Tattooing Client

This might seem an odd statement coming from someone that writes a lot about sales, but it’s true.

Getting New Clients is Easy, Keeping Clients Makes You Rich

I think too often we forget this.

It came and smacked me in the face as I read through an old classic–Confessions of an Advertising Man (affiliate link). If you’ve never read this book you should get a copy.

He has a chapter on How to Keep Clients that was the inspiration for this short, but important epiphany I wanted to share with you today.

In fact, I think it is so important I am going to write my own version and give it to you in an eBook soon.

Do you have any words of wisdom on keeping clients? Add them in the comments below and I’ll include (and of course give full attribution and link) in the final version.

Kill Negativity in Sales Conversations

Negative words kill sales.

My guess is that you have enough objections to deflect without introducing new challenges. Of course you’re not doing it on purpose, but they have a tendency to slip into our sales discussions all the same.

Surprisingly, most negative words come from your own mindset. And the last thing you want is negativity entering into the mix when you are trying to open the door with new prospects.

Striking negative words from sales discussions probably means restructuring your mind, your behavior, and how you respond to the prospect’s own negative vibe.

Have Confidence in Yourself

Nothing is more important to crushing negative words than your own self-confidence. Sales people that are comfortable and confident in themselves, their products, their services, and their company are the most likely to deliver sales.

You need to be committed to the fact that you are the reason your product or service will sell.

Product development and marketing has taken you as far as they can. Now it is all about you and you should be excited you have the ball. When you look around your sales floor you need to be thinking like the star of the basketball team–if we need to hit a goal, I need to be the one with “the rock.”

If you have confidence that you can get the sale it will be very hard to turn your conversation negative.

Visualize Positive Results

Most star athletes talk about the positive effects of visualize on their amazing performances.

Sales is no different. If you practice and visualize what it takes to get results, then it’s guaranteed to happen more frequently.

Go into every sales conversation with a clear visual of path you need to take to get the sale. Again, this will make it hard to throwing up negative barriers with this picture in your head. Even with the prospects throws objections and negativity at you it will be much easier to overcome them and get back on track.

Smile When You Present

This may sound like a silly trick, but it works. Pause from reading this for a moment and try it. Smile. Now, try to have a negative conversation. Both your tone and your words will adjust with a smile on your face.

And don’t think this is just for face-to-face sales encounters. Your smile plays through very powerfully on the phone as well.

Avoid Negative Influences

In my experience, this is the top killer of a good sales person–a negative entourage. They don’t just introduce a negative mindset and vocabulary, they drag down your whole outlook. You can’t see hope or positive outcomes.

Rid yourself of these people and you will see an immediate increase in your sales–guaranteed.

Negative words kill sales. The good thing is that negative words are most likely more the result of your mind and environment, not any weakness in your vocabulary.

Get positive and your words will follow. (So will sales!)

I had an interesting conversation the other day.

A friend told me he was considering hiring a personal coach.

(I know this is going to get me flamed by all the personal coaches out there. So be it. Maybe I’m wrong.)

Of course never considering that to be a paid profession, outside of personal fitness or professional athletics, my natural question was: Why?

His response was. “I think I need someone to give me a kick in the ass occasionally.”

It may just be me, but if you need someone else to make you work harder or get more passionate about your future then this is the only advice you need:

Make a change.

It’s not necessary to be radical or earth shattering just start by living one new simple short story and see what happens.

If you don’t understand what I mean give this a quick read: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life (affiliate link). I think I will send him the book.

Side note: I have to confess that during our whole conversation with my friend this is the only thing that was running through my mind:

Too often we get trapped in the illusion that selling is an art form. This can be a dangerous notion if you let it become the fundamental premise of your sales philosophy.

This has become even more dangerous with the advent of social media and networking. These new and potentially fertile grounds for sales leads can literally become distracting siren songs that can keep you trapped and bouncing around from one attractive, but futile suspected opportunity to the next.

In this presentation, I’m going to try to focus your attention on process, efficiency, and developing sales routines that will lead you into more “natural closes.”

How to Win Over and Over Again – Social Selling from Bill Rice on Vimeo.

Get it on Slideshare: http://bit.ly/winsales

What do you think?

Are you doing anything like this in your sales process? Please share your social selling tips.

Social Media & Sales Fuel

Really social media isn’t so different from the skills you use daily to sell. The anxiety comes with learning to use those skills in a new environment. For many of us in sales, technology beyond our cell phones and email is a bit intimidating. However, if you straight arm social media you are giving up opportunity in your sale pipeline.

Social Media 101 for Sales

The name itself makes social media sound like a marketing thing, but rest assured its more like a telephone–definitely a sales thing. The difference? Marketing is good at blasting and broadcasting. Sales is good at connecting and having conversations.

Social media is about good conversations.

So, lets start with the mind-set that social media is for sales. And we are going to use it like any other sales tool. We’re going to learn it, exploit it, and generate as many good conversations as possible.

Here are the basic social media tools sales people should learn:

Linkedin - More than a resume, this social network is full of information on prospects and competitive intelligence. Plugging in and connecting your existing database of contacts will certainly reveal previously unknown connections and relationship, ready to be leveraged.

Facebook - Don’t underestimate this as simply a venue for neighborhood busy-bodies and teenagers. Facebook is increasingly becoming the primary destination of a large percentage of the Internet community. Although it is not a big player on the business front it will be–get acquainted now.

Twitter - Often described as micro-blogging or instant messaging on steroid, Twitter is a powerful tool for collecting competitive intelligence, sniffing out opportunities, and breaking through corporate firewalls (i.e., voice mail, email, and other gatekeepers).

Blogs - They’ve been around for years now, but they are still great ways to get closer to influencers in your market. Everyone reads them, your customers trust them, you’re smart to meet these important online publishers–they can help you land deals.

How Social Media Works

Think of social media as a blend between a contact database and a CRM system. If used correctly it will feed you a steady stream of news and updates that are important to your prospects.

Most social media tools immediately ask you to load in your contacts (i.e., from Outlook, GMail, or other email address book). This gives you a head start on find who in your sales database or prospect list is already actively participating in social media.

I guarantee you will be surprised.

Once you have your contacts loaded a few minutes a day reviewing Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter will give you more than enough inspiration and opportunity for calling on these folks. Taking it to an advanced level you can use the tool itself to engage and interact with these folks–commenting and promoting their own agendas and credibility in the social media channel.

Very possibly you will see opportunities to help these sales prospects advance their own objectives. Can you introduce them to people they want to meet? Can you help them with advice or expertise before you even discuss a sale? Can you help increase their standing or credibility in their industry or peer group?

Searching Social Media Content

Finding sales opportunities in the sea of disconnected social media tools and networks used to be complex. Not so anymore. A little time spent practicing with Google Advanced Search can bring you all the sales leads you can possibly work. However, you do need to practice and refine your social media search techniques.

Start by thinking like a customer, not a sales person. Stop using your language and use theirs to develop your searches. Think through the characteristics of your ideal sales lead.

Here are some ideas to fuel your quest for opportunity, search for:

• Competitor’s names, products, and sales people
• Common problems your product solves
• Frequently asked questions you get on sales calls
• The names of influencers in your industry or market

Creating these simple searches and then toggling between Google’s News, Blogs, Updates, and Discussions searches will bring you a 360 degree view of your sales opportunities and angles.

Give social media a try in your sales process.

What do you think are the good and bad aspects of using social media as a sales professional?

Social Media Sales

So, you’ve finally heard enough about social media. You’re to the point you actually think you might be missing something. You might even be hearing whisperings around the sales floor that this might be some of the top producers’ secret weapon to grab a few extra wins every month.

I’m glad you took the initiative to be here. We’re going to do a little equalizing.

You’re going to learn some of the basics of social medias. However, much more importantly we’re going to show you how to get value from it immediately–long before you’re a guru.

Why Try Social Media?

Okay, not quite convinced this is going to be worth your time to figure out? Let take a little walk down memory lane and talk about sales history.

Back in the day it all started with carrying a bag and walking door to door, getting a foot in the door, showcasing the product, and selling belly-to-belly at the kitchen table. (Notice all of our cliches come from old school sales).

Then things changed a bit. We started to send sales letters, picked up the telephone for a little cold calling, and blasted a few emails to stay top of mind. That’s right took a few marketing tricks to help us cover our prospects and sales pipeline a little more thoroughly and efficiently.

Social media is the next trick for personal lead generation. Think of it as the new telephone and the email of the future. Believe it or not surveys show that youngsters under 20 never use email–it’s Facebook or text message if you want to pull their chain.

7 Reasons Sales Should Be Using Social Media

Enough coaxing, you either want to learn this or you don’t. Here are 7 specific ways social media is going to immediately improve your sales process:

1. People hang out on social media - The fact of the matter is that millions of people are now congregating on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and hundreds of other social networking sites to stay connected and share ideas. If you’re in sales, why would you hang out on the Internet alone? (It’s kinda like eating alone).

2. Social media is stitch the fabric of referral networks – In the real (physical) world it is really hard to refer business. When someone hears a friends ask, “Do you know a good…” You have to recall the name of the great person you used, search around for a crumpled business card or a scribbled down number, and then you need to get it back to the person who asked the question. Most often these referrals don’t happen–in social media these friend just search the profiles of their Facebook friends and connect to the expert.

3. Trust is already inherent in social networking - Normally when we find people on the Internet or and advertisement for a service we start skeptical. Will they treat me right? Do they care about my business? Will they screw me over? There’s none of that in social media. If you’re in my social network and my friends vouch for you–that’s good enough to get started.

4. You can spot opportunities without cold calling – Cold calling is hard work. You have to break through the firewall and then start peppering the prospect with questions to see if there is a fit. Incorporating social media into your sales process lets you do most of the pre-qualification of a lead long before any call is made or email sent. Just read their profile and content. Is there a reason to do business, or not?

5. If you’re connected referring you is much easier – Outside of social networks you rarely refer someone you’ve never used. It’s too much of a risk and you probably don’t even know about these people and their services, unless it pops up in a random conversation with friends. However in social media you can search for great people to refer by seeing who your friends are endorsing, referring, and raving about. So, there are many times with social media you may get a referrals and endorsement from people you’re never even met.

6. Social media makes finding the right angle a snap – Starting a conversation is the hardest part of sales. What will trip their trigger? What is their burning objective right now? How can I make them a hero in their own company? These are the questions we love to know the answer to–they makes getting an executive’s ear easier. Interestingly enough managers and executives talk about these things all the time in their social networks, using them like advisory networks. And it’s all there for you to read and plan the perfect angle of attack.

7. You are going to find ins you never thought you had - Here’s my favorite. One of the first step in signing up with a social media or networking website is to automatically load in your address book. You will be floored by how many of your friends, colleagues, and prospects are already in the social media channel–instant ins and referral networks.

As you can see social media is not necessarily about engaging and Twittering all day. It’s about observing, listening, and searching for folks that need your products and services.

Then you can use all the user-generated chatter to guide you in the right approach to doing some of your traditional sales stuff–like cold calling, emailing, or even belly-to-belly selling.

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I always think it odd how disconnected most sales people are from marketing. In most cases we sit back and wait for (hope for) marketing to feed us leads. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been comfortable trusting my sale number that completely to anyone.

I’ve also thought sales leads generated by marketing are often some of the hardest to convert. Most of my big sales have come from referrals or people asking for me by name.

Good Sales is Personal, Conversational

So, after looking at all this (highly scientific) data I come to an interesting revelation–selling is personal. Your customers value the personal touch and familiarity as much as you do. No one wants to be tossed into the sales blender. They would much prefer the insider treatment.

Think about it…Isn’t this why you ask your friends and neighbors for their mortgage broker, plumber, tax expert, or (insert other) person. We’re always trying to find someone who knows someone in the business.

We, in sales, like this too. There’s nothing better than getting a call for Bobby or Susie and hearing, “I gotta a friend who’s looking for someone in the (blank) business.” You know you have at the very least an easy sales call ahead. No need to rehearse your cold call intro or how to hook their interest–they’re expecting you.

What’s more, conversations that start on a first name basis dramatically increase the probaility f closing the deal.

The Best Lead Generation is Personal Too

Why are you relying on marketing to pump you full of impersonal sales leads?

It time to get off the sidelines and make lead generation personal. There are lots of ways to get you and your value proposition out there. Pick one or two channels and perfect your attraction strategy.

Start with what you sell and think about what makes your customer the most comfortable opening up a conversation. Usually this requires some level of education and trust.

This is why social media, social networking, or a blog can be a perfect personal lead generation platform. And the good news–none of these options take a lot of technical know-how any more.

Personal Lead Generation Tools

We’ll talk more about strategy and tactics in upcoming personal lead generation articles. For now (if you haven’t already) I want you to dig into these specific tools.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Blogging

You’re first reaction might be to think there isn’t much to dig into, after all you probably already have accounts or maybe even a blog. Here’s the twist I want you to noodle on until my next post:

• Who are the people you’re most familiar with in each of these venues?
• Why are you so aware of them? What did they do to get your attention?
• What do they do? What is their expertise?
• How do they spend their time in these channels? What’s their angle/objective?
• What seems to work and what doesn’t in attracting fans?
• Who seems to be able to rally the community or start trends?

Save these notes. I’d love to see some of them in the comments below. We’ll use them soon.

Is it possible for a huge database of contacts or thousands of friends or followers to actually reduce your sales output? Yes!

This isn’t another rant on quality over quantity in lead generation. Or a diatribe on how critical lead management is to sales. It’s an important sales discussion about focus, discipline, and misplaced hope.

In sales we often pride ourselves in our ability to hunt. Collecting names, numbers, emails, business cards, and friends make us feel secure. We know it’s a numbers games with lots of No’s for the occasional Yes.

Although all true, it’s exactly this programming that can lead sales people into a dangerous rut.

Collecting without Sales Process

There are packrats and there are curators. You can clearly see the difference.

If you walk into the office or home of a packrat there are arbitrary stacks and piles of stuff–old newspapers, magazines, pieces and parts, trinkets and toys. All these things landing where they may and there they stay. There is little in the way of organization or movement.

Contrast that with a curator. Every item is carefully and quickly reviewed, characterized, and categorized. Put in its proper place for later use. Things flow in and things flow out. There is movement.

A carefully developed sales process is the difference between us being packrats of leads to carefully curating and nurturing leads to deals. A sales person without a disciplined process that moves leads forward is a graveyard for good leads.

The worst part…those without a good sales process often hoard like a packrat–collecting, taking, or requesting the most leads!

Collecting without Engaging Leads

The other danger with incessant collecting is focusing the easy and avoiding the scary.

Face it getting lots of arbitrary followers and filling a database with random names is simple. In some cases you can even automate or buy this gathering of prospects. However, engaging these folks in a conversation, connecting with them in a meaningful way, even taking the risk to introduce yourself makes even the most seasoned sales professional anxious.

It’s much more comfortable (and misleading) to measure success by collections of leads, avoiding the true measure of sales progress–how many scary, new conversations did you have this week?

Collecting without Cleaning House

Kicking a lead out of your sales pipeline is another scary, but necessary process.

Letting a lead go is like peeling your fingers off that soft childhood security blanket. You’re afraid you won’t get another lead to replace it or your letting go of future opportunity. But hanging on means you are wasting precious sales activity on something that’s not ready to close–there are other, more productive ways to manage that lead.

The secret to avoiding this bad sales habit is to carefully observe and define the characteristics of a good lead. This makes it much easier to sort the good for the bad and the hot from the cold. It also gives you the confidence to kick it lose, to another process, and the motivation to work harder on the ones you know are the best opportunities.

Keeping a clean sales pipeline is the best way to “narrow” your sales pipeline and squeeze out more sales.

Collecting without Closing Sales!

Are you on this dangerous path? Have you developed these avoidance behaviors? It’s easy to find out–look at your sales numbers. Up or down? Are you letting whole days go by without a good conversation?

Don’t get trapped in the collection trap–process and close!

Is it possible to sell without a sales process? Can you be successful engaging customers without a plan?

It happens all the time. I even hear sales people brag about “the art of sales.” The bravado of natural born rainmakers sounds good, but it’s a fool’s errand. It simply doesn’t work that way.

The best don’t sell by the seat of their pants.

Winning Takes a Process

To prove my point let me take you to the root of this little cliche–flying by the seat of your pants. Let me tell you no competent pilot wings it.

Back when I was in Air Force pilot-training we practiced procedures over and over and over again. We were tested on our knowledge of the most minute procedures and processes daily, in: stand-up, chair-flying, desk reviews, academics, simulator, pre-flight, and post-flight. That completely leaves out the actual hundreds of hours we logged in the actual aircraft practicing these same procedures.

All this practice and repetition reviewing the same procedures served only one purpose:

When the real pressure was on you executed flawlessly and instinctively.

Can you imagine putting millions of dollars on the line (in the air) without a plan? We do it everyday with our sales revenue–right? Why?

Learn to Win Over and Over Again

If you want to learn to win consistently and as frequently as possible you need a plan. This is the carefully measured and planned process to winning. It’s not that hard and we expect it in most things we want to do well–sports, music, education, (most) jobs.

Sales seems to be a notable exception. We win deals and we’re not sure how we got there. We look at a list of prospects with no idea of what a good one looks like. We email and call with no rhyme of reason. We talk to prospects without any clear goal or message.

Successful sales people don’t do it like this. Why are so many trying?

Questions and Answers

I’d love to hear your thoughts:

1. Do you agree or disagree with me? Why?
2. How do you track and iterate your sales plan?
3. Do you have any systems you use (I’m thinking GTD-style)?
4. Has your organization adopted a common “sales process?” What is it?

One of the hottest topics in the sales community right now is lead generation. Not just the big marketing programs that your company runs (and you rarely get any good leads from), but personal lead generation. Marketing efforts that you can start, manage, and see results from without any significant investment of time or money.

One of the best forms of personal lead generation is blogging. It can be, and probably should be, the anchor point of all your sales lead generation tactics.

You may be under the false impression that a great lead generation blog is all about being a great writer. That’s wrong. Of course with practice you will become a better writer, but there are a few steps that will connecting with you compelling enough to overcome the fact you’re not an award-winning author (yet).

1. Get Started

There is a reason Get Started is number one on this list. This simple point can’t be overemphasized. You won’t generate a single lead thinking about blogging, imagining a perfect logo or theme, or wishing for all the fancy gadgets on bigger websites.

Your customers don’t care anyway. They came there for one thing–information. If they wanted beautiful design they would have gone to a marketing blog.

2. Keep Going

Starting is half the battle. Keeping your blog going is the only way to win. Put blogging into your schedule. Make it a necessary element of your sales process and routine. Determine a good rhythm and stick to it.

Frequency isn’t all that important as long as you’re consistent. You can blog once a day or once a week. Just find a pace that works well in your schedule and stick to it.

3. Write to Prospects

One of the biggest mistake I see lots of bloggers making is writing to their industry peers. Unless you selling products and services to these people…knock it off! Write to your prospects.

When you sit down to write visualize your customer. Write the conversation you want to have if you get that appointment you so desperately seek. You might be surprised how many prospects call you to have that conversation–in person.

4. Write About Customers

(Hopefully) you work with customers everyday. Share these stories. They’re references and give your readers, your prospects confidence that you can help with their problem too.

Customers often feel like they have a unique and complex need. In reality, that is rarely the case. Chances are you’ve seen the problem and solved it many times.

The really neat thing about this misaligned reality is that when your prospect reads or hears your perfect representation of their problem, they often assume you must be the only one that can solve it.

How cool? Your blogging probably just remove some competition.

5. Answers Customers

How many questions do you get from prospects, customers, partners, and friends everyday? Take a second and stroll through your email inbox. How many of those unanswered emails are asking the same question? How many of them would make a great blog post?

One of my favorite tricks is to take an email and answer it, in great detail, on my blog. Then I can point this and all future emails like it to my new blog post.

This yields two benefits: First, your customers get a far more thorough answer than you whave time to give in an email. Second, you’re going to attract several people that have the same question, but would never know to ask you.

6. Be a Storyteller

How-to writing is usually boring. First this, then this, step one, step two, and if all goes well you get this. Yawn! Learn to tell stories.

People are captivated by reality. People love to hear war stories. People often internalize these stories into their own vision of the future. Stories get you calls like, “I read your article. Can you do that for me? I have this similar situation…”

7. Bring them Value

This is another secret that often gets mangled in translation. I will try to be really clear about what value is to a blog reader or online community member:

• Value is educating people about things you are an expert in
• Value is bringing your readers special offers
• Value is introducing your readers to complimentary products
• Value is asking them to buy things that will improve their life, business, paycheck

Value is not equal to free. Sure you might give away free advise or stuff from time to time. However, real value is bringing your readers a distinct advantage because they know and read you–even if they have to pay for it.

8. Be Direct!

This secret flows directly from number seven above. Don’t be shy about telling your prospects what you want them to do. Be direct. Tell them what websites to visit. Tell them what products to buy. Tell them when you are bringing them the best deals and exclusives.

9. Be Brief

No one has extra time. And even great authors like Hemingway knew the magic of brevity. Part of the value of your blogging should be to deliver what your customers need to know clearly and quickly.

10. Leave the Ending to Readers (Customers)

Your ultimate goal in blogging for sales is to engage your readers. Maybe even engage them in a sales conversation. That means drawing them into the conversation.

Try this by leaving the ending to them. Like this…

Do you blog for customers? What are your tips and tricks for bringing in prospects? How would you end this blog post?