Your Salespeople have lots of skills.  Unfortunately, they are probably the wrong ones.

Buyers do NOT trust salespeople.  So they have created a system to deal with them.

The system of the buyer is designed to:

• Provide the buyer with a feeling of control and security.

• Place the buyer in a strong negotiating position.

• Strip the salesperson of any differentiation.

In other words, the buyer’s system is designed to turn salespeople into apple vendors.   Let’s call your top vendor Super Mario.

Buyers want you to believe that your apples are no different than anyone else’s.   In their mind, it must be Mario’s job to PROVE that your company’s apples are worthy.

For most unsuspecting apple vendors like Mario, the buyer’s system creates the intended transactional dysfunction and feeds right into his behavioral preferences.  Succumbing removes all differentiation from Mario and your company.  Like most salespeople, Mario is equipped with traditional “selling skills” and unfortunately feels most comfortable deploying them along with all the other apple vendors.  He quickly proceeds to:

• Tell
• Present
• Demo
• Shine Your Company Apple
• Provide References
• Give Quotes
• Wheel and Deal
• Use Goofy Closing Tricks
• Send (Unqualified) Proposals

If Mario is competing against four other apple vendors, the good news is that he might win “his share’ of around 20% of the business.   The bad news is that he will waste loads of time, consume plenty of company resources, cut deeply into your profitability and further commoditize your company reputation.

If Mario wanted to differentiate, develop trust, win far more than “his share” of sales, and drive lots of profit to your bottom line, he would instead need to:

• Slow down a lot
• Start Being (versus acting) Trustworthy
• Care
• Listen (actively and empathetically)
• Stop asking leading questions
• Ask many more questions
• Ask better questions
• Ask tougher questions

Behaving in this new way would require Mario to leave his comfort zone.  For many salespeople, this never happens.  They behave the way they are behaving because they CHOOSE to behave that way.    Most choose to behave like apple vendors.

Taking your sales to the next level is not rocket science.   But in most cases it requires a commitment for salespeople (and their managers) to stop vending apples.

Copyright © Joe Zente 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Many Business Owners and Sales Managers place a highly disproportionate emphasis on the importance of sending plenty of proposals.  The (incorrect) assumption here is:

More Proposals  =  More Sales  =  More Profit

Nothing can be further from the truth.  In fact, the equation should read:

Better Qualification  =  Fewer Proposals  =  More Profit

Many years ago, I was recruited to run a sales organization with 7 salespeople.  The company CEO was a brilliant PhD nuclear scientist and a very analytical guy.  He was beaming as he handed me a huge 3-ring binder stuffed with over two hundred quotations the company had delivered over the last several months.   These proposals were complex.  The cost to the company to create each one was huge.  The CEO excitedly proclaimed and believed that these quotes were “just dying to be closed”.  

It took about two weeks to thoroughly follow up on every proposal.   You can probably guess what we discovered.  Not ONE of these “hot sales prospects” had any intention of buying.   In fact, nearly half of them couldn’t even recall receiving a proposal.  Every “prospect” had other priorities that had nothing to do with purchasing this company’s product.

We were soon able to turn things around by simply focusing the attention of the sales team on some real business opportunities, but I’ll never forget the lunacy of this company wasting all of those resources chasing ghosts.

How much money and energy is your company wasting with unqualified sales prospects?

For the majority of salespeople, their “hot prospect pipeline” and the volume of profit they return to their company’s bottom line are inversely proportional.   Many simply don’t have a clue about time management or the value of an hour of their own (or your company’s) time.

A high level of sales activity is crucial, but never confuse activity with productivity.  Generating and launching unqualified proposals is a costly example of a rampant and unfortunate dysfunction known as Premature Satisfaction™ (aka:  The Destroyer of Profit).  There is a simple cure for this organizational disorder.  It only requires some tools, some rules and a little discipline.

For starters, every opportunity should be thoroughly qualified before company resources are invested in creating proposals.  A Qualifier Checklist is a great way to begin this process.

Secondly, all sales activities should be singularly focused upon either moving the sales process forward or to closing the file.   Anything in between is pure wheel-spinning — useless activity disguised as “work”.

A “yes” is fine.  So is a “no”.  It is the “maybes” that tear into both your revenue and profit lines.

Some other popular and dysfunctional wheel-spinning activities include:

• Excessive internet research (and other busywork) to avoid making phone calls
• Sending literature, letters, and emails to avoid making prospecting calls.  
• Allowing the buyer to control the sales process.
• Accepting prospect meetings without a clear, mutually acceptable agenda.
• Talking & presenting when you should be listening & understanding.

If you are looking to build more predictability, consistency, visibility, scalability and profitability into your sales effort, take a hard look at your Sales Pipeline and begin eliminating Premature Satisfaction™ today.

Copyright © Joe Zente 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Every week, I speak with salespeople who ask: “How can I overcome difficult “objections”?

I respond by asking some more effective questions:

1. Are you sure the comment was an objection, or did you simply HEAR it as one?
2. Why did you give the buyer something to object to in the first place? 
3. Would you like to know how to eliminate objections, once and for all, from all of your future sales calls?

If you are a salesperson, you may believe that overcoming objections is important.  You may have even read articles or attended classes specifically intended to increase your skill in this area.  Please consider changing your paradigm. 

The fact is that the very concept of handling objections is just short of insanity.   There is absolutely ZERO benefit you can gain from even attempting to overcome a sales objection.

I sincerely hope you will stop trying to handle objections forever by the time you’re done reading this article. 

Here are a few things to know about objection handling:

• For every objection you “overcome”, your prospect will produce at least two more.
• Handling objections will increase a buyer’s resistance.
• Handling objections will set up a buyer/seller negotiation instead of a trusting, adult conversation.
• The objection rarely has anything to do with real problem.
• Objection handling is your effort to correct the prospect.  Most people hate to be corrected.
• People can only object if you give them something to object to.

Have you ever handled an objection, only to have the prospect say:  “Wow!  Why didn’t I think of that? Where do I sign?”  I suspect not.

So if you can’t handle objections, then what should you do instead?

Begin by behaving in a way that prevents objections from being raised in the first place.  Buyers can only object if you give them something to object to.  So for starters, STOP trying to convince prospects that you are right for them.  Sure you are great, but the fact is that you are not for everyone.  So spend more time listening than telling, find out where the prospect is and where they want to be, and stop rushing into telling them how you are going to save the day.

Next, stop hearing objections.  Every time your prospect says something that you hear as an “objection”, your blood pressure rises and you likely become emotionally involved.  When this happens, most salespeople lose objectivity and shift immediately into presentation mode or deflection mode.  Both of these sound defensive and create resistant reactions in buyers.   This Seller-centered approach to hearing objections also shifts the focus away from the Buyer’s REAL problem, wasting time and creating a complete mess.

So decide today to stop hearing objections.  It’s really not that difficult to do if you make a commitment.  When your prospect says something that you formerly heard as an objection, simply hear it as their opinion.   Mature communicators don’t overcome opinions, they simply engage in adult conversations.  Great salespeople go one step further and become intensely curious and interested.  So if a prospect shares an opinion that differs from your own, remain objective, validate the importance of their opinion, pump up your curiosity, listen actively, and attempt to learn things like:

• why do they feel that way?
• when did they start?
• what if they didn’t?
• where does this opinion fall in terms of importance relevant to other opinions they shared?

Remember, how we THINK determines how we behave.

And how we behave determines our level of success.

Thanks for reading.  I would love to hear YOUR opinions….

Joe

Copyright © Joe Zente 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Every week, I speak with salespeople who ask: “How can I overcome difficult “objections”?

I respond by asking some more effective questions:

1. Are you sure the comment was an objection, or did you simply HEAR it as one?
2. Why did you give the buyer something to object to in the first place? 
3. Would you like to know how to eliminate objections, once and for all, from all of your future sales calls?

If you are a salesperson, you may believe that overcoming objections is important.  You may have even read articles or attended classes specifically intended to increase your skill in this area.  Please consider changing your paradigm. 

The fact is that the very concept of handling objections is just short of insanity.   There is absolutely ZERO benefit you can gain from even attempting to overcome a sales objection.

I sincerely hope you will stop trying to handle objections forever by the time you’re done reading this article. 

Here are a few things to know about objection handling:

• For every objection you “overcome”, your prospect will produce at least two more.
• Handling objections will increase a buyer’s resistance.
• Handling objections will set up a buyer/seller negotiation instead of a trusting, adult conversation.
• The objection rarely has anything to do with real problem.
• Objection handling is your effort to correct the prospect.  Most people hate to be corrected.
• People can only object if you give them something to object to.

Have you ever handled an objection, only to have the prospect say:  “Wow!  Why didn’t I think of that? Where do I sign?”  I suspect not.

So if you can’t handle objections, then what should you do instead?

Begin by behaving in a way that prevents objections from being raised in the first place.  Buyers can only object if you give them something to object to.  So for starters, STOP trying to convince prospects that you are right for them.  Sure you are great, but the fact is that you are not for everyone.  So spend more time listening than telling, find out where the prospect is and where they want to be, and stop rushing into telling them how you are going to save the day.

Next, stop hearing objections.  Every time your prospect says something that you hear as an “objection”, your blood pressure rises and you likely become emotionally involved.  When this happens, most salespeople lose objectivity and shift immediately into presentation mode or deflection mode.  Both of these sound defensive and create resistant reactions in buyers.   This Seller-centered approach to hearing objections also shifts the focus away from the Buyer’s REAL problem, wasting time and creating a complete mess.

So decide today to stop hearing objections.  It’s really not that difficult to do if you make a commitment.  When your prospect says something that you formerly heard as an objection, simply hear it as their opinion.   Mature communicators don’t overcome opinions, they simply engage in adult conversations.  Great salespeople go one step further and become intensely curious and interested.  So if a prospect shares an opinion that differs from your own, remain objective, validate the importance of their opinion, pump up your curiosity, listen actively, and attempt to learn things like:

• why do they feel that way?
• when did they start?
• what if they didn’t?
• where does this opinion fall in terms of importance relevant to other opinions they shared?

Remember, how we THINK determines how we behave.

And how we behave determines our level of success.

Thanks for reading.  I would love to hear YOUR opinions….

Joe

It’s that time again. A time of optimism, renewed spirits and a fresh slate. The gyms and yoga studios are overflowing with people ready to REALLY do it this year. Business owners are planning to achieve new growth and profit targets. Salespeople are going to blow away their quotas. It’s the season to launch New Year’s resolutions.Unfortunately, by April the exercise machines and lap pool will once again be dormant and most salespeople will be formulating creative excuses for mediocre performance and forecasts.

It is estimated that two thirds of Americans make New Year’s resolutions. Approximately 5% of those who make resolutions keep them for the year. 19 out of 20 fail! But we are talking about others. We all know that YOU are one of those special people who always keep your resolutions. Right?

Whether your New Year’s promises involve health, finance, business, sales or relationships, the fact that 95% of resolutions are consistently broken all stems from the same set of core issues. So if you are looking to help your buds achieve their 2012 resolutions, encourage them to follow these simple steps:

1. Let’s be Real: We all behave the way we are behaving because we CHOSE to behave that way and have now developed habits. Habits are COMFORTABLE. People behave the way they are currently behaving because they WANT TO. Changing a habit requires work. It requires a person to leave their Comfort Zone. And people HATE to leave The Zone (just ask any Sales Manager striving to get salespeople to start making more calls). Returning to an existing habit means returning to a happy, comfortable place. One that feels good.

2. Start with Why: Of the 15 million resolutions you could select, why did you pick this one? Is it really compelling? Does it connect so much to your Personal and/or Business Vision that is makes you JUMP out of bed each morning? If not, your chances of succeeding just plummeted from 5% to below 1%. Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the right side, write all of the positive things that you will quantifiably gain and emotionally feel by successfully executing your resolution. If possible, engage all of your senses. How will your new picture look, smell, feel, sound,…? On the left side, write down all of the consequences of failing. Then decide if you are truly committed to your new goal(s). If not, the odds of success are miniscule, so you might want to re-consider and/or go back to the drawing board. Continue with this iterative process until you are ready to Unconditionally Commit.

3. Surround Yourself with Power: You are now ready to succeed. Post your list in front of your desk (and/or on your morning mirror) in a highly visible place so you are reminded daily of the rewards and consequences of keeping your promise. If possible, enhance your list with pictures, screen savers, and props. Visuals and affirmations create tremendous symbiotic stimulus to the brain.

4. Develop Your Success Recipe: Create a specific, written, daily, plan for achieving your goal. If you can’t break your plan into little specific pieces, your odds of success decrease dramatically. As you go through this process, replace current, limiting habits with better, empowering habits. When you begin to replace and overcome small bad habits, the big ones will shortly follow. Most importantly, get into the HABIT of keeping your daily commitments.

5. Change your Paradigm: You have the power to get your brain to believe whatever you want it to believe. It ALL starts with Self-Talk. Hold on, this is extreme… How much would your chances of keeping your new commitments change if failing meant that your children (or others you love deeply) would starve? Would you behave differently on a daily basis? Would your chances of success improve? Is there ANY possible chance you would break your resolution? I seriously doubt it. Planning to succeed from a new paradigm changes everything.

6. Go ALL IN: Decide, Commit and Declare: You have the power to accomplish absolutely anything and to transform your entire world, but remember, your Self Talk rules. You can talk yourself right into exceeding your goals, but you can also talk yourself out of succeeding. It’s your choice.

Make a Declaration: DECLARE to yourself (and to everyone you know) that you have decided and committed to transform (your business, your life, your health, your relationships, etc…). Declare to yourself that you are All-In. Write it down and expect to succeed.

Never say to yourself (or anyone else) that “I’m going to try to (Lose weight, increase sales by 50% this year, etc.)”. Trying is less than All-In. Far less. “Trying” is a built-in excuse. It gives you permission to return to your Comfort Zone. Become aware of your other self-talk excuses. If you give yourself permission, you’ll be back in your The Zone in a heartbeat.

7. Don’t Go it Alone: Enlist Help. You now know your new goal is non-negotiable and that Failure is NOT an option. Your resolution is the single MOST IMPORTANT new promise you are committing to this year. You know that attaining it will bring tremendous rewards and propel you much closer to your personal and/or business vision. Your Self-Talk is so empowering that you are compelled to leap out of bed each morning excited to execute on your new, powerful, valuable habits. So spread the great news…

Tell everyone you know: Peer pressure from those you love and respect will be huge factor in your success.

Find an Accountability Partner: This can be anyone who commits to holding you accountable to your behaviors and thinking, including a professional business or personal coach.

Consider a Peer Support Group.

8. Make it FUN: Be thankful and find joy in what you are doing. Your new resolution is important and you ARE going to keep your resolution, so seek ways to make your success process an enjoyable ride.

If you follow these steps, your journey will be as fulfilling as your destination, so I’d love to hear from you. Please email me with your stories of success as you continue to develop great habits and achieve new heights on your way to exceeding all of your goals.

I wish you abundant success, peace, joy, happiness and prosperity in 2012.

Happy New Year!

Joe

Copyright © Joe Zente 2012. All Rights Reserved.