Have you ever wondered if your salespeople may be scaring off buyers? Take a look at the list below and decide for yourself. The fact is that most salespeople are downright frightening. The list of scary behaviors goes on forever, but here are five of the most popular ways salespeople scare away new business:  

 1.   They talk when they should be listening:   A recent survey of C-Level buyers indicated that only 14% of interactions with company representatives resulted in any useful learning or value. In other words, the remaining 86% of salesperson conversations were perceived to be creating zero value or differentiation.  

 2.  They educate when they should be learning:   When their lips are moving, many salespeople tell instead of ask. Instead of striving to understand, learn, and facilitate mutual discovery, they strive to educate and “make their points” (even though the buyer isn’t asking).      

 3.  The few questions they do ask are Leading Questions:    Many salespeople strive to get buyers to nod a lot (like bobble-heads). In the fleeting moments when salespeople do ask questions, they avoid the right questions (the tough questions that will differentiate them) and mistakenly believe they should ask only “yes” questions. Most salespeople believe that if they ask enough leading questions, a sale will ultimately follow. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Leading questions (commonly known as “tie-downs”) are one of the most effective ways to destroy trust. When you are personally in a buying role, do you like to be tied down?    

4.  When they do listen, they listen selectively:   Buyers need and want to buy, but they hate to be sold. Salespeople who listen for “buying signals” in an effort to “close” show up as inauthentic manipulators instead of valuable resources and solution providers.  Very frightening to prospective buyers!

 5.  They Prematurely Satisfy:    Premature Satisfaction™ occurs any time a salesperson educates, presents, pontificates, demos, or proposes before the buyer is truly ready and willing to listen and accept. This scary, worthless, destructive salesperson behavior carries a consequence in 100% of cases where it is exhibited. In the best case, Premature Satisfaction™ wastes time and cuts into profit. In many cases, it burns up margins via multiple proposals and repetitive “pencil sharpening.” In most cases, it destroys trust and loses the sale.

 So what do you think?  How much revenue and profit do you think your salespeople might be scaring away?

Joe 

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2015.   All Rights Reserved.

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Most of us know people who have damaged or destroyed their lives by abuse or addiction. Addiction doesn’t only affect the life of the addict, but often has a destructive effect on the people closest to them. In the workplace, any type of abuse and addiction can have a huge effect on productivity.

Whether we are talking about hard drugs, alcohol, gambling, or something more innocuous like caffeine, nicotine, or video games, most of us believe that danger increases as an individual crosses the line from moderation to compulsion. Over time, compulsive abuse is damaging and the symptoms of addiction are universal.

Technology is fabulous. For most of us, it would seem impossible to survive without it. The Internet was one of the most incredible advances in our lives and has created amazing opportunities. But is it possible that we have reached the point of diminishing returns in device use and may actually be losing productivity via abuse? Are electronic devices (EDs) really making us more effective and productive? 

There is no doubt that a huge portion of society has become addicted to electronic devices. The statistics are over-whelming. According to new research from GlobalWebIndex, 80% of adults now own a smartphone, up from 21% in 2012. A study of 1,600 managers and professionals from Harvard Business School found that:

• 70% said they check their smartphone within an hour of waking.
• 56% check their phone within an hour of going to sleep.
• 48% check over the weekend, including on Friday and Saturday nights.
• 51% check continuously during vacation (is that really vacation?)
• 44% said they would experience "a great deal of anxiety" if they lost their phone and couldn’t replace it for a week.

Even more revealing, in a survey of millennials by ME360, the following data emerged in response to the question “At work, how many times per hour do you check your smartphone or e-device for non-work related emails, social media updates, texts, emails or videos?”

• 90% said they check at least 1-5 times per hour
• 42% check at least 6-10 times per hour
• 21% check more than 16 times per hour- that is more than once every 3.75 minutes! And this is at work! One may wonder when the actual work occurs…

Use becomes an addict’s best friend, and we witness ED abuse every day. At the dinner table, it’s become the norm to constantly check for texts, emails, tweets,Facebook, or SnapChat updates. In a theater, you can always find people abusing during the movie.   

In restaurants, in church, while driving, at our kid’s performances and even when carrying on face-to-face conversations, the growing trend of smartphone addiction is becoming pervasive.

In the workplace, device abuse creates a focus upon urgent over important, focusing employee behavior on being reactive, not proactive. If you do not happen to be in the fire-fighting or first-responder business, this reactive/urgency focus is likely very damaging to your company value and bottom line.

Before we list addiction symptoms, please consider your own use of electronic devices. Also consider the use of EDs by your employees. Many executives believe that these devices enhance productivity. Used effectively (in moderation), this assertion is nearly indisputable. EDs certainly can improve productivity. Used compulsively (as a growing majority of ED-addicted owners, executives, employees, and their families use them), device use can actually have the opposite effect. In some cases, a devastating effect. 

Take a look at the following list of symptoms and behaviors demonstrated by addicts:

• The addict cannot stop – Loss of Control.
• Social and/or recreational sacrifices – addicts consistently decline invitations for personal interaction or conversation. Degradation of intimacy.
• Obsession/excess consumption - the addict invests increasing time and energy focusing on ways of getting another fix.
• Withdrawal symptoms - in the absence of using, the addict will experience mood-related (and possibly physical) symptoms.  These include cravings, moodiness, bad temper, poor focus, depression, frustration, anger, bitterness and resentment.
• Insomnia – There is a compulsion to use first thing in the morning and last thing before sleeping, and even in the middle of the night.
• Addiction continues despite health problem awareness - the individual continues abusing regularly, despite possible physical degradation. The desire to exercise diminishes.  
• Taking risks - in some cases the addicted individual may take risks in order to use (such as texting while driving)
• Dealing with problems - an addicted person becomes dependent upon using in order to deal with their problems. Even worse, they increasingly ignore their problems, missing deadlines and commitments.
• Secrecy and solitude - many addicts prefer to indulge alone, often in secret.
• Stress & Anxiety - these escalate when the addict cannot use.
• Forgetfulness – addiction consumes the mind and saps attention and focus.
• Increased Narcissism - addicts have difficulty being concerned with anyone but themselves and develop a lack of respect and courtesy for others.
• Reduced Self-Esteem - as an addict continues to surrender control, their self-worth declines.
• Denial - most addicts are in denial. They are not aware (or refuse to acknowledge) that they have a problem.
• Dropping hobbies and activities - addicts choose a fix over almost any other form of pleasure, and over important or productive activities. As addiction progresses, the individual may stop doing things he/she used to enjoy.

Do you know any device addicts that might be exhibiting some of these symptoms? If they work in your company, you may wish to consider an intervention. If the addicted individual happens to appear in your own mirror, if checking and rechecking your phone comes as naturally to you as breathing, or if you feel anxious or restless if 5 minutes pass without a smartphone fix, you are addicted. Depending upon the severity of your addiction, you may not require a full twelve-step program just yet. However, you might want to start with acknowledgement: “Hi, my name is Tom, and I am a device addict.” After making this declaration you may begin the detox and rehabilitation process:

Rule #1: Make a DECLARATION to live proactively.  “I will only use my device during the following hours”.  Pick 2 to 4 hours per day and shut it off for the rest of the day, perhaps an hour in the AM and an hour in the PM. Add 15 minutes midday, but only if absolutely necessary.   Inform your employees, stakeholders, and family members that you are detoxing, and ask for their support. If you seek to improve productivity, it would be a good idea to ask your employees to follow suit. 

Rule #2: Don’t text while driving.  This rule isn’t only for you, but also for the safety of others.  Risking lives just to give a quick response is simply insane.

Rule #3: Keep your phone out of the bathroom & bedroom. I can go on for days with this, but let’s just say that technology is not worth the sacrifice of intimacy or hygiene.

Rule #4: Respect others. Always turn off your smartphone during meetings. Using devices in meetings sends a clear message—“The person that is pinging me is MORE IMPORTANT to me than you are!” When ordering or checking-out, put the phone down and take care of business.  There are customers behind you and they don’t want to hear your drama.  

Rule #5: When going to bed, no more falling asleep while staring at your screen. Sure it’s fun to tweet, check the lives of friends on Facebook, and play games before zonking out, but overcoming an addiction requires discipline. Pick a shut-down time and stick to it. Turn the phone completely off at that time.

Rule #6: Turn your phone off at meals and when you’re with friends.  Not on vibrate, OFF.  I promise you will not miss out on anything life-altering. Each time you do this, you will become stronger and it will become easier.

Rule #7: Find a Support Group. This should be easy.  Just look around. I would suspect that you know plenty of people who share your device addiction and would also like to get clean.

Rule #8: Go For it! Last but not least, when you’re able to manage these rules without suffering a panic attack, shortness of breath, dizziness, or fainting, start leaving your phone at home. This is the big, personal-freedom step - graduation day. Set a goal to spend a day each week without technology. If you feel strong and committed, go cold-turkey. If not, you can unplug yourself in small doses. Start off with a couple of hours and then progress to a whole day. Again, I promise, the world will not come to an end.

History has proven that just about anything that can be abused, will be. Technology is awesome.   Electronic devices, used effectively in moderation, provide enormous advantages. If you have the discipline and self-control to use EDs without letting them rule your life or hinder those around you, congratulations. However, if you feel like your smartphone is an appendage, think catching up with friends and colleagues can only be accomplished through a screen, or consider Facebook, Twitter, or texting to be your BFFs, I’d encourage you to take some effective action today.  

 Joe 

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2014.   All Rights Reserved.

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Do you spend time during Sales calls over-coming objections? 

If your answer is “yes”, you are losing out on sales. Lots of them. You are also diminishing trust and burning up profit.

If your answer is “yes,” why are you choosing to give the prospect something to object to in the first place?

A buyer can never object to anything unless you provide them with an opportunity to object to something. If you are guilty of doing this, you are certainly in the majority. Most salespeople (and principals who sell) spend most of their time telling (when they should be learning) and offer up a continuous barrage of great opportunities to object. They actually choose to lose.

At this point you may be thinking, “how is the buyer going to know how great we are if I don’t tell him/her?” The answer is simple and it resides in timing. Most salespeople tell way too soon during a sales interview (by the way - it should be an interview, not a presentation…)

If you manage prospect interactions properly, and if you provide them with the opportunity to tell you what they want, they will. If you manage interviews properly and remain patient and disciplined, prospects will tell you exactly what they want. Unfortunately, most salespeople never give a prospect this opportunity. Instead, they begin to blather way too early in the conversation, teeing up tons of opportunities for objections. The result is lost effectiveness, lost margins, lost sales, and lost profit.

Talking when you should be listening is just one example of a rampant dysfunctional condition known as Premature Satisfaction™ (aka: The Destroyer of Profit). Launching proposals too early in the cycle is another epidemic example.

Stop creating opportunities for prospect objections. The elimination of Premature Satisfaction™ is simply a choice. Once you choose, the cure simply requires patience, the habit of discipline and a little practice. 

Joe 

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2015.   All Rights Reserved.

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The single biggest asset that a Salesperson has is time.

Great salespeople manage time effectively, poor ones don’t. Unfortunately, the vast majority of salespeople fall into the “poor” category. In their zeal to close deals, many salespeople (and principals that sell) waste tons of time, up to and often including more than enough time to burn through the entire profit margin of a sale.

This article includes some things your salespeople can stop doing in order to generate more sales.

As you review the following list, please ask yourself if your salespeople exhibit any of these profit-destroying behaviors. As you work through the list, try to estimate how much healthier your bottom line would look if they would eliminate these time wasters:

They spend time Talking/Convincing instead of Listening/Understanding: Buyers do not really care what a salesperson wants to talk about. They care only about where they are and where they want to be. This is, was and will always be the case. For some reason, most salespeople never seem to get this simple fact. As a consequence, they burn through dozens of hours each week trying to present, propose, demo and convince. And they do so prematurely. These activities are all huge time wasters and profit-killers.

They avoid selling:   Let me share a little known secret. The majority of salespeople really don’t like to sell! They may enjoy holding title of “Sales Executive." They usually enjoy being paid on a salesperson’s pay scale. They may enjoy giving presentations or demos. They sometimes enjoy customer service or resolving existing customer issues. Many enjoy researching websites, Google and LinkedIn profiles. Many are OK with sending emails and texts. But only a very small percentage of “salespeople” enjoy doing the Real Sales Work. Real Sales Work involves hunting, prospecting, qualifying, and closing. It involves navigating their way to Decision Makers and asking them tough questions. It involves consistent execution of an effective sales process. Real selling involves discipline, persistence, and commitment to do real sales work. These are the activities that should dominate your salespeople’s time. If your salespeople are not doing the Real Sales Work, they may be costing you much more than they are earning.  

They invite interruptions: For many reasons, including the fact that they simply don’t like to sell, many salespeople allow a rampant set of pervasive, time-intensive tasks to distract them from doing Real Sales Work. The table below outlines five of the biggest time-wasting distractions:

 Distraction / Task         Daily Time Burned       New Time to Sell

A huge percentage of salespeople proactively bring these five interruptions into their world.   The best salespeople do not. By eliminating these very popular, pervasive distractions, a salesperson can free up over 766 hours of time per year, or more than nineteen weeks of new selling time.  

How many more sales could you generate if you were granted nineteen more weeks to sell each year?

Happy Selling!

Joe

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2014.   All Rights Reserved.

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Last week, an amazing career came to an end. Derek Jeter, one of the premier players in the history of baseball, played his final game in Yankee Stadium. He is 40 years old.

The storybook game ended a storybook career. If you are one of the few people who hasn’t heard about Derek Jeter or his final game, you can find highlights all over YouTube or learn anything you’d like in any one of thousands of Google links.

You can also learn about Derek in Fortune Magazine. Earlier this year, Fortune published its list of the World’s Best Leaders. Derek Jeter ranked number 11, right there next to Pope Francis, Warren Buffett, the Dalai Lama, and Jeff Bezos. One may ask, “how can a baseball player earn such an honor?” For anyone who has watched Derek over the years, the answer is obvious.

I’ve always been a baseball fan, but this article is not about baseball. It is about the lessons we can all learn from Derek Jeter. It is about lessons of leadership, integrity, perseverance, discipline, respect, and achievement. Lessons of Walking the Talk. Lessons of Greatness. Derek is certainly a skilled athlete, but his greatness far exceeded his skill in baseball. In short, Derek Jeter is a winner. While he has always been an outstanding individual performer, his leadership has resulted in an unmatched level of team success.

Derek Jeter played for the Yankees, the most prolific team in the history of sports. His career spanned 20 years, playing (and working) in New York City, the media capital of the world. Derek played in an era when steroid-use ran rampant, where a huge percentage of his competitors were juiced up, gaining unfair advantages in speed and strength.

His career unfolded in a pressure-packed fishbowl during the age of the Internet, smartphones, 24-hour news cycles, and social media. Derek Jeter was under a microscope each and every day for two full decades, competing against the most skilled opponents in the world. In an era filled with controversy, substance abuse, free-agency, scandal, media hype, social media, and paparazzi, Derek rose above it all and simply, humbly did his job. 

Most players, even highly talented ones, are unable to survive the pressures and temptations of playing in New York City. Legions of “stars” have flamed out under the Big Apple’s hot lights. If you think Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and a continuous barrage of emails, and texts distract you from completing your important work, consider the discipline and focus required to perform under the continuous scrutiny and non-stop distractions of being a superstar in NYC.

Many have described Derek’s accomplishments as miraculous. I disagree. I believe his accomplishments are primarily formulaic. Like many great over-achievers, Derek was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time during certain times in his career, but he also created his own luck by doing the right things at all times. 

In many of his years with the Yankees, Derek was not the most skilled or the “best” player on the team. He rarely had the highest batting average and never had the most home runs. He was never the biggest or the strongest, and usually not the fastest. However, he was always considered the undisputed leader of the team. Derek was elected Yankee Team Captain at the early age of 29.  Most of his competitors consider him the Captain of Baseball. Leadership oozed from this man.

Derek always led by example. He expected greatness of himself and others, treated everyone with respect, and commanded respect in return. His practice routines, discipline, humility, work ethic, and pursuit of continuous improvement are legendary.  He relished accountability, especially for himself. As a consequence, everyone on his team became a better player. A rising tide floats all boats. His teammates followed him with awe.

Derek’s beliefs, behavior, and mindset, and the remarkable, continuous series of achievements that followed, serve as a model for success in any pursuit. Derek Jeter was the consummate professional. As a professional, he did his job, each and every day. 

Teammates who had a chance to experience Derek Jeter felt fortunate to play on his team.  Competitors felt fortunate to play against him. Fans, writers, and others who witnessed Derek’s consistency and leadership admired him.

Few people achieve their dream. Derek Jeter did. From a very young age, he wanted to do one thing, to play for the Yankees. He did what he loved, and people loved him for it. His desire, commitment, responsibility and outlook were unprecedented. 

Throughout his two-decade career, Derek was not perfect. He failed many times and overcame many injuries and obstacles, but his attitude never wavered.  No matter the setback, he always elected to quickly jump back on the horse to execute his routines and do his job, day after day. And his teammates followed.

As a fan of baseball and student of human behavior and achievement, I feel very fortunate to have witnessed Derek Jeter’s career. He has been a model of consistency, humility, discipline, grace, and performance, demonstrating daily on the world stage how to lead by example, inspire others, and win.

Many articles, and several books, have been written about Derek Jeter. Now that his baseball career has concluded in a spectacular crescendo of glory, I’m sure many more will follow. Unlike 99.9% of major league ball players, Derek Jeter will be elected immediately into the Hall of Fame on his very first ballot election, but his greatness transcends his statistics.  

Derek is finished playing baseball, but I believe his career is just getting started. He does not enoy publicity and does not relish the spotlight, but I think we’ll be hearing tons more about his future accomplishments. Derek Jeter is not only a great player; he is a great man and a great leader.

Every professional, leader, CEO, salesperson, entrepreneur, civic leader, man, woman, and child can learn lessons in leadership, success, and winning by studying Derek Jeter’s career. He is an excellent role model for anyone. Stay tuned and soak it in.

Joe 

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2014.   All Rights Reserved.