Goldberg

THE WAY THINGS ARE AND THE WAY THINGS ARE

Jeff Goldberg - Sales Trainer

"I'm part of the team committed to helping one million people by helping them achieve greater success in the world of business and sales."

Jeff's Podcast Link: How to Beat a Seasonal Sales Slump

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THE WAY THINGS ARE AND THE WAY THINGS ARE

In sales and sales management there's the way things are, and the way things ARE. It's important to realize the difference if we're going to accomplish more.

As a salesperson you know that the most important thing you can do every day is prospect for new accounts but even with the best of intentions few of us really do prospect every day. The way things are is that we have appointments to run, company meetings to attend, paperwork to do and a million & one other things that need to get done. Often prospecting takes a back seat. Should it? Nope. The way things ARE is that we need to find a way to fit it all in or we need to be better at getting rid of stuff that needs to get done but doesn't support our goals.

As a sales manager, the way things ARE is that you want to invest the majority of your time actively coaching your people to greater success so that they, you and the company makes more money. The way things are is that, like your salespeople, you have internal meetings to attend, forecasting and paperwork to do, planning for sales meetings, etc.

Want to make more money?

Find ways to fit it all in or get rid of what doesn't get you where you want to go. Make a list of the way things are and the way things ARE and make sure you doing the activities you need to do to make sure the way things ARE puts more money in your pocket. Track where your time goes and look for areas where you can eliminate wasted, or less-than-productive time.

Be very conscious of time thieves like excessive research, friends and other reps you work with that want to chat about last night's American Idol while you're trying to earn living for yourself and your family. Book yourself solid with appointments and, if you have to, tell your manager, "I can attend the HR meeting about new benefits or I can go meet with a prospect that may turn into business. Which do you want me to do?" Act like your sales job is really you running your own business, because it is. If you owned the company, and the profits went into your pocket, would you waste time on non-revenue generating activities?

Make sure you're investing rather than spending your valuable time.

ORGANIZE YOUR SALES DAY

You're in sales and you have a lot to do each day. Want to make more money? Get organized! While many sellers I observe spend their day putting out fires, and reacting to whatever siren is clanging the loudest, others do either whatever is easiest or whatever they enjoy the most. The most successful reps, however, plan their day.

I don't care what type of calendar you use...paper, electronic or any other, you need to use your calendar religiously and make sure that everything, and I mean everything, you need to get done is on your calendar.

Here are some of the most important activities that should be on your calendar for certain. This list is not all inclusive and your particular selling situation may call for other activities but this should give you a good start:

1) Prospecting time - Schedule in the appropriate amount of prospecting time each day. Any day that you don't prospect is a day you can't close a deal somewhere down the line. By prospecting daily (whether a little or a lot is right for you) you consistently give yourself the chance to regularly close business and avoid a good week followed by a bad week, a good month followed by a bad month, etc.

Make sure you know the right amount of activity for you to do each day to hit your goals. A recent newsletter of mine gave the formula for figuring out the right amount of activity for you. If you don't have it, email me at jeff@jgsalespro.com and I'll send it to you.

I recommend you prospect first thing in the morning each day. It's not because that's necessarily the best time to reach prospects, it's because if you get it done first you've done the most important thing you can do for the day and have made sure it gets accomplished. Consistent prospecting is the best way I know to keep your sales and paycheck up.

2) Appointments - The next most important thing on your calendar is your appointments. Use smart territory management when setting appointments and try to schedule appointments close together geographically in any given day to maximize your selling time. When you set an appointment on a day, work hard to set more appointments nearby for that day. Travel time can be productive but why spend more time than needed driving around when you can be meeting with more prospects? Be sure to include enough time between appointments so that you're never late.

3) Meetings - Sometimes you'll need to attend meetings with your manager or others. Some of these are regular and can be considered when setting appointments. (e.g. - Weekly sales meeting) Some are more random. Plan around regular meetings and if a non-recurring meeting gets in the way of your selling speak with your manager and discuss whether you really need to attend. If so, and you've already set an appointment for that time; ask if it can be switched. More prospective client meetings = more sales. More meetings in the office seldom means more sales. Help to make sure the meetings you do have to attend are fast-moving and productive.

4) Personal Time - Be sure to set aside some time for necessities like lunch and breaks. You need to eat and you need to take occasional breaks. The human body and brain need a short break (5 - 15 minutes at the most) every 90 - 120 minutes in order to function at peak levels. Build the time for a quick break into your calendar so that the time you do invest working is invested working at peak performance.

Occasionally we all have personal matters to take care of during business hours. Keep these to a minimum. Prime Selling Time (the hours during the week that we can be in front of prospects and customers) should be treated as sacred time.

5) Account Maintenance - Set aside time for contacting current and previous customers to touch base and let them know you care. Studies show that the #1 reason customers become ex-customers is they don't believe their sales rep cares about them after the sale is made. There's gold in your database. I'm willing to bet there are previous customers of yours ready to do business with you right now and all you need to do is make contact. Stay in touch.

6) Social Media - While this really falls under prospecting, I'm keeping it separate from more "immediate" forms of prospecting. Cold calling or door knocking can get you appointments immediately, social media takes time. Invest a small amount of time each day using tools like LinkedIn (my favorite!) and Twitter. (15 - 20 minutes should be more than enough)

7) Get Help - Have a specific time each day to check in with your manager so that you can let her know what help you need, what's holding you back and what you're working on so that you can get another opinion on how to move sales forward quickly. If your manager can't speak with you once a day this should be done once a week minimum.

8) Planning - Each day, the last thing you should do is make sure the next day is already planned so that you can start the day by hitting the ground running. Showing up at your desk at 8:59, booting up your computer and eating your breakfast while perusing your favorite websites is not productive. Start early and have your prospecting list ready so that you can make whatever calls you need to make and hit the road by 9:00. Better yet, do your prospecting from home at 7:00 a.m. (most of the time you're leaving a voice mail anyway so it doesn't matter when you call) (Be sure to leave a voice mail that gets people to call you back) Set your first client facing meeting for 8:00 (bring them coffee and donuts!) to get a jump on your day.

Your particular type of selling might mean you need to do different activities than those listed above. Whatever you need to do each day, get organized so that you have the best chance to achieve the most with the hours you have available. Be flexible enough to make changes on the fly, when needed, while being focused enough to accomplish each day's goals. Starting out with a full calendar, as well as a list of the 6 most important things you need to accomplish that day, is a recipe for greater sales success.

CONVERSATIONAL SELLING

If the key to selling is asking the right questions, and plenty of them, then the key to being a better question-asker is to make it more conversational. Nobody likes to be interrogated. It brings to mind movies where detectives have hot, blinding lights shining directly in the face of their prisoner as they pound the detainee with question after question.

The prisoner has a panicked look on their sweat-covered face and a wild look in their eyes. Not a pretty picture and certainly not the way to gather useful information from our prospects.

The fact is, if you ask the right questions, then SHUT UP and listen, your prospects will tell you everything you need to know in order to help them get involved with your product or service. (sell them)

I use, and teach, a very simple method for turning what could easily be seen as an interrogation into a conversation, and it's by using what I call "softeners." A softener is a word or phrase that comes before your question, and softens it. I'm just curious, would you like an example? In the preceding sentence, "I'm just curious," softens the question, "Would you like an example," and makes it more conversational.

"I'm just curious," "By the way," and "Out of curiosity," are all examples of softeners that I use constantly. These aren't the only softeners; they're just the ones I use most often. I'm sure you can come up with more.

In order to be able to focus on the conversation, you'll want to be sure you're prepared to ask questions when you go on a sales call. Once you're sitting across from your prospect it's too late to prepare. You're already "on stage" and need to be completely focused on your interaction.

Before you go on a sales call you should stop and ask yourself, "What information do I need to gather today in order to consider this a successful meeting?" "What questions will I need to ask in order to get that information?"

Amateurs "wing it" but professionals plan in advance.

Keeping it conversational is a great ways to make selling easier and more profitable.

Make It Happen,

Jeff

5 TIPS FOR HITTING YOUR QUOTA BY THE END OF 2011

I don't know about you, but as I get older each year seems to go faster. It feels like we were just celebrating New Year's a few months ago but the fact is we're in the final two months of 2011 and 2012 is sneaking up fast. Unless you're in a highly transactional sale the sad fact is that the year is pretty much over. Anything you close between now and December 31 will be based on sales you've already got in the pipeline and prospects you're just starting to work with will most likely be part of your Q1 quota. Does that mean you should give up and roll over? Nope! Here are some suggestions for how to bring in the sales before the end of the year.

1) Review your pipeline NOW with your manager and ask for help with strategies on how to close everything that can be closed. Let your manager know when you're next meeting is with each prospect and what your plan is for that meeting. Getting a second opinion will often result in you walking away with ideas you hadn't thought of on how to close or, at least, to shorten the sales cycle. I also suggest meeting with another rep from your company to do the same thing. Review each other's pipeline and offer each other suggestions. It's difficult, if not impossible, for us to sell differently than we normally do but someone other than you can offer suggestions that you couldn't or wouldn't think of. Two, or more, heads are often better than one.

2) Take a look through your database of past clients. Contact as many as possible to see how they're doing and if there's anything you can help them with to assist them in closing out their year with a bang. You may have been on their list of people to call to order something but they just haven't found the time. Be proactive...your competition is most likely nipping at your heels looking to take away your customers. Staying in touch can produce unexpected sales or, at least, solidify the relationship so that your customers are more resistant to leaving you.

3) Take a look at everyone else in your database. (Contacts that never became customers) Once again, by being in contact with people you haven't spoken with for a while may produce unexpected results. Perhaps they weren't ready to do business with you before but they are now. Make the purpose of the call to find out "How's business since I last saw you/spoke with you?" Engage in a real discussion that shows you care about them and didn't only call to see if you could develop business. At the end of the conversation toss in a "by the way." "By the way, Susan, is there anything I can do to help you close out 2011 with a bang? Our FV5403B transformers have been helping companies like your improve profits because they never wear out."

4) Ask for referrals. When you speak with old customers, prospects that never became customers and people you meet on the street (ask everyone for referrals!) at the end of the conversation you should always ask, "As you probably know, I build my business through referrals from people like you. Out of curiosity, who do you know that I should be speaking with?" Not everyone will always have a referral for you but some will. If you're fortunate enough to get a referral ask for the additional favor of having the person giving you the referral contact the person they're referring you to so that they expect your call.

5) Ask for referrals. Sounds like I'm saying the same thing twice but here I'm talking about being in touch with your referral partners. Networking groups you belong to, people you have reciprocal referral agreements with etc. Ask how you can help them to close out their year and let them know, in no uncertain terms, that you need and would greatly appreciate any referrals; especially those that they think might have a need for your product or service now.

While it's a fact that many salespeople experience a slowdown between now and the end of the year that doesn't mean you can't still achieve your financial goals. By taking massive action now you'll not only be doing everything you can to hit and exceed this year's quota but you'll also be setting yourself up for a great start to 2012. Keep prospecting even if it's one of "those" days where "no one is going to be in the office and if they are they won't want to talk business." Average performers coast from now to the end of the year and figure they'll "hit it hard" right after New Year's.

Superstars never give up, even when its bottom of the 9th with two outs and your team is losing.

# # #

How to Beat a Seasonal Sales Slump

I hear from a lot of salespeople that it's tough to sell in the summer. Or during "the holidays." Or in early January. Or at tax time. Or...(fill in the blank with your favorite time of year for not being able to sell)

Lots of contacts are on vacation, it's hard to get appointments, you can't get people to make decisions. Here's what I have to say about that...BALONEY!

Unless you're selling snow shovels in the summer (and I'd even argue that you can sell snow shovels in summer) you should be able to sell all summer long and all winter long. (Spring and Fall too)

Here's the problem... (but there's a solution) people DO take more vacations during the summer. And some people do take off the week between Christmas and New Year's. It's harder to reach them. Harder to get appointments with them. It is more difficult to get them to make decisions, especially if they need some else's approval and that person is on vacation. Facts are facts, and you can't fight the facts, but you can be prepared for them. Was your office empty all summer? Probably not, and if your office wasn't empty your prospect's office wasn't empty either.

Here's the "trick." (although you're not going to like it)

Prospect more than usual in advance of typically slow times.

Summer usually slow? Prospect twice as much late spring. Winter slow? Prospect three times as much as usual in late Fall. It might take two or three times as much, during a slow season, to reach the same amount of prospects but by preparing in advance you can still set appointments and close business.

The same thing happens for most salespeople when they go on vacation. If you (not YOU...I'm mean the average salesperson) take a one week vacation, and are like most salespeople, the week before the vacation is shot. The week before is spent talking with associates about the great vacation you're going on the following week, taking care of last minute details and shopping, dreaming about where you'll be the next week. Then you go on vacation and, of course, when you're on vacation you should be enjoying yourself. Try not to think about work or think about it as little as possible. But then you get back from vacation and spend the next week talking about the great week you just had, sharing pictures and stories. You start to make calls to set up appointments but, of course, people are busy and can't see you immediately so it takes time to refill your pipeline. The smart rep takes the week before they go on vacation and doubles or triples the amount of prospecting they do so that when they come back from vacation they can hit the ground running.

Yes, it stinks but it's a fact of life. Sometimes you need to prospect more than others if you want to keep your income steady. By buying into the mindset that "You can't sell during the summer" (or whatever other time of year you think is slow for you) you doom yourself to substandard income. Don't let it happen to you. Prepare, Prospect, Prosper.

As always, please call or write if I can help you. It's always my pleasure.

Make It Happen!

Jeff

# # #

LEVERAGE YOUR LAZINESS

So, you’re an entrepreneur.

You wake up late each day, head to Starbucks then off to the gym to work out for a bit. Off to the office by around 11:00 to check the mail and see how many checks came in. Head to the bank to deposit your fortune. A little lunch followed by an afternoon on the golf course or cocktails on your boat with some friends, laughing at people who work for someone else. Sounds like you, right?

Okay, if you’re really an entrepreneur you’re now laughing your head off and saying, “No, that’s not what my life looks like at all.” You know that as a small business owner you probably wear many hats and almost never have enough time to do all the things you need to do each day. From bookkeeping to business development to production to the million and one other things that need to get accomplished if your business if going to prosper, it’s up to you to do them. You’re at the office early and work until well after the sun goes down. It’s not that you want to, you have to. If you don’t do the “stuff” that needs to get done, no one will. That is, unless you’ve figured out how to leverage your laziness. There is a better way. Walter Chrysler said, “Whenever there is hard work to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.”

Do I want you to be “lazy?” Of course not. It almost always takes hard work and lots of effort to be successful. I want you to invest your time and energy on the things you’re good at, and enjoy doing, and stop spending (or spend less) time on doing the things you stink at or hate doing. By leveraging your laziness you typically wind up being more successful, happier, have more free time and feel more fulfilled. You’ll begin to remember why it was you went into business for yourself in the first place. (By the way, you don’t necessarily have to be a business owner to leverage your laziness)

So, how do you leverage your laziness?

Reverse-Engineer. Pay attention to what makes you feel good when you do it. Do more and more of that every single day. Most of us are so busy getting “the job” done that we don’t take the time to figure out what “works” for us. Here’s the challenge: you and you alone can reverse-engineer yourself and if you don’t take the time to self-assess you’ll keep on grinding it out, day after day, wondering why you decided to go into business for yourself. Fill in these blanks:

When I’m working, I feel best when I’m _____________.
When I’m working, I hate it when I’m ______________.

Get used to living in the “genius” zone. Your goal should be to spend more time each day doing what you enjoy. Let’s call that the genius zone. You’ll want to remove the “off switch” from your genius zone. Perhaps you currently invest almost no time each day doing what you enjoy. What if, starting tomorrow, you choose to make absolutely certain that for at least 30 minutes you’ll be “in the zone?” Geniuses tend to let go of labels like “wrong,” “should,” “late,” “bad” and so on. I’m suggesting you stop “making mistakes” and start seeing things as “interesting detours.” I’m suggesting that no matter what, you invest at least 30 minutes each day (for starters) doing what you love. Once you do 30 minutes, move up to an hour. Then two hours. Eventually you’ll find that you get to do what you love almost all the time.

First things first. Yes, I know you have a million and one things to do each day but nothing will change about the way you work, or how much you enjoy it, until you promise yourself it will change and then keep your promise to yourself. To do that, you’ll need to change the way you think about time management. Consider time management as being like a room in a tiny apartment with a floor that’s covered with books, furniture, newspapers, and other objects. Everything that you hate doing on your daily to-do list is like an object on that floor. If you were to bring a sleeping bag into that room you’d have to push some stuff out of the way in order to be able to lie down. You’ll need to do that here too. Condense, reorganize and maybe even throw some stuff out in order to create a “lazy space” for yourself. Promise yourself the time to focus on what you enjoy and are good at and keep that promise. You might need to reduce the number of promises you make to others and begin making more promises that serve you and your laziness.

Outsource it/Find Ginger. You’ll need to find others to do the stuff you hate to do and that compliment what you love doing. Fred Astaire found Ginger Rogers. She danced as beautifully as he did, backwards and in high heels! If you’re an attorney and are spending time making and collating copies, and are billing out at $300 per hour, every thirty minutes you spend making copies costs you about $280. You could easily find someone to make copies for you for $20 per hour. (maybe less) Figure out what you hate doing, or what takes you away from doing what puts money in your pocket and pay them, or partner with them, to do that. Good with business development but hate numbers? Find a partner who enjoys bookkeeping but dislikes selling. Find the Lennon to your McCartney. They were both great alone but as part of the Beatles they made magic! You don’t have to do it all alone.

Want to enjoy your work, and life, more? Make a commitment to begin leveraging your laziness and get started being lazy!

# # #

Jeff Goldberg has more than 3 decades of professional sales experience and 18 years of experience managing salespeople. These, combined with his background in the theatre and stand-up comedy make Jeff uniquely qualified to work with and train people in a way that engages and entertains but, most importantly, gets results. Jeff provides workshops with practical, “real-world” and the techniques that are immediately implementable.

www.jgsalespro.com


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