There are millions of sales systems. Just google it. 86.5 million sales systems to be exact. In contrast, there are only 57.7 million sales philosophies. I know, not terribly scientific.

Here’s the point:

Systems are like recipes. They can help you gather all the right ingredients, but great chefs have philosophy behind their good stuff. Your sales should be backed up with the same magic!

Let’s build your sales philosophy…

Believe in Yourself

It all starts here. You gotta believe in You. Have you ever heard these wet-noodle opening lines:

• “I hate to bother you, but…”
• “This might be a stupid question, but…”
• “ I might be wrong, but…”

Ugh! These are dripping with self-loathing. I feel like I need to bring out the shrink’s couch and start the therapy session.

Instead pump yourself up. Use motivational quotes, self-talk, self affirmations, pictures of expensive cars and exotic places…whatever it takes. Pump yourself up and know you have something important that absolutely needs to get in front of your prospect, TODAY!

Then lead with some confidence, like this:

• “This is going to be the most important conversation of your day.”
• “I just had a customer cross (X) in new revenue. Here’s the story…”
• “Barbara just got promoted at ABC Corp. and I don’t mind telling you it’s because of me. Here’s how it happened.”

Who do you want to talk to for the next 15 minutes? Alright then!

Sell Yourself

You can kind of see that creeping in on the last one, can’t you. If you don’t already know this Platinum Secret of Sales, get out your pen and paper…even write it on your wall:

A sale only happens when a customer likes you (because they think you will make them look like a rock star).

There are two very important parts to that equation and neither involve your company or prospect’s company. A sale is ONLY about you selling a prospect on yourself and how high you can take them.

Be an Expert

Now that they are convinced you’re the guy or gal to take them to the next level, you’ve got to have some substance. Naturally, this again goes back to making them a rock star.

Know your product, the industry, and their business like the back of your hand. Then become the teacher. Careful, don’t apply this in a condescending or egotistical way.

When I say be the teacher I mean become their one stop for quick solutions, answers, facts, stats, and background to convince others of their value. Be able to take their challenges and break it down into understandable nuggets they can feed up the chain. Write their memos, their talking papers, or their presentations–whatever it takes to make them the expert.

This is adding value to a busy executive (or soon to be executive).

Make it Easy to Buy

Another common stumbling block. Don’t make your product or service evolve into business-as-usual. Don’t become a utility when folks want an “app.” Don’t become a consultant when folks want a creative.

Continually be delivering ideas, creativity, and upgrades. This is value. This will make it easy for them to remember what they are paying you when they go ask their boss to write you a check.

Keep it Fresh

This goes hand and hand with the last. If you haven’t talked to all of your clients or been in their office this week, you’re wrong! If you haven’t called through your database of past clients this month you are leaving opportunity on the table.

Keep contacts and relationships fresh. This will propel your sales all by itself.

What’s your sales philosophy? Writing it down helps get in solid in your mind. Share yours in the comments below.

Get them in their own skin

There are so many systems and gimmicks out there. Some are good, most are unproven, and all are bad if they can be executed naturally.

The best sales people are constantly educating and refining their sales processes with these inputs. The worse sales people bounce from one to another trying to use them like recipes.

Notice the best chefs rarely have a recipe book open. They know how ingredients, spices, temperatures, and presentation all work together to create the best dishes.

Here’s the important part—they all read and review recipes, they just never cook with them.

Get them personally excited about what they sell

Good sales people are genuinely excited about what they sell. Customers can tell this in 5 seconds and that makes all the difference.

You have to get your worst sales people to believe. That is a big part of the problem, always.

• The best mortgage brokers know they are improving their customers’ lives with a new home or a refinanced mortgage.
• The best pharmaceutical sales reps know they are improving their customers’ treatments and patients’ lives.
• The best enterprise software field sales reps get crazy “geeked” when they improve the security or performance of a clients’ network, and save them a bit of money.

Show them why they should be excited about what they do.

Find what motivates them

Start by celebrating the little wins and find out what really motivates them.

The most important word in sales people to being a good sales manager is people. These guys and gals are all different. You have to figure out what trips their trigger to dig down when it’s hard—then use it.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is let them go

It’s true. Sometimes the best thing to do for the worst sales people and your best sales teams is to let the bad ones go.

Have a process though.

Do your training and vetting in a methodical way that sets the expectation, gives them the best management, gives them the best chance for success, and then identify and cut early and often. It gets your worst sales people on their way to something they can be successful at (it might even be selling something else) and keeps the performance expectations high for the rest of your team.

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:

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?

Image by samemovie09 via Flickr

My wife recently returned from a mission trip to Cambodia to support the Rapha House. In recounting her experiences one of the lighter moments was her description of the marketplaces. 

Haggling over price is expected in their shopping experience. There are also an abundance of knock-off products. From this springs the colorful and frequent phrase, "Same, Same, but Different." The most common use is in response to, "Is that really a Versace, Rolex, [other popular brand]?"

"Same, Same, but Different."

Flash forward…last week I was talking to a client about a new B2B social media sales training program we are building out. This client (in the business of selling big ticket enterprise software) had already noted a few natural trends in their sales organization, as it applied to using social media. There were three distinct groups:

1. Sales people not using social media and showing flat or declining sales
2. Sales people using social media and showing declining sales
3. Sales people using social media and showing increasing sales

I was asked to explain these observations and recommend a solution. 

My mind immediately jumped to my wife’s description of the Cambodia marketplace anthem–"Same, Same, but Different." The answer was simple, the results typical. The key to success in selling into today’s B2B marketplace is realizing that sales is, "same, same, but different."

Social media is not a sales silver bullet. It will not (or very rarely) yield that one Tweet close. And if you sit around staring at your Twitter stream all day you will fall into group 2.

Here was my explanation: Sales principles are the same, building relationships and trust with buyers is the same, some of the tools and much of the buyers behavior is different. 

Here was my simplified answer (specific to enterprise software sales): 

Selling quarter to half-million dollar software is still a complex sale. You have to really understand the customer, their pain and their decision makers. You have to lower their risk to saying, "yes." You have to demonstrate (typically an evaluation) how you are going to achieve the promise result.

What has changed? They don’t start with the vendor for education (the old RFI process). They start by querying their social network–Linkedin, Twitter, etc. They broadcast their evaluations and consideration on Linkedin, Twitter, or blog posts. They ask lots of questions, seek out communities of current users, and look for thought leaders. Multiple people significant to the buying decision are doing their own independent social media "research," being influenced, and reporting back internally.

Social media, if used efficiently, can give you a front-row seat to this whole process. If you don’t learn and use social media, you are always too late to call and confused why you never had a shot at the client. 

Solution: Group 3 figured it out. We just need to teach the other two groups how their job is the, "same, same, but different."

What would you have told my client?

I’m continually amazed at how many B2B sales folks are not yet making social media a serious part of their sales process. Half of those people are apprehensive about trying something new and the other half believe it will be a big waste of time.

My hope is that following these 10 simple principles will get you over both of these hurdles. I can assure you that you will need to incorporate social media and networking into your sales process to stay competitive. Why not start now?

Are you already using social media in your B2B sales process? Leave a comment on what is and isn’t working for you?

I’m looking for specific frustrations in using social media in your sales process to address in future blog posts…can you help me, help you?

Doyle Slayton, from Sales Blogcast, is my kinda sales guy!

One of my most popular posts on Better Closer is 5 Tips for Sales Improvement This Week. It message is similar to Doyle’s, but I bet it is popular because of the luring title. One that might intimate a short-cut, not the tough love I dished out.

Nothing hurts a sales guy more than avoiding the hard stuff. Doyle talks about things like:

• cold calling
• emailing
• following up
• building rapport
• assessing needs
• overcoming objections

Not much fluff here.

He doesn’t mention silver bullets, magic money-making systems, or four hour work weeks. He is focused on doing the work and reaping the rewards. It always works that way. Why avoid the work and miss the pay-off?

How do you plan to do the hard sales work in 2010? What are the cornerstones of your plan?

You learn the best lessons from the simplest experiences. Here’s mine…

Last night I crashed about 11:00 p.m., never even cracking my MacBook to take my typical final pulse for the evening.

I was exhausted. My work is a bit chaotic (my business is in a full scale client-led strategic shift because of our new Eavesdropper product), every night is spent walking door-to-door (I’m running for School Board in Flat Rock, MI), and I played a late-night volleyball game in my church league.

I even missed tucking in my little angels last night.

My life is busy these days. The last thing I think about is blogging.

Then in swaggers Chris Brogan (@ChrisBrogan), with a lesson.

A lesson in motivation.

You see Chris, who is about 200% busier than I am, took the time to kick me in the pants last night. To give me a lesson in motivation. It was a simple Tweet:

However, that simple tweet did several powerful things a good leader/mentor can regularly do to motivate their team:

• He said, “I know what your capable of”
• “I miss that performance level from you,”
• “I am going to put the responsibility on you to fix it” (note his use of humor), and
• “I am going to raise the bar/expectations” (that Tweet doubled my daily traffic and quadrupled my RSS subscribers)

So, welcome everyone! Go motivate someone today.

And very sincerely, thank you Chris Brogan for all that you do.

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Often we are looking for silver bullet systems or recipes for success, while ignoring the basics. In my experience 90% of big sales improvement comes from getting back to the basics. These basics will have an immediate, measurable impact on your sales numbers.

Let’s put it to the test. Here are five fundamentals of sales. If you focus on them they will increase your sales this week.

Breakthrough the Fear of Failure

Jeffrey Gitomer, a sales guru and best-selling author, is famous for saying “fail faster.” This is a critical concept for a sales person to grasp early in their career. Like any professional athlete or best-selling author will testify to, you will swing and miss, shoot and miss, write and miss far more often than not. But, that’s okay because it’s the big ones that make them millions.

Sales has the same odds and the same big rewards. You have to kill the fear of rejection. You will hear “no” far more than “yes.” Embrace it. Know that it only means that you are that much closer to a sale.

Stop Getting Ready to Call, and Call

This is the top failure in sales performance–failure to call. Cold calling has become a pariah. However, the truth is that cold calling is the backbone of sales. Fundamentally you have to make contact and get your message out. That usually means calling a few people, setting up some appointments, and introducing yourself.

Sitting back and waiting for someone to find you and discover how you can help them is really making the buying process hard. And that, of course, is not good for your sales numbers.

Stop Picking Leads, Just Grab One

Here is another real sales quota killer–picking leads. Better known as cherry picking.

The thing about trying to constantly find the “best lead”–it doesn’t work and it wastes time. Ultimately, sales leads are often little more than a name, telephone number, and email. What are you going to make your, “this is a killer sale lead” decision based on?

Much like my advice to pick-up the phone and call, just grabbing a lead is about forward motion. Creating momentum has a far greater impact than getting the right lead.

Start Doing a Little Lead Nurturing

Regardless of how effective your sales pitch and charm might be, most buyers don’t immediately pull the trigger. That’s okay. Assuming you have a good lead nurturing program. In fact, studies show that lead nurturing not only keeps that sales lead active and viable, but may also creates a trust relationship that will actually increase the size of the transaction.

Think about it. You can build a strong feeling of reciprocity with lead nurturing. If you have a good system of touch points and you are giving away valuable content you are building buying pressure on that prospect.

Start Measuring Your Sales Process

One big mantra at a high performance sales organization I used to work at was: “What gets measured gets improved.”

If you’re not breaking down your sales process into measurable elements you might as well be “shooting BBs at the moon”–you’re never going to hit your target. Measuring helps you observe and make timely adjustments, before it’s too late. Do you need to make more calls? Is a certain objection eating you up? Are you losing deals in the proposal phase? If you aren’t measuring you won’t know.

Most importantly, do something with those improvement prompts. Work on increasing your leads and call volume. Tweak that sales script. Improve the value in that proposal.

Hopefully you are seeing a theme. So often, whether it is sales, sports, or any other competitive endeavor improvement is often best achieved by getting back to the basics. Try these back to basics tips and tell me how they go.

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It has been years since I tortured you with a running analogy for sales. So, I think it is fair to apply my passion for running to the sales discipline again.

Several years ago runners and their trainers began to discover a bit of a counterintuitive fact-maximum performance is not all cardio fitness and strong legs. Turns out strong shoulders, arms, back, and core (abdominal) muscles have a lot to do with turning in world-class times and reducing injury.

That’s right, top performance requires a strong core.

The same applies to sales performance. Dialing the phone mindlessly all day is unlikely to build the strong core that you need to consistently fill the pipeline and close deals.

Let’s explore a few core strengthening exercises you should be doing on a regular basis:

1. Read and Learn-This needs to be a continual process. I am not just talking about books, magazines, and websites devoted to your sales niche. Your continual education needs to be broad. This approach, like a liberal arts education, is likely to give you the greatest opportunity for creative advantage in the market. It also increases you chance of finding something to talk about with a diverse pipeline of prospects.

2. Join the Conversation-Social media and networking has made it easy to directly engage and build an audience of “followers.” Each of these connections increases your opportunity for a referral, an inquiry, or a partnership that pumps up your sales pipeline and production numbers. However, remember that social networks thrive on conversations-make sure you are frequently engaging and exchanging within your social network.

3. Educate Others-Remember 90 percent of your prospects will come at you with the same questions. Turn these routine questions into sales materials, cleverly disguised as education materials. Answer the questions and give them a way. This simple effort will immediately increase the number of prospects that come to you already trusting you and finding you credible to advise them. Try a variety of channels to execute this core building strategy-a blog, eBooks, slideshare.net, Facebook fan page, etc.

4. Write, Speak, Network-Never pass up the opportunity to put your ideas and perspectives front and center. They are always opportunities to test your assumptions, broaden your beliefs, and uncover opportunities. Good or bad, right or wrong your ideas and efforts to communicate with others will strengthen your sales message and ability to counter objections. Every interaction makes you smarter about people, emotions, and behaviors-all unpredictable variables in a sale-that you become better at managing with practice.

Applying time and effort toward building a stronger core will increase your sales opportunities and make you more efficient at closing deals. What are some of your core strengthening training routines?

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Bill Rice is the founder and CEO of Kaleidico, lead management software provider and online lead generation consulting services. You can reach Bill on Twitter: http://twitter.com/billrice or via email: bill.rice@kaleidico.com.