Bill Rice Internet Marketing > training

Selling without a Process

June 28, 2010 By
USAF T-38 Talon
Image via Wikipedia

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?
Filed Under: Sales Training Tagged With: process, Social Selling, training

What It Takes to Be Great

May 6, 2010 By

We are often consumed by visions of success or greatness. And what that takes is often deceiving because movies and writers only like to showcase the exciting parts of winning—the SportsCenter highlights or the six months before the big sale or IPO.

I think about my friend Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) when he talks about his 10+ years of pounding out post after post, working conference after conference, helping introduce person after person. I’ve heard him tell the story.

But, no one listens. I see people get hyped and charged up. Then they disappear.

So, I thought I would try to help explain what it takes to truly be great.


I’ll bet you still didn’t watch the full four minute video. Unfortunately, that means once again you missed the important lesson of what it really takes to be great.

Go watch the whole thing. Feel the pain and sacrifice. Can you be Great?

(hat tip: ChurchCrunch.com for post idea and video pointer)

Filed Under: Social Selling Tagged With: great, greatness, Social Selling, success, training

Do the Work!

December 22, 2009 By

100_3120Doyle 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?

Filed Under: Sales Training Tagged With: salesblogcast, Social Selling, training, work

Why Listening More Will Grow Your Business

August 19, 2009 By

Listening is one of the secret weapons of top sales performers. Unfortunately, most sales training focuses on how to talk to clients.

Smart sales people figure out that consumers buy based on what they think, not what you tell them to think. The first step is to understand this opportunity and then work the customer psychology of it.

1. Inherently humans are self-interested. It’s true. Regardless of how much we might try to fight it we like to talk about ourselves. The trick is making sure that it is the prospect, not your that gives into this self-interested temptation.

It never hurts to give a little prompting: “What do you think about…?

2. High probability your sales pitch will trigger objections. The harder you sell, the faster you pitch, the more likely you are to strike a nerve in the prospect. These pet-peeves or irritating themes that may be embedded in your pitch will only challenge you with objections to overcome.

Listening can tune your ear into their objectives and preferences.

3. You never know what the customer wants. You can assume, but ultimately you are likely to lose this guessing game. The more you listen and ask good questions the better prepared you will be to pitch the right line.

Given the chance to talk, prospects will give you clues to what they really value.

4. Prospects will often tell you what it takes to close them. Kind of like the clues they leave you for what they want–they will often tell you how to close the deal. A few well placed questions will draw out what assurances they are looking for to make them comfortable saying, “yes.”

Many times there is only a single key concept (i.e., free trial, discount, testimonial, feature) that will close the deal–listen for it.

5. Customers that close based on “their idea” are happy customers. Another big advantage of putting more listening into your sales is the likelihood that prospect with feel the closing was their idea. Buyers remorse can be a big customer service and brand nightmare. The more you guide the customer based on their ideas, the happier they will be.

Everyone like to feel like they are in control. Give your prospect that opportunity.

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Filed Under: Social Selling Tagged With: Sales process, training

Better Sales Performance Starts with a Strong Core

July 7, 2009 By
Four runners
Image by shaggy359 via Flickr

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.

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Filed Under: Sales Training Tagged With: Blog, communication, facebook, On the Web, Online Communities, Social network, social selling, training, twitter

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