The world is changing—fast.  If you are a business owner, you know how quickly your company can become commoditized.

Commoditization can mean lower prices, lower margins, and (if you don’t do something about it soon), the demise of your business.

Over the last several months, I have discussed the notion of commoditization with several hundred successful entrepreneurs.  We have discussed this phenomenon in our TABBoards and are developing specific tools and strategies to address it.   Many owners see great opportunities in hyper-rapid change, others are petrified.  Just about all agree that if they do not lead and stay differentiated, that they can quickly get trampled.  The question is HOW.  Here are a few tips to prevent you and your company from becoming a commodity:

1.  Develop a Proactive De-Commoditization Strategy:    If you think your product or service is so unique that you are immune, you may want to think again.  Over one million people have viewed the Did You Know 3.0 video.  If you haven’t seen it, please take 5 minutes to check it out on YouTube.   Those who have watched it are struck not only by the speed at which the world is changing, but also the rate with which this speed of change is increasing.  In your business planning, make sure to incorporate the fact that commoditization happens 10 to 1000 times quicker in the Information Age than in previous generations.

2.  Develop an Innovation Mentality:  This is not an easy feat.  It requires an unconditional commitment from the owner and from the entire leadership team.   Changing the way people think can be tough, but the rewards of developing an Innovation Mentality will be well worth the effort in the face of changing marketplace that all businesses face today.

3.  Develop a World Class Sales Organization:  Your competitors are the biggest readers of your website and marketing material. If a product or service is valuable and there is a decent sized market for it, someone, somewhere will soon be trying to duplicate it.   An effective, differentiated, scalable Sales Culture is something that can not be duplicated.  I have developed a simple checklist you can use to create a high-performance World Class Sales Team.  If you’d like a copy, click here and write “WCSO Checklist” in the Subject line.  

4.  Develop your Reputation by Becoming Your Industry’s Most Trusted Advisor:  Products and services can be copied quickly, but overcoming your reputation as being the most trusted source is difficult.

5.  Become a member of a CEO Advisory Board, including true peers who are living in a movie similar to your own:  Many of you who are reading this are already members of a group such as The Alternative Board® and have developed an edge over your competitors by virtue of a proprietary process like the one offered by TAB.  Over 200 of these groups exist across the United States, the UK, Australia, and South America.  The TAB process includes peer learning, accountability coaching, effective planning tools, operational and financial assessments, business education and much more.  If you are not a member, but have an interest in learning more or seeing if you qualify for membership, call 512-331-1822 or click here.

In our rapidly changing global economy, the great idea that you worked so hard to develop into a business advantage can likely be re-engineered in India, China, or a host of other places that can deliver your product or service at a fraction or your cost.   An idea that took years to pirate a generation ago can today be re-manufactured and delivered in a period of weeks or months.   By following these simple steps, you can create an amazing competitive advantage for your company.   

Copyright ©   Joe Zente   2009.   All Rights Reserved.   

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To start off 2010, I’d like to share a UnCommon Sense secret you can implement today that will guarantee more sales.  This secret requires no new skills or training.  Anyone can do it. 

If your sales team is like most, you have several members who miss out on a lot of revenue (and profit) simply by GIVING UP TOO SOON.  Most salespeople bail out way too early.  They’ll take the sales that come to them, but they don’t do the small amount of work it takes to go and get all the rest.

The following statistics are hard to believe, but paint an amazing picture:

48% of Salespeople NEVER follow up with a prospect

25% of Salespeople make a Second contact, then quit.

12% of Salespeople make only Three contacts, then quit.

Only 10% of Salespeople Make More than Three Contacts.

At this point, you may be saying “So what?”   Here’s what:

2% of Sales are made on the First Contact

3% of Sales are made on the Second Contact

5% of Sales are made on the Third Contact

10% of Sales are made on the Fourth Contact

80% of Sales are made after the Fifth Contact.

These stats indicate that the different between making one call and four calls per prospect can increase your sales by 400%, but only 10% of salespeople do it.  The results of persistence past the fifth call can be even more dramatic. 

In the face of these statistics, you may be wondering why ALL salespeople aren’t more persistent.   Two of the main reasons are Fear of Rejection and Need for Approval. 

There is also a simple question of accountability and discipline.

There is one big difference between good salespeople and great salespeople.   The great ones do the things that the good ones know they should do, but don’t.  

With a new decade upon us, you have a wonderful opportunity to begin a process of consistency in exceeding sales goals.  It starts with you.   Declare that you will no longer accept mediocrity in your sales organization.  Raise Your Expectations, then Raise Theirs.

Statistics demonstrate that there is lots of low hanging fruit that is not being harvested.  Remember, no response or a negative response is NOT a “no”.  Demand persistence.   Refuse to bail out.  Great sales results with follow.

Joe

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2010.   All Rights Reserved.

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If you’ve worked through the heavy lifting involved in the eight steps I described in Volumes One and Two, Congratulations.  You are well on your way to consistent over-achievement and significant revenue growth.   The Final Four are quite easy and straight-forward.    Three of these steps can be easily determined via an objective assessment.  The final step involves simple a simple commitment.

9.  Skills – All selling skills are a blessing.  The more, the merrier.  But certain skill sets are essential for overachieving.  Your Sales Team must be able to hunt for new opportunities, identify the most qualified and be able to close them.  Seek and develop Hunters, Qualifiers and Closers.  Consider everything else a bonus.

10.  Urgency - An over-achieving salesperson must have a killer instinct.  They must have the sense to understand when their prospects are trying to deflect or wiggle away and the skills to deal with these put-offs.  The Law of Diminishing Pain is profound and abundant.  If a prospect doesn’t agree to do business with you while you’re speaking with him, while you have the ability to influence him, while you have his attention and while his issue is biggest and brightest, the chances that he will decide to do business with you when he returns from vacation or his “two crazy weeks of busy-ness” are highly unlikely.  He’ll have 89 pressing issues to deal with upon his return and the problem you are now talking about will seem less pressing.  If you allow for put-offs, understand the consequences of your bailing out.  If you are LUCKY, you’ll extend your sales cycle by weeks or months.  More likely, the order will simply not happen.

11.  Weaknesses - Unfortunately, there are dozens weaknesses that will neutralize all of the factors listed above.   The five most debilitating weaknesses are Need for Approval, Non-Supportive Buy Cycle, Emotional Involvement, The Money Weakness, and Self-Limiting Psychological Records (aka:  Head Trash).  Fortunately, these can all be measured and systematically eliminated once identified.

12.  Coaching and Training - Your coaching must support any training initiative and help salespeople overcome their weaknesses, develop skills and master the selling process.  Make it clear that your salespeople understand that their recurrent coaching/de-briefing appointment is the single most important meeting on their calendar.  Each over-achieving salesperson must be prepared for their weekly de-brief. Attendance must be non-negotiable.

There are your 12 steps.  If you follow this simple formula, the results will exceed your wildest expectations.  Start now and watch what happens in 2010!

Joe

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2009.   All Rights Reserved.

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Last month, I discussed the first four ingredients necessary to transform your Sales Culture into one that consistent over-achieves.  Here are the next four…

5.  Director of Culture Transformation (DCT):  The DCT should likely be your company’s top executive.  If you are the CEO, but would prefer to delegate this job to your Sales VP, you must still make it crystal clear to everyone that this individual has your 100% undying support. The job of the DCT is to clearly communicate the new paradigm—that mediocrity will no longer be tolerated and that a new culture of over-achievement IS expected, not only from the sales team, but by all of the people that you’d like to be more sales aware.  For example–perhaps you want branch managers at a bank to go out and find local business customers, order takers to become proactive by making outgoing calls, or professionals to bring new clients into your firm.  In any of these cases, the biggest mistake is that management usually fails to communicate this expectation to the very people they would like to change.

6.  Processes:   A process is NOT a model, an approach, a philosophy or a strategy.  A process is a series of steps that leads to a RESULT.   It is your job to define that simple and effective series of steps.  Every salesperson in your company should adopt this singular game plan and follow the same, exact Sales Process.  If you do not currently have a sales process, you might consider starting with UnCommon Sense©.  These processes are adaptable to virtually any type of product, service or industry with very minor modifications.   You will also want to adopt a Sales Management Process and a Sales Recruiting Process.  These three processes are absolutely vital is you are seeking to build consistent growth into your sales effort. 

7. Motivation:  This is the combination of Goals and Incentives. The Bottom Line–does the salesperson have enough powerful Desire and an UnConditional Commitment to do Whatever it Takes - every day - to reach the goals?  When they don’t, it’s your job to motivate them by knowing what each salesperson’s goals are.  This is not about income requirements or gross sales.  It is about Personal Vision, aka:  paid-off mortgages, boats and cars, beach homes, golf trips, world travel, balloon trips, home theaters, fantasy camps, etc.

8. True Champion:  Most companies today require salespeople to work remotely without a supervisor.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of salespeople simply do not have the discipline and mental toughness to carry this load.  I refer to this special breed of self-starters who do have the right stuff as True Champions.  These are individuals who can not only work independently but can also work without supervision.   If either attribute is missing, you’ll need to wind them up every day, twice daily or sometimes more.  Even for people who are not working remotely, most small business owners simply do not have the resources to re-start their people.  If you have self-starters, you are a fortunate manager.  If you don’t, I’d suggest you find some. Sales Teams with these champions are much more likely to consistently over-achieve.

I’ll wrap up the list of the Essential Dozen next month.  In the meantime, if you haven’t yet seen the UnCommon Sense© Sales Upgrade Checklist, it is a simple and effective way to launch your ascension to a more predictable, visible and scalable sales organization.  If you would like to request a copy of the list, you can your request it at GrowMySales@zthree.com.

Continued Success!!!

Joe

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2009.   All Rights Reserved.

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