Heard a rumor that Dale Berkebile from Brandwise was pulling this webinar together.
Author Archives: Rick Roberge
Selling, Spelling and Math
I have a friend that can make any piece of junk look like art. I have tools, but…..
I have an insurance man, a financial adviser, and a doctor. I understand some thing about insurance, money and the way my body works (or doesn’t), but…..
A builder built my house and used an electrician, plumber, etc for their end of the work. I can use a hammer, wire strippers, and a torch, but…..
That’s why, when I read Frank’s post, I thought, “Isn’t it easy to understand?” People can’t do anything that they don’t have the natural talent to do or haven’t taken the time to learn how to do it properly?
The answer to every one of the buts above is that I’m not predisposed to do it myself. In some cases, I don’t have the talent that I need. In others, I don’t want to do what it takes to learn how to do it. (Go to trade school, med school, etc.) Same thing with selling. Some don’t have the Crucial Elements that are necessary to sell well. Others don’t have the incentive to correct the weaknesses that they need to overcome. Some may not want to invest the time or money. Doesn’t matter what the reason is, but if you don’t have what it takes and your livelihood depends on it, do you really want to screw it up?
Let’s tease Frank… Take a look at the url for his blog post. “yes-seliing-is-harder-than-other-jobs”. He hit ‘publish’ before he hit ‘spell check’. Frank is very humble and real and doesn’t mind being teased, but we all know somebody that thinks they can spell. but can’t and won’t use spell check or a proof reader.
How about math? Who do you know that is math challenged or math scared? Have they ever sought help, or did they just give up and say, it’s the way I am?
So, if you don’t sell as well as you should, is it because
- You don’t have the crucial elements?
- You don’t want to learn?
- Or you’re so good at something else that you make enough to hire somebody to sell for you?
Or, is it that you need better leads?
Closing Crappy Sales Leads
My head is still spinning! Rewind. Back to the beginning.
Last September, I had a conversation with a business owner that sells software, but the big money is in selling consulting along with the software. The owner told me that they get leads from the software company but they’re garbage and they never buy.
We’ve been working together since. A couple of weeks ago, we spent some time working on the first phone call. Last week, my client called me and said, “I might deny it if asked, but I’ve been making calls today and I had fun.” I immediately thought, “This one made it!” They realized the truth behind my #1 rule of selling. “If it’s not fun, you’re doing it wrong!“
Then we broke for Thanksgiving. On today’s call, my client starts telling me that last week, she got two of those crappy leads from her software provider. They closed one of them Friday. Huh? That’s right. They closed one of those crappy leads that never buy on Friday.
Wait a minute…..The rest of the story.
My client told me that they called the other ‘crappy lead’ and had a 35 minute conversation (also on Friday) with a CEO that was fully engaged, answering questions freely, and was leaning toward buying. My client asked (I paraphrase.), “So, have you thought about what kind of investment would be necessary and doable to reach your business goals?” The prospect answered, “Not exactly.” My client asked, “Would you like me to help with that?” The prospect answered, “That would be great!” (Are you ready for this?) My client replied, “I’d love to, but I’ve got to get on a call that should have started 5 minutes ago. Would you like to schedule another call next week so we can wrap this up? He agreed and they scheduled a call for tomorrow.
I am very proud of this client for three reasons.
- They put a CEO ‘on hold’. Awesome posturing. No ‘puppy dog’ selling here. This is peer to peer.
- They knew to leave the CEO ‘wanting’. The CEO wants the answer to budget and therefore wants the next call. My client told me that theyir plan is to start the next call by asking if anything had changed and recap what was covered on the first call.
- My client had the presence of mind to schedule the next call AFTER our coaching call so that we could debrief, strategize and rehearse for tomorrow.
So, here’s the lesson. Sometimes the leads aren’t crappy, but that doesn’t mean that you should blame it totally on the salesperson either. Selling in the 21st Century requires new skills, new approaches and a new mindset that allows the marketing process and the sales process to become one. Want to learn how? Check out this webinar. Indicate that you were referred by The RainMaker Maker.
Do Buyers’ Opinions Matter?
I bought a new laptop a few weeks ago. I also got a new tablet. Very cool. I got this idea that I wanted to get a new briefcase to protect my laptop, tablet, camera, flipcam and all the cords, drives, etc. Elaine needed to go to Macy’s at Whitney Place on Black Friday and Macy’s at Solomon Pond on Saturday. I went over to the luggage department in both stores to check things out.
OK, so all the briefcase boxes have catalog numbers and a description. All the sale placards have a list of descriptions that are not the same as the descriptions on the boxes along with the regular prices and the sale prices, but no catalog numbers. How the heck am I supposed to figure out how much a briefcase costs? IMHO, I’d make the descriptions on the box match the descriptions on the signs.
Maybe my opinion doesn’t matter?
I also bought a new garage door opener to replace the one that got fried in the electrical surge that also fried our alarm clock, our phone system, our fireplace, our electric blanket, my laptop, our microwave, our coffee maker, our receiver and a few light fixtures and outlets. I used to be handy and I convinced myself that it would be easy and fun to install the garage door opener. That was on 11/11. Today is 11/26 and the box is in the garage unopened. I’m sure it might have been fun, but I’m never gonna have the time. So, I called Lowes where I bought the opener. I told my story to Brian in millwork and ended with I wanted someone to come out and install it. Brian said, “Oh, too bad you didn’t do that when you bought it. I could have saved you the sales tax. (Boy! Am I stupid!) So, I ask Brian how much to install the garage door opener. He says gotta send a guy to look over the job. That costs $35. He comes back. Tells me what needs to be done. Then we can sign a contract and get it done. Brian. There’s an opener there already. It has to be removed and you put the new one in. Pretty straightforward. How much does it usually cost? Brian asked, “Are you trying to get this done over the phone?” Yes Brian, I am. So, how much? Brian finally says “$97” I said, great. Let’s get it done. He tells me that I have to come into the store to arrange for the $35 inspection, then back in to sign the $97 contract. Is he not freaking listening? If I had the time to go back to the store (twice), I’d install the darn thing myself!
So, do you think that marketing is telling sales that customers like coming into the store? Or do you think that they’re not listening when sales tells them that some customers don’t need to come into the store? Or, does it not matter what the buyer thinks or wants?
Last one – repairman comes to the house to fix my fireplace. Grunts. Groans. Looks confused. Finally cuts the four wires that are connected to an electronic gizmo and says, you need a new one of these. I say Great. He says, let me know when you’ve got it and I’ll come back to install it.
Huh? I call you to fix my fireplace and you want me to go get the parts?
Needless to say, it didn’t happen that way, but seriously. Is marketing not listening to sales or is sales not listening to marketing or Do Buyers’ Opinions NOT Matter?
Want to take the first step to marketing and sales alignment? Click the link.
Sales Words
Dave Kurlan’s recent post talks about the lack of understanding of “Sales 2.0” outside of a group of early adopters and early followers and suggests that he was going to stop using the term. Frankly, salespeople, business people, consultants and experts do this all the time. They want to differentiate themselves. They want to appear to be leading edge. So, they make up a name for it.
Now, Dave didn’t make up the word, but he is part of that group that gets it, practices it and can teach it. As a matter of fact, the guy that made up the term probably didn’t make up the process. He saw how good salespeople were using their tools and named it. However, it doesn’t necessarily follow that customers will want it just because he gave it a name.
Think about your own world. How cool do you think you are? What are your words? When you say your words, do you prospects’ eyes glaze over? What are their words? If you use a word before your prospect is asking what the process is called, you’re going too fast. Frank Belzer’s most recent ebook talks about alignment between the sales process and the buying process.
Smarketing is one of those words. It’s a guess at what to name a process. Will the name catch on? Probably not. Will the process? You tell me.
Do your salespeople ever complain about the quality of their leads?
Do your marketing people ever complain that your salespeople couldn’t close a door?
Do either, your salespeople or your marketing people not know your customers’ words?
Does your inbox look like a mall parking lot during the Christmas season? So many customers but not enough salespeople or time to figure out who are the buyers?
Did your salespeople used to have a healthy, flowing predictable pipeline, but now they’ve got 5 times as many opportunities in the pipeline, but their sales are down?
If you want the answers now,
send me an email. If you’re not in a hurry, stay tuned.
send me an email. If you’re not in a hurry, stay tuned.
Sales, Marketing or Smarketing
First, an apology. As you may know, I’ve posted 720 blog articles since March of 2006. If you do the math, that’s an average of 2.4 articles per week. So, it’s not normal that it’s been over two weeks since I asked you to stay tuned for more on 21st Century RainMakers. A foot of heavy, wet, concrete-like snow knocked out power, cable, internet and phone, fried my laptop, propane, fireplace, microwave, electric blanket, and several other small appliances including our automatic coffee maker. (Have you ever tried living normally without the coffee being ready when you wake up in the morning?)
So, we’re getting back to normal, and although I’m still going to ask you to stay tuned, I want to let you know that yesterday, the Smarketing Team began the transition. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be explaining what you, your marketing people and your salespeople need to do differently and the changes that are necessary in the way that you attract, acquire and retain customers, as you make the transition to inbound marketing.
At this point, you can subscribe to The RainMakerMaker, join Smarketing RainMakers on LinkedIn, Smarketing_Gurus on Twitter and/or Smarketing RainMakers on Facebook. There’s a lot coming!
21st Century RainMakers
I’ve posted over 700 articles between the Original RainMaker Maker blog and the Kurlan blog. The most popular post is “Numbers, Baseball and My Kind of Selling“, but I don’t know why. The second most popular post is the first article that I ever wrote, “What is a RainMaker?”. I think that the popularity of that post is much easier to explain. Especially when you realize that the second most popular article at my Kurlan blog is RainMaker Wanted? (The most popular is Different Smiles and, again, I don’t know why.)
If you’re a business owner and you’re looking to grow sales, you’ve probably wondered where you could find a rainmaker. The kind of person that will generate so many sales naturally that s/he keeps your entire company busy and there’s no end in sight.
But then, last year I wrote “Selling in the 21st Century” and it was my most popular article in 2010.
The world is changing and it’s changing faster every day. In 2007, Mark called me and said, “Dad, I’ve got something for your space.” and a little while later we became one of the first Hubspot customers. Hubspot is awesome and if you’re not a customer, you are losing ground.
In 2010, Pete Caputa asked us to teach his marketing agency partners (VARs) how to sell. We’ve worked with 100’s of Hubspot VARs and customers and are proud to say that that list includes many of the most successful Hubspot partners.
At HUGS2011, Brian Halligan said that Hubspot customers that worked with one of Pete’s VARs tended to be happier than Hubspot customers that tried to do Hubspot themselves.
Last summer, based on the success of our sales development program for Hubspot VARs and Pete Caputa’s recommendation, Paul Roetzer asked me to contribute to the sales chapter in his book, “the marketing agency blueprint“.
So, what?
Stay tuned….
Change for Change’s Sake?
As you may know, I’m going through a change. As I was searching for relevant data, I came across this article about change in the Catholic Mass and thought, “I didn’t know that.” Then I started wondering about change. Why we change? When we change? How? Do we change or are we changed? Are we changing and our world has to change or is our world changing and we have to adjust? Are we changing reluctantly? Are we excited about changing? Will the change be a plus, plus where everybody wins? Or will the change leave someone hanging or at a loss? Is the change finally happening or is it an impulsive reaction?
Heraclitus believed that the only constant is change. What has changed in your life in the past week? Month? Year? Decade? How have you changed? Should you have? Are you where you were? Thought that you’d be? Wanted to be?
The Catholic Church will be changing the Mass on 11/27, but they’ll be ‘getting us ready’ between now and then. I’ll be making my change on 12/29, but I’ll be getting ready between now and then. Feel free to follow me by subscribing to the Original RainMaker Maker Blog, or following me @RainMakerMaker or on LinkedIn.
Why Salespeople have the Wrong Perspective
It’s impossible to see what your prospect sees when they look at you. You can try to understand. You can apply logic, but you cannot see what they see.
Put your left hand on the left side of your face. Easy enough, right? Left hand/Left side of your face.
Now, face somebody and put your left hand on the left side of your face. Aren’t they gonna watch this action happen on the right side of your body from their perspective? Think about it. If they were to reach out and touch the same side of your face with their hand that’s on that side of their body, wouldn’t that be their right hand.
Now look in the mirror. Do you see what your prospect sees? Put your left hand on the left side of your face. What do you see in the mirror? It looks like your image is putting their right hand to the right side of their face, but if you move your left hand toward the mirror, your image will move it’s right hand but it’s the reflection of your left.
Compare a picture of yourself with your image in the mirror. Isn’t it reversed?
So, here’s the point. In a sales situation, we can’t actually see what our prospect sees. The best we can do is try to understand their point of view. Just a thought.
Do you want to learn how?
Confessions of a Sales Coach
20 years and 60 pounds ago, I might have been called a runner. I was never built like a runner. Nor did I ever run fast enough to be anything other than a recreational runner, but I did run and I would often disappear for over an hour to clear my head and re-create.
Back to the present – If I had a bucket list, one of the first things that I would put on it would be that I want to run again and over the past 20 years, I’ve had several starts, but life gets in the way. Sometimes, when I’m coaching, I use examples from other parts of our life and last Thursday, I compared the grind of getting and exercise regimen going to the grind of getting a prospecting regimen going. Little did I know that Wes Powell was a fitness fanatic and that if you got him going on that, he had a real dark side. As we talked, I could see him using my stuff on me so that he could try to hold me accountable to work out regularly. I told him that I got a lot of email. I blog. I spend several hours coaching every day and that I have commitments to my clients. I was very good at dodging. Remember, I’ve learned to dodge from years of coaching you! I’m a great dodger!
So, then he asks, “So, who do you like better, your clients or your grandchildren? And I’m thinking that he’s a real (well never mind) and that this is probably what my clients think of me when I’m holding their feet to the fire. I had a coaching call with Stephanie McLaughlin at 9:15 today. She had call reluctance. We talked about who she needed to call and that she already had a call scheduled for 10 AM, but we agreed that I would call her back at 11:30 and see how she did on the three calls that she agreed to make. Two voicemail messages, one connect with a conversation with a non-prospect and at 11:20, one of the voice messages called back, they found an issue and scheduled a meeting for tomorrow. Stephanie was proud of herself and rightfully so. I finished my call with Stephanie and at 11:49 decided that I was hungry, but that I would go for a walk to be aerobic first. I had an email exchange with Carole Mahoney. Responded to a sales coaching question from Preston Bowman. Acknowledged a schedule change with Barbara Escher and a few other distractions from taking that first step.
So, then it was 12:49. Where did that freakin’ hour go? Now, I was starving.
Now, don’t ask me how, but somehow I left the house and 40 minutes later came back sweaty, breathing and I ate lunch.
Wes, you feel like me?
RainMakers & Sales Rock Stars 