers and networking with the crowd. The event is organized by the state and is free to attend. Upcoming events feature the big three, Consumer’s Energy, Whirlpool and Meijer’s. This is an example of the state helping make things happen.

The MEDC – Michigan Economic Development Corporation – For Business

Talk about a helping hand to business…MEDC has programs that can help you in many ways. There are MEDC representatives in every part of Michigan whose job it is to meet with you and explain current business support programs. They are waiting for your call. My clients have benefited substantially over the years from the MEDC programs.

And, MEDC for People

I have spoken in the past about the MEDC’s Shifting Gears program. Shifting Gears helps people transition careers and secure employment. It is a wonderful program. One of my good friends, John B. was part of the first cohort quite a while ago. The current cohort is number 22. I am privileged to serve as a program mentor. As a part of completing the program, participants are obligated to perform an eighty hour, pro bono, internship. Most of them sign up for multiple internships. The internships help them get back into the business/employee groove and many times results in employment for them.

While You Are at It

Your City and County have economic development agencies and more people and programs to help you. And don’t forget Ann Arbor Spark, Tech Town, Macomb Oakland Incubator (Velocity), MMTC – Michigan Manufacturer’s Technology Center, SBT-DC – Small Business Technology Development Center and Automation Alley. They want to help. Check them all out and find a fit if you need to accelerate your business.

 

Is The Recession Over?

Is the recession over?

How’s the recession going for you? Officially it was over a few years ago. Word from the government and media is that we’re good. Are we?

I had a chat with the President of a company based in South Carolina the other day. He told me that his business has flat lined. He has not grown sales in a couple of years. He asked me if the economy had recovered in my world. My answer was “not really.”

As we talked we came to agreement on a couple of points. First of all, there are fewer opportunities for business now than in better times. The pie is smaller. Secondly, the best salespeople and companies are doing pretty good. They are just beating the competition with superior product knowledge, sales skills and lots of quality sales activities. We used to say that the fast eat the slow. This is still true.

I met with executives of a nonprofit manufacturing industry support organization a couple of weeks ago. They told me that a lot of regional manufacturers are really struggling because much of their legacy business has gone away and they don’t know what to do about it. The phone and fax have gotten quiet. Outside salespeople used to go on their milk runs and collect purchase orders. That has gotten a lot harder to do. Doughnuts aren’t the answer anymore.

What is the answer?

The answer is training. Ongoing training of you and your employees will empower you with an advantage over your competition. Sure, there is a lot of competition. I agree that the potential in many markets is smaller and tougher than it used to be. But I know, first hand, that companies can grow and prosper under difficult circumstances. That is if they work at gaining and maintaining a competitive edge.

How am I keeping my staff on the leading edge? We meet every week. They learn something at our meetings. They get regular infusions of sales techniques, product knowledge, industry knowledge and more. Sometimes I make the presentations, other times someone from engineering or production tackles a topic. I invite our suppliers to join our meetings. They teach us the details of their products, their competitive and differential advantages. They teach us who buys and why. This knowledge is power. My team just has to add a bunch of quality sales activities to win the day and make their numbers.

Me? I’m reading business and sales books in my free time. I have dusted off a handful of oldies, but goodies. The message of these great books is often remarkably similar. Once in a while there is a new idea or two…tasty nuggets of sales goodness. In reality, the truth is the truth, always has been and always will be. The fast eat the slow, the strong eat the weak.

What recession?

Dedicate yourself to learning and earning in 2014. It will work out for you. Let others deal with their recession? I don’t have a recession and you don’t have to either.

Don't Get Burned

Getting burned because of putting too much faith in a buyer is a recurring problem for many business and sales people (same thing).

Here is how it works: You (we) put a lot of time and faith in landing a big fish and it never happens. Unfortunately, many of us are faced with this too often.

We are, by nature, a positive and upbeat breed. We believe what people (buyers) tell us and tend to count on the things they tell us. When they don’t give us the promised or assumed order we are set back. Are the buyers liars? Not necessarily. A lot of things can happen to make your deal go south. The net result is that you don’t make your numbers or your commissions. If this happens to you often can lose your job or your business. When you forecast orders and profits that don’t materialize, at the very least, you lose credibility.

Let’s fix the problem. Getting let down by buyers won’t go away. We live in a word of rejection and have to deal with many crafty buyers. (Read Negotiate to Close by Gary Karrass) The answer is to work smarter. By taking control of the sales process you can mitigate the damage from losing orders that you depended on.

Ask more qualifying questions. Be very specific when talking to your buyer. There is nothing wrong with asking when the order will be released. Make sure you are working with a decision maker before going through the sales process. Understand their problem(s) and make sure that your proposal aces their needs. If your buyer can’t afford your solution you have just wasted you valuable time. If you qualify the customer and ask the right questions you will be able to correctly evaluate your chances of landing the business.

The next solution, the best solution, is to have more things cooking in your sales funnel. More sales calls equal more sales (Mark Thelen). If you are depending on one or two big deals to close, and they don’t, you are screwed. If you are sitting on ten or twelve big deals, and lose a couple, so what?

My advice is not to depend on a few pending sales to make your numbers. Work smarter and continue to prospect for new business while closing others. Using the word “funnel” to describe your sales pipeline is easy to imagine. You should follow the funnel strategy to keep your career moving. By putting many prospects in the top of the funnel you will have a strong and steady stream of sales to prevent you from getting burned by a deal that goes south.

Do Not Give it Away

Why in the world would you give away something for free when you could charge for it? I am talking specifically about giving away your time. Your time is a most valuable asset.

Any of your time that is not used wisely reduces your earnings potential.

I will take the way back machine to the years that I sold medical supplies. My customers were individual doctors in private practice, clinics and some hospitals. I learned important career changing lessons from  the experience and from my colleagues.

Start with the undisputable truth that more sales calls equal more sales. There are some underlying qualifying rules. You have to know what you are talking about and you must not spend time with non-decision makers or customers who do not have a need. Follow those three simple rules and you will validate the fact that more sales calls equal more sales.

I worked with some great salespeople during that time. They sold a lot of stuff and made a lot of money. In order to do that, they made it their business not to waste their selling time. They didn’t waste their time and they did not let others waste their time either. They kept small talk to a minimum and honored prime selling hours. Prime selling hours are defined as the time that your customers are available to buy.

Day after day we made sales calls took orders for medical supplies and then wrote up the orders for our employer to process. It was a manual system. Order pads and pencils were our order entry tools. This was before we had computer systems to input orders. The top producers never wrote up their orders during the day. It was customary for them to write up their orders in the evening and hand them in every morning. Anything else interfered with their selling time. These boys knew how to make money. They earned more because they optimized their time and honored prime selling time.

Another lesson that I learned is that hospital purchasing departments are open from 7:00 AM until 3:30 PM. If you tried to make a sales call on them after 3:30 PM there would not be anyone to talk to.  On the other hand, if you made your calls early in the morning there were few competitors in the room. Not everyone follows the rules of time optimization.

In the 1980’s I sold computer billing systems to doctors. Doctors are very busy people. If I wanted the undivided attention of a doctor the very best time to get it was at the hospital in the morning. We would meet in the doctor’s lounge for coffee early in the morning before they made rounds or did surgery. By the way, there were never competitors hanging around then either.

The smart salespeople who are top producers and earners make the best use of their time. They don’t waste their own time and they do not let others waste their time.

This brings me to a friend of mine who started a business selling safety equipment. His systems needed to be engineered properly to work right. Early in his launch he learned his valuable lesson the hard way. In order to quote equipment and installation services he had to spend hours at the client site determining their needs. After his consultation he prepared a quote and waited for the order that didn’t come. He finally called and learned that his customer purchased the equipment on the Internet for less money. His consulting and documentation gave them everything they needed to cut him out of the business. Needless to say, he now charges for the consultation. His customer stole his time. That will never happen again.

Be aware of your time and how to optimize it for the greatest return. Do not give away something that is essential for your success.

Another One Bites The Dust

A pretty good salesman was terminated by his company recently. It took me by surprise.

I had met with this fellow a number of times and found him to be friendly, knowledgeable, a good listener and a hard worker. His sales skills were (are) top notch. He was terminated for lack of sales.
If someone can’t sell and won’t make an effort to learn to sell, they probably should be doing something else for a living. On the other hand, I tend to defend those who make an effort and work to grow as a professional salesperson.

Something Doesn’t Add-up

When a consummate sales pro gets canned for lack of sales it causes me to think that something else contributed to his poor performance. There are often critical success factors that are company issues and out of the control of the sales rep that weight negatively on results. Let’s explore some of those potential job killing factors.

Factors

Bad Marketing/Image

It is easier to open doors, book meetings and land business if the company, products and services are promoted to prospective customers. Going on sales calls stone cold is measurable harder than approaching someone who is aware of the company and is interested in learning more.

Bad Messaging

If marketing campaigns, materials and messaging are not good they can work against salespeople in the field. If they are real good they will help create interest. Bad messaging works against field salespeople.

Bad Products

If there is something better out there from competitors it puts good salespeople at a disadvantage. It is an uphill battle to overcome competitive disadvantages, particularly if the competition presents a plausible case. Representing out dated products, technologies, services, etc. can dampen results.

Bad Services

If the company isn’t responsive, misses key dates, ships defective merchandise and makes other fundamental customer service mistakes it sends a clear message to customers that the company doesn’t care about their business. Sustaining customers under less than stellar recurring circumstances is difficult at best for any sales professional.

High Prices

No one can be proud of being consistently the lowest bidder. Selling on price is not selling. What skill is involved with giving away profit dollars and working at low margins  for no good reason? That said, it is tough to prosper when your prices are always the highest. You can justify a premium price point if the value proposition is solid and substantial. If not, forget it.

Bad Company

Image, marketing, messaging, competitive products, good service and fair pricing are all the responsibility of the company. Salespeople fighting these and other factors have to fight extra hard to win. The truth is that there are some pretty bad companies out there. If you represent one of them you could be terminated for lack of sales in spite of yourself.

Conflicted Company

What seems to have happened to this skilled salesman was a result of mergers, acquisitions and organizational dithering. Administration of conflicting products, territories and salespeople created instability and a bad sales environment.

The Whole Wide World – It is Still Out There

The good news for my friend is that there are a lot of excellent companies out there who deliver quality products and services for competitive prices. Great companies value professional sales representation. He will find the right company to represent and be back on his feet in no time.

Value Added Selling

I have read a number of articles lately that promote value added selling. Positioning yourself as a valuable resource and someone who is good to have around is a great strategy for fighting off price cutting competitors. Being the low price option seems like a good place to be in the short run, but it will bite you in the long run. After all, profit is the reason for business and giving your profit away to land an order not only hurts you, but your industry as well. Think it over. If you know me, you know that I am dead set against being the lowest bidder. I fight to keep my pricing fair and work at building an image as a trusted advisor and a go to vendor.  Here are a couple of ways to establish your value.

Work at being a subject matter expert. If you know more about what you are selling than your competition you will win deals. Make continuing education an ongoing event in your life.

Don’t try to be everything to everybody. Get good in a niche and pursue your business in that niche. This means qualifying who you do business with and walking away from opportunities that aren’t in your sweet spot.

Focus on the customer’s business problems and promote solutions to solve them. Make sure that everyone you meet and do business with is better off for the experience. You will establish and maintain a reputation as a valuable vendor.

Get organized and stay organized. Get and use a good CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software system. There are many useful apps for your smart phone. Evaluate and employ other useful tools of the trade.

Stay in touch with your prospects, customers and influencers on a regular basis. Use e-mail, mail or an occasional phone call in between sales visits to keep your name in front of them. Make sure that they know how important they are to you.

Don’t lead with discount prices when selling. Establish the value that you bring to the table and fight for your price point. It is a good strategy in the long run.

A Day of Celebration

What does July 4^th have to do with selling? The answer is everything.

America is known as the land of opportunity by people around the world. For centuries they have flocked to our shores to take advantage of the freedom America offers and for the chance to prosper in our free society.

Given the opportunity, many immigrants chase their American dream and succeed. Professionals, entrepreneurs, skilled laborers and others know what to do when they get here. Yep, this is the place to make your dreams a reality. All it takes is knowledge, skill and effort. Much of what is needed is here for the asking. America is a platform for excellence, prosperity and happiness.

Like many others, my background is diverse. My ancestors came to America from different parts of Europe, different cultures. America is truly the melting pot of the world. With little exception, we all arrived here from somewhere overseas.

That brings me to the sacrifices made over the centuries by brave people who fought for our rights as Americans. There are few American families who have not been touched by war in one way or another. The sacrifices made by our founders and by our brave servicemen and women have made it possible to maintain our freedom and be what we can be.

Celebrate Independence Day. Celebrate our freedom. Honor those that went before us.

Your reward as an American is waiting for you. If you work hard you will prosper. So, you are now free to go out and sell something and make money. Go for it.

Good selling.