Simple Sales Tracking Blog

May 8, 2012 • 1:24 pm 0

How Many Networking Opportunities Have You Wasted?

In this article I continue with the sins of networking theme from my last article.

The next sin is failing to establish a connection.

Effective networking means actively making a connection with the people you meet.  Your goal is not to meet everyone at the event.  You are better off having one or two meaningful conversations than collecting 10 business cards.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book “The Outliers” talks about “super connectors” – these are people who know a vast amount of people and keep in regular contact with them – an example of a super connector was Paul Revere.

In 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride to spread the word that the British were coming.  He rode North West to warn the settlements and local militaria.

His colleague fellow revolutionary William Dawes rode south.

Because of his many connections Paul was taken seriously by the townspeople he spoke to and the British met fierce resistance in the North.  While in the south they met virtually no resistance and believed the townspeople were actually loyal to them.

As Paul had developed so many contacts he was well known and trusted.  The opposite was true of William Dawes.

The message – get connected and just as important stay in touch on a regular basis!

One last point on being connected comes from the book “The Luck Factor” by Richard
Wiseman.    It was found one of the key traits of “lucky people” was they kept regular contact with a large number of people.  In meeting more people it increased their chance of opportune meetings.

The next sin is inability to articulate your unique selling proposition (USP)

Have you ever met anyone, had a conversation about their business and at the end were no clearer about what they offered in their business?

This has happened to me on more than one occasion.  We need to be able to clearly state what we do for our clients and what an ideal client for our business would look like. Stating “anyone would be a good prospect” is far too broad.  The more specific we are about what we offer and about who we are looking for the more chance we have of getting a qualified referral.

At the next event you attend consider some of the key points we have looked at in this article – put them into practice – and look for the results.

Quote of the Day:

It isn’t just what you know, and it isn’t just who you know,
It’s actually who you know, who knows you and what you do for a living.

                                                                                                                         Bob Burg

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group.

Filed under: Sales Techniques and Strategy, , , ,

April 1, 2012 • 9:47 pm 0

How Effective Is Your Networking?

Everyone talks about networking to improve business; however I find it to be an overused word and underused strategy by many of the salespeople and business owners I meet at so called “networking events”.

Many people think of networking as going to a business event in search of business opportunities however it is much more than this.  It’s a very cost effective way of doing business through referred leads if it is managed correctly.

The “Barrons Business Guide” Dictionary of Business Terms defines networking as -
“making use of professional contacts”

You can break network into two words – “net” and “work”.
Your “net” is made up of the people and businesses you interconnect with
Your “work” is the building and maintenance of your net.

To be effective in your networking you need to have systems.

A “system” is defined as “organization of functionally interactive units for the achievement of a common goal”

Some systems for networking would include –

  1. A clear strategy for each event/meeting
  2. A clear profile of the type of prospects you are looking for.  Many salespeople don’t have a clear picture of this and tend to say they are interested in anyone and are then condemned to spend their time with the wrong prospects
  3. Lists of prospects you may want introductions to – be specific
  4. An “elevator speech” or “value statement”
  5. List of questions to ask new contacts
  6. Follow-up contact systems

Let’s look at some of the “sins of networking”.

1. Attending the wrong events –

When I first got into sales I attended every event that was going and eagerly gave away as many of my business cards as I could as I had read somewhere you should give away 5 cards each day.   I now believe there are three uses for business cards -

  • Free lunch (lucky draw)
  • Possible leads – networking events (dubious)
  • Get the other persons card (No.1 reason)

2. Talking Too Much –

Let’s face it we love talking about ourselves and our businesses and I know I’m no different to anybody else.  I think it was Mark Twain who said “a bore is someone who opens their mouth and puts both feats in it”
Another favorite – “a closed mouth gathers no foot”

Many of us are so busy “waiting to talk” that we are barely listening to the other person.  Something I strive to do in these situations is “to be more interested than interesting” which brings me to sin no. 3.

3. Not asking enough questions –

More importantly-  enough of the right questions.
The most effective way to build trust and rapport is to ask good questions that connect with who you are having a conversation with.
A question I am often asked is – “what if they don’t ask what we do”?
The law of reciprocity usually kicks in and eventually they will ask, but at the end of the day if nothing else you’ve learnt a lot about them and their business.

I will continue with more “sins of networking” in my next article, in the meantime keep your sinning to a minimum!!

Quote:

Internalize the Golden Rule of sales that says –

“All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to,
those people they know, like and trust.”
                                                                                                          Bob Burg

 

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group.

Filed under: Sales Techniques and Strategy, Uncategorized, , , ,

March 18, 2012 • 5:03 pm 0

Better Filters. More User Defined Fields.

Here’s a quick update to let you know of 2 recent updates to Simple Sales Tracking. Based on the feedback you’ve been giving us we’ve -

  • Added an additional 2 customizable fields, for a total of 7.
  • Added the ability to filter Account, Opportunity and Leads list pages by City and State.
  • Simplified the filter areas of those pages, so you can hide/show the filter to save screen space.

That’s it for now. Have a great week!

Filed under: New Features

January 24, 2012 • 12:59 pm 0

Which Type of Salesperson Are You?

There is an old quote which we can adapt that goes –

“There are three kinds of salespeople – those who make things happen, those that watch things happen and those who are wondering what happened.”

It’s an oldie but a goodie.

In fact there are generally two types of salespeople I come across in my business.  The first are what I would characterize as “improvisers” – they seldom do any preparation and rely on intuition and instinct to carry them through.   They approach every sales interview as an adventure and while they still make sales they tend to be very inconsistent.

The second type are the “systemisers” – these are the professionals and they have a sales plan which includes activity targets and strategies to insure consistency and more importantly predictability in their results.

The systemisers are characterized by pre-sales planning and follow through during and after the sale.  This of course leads to repeat sales to existing clients and referrals to new prospects.   Typically they have lists of the most common objections/conditions they strike with prospects along with the answers.  They also have prepared questions that help the prospect to uncover potential needs if they exist and they have strategies to advance the sale.

So we have two types of salespeople who achieve different results.  Each one follows a pattern, one unstructured and one structured.

Where do you see yourself?

Most systemisers have developed their skills through training and practice – there is
no such thing as a “natural born salespeople”.

Zig Ziglar – Author and Sales Trainer extraordinaire in his best selling book “Zig Ziglars Secrets” says he’s travelled the world and seen that women have given birth to boys and given birth to girls but had never seen that a woman had given birth to a salesman.  He goes on to state that he had seen salesmen die so draws the conclusion if they are not born but die, then obviously between birth and death – by choice and by training – they become what they decide to become, namely trained professional salesmen.

Key Message -   You can become whatever you decide to become as long as you are willing to put the time and effort into the training required and follow the disciplines learned.
Action Steps –

1. Make  list of all the problems that your solutions and products overcome for your prospects
2. Make a list of all the issues associated with each of these problems
3. Develop questions around each of these problems and issues that will help the buyer to focus their thinking
4. Once this list is developed put each of these questions in order of logical sequence

Quote:
Failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day
Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines practiced every day

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group.

Filed under: Sales Techniques and Strategy, , ,

October 19, 2011 • 11:03 am 1

Are Great Salespeople Great Talkers?

I was guest speaker at a meeting a few weeks ago and a chap I was chatting to was telling me that after 18 years of having 3 women in the house now that his daughters had left he was having to learn how to talk again!

My thought was he must have been a very good listener which brings me to the subject of today’s article.

Sales is about listening to understand the buyer needs.

The old stereotype of great salespeople was that they were great talkers and had the “gift of the gab”.  In today’s sales environment studies of behavioral characteristics of the top salespeople consistently show these people listen “more constructively” than their average counterparts.

Constructive – Construction = building.  Listening constructively means to listen for things upon which to build your questions and solutions on.

Great salespeople ask great questions and actually listen for the information the prospect is giving and then use this information to build the next question.

This is the key to formulating the best solution for the prospect as it helps us to get a grip of the prospects core issues, needs and motivation.

Most average salespeople haven’t planned their questions and instead of planning their next question are in fact impatiently waiting to talk about their solution.

A study published by RainToday.com found that 74% of 200 purchasers surveyed at companies across America said they would be “much more likely” to buy from a salesperson if they would just simply listen to the buyer.

Next time you are out at a function be it at Chamber event or a party and you meet someone new, take note of who does most of the talking and more importantly your reaction to this person.

I believe we are more attracted to people who are genuinely more interested in us – it comes back to our basic human nature.

I think it was Mark Twain who said “A bore is someone who opens his mouth and puts his “feats” in it”

A good rule to follow is “be more interested than interesting”

The only person who can tell you their real need is the buyer.

We will look further at what makes an exceptional salesperson in my next article.

Quote of the Week:

“You can listen a buyer into a sale faster than you can talk them into one”

Unknown Author

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group.

Filed under: Sales Techniques and Strategy, , , , , ,

August 30, 2011 • 3:14 pm 0

Forward your Emails to Simple Sales Tracking

Your communications with prospects and customers is likely to include sending email messages. Until now, you’ve been limited to using either Notes or the Outlook plugin to track those email communications.

Now, with the new Messages feature, you can easily forward any important email message to Simple Sales Tracking and have it automatically included in
the new Messages Tab.

Additionally, if an email address is recognized as matching an email in any of your Sales or Contacts, an association between the two is created.

How To Get Started

First, make sure that the “Enable Messages Drop-Box” check box is selected on your Admin page. Then, generate your unique email address in your Settings.

Now any time you want to forward a message to Simple Sales Tracking, include the unique email address in the CC or BCC of the message.

Note: Currently storing of email Attachments is not supported.

Filed under: New Features, , , ,

August 23, 2011 • 8:40 pm 0

Are There Natural Born Salespeople?

A question I am often asked is “Are there natural born salespeople that we should be looking for?”

My answer to this is there is no such thing as a natural born salesperson. There are salespeople with the “gift of the gab” who make good sales but they tend to lack consistency in their results.

Contrary to popular belief, the best salespeople aren’t the best talkers, they are the best listeners.

The best salespeople, the consistent high performers, are those who have been trained in the best sales practices and then supported through management.

A vast amount of “sales training” is focused on product or technical training rather than specific sales skills development.

This tends to produce product focused salespeople who use the classic show and tell sales presentation. Typically the presentation goes something like this –

The salesperson looks around the prospects office and finds some item of interest and begins a discussion on this, much to the annoyance of the prospect who has had the same discussion with a hundred other salespeople and hasn’t got time to waste with the usual so called rapport building techniques. They then ask a few self serving questions to uncover a potential need, then launch into a product/technical solution based presentation.

A study of over 500 buyers from the fortune 1000 companies showed that salespeople jump in with a

solution before the real problem has been uncovered. This happens in 63% of sales interviews.

Sales like any other business activity is a process and needs to be systemized to ensure consistency in the results.

Exceptional salespeople have a planned approach to selling not canned and follow a process.

McDonalds doesn’t hire staff and then challenge them to figure out how best to do the job. Instead they work on the basis there is a best way to take an order, greet a customer and put a burger together.

In sales there is a best practice too.

Like assembling a cheeseburger, sales has a process. Firstly to identify your prospects, next to get a referral to them, then establish trust, uncover their need, if they have one, present a solution, and ask for the business.

Selling is very simple but not easy!

Imagine sitting on a plane at HB Airport waiting to take off and the captain comes on and says – “this is my first flight in one of these really big planes – I’m going to try and figure out the best way to fly this thing”.

Many companies send their salespeople out into the field with great product training and very little if any sales training to “fly by the seat of their pants”.

It is a fact the greatest asset in our businesses is our staff.

It costs businesses just as much money in salary, travel and costs for a poor sales performer as it does for a great sales performer. Therefore we need to lift the performance of all our salespeople to ensure consistency in sales results. The way to achieve this is through using best sales practices and measurement for accountability.

A question I sometimes hear is “What happens if we train them and they leave?” I ask “What happens if we don’t train them and they stay?”

Coming back to what makes great salespeople, Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his famous book “Outliers” – “success in any field comes from opportunity and practice”.

Many companies give their salespeople the opportunity to undertake sales training – what makes the difference between good salespeople and the great is the great salespeople continue to learn and practice the skills they have learnt. They say “practice makes perfect” – this is only partly true – perfect practice makes perfect. Therefore sales come down to using best practices.

The first of these is developing a goals programme around what your sales targets are, the obstacles of achieving these, the solutions to overcome these obstacles, a detailed plan of sales activities mapped out over the next 12 months.

We can’t control sales – we can control sales activities.

We will look at this in my next article.

Action Steps –

1. Review your sales targets

2. Break down into monthly and weekly targets

3. Review your Prospecting Plan

4. List 3 actions you could implement this week to move forward e.g. Ask your key clients for specific referrals

Quote –
“Until we learn the formula (process) for success we can’t repeat it”
Brian Tracey

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group.

Filed under: Sales Techniques and Strategy, , , , , , ,

August 8, 2011 • 2:01 pm 0

Google Map with Every Address

Any Account, Opportunity, Lead or Contact where you’ve provided an address now has a link – which opens up a new window with a pin marking the spot on Google Maps.

Filed under: How To's, New Features, , , , , ,

August 8, 2011 • 2:00 pm 0

Filter Selections Remembered

Something we’ve been receiving requests for lately is to have the filters for each of the list pages, ‘remember’ their settings. Also, if there’s a way to change the default filter settings, which in the past have always been defaulted to In Progress and yourself as the Owner.

With this latest release, you’ll find that each time you visit one of the list pages, your previous filter selections will automatically be applied.

Filed under: How To's, New Features, , ,

July 14, 2011 • 7:38 pm 0

Every Sale has 5 Basic Obstacles – Do you know what they are?

We not only want you to know what they are – but also how to overcome them!

We’ve worked together with Brett to publish our first in what we plan will be a series of sales technique and strategy resources.

The first, entitled “Every Sale has 5 Basic Obstalces – Learn What They Are And How To Overcome Them”, is available now to download from http://5salesobstacles.com/

You’ll have the option to download it immediately and even download the first chapter for free.

Filed under: Company News, Sales Techniques and Strategy

About

Simple Sales Tracking is web-based sales CRM software for the tracking, analysis and forecasting of individual and team sales pipeline and contacts.

Built with simplicity at its core, focus is kept on key sales tasks, while eliminating unnecessary ones, helping to ensure buy-in of the entire sales team.

Go to SimpleSalesTracking.com

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