The Most Powerful Sales Tool I've Ever Used

What if there was a sales tool that could:

· Give you insight in to the decision making process at your prospect

· Give you permission to call above your main contact

· Keep your deals from being stuck in legal

· Hold your prospect accountable for their deliverables

· Help you forecast with incredible accuracy

· Identify key points along the buying process

There is such a tool, and it’s called the Mutual Activity Plan. When used well, it accomplishes all of these and more.

To explain the Mutual Activity Plan (MAP), let’s break it down by each of its words.

MUTUAL: This is a plan that is co-created by you and the prospect. It is not something pre-conceived that you drop off on their desk as a leav- behind. You and the prospect are actively involved in its creation and ongoing upkeep.

ACTIVITY: The outcome of the plan is a specific set of action items that are steps along the way to consummating a transaction and delivering your services. It is not a detailed Scope of Work (SOW). That comes later, if at all. These actions steps are really aimed at helping the buyer and seller understand the steps in the sales/acquisition process.

PLAN: The outcome of the MAP exercise a document that outlines the major steps in the buying/selling process. Key elements of the plan are the activities, due dates, associated commentary, and ownership.

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, but most importantly, they 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 success 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 order for the MAP to be successful, it needs to be co-developed with the prospect. They must be actively engaged in its creation. If you find that they are not actively engaged then cut the process short. You may not have a real deal on the table, or the decision maker is not in the room. That said, the champion or coach should be able to work through most of the MAP with you.

The MAP can be used just about any time during the sales process. I’ve seen it used successfully from the early sales stages all the way through receiving a verbal commitment to buy. There is no science to determining the exact time to use the MAP. That said, you should not be cavalier with it either. The MAP process will be a key differentiator for you and your company.

To start a MAP exercise, you say something simple like, “If money was no object, when would you like to take delivery of the product?” You’ll get one of two responses to this question. One will be something like, “Well, yesterday of course. That’s why we’re having this conversation.” The other, “Wait a minute. We haven’t made the decision to use you. We’re just in the information gathering stage.” Either answer is acceptable.

If you get the first response, “Well, yesterday of course... ” , you respond with something like, “Of course! But since that isn’t possible, let’s talk about more realistic timeframes. If everything goes smoothly, I expect that we could deliver product in 90-days. How would that work?”

If you get the second response, “Wait a minute. We haven’t made the decision to use you... ” then you answer with something like, “Of course. I don’t want to presume that you have selected us, I just want to understand the buying process and what those timeframes might look like. After all, I’ve never sold this to your company before, and I don’t think you’ve ever bought this from us. I thought it would make sense to understand what that process would look like.” This will help bring down their guard and get them involved in the conversation. So you suggest a 90-day delivery (this time frame is entirely up to you and how long it takes your company to deliver its product/service) and size up their response.

Now that you’ve gotten their buy-in that 90-days might be reasonable, you stand up and walk over to the dry erase board (Yea! No more PowerPoint. And, by making that move, you have now differentiated yourself from 90% of all sales reps.) and you start with that date 90-days out. For sample purposes, let’s say that date is December 31^st. Now you ask, “So what would need to happen on your end to get the product here by then?” Now listen and be amazed! Procurement activities, committee approvals, product testing, executive sign-off, compatibility testing, proofs, connectivity, and contract negotiation are just a few milestones that you’ll hear about. And typically the prospect will be very candid. After all, you’re beginning to build some trust with them.

You document all of the activities on the board, validating your understanding, asking questions, and very importantly, asking about ownership. This is how you get some really hard-to-get information from your prospect. As you go through the process asking the “Ownership” question you’re bound to hear something like, “My boss needs to sign off.” To that you say, “Okay, great. I haven’t met your boss. Who is that?” Most times they’ll give you the name. Let’s say they respond by saying, “That would be Mike.” Then you say, “Since Mike is part of the decision making process, I’d like to meet him at some point. Would you mind setting that up?” BINGO! You’ve now just gone around your contact in a very constructive and non-threatening way. It works almost every time.

As you work through the MAP, you speak about the things that need to happen on your end. Things like, final product specifications, resource allocation, any kind of queue that the project will fall in, contracting, etc. You take ownership of those activities and begin to introduce the other players in your company that will participate.

An important and often overlooked aspect of the MAP is regularly scheduled project plan check points. These need to be added to the MAP so that you have pre-arranged permission to call the prospect and see how the buying process is moving along. This is especially important if you develop the MAP early in the sales process and your company has not been selected yet. As a rule, divide the length of time represented in the MAP by three and insert those calls accordingly. In a 90-day plan, you’ll check in every 30 days. This will keep the prospect from “going dark” on you.

When you are complete, the dry erase board will have a grid with the following headings:

· Activity

· Comment

· Owner

· Due Date

· Status

On that grid, the agreed-to buying process should be well documented. You now know the exact steps for winning this business. Now make sure to transcribe the information from the board in to a spreadsheet or Word document and send it to the customer. It will serve you well as a plan for moving forward. It is what I refer to as “A Project Plan for Dummies”. But what it represents is a MUTUAL agreement between you and the prospect regarding key steps to consummating a transaction.

The MAP is an incredibly powerful resource that you almost can’t screw up. I’ve seen it used many times, and it has always helped the sales process along. Try it out and let me and the other readers hear how it worked for you.

Selling in Uncertain Times

"Dow Falls 634 Points"

"European Debt Crisis"

"S&P Downgrades US Debt"

"Congress Gridlocked on Debt Ceiling"

These are just a few of the recent headlines that have made me extremely concerned about our nation's finances - not to mention my personal finances. So how does a top sales rep deal with the onslaught of scary and negative press? By ignoring it.

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!

Your personal sales production is your own business. How you deal with the onslaught of distractions - albeit important ones - is entirely up to you. Let's say that the market crashes for the next 3 business days. How will that affect your sales activity? Will you make fewer calls? Will the quality of your proposals suffer? Will you stop asking for appointments? Will you start running late for important calls?

We should all be concerned about our savings and the world's financial issues. This is no time to have your head buried in the sand. But in these uncertain economic times, there is no better time to work your arse off! The very last thing you want to see happen is all of these distractions negatively impacting your personal performance.

Now I understand that many of you call on companies that are affected by the markets. I worked for a company that had a very strong presence in retail and investment banking during the crash of 2008. Despite our best efforts, those companies just weren't buying. So we had to regroup and focus our efforts elsewhere.

It is disturbing to see the markets behave like they have been over the last several days. I could easily sit in front of the talking heads all day, watch my 401(k) and ignore my job. But I can't afford to do that and neither can you.

Yes, be educated. Yes, pay attention to your investments. But NO, do not allow those distractions to keep you from maximizing your income by negatively affecting your sales activity. Your ability to close business in these precarious times makes you a huge asset to your organization. Chances are we are heading in to lean times. That means a re-doubling of your sales efforts to make your numbers.

It's not getting any easier. Stay focused and you will be fine. Stay distracted and you will find your sales lagging - not a good place to be in uncertain economic times.

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

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.