Monday, July 25, 2011

A Warning About Going in to Sales

I started a sales job on the exact same date that another rep started. He washed out in about 90-days and I was promoted to VP of Sales. How can this happen to two people who start on the exact same day with the same set of resources? And, in this case, he came from a hated competitor with years of industry experience and I had no relevant industry experience. It was our backgrounds. He came over from a Sales Engineering role, and I was a career sales leader.

The differences were stark. While we both had moments when the phone felt like it weighed 500 pounds, I still picked up the damn thing and made calls. He didn’t. While we both hated the disappointment of being told “No!” I dealt with it and kept grinding. It killed his spirit. While we both found internal challenges that made selling difficult (sound familiar), I overlooked them. He bitched about them – constantly. And, while I was closing several deals per month, he was not.

Blog continued below . . .

If you like my blog, you’ll love my book, Click Send and Sell! Three Unconventional Emails with Extraordinary Sales Results.

If you have ever had a prospect “go dark” this book is for you. It has proven email techniques to “wake up” your prospect. While unconventional, these emails are authentic and professional, and almost always work. And , for only $3.99 you can put them to work for you today.

Also included are email techniques for following up on leads (these emails typically get a 20% response rate!) and for planning your next prospect meeting. Proven through years of use and honed for you, these emails will help you stand apart from the crowd.

The book is available at just about every electronic outlet, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and Kobo. It’s also available for your iPad at the iTunes store.

No eReader? No problem! Click HERE to download and print the book in any format you want.

What are you waiting for? Those deals won’t wake up on their own!

I’ve seen this happen before, and I always warn the sales engineers, customer managers, subject matter experts, and any of those folks who work with the sellers to be extremely careful when considering making the move to sales. Here’s why.

Sales Engineers and those who support sellers are often called in to help midway through the sales process. It is their technical savvy that really wins the day and helps close the deal. When they are engaged, they are typically presenting to the decision makers. The table has been set. The SE walks in to the room, let’s the seller kick off the meeting, and takes it from there. At that point they wow the audience with their prowess, years of experience, and customer best practices. It is not unusual that this presentation tips the deal in your favor and you get the deal. And, because the SE doesn’t have the word “sales” on his business card, the customer actually believes him!

But the sales rep gets all the credit and most of the associated earnings. Over time the SE becomes disenchanted with his role and rightly so. After all, he is the one that is getting these deals done. If it weren’t for him, you probably would have lost to a competitor. So, since he knows the business like the back of his hand, and obviously he can sell, he makes the move. And more often than not, fails. Here’s why.

That incredibly smart, talented and gifted SE has absolutely no idea how hard it is to get the sale process to the point where he was traditionally brought in. He has no idea how many calls, how much disappointment and frustration go in to the earliest parts of the sales process. And without that knowledge, he is totally ineffective.

Sales appears to be really easy when you participate in the process. But it is hard as hell when you are the seller trying to make it happen. Do not under estimate the challenges that come with setting the table. There is nothing easy about it. So if you are in a role like that and are thinking about sales, think hard. The job is not as easy as you think.

If you like my blog and want to be added to my mailing list, send a request to lorimers@sbcglobal.net , or you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lorimersam

Be sure to check out my book, “Click ‘Send’ and Sell!”. Click here to download an electronic version, http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/33433

Monday, July 11, 2011

On Deal Momentum

In May of this year I rode along with a rep to a very important meeting. We had the opportunity to present our solutions to a group of senior leaders from a very large prospect. They gave us two hours and we did an effective job of focusing on solutions that they were very interested in. They were engaged, asked lots of questions, and kept us around after our allotted time. Ours was just one of the several meetings (all of their other meetings were internal-only) planned for the day, and we finally “got the hook” from the meeting organizer as the group continued to ask us questions as we milled around in the hallway after our session had concluded. It was a thrill to see our messaging resonate with such a senior crowd. As I write this blog on June 27, the rep had yet to follow up with any one of the meeting attendees. Clearly we have lost deal momentum.

How can this kind of thing happen? I wish I had the answer. The rep had a myriad of excuses for not following up. His “crutch” was that the champion and meeting organizer was his main contact and that he was working closely with the attendees on our behalf. “Balderdash!” as my dad would say. It is the rep’s responsibility to follow up with each and every meeting attendee. In this case the attendees were senior leaders representing subsidiaries of the parent. So really, we had an audience of about six separate company decision makers. With no subsequent follow up. And this was a so-called “seasoned” rep.

Blog continued below…

If you like my blog, you’ll love my book, Click Send and Sell! Three Unconventional Emails with Extraordinary Sales Results.

If you have ever had a prospect “go dark” this book is for you. It has proven email techniques to “wake up” your prospect. While unconventional, these emails are authentic and professional, and almost always work. And , for only $3.99 you can put them to work for you today.

Also included are email techniques for following up on leads (these emails typically get a 20% response rate!) and for planning your next prospect meeting. Proven through years of use and honed for you, these emails will help you stand apart from the crowd.

The book is available at just about every electronic outlet, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and Kobo. It’s also available for your iPad at the iTunes store.

No eReader? No problem! Click HERE to download and print the book in any format you want.

What are you waiting for? Those deals won’t wake up on their own!

In another instance, I managed a very bright rep, fresh in to sales. She had terrific industry experience but little to no sales experience. That’s okay because coaching new reps is one of my passions. So I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear her say that she’d be following up after a very important and successful meeting in about a week. A week?! Not on my watch. In her mind, following up with a prospect was kind of like calling a boy after a date – you give them a few days and then call as to not look desperate. Sales is not like dating – at least not in that way. Needless to say, she followed up that very day.

Immediate follow –up after a prospect meeting shows the prospect that you are keenly interested in earning their business. It tells them that you are organized and work with urgency. These characteristics are immensely important to prospects as they begin to build trust in the new relationship that they are building with you and your company.

How soon should you follow up? I would suggest within 24-hours almost without exception. I once worked for a Senior VP of Sales who was so excited about a meeting that he couldn’t sleep. He went downstairs to his home office at 2:30am and sent the prospect a note, letting them know just how excited he was about their great meeting. Now that’s following up with passion.

Don’t let moss grow on your deals. Tend to them with care, urgency, and professionalism. LinkedIn discussion groups are full of questions like, “What is your best strategy when a prospect goes dark?” I would suggest a really effective email from a great book HERE. But otherwise, don’t let that happen. Have you ever watched your favorite sports team lose momentum during an important game? It is so frustrating. But that’s exactly what happens when you allow your prospect to forget about the great meeting that you had, and try to get them excited again. It’s incredibly difficult to do. Be a follow up machine and you’ll see more deals close.