C-Level Selling is the Path to Cross Selling

The biggest handicap to increasing market share is the inordinate amount of time that sales people spend cold calling trying to get into new accounts. This is tough duty. It's tough because there are no relationships to leverage for information and upward introductions. Precious time is wasted calling or pounding doors to leave advertisements to generate interest. Sales people cost too much to do that. They should not be used as an advertising arm of marketing.

Answering RFP's is another time sink and waste of valuable selling time unless you have relationships with people that count for that project. If you haven't been involved in the development of the RFP and you haven't gotten to the P/L leader to understand the business issues, you don't know how to present your solution so that you stand out as more valuable than the rest. Even if you submit the lowest price, you may not win over the ultimate decision maker because price is usually not his issue - even though everyone always says it is.

I'm in sales. I sell my consulting, my books and my training programs. My focus is on my existing customers. 90% of my time is spent with existing customers trying to develop selling relationships - meaning - learning, observing, interviewing, integrating and showing how I can deliver their results. I use and develop my network. As for new accounts, I've hired a marketing company to generate qualified leads. Once they've got a prospect to a point where I can interview an interested leader, I'll invest to see if I can fit into his solution image. I don't chase windmills. Unless I have an opportunity to develop a relationship -- credibility with someone on the inside -- I will let it pass. I invest my valued asset, time, to develop my valued asset: relationships. Relationship selling is how I can make the most sales.

And now I invite you to learn more.

Bonus Tip: FREE E-Book "Getting Past Gatekeepers and Handling Blockers". Just click this C-Level Relationship Selling Link Sam Manfer makes it easy for any sales person to be effective and feel comfortable connecting with and relationship selling C-Level leaders.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sam_ManferStrategic planning is the exercise that organizations struggle with in defining their sales strategies plans and the future direction of the company. This article addresses a few ideas to assist you in the sales part of the overall sales strategies plan.

A great series of starter questions should be answered right at the start.

What do you want to do?

Run the business
Or

Grow the business

Or

Transform the business

Run the business: Status quoi, business as usual, just like before, keep the lights on. No big
changes.

Grow the business: Increase revenues/sales, grow markets, and add resources, facilities and people, expand.

Transform the business: Big changes, risk, new stuff, different markets, products, channels, skills and resources.

Now keep these three questions in mind through the process, write them out on a flip chart or white board.

1 What is it that we do?
2 Who is our target, who do we do it for?
3 How do we do it better, how do we excel over others that we compete with?

Where to start:

If you have recently had a detailed assessment of the sales group done great if not I suggest you get one done to establish a true baseline for all of your decisions. The sales strategies plan should be done by the senior management team and within reason should be completed without consideration of the ability to execute. (I will explain later) It is important to get buy in with the entire team for all parts of the sales strategies plan. Start by establishing a time frame for the sales strategies plan. There is a ton of information on the web regarding details that will help you through this sales strategies process. Outline the sales strategies plan, establish strategic objectives and goals identify key strategic projects and stack rank them in order of importance to the overall sales strategies plan and then for each ask yourself the following two questions about each.

1 How important is this to the business
2 What is our ability as an organization to execute?

If it's very important to the business and you can execute with ease then it should go to the top of the list. If it is not so important and very difficult to execute on then it should go to the bottom of the list ..

Now what can you expect from the current sales group to do their part. There will probability be a gap between what you need and what they can deliver.

The model is simple and if you spend a few minutes understanding its power it will explain what you have to do. It goes on to explain the steps required to complete a sales strategies plan
Dealing with the gap: You will recall that I asked you to develop the sales strategies plan without constrengths. That is because I believe that you should be able to dream, vision what the future should hold without always being concerned that the sales group may not be capable of delivering. We can fix that; you can fix that...close the gap and manage the business towards those goals without being weighted down by doubt and uncertainty.

Keep it simple; check out Google see strategic planning and good luck!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gordon_Petten

The Five Words That Could (and Should!) Kill Your Sales Career

There I was, the proud owner of a beautiful new washer and dryer set. Cherry red, front-loading, state-of-the-art; they were everything my wife and I wanted. There was just one problem: the units were nowhere to be found. I had blocked out a portion of my Saturday to make the 45-minute drive to the Home Depot where we had purchased the set, excited to get them set up and running. To my disappointment the units hadn't been delivered to the store yet; worse, no one from the store had even bothered to call and save me the trip down. In fact, when I had called the store earlier in the day to check whether the units had arrived, I was assured they had. You can imagine my frustration.

Now I'm a pretty reasonable guy: I understand that trucks sometimes get delayed or orders get misplaced or a warehouse is out of stock. No problem. The problem was that everyone I talked to (the customer service clerk, the salesman I had purchased the set from, and even the store manager) responded to my dilemma with what I consider to be the five lamest words in the English language: "There's nothing I can do." A couple of them went so far as to add an "I'm sorry" to the beginning of the statement, but somehow that didn't make me feel any better. I was given a long list of reasons why no one could do anything, but this, too, failed to improve my mood.

My options were to come back in a couple of days to pick the units up or to wait for the store to deliver them the following week for an additional charge. Since my old unit was broken and the laundry was piling up, I opted to make another trip to pick them up myself. I left the store frustrated, annoyed and certain that my next appliance need would be met elsewhere.

I share this story with you because it highlights a growing problem in the fields of sales and customer service: failure to recognize the importance of the customer. I've said before that the customer is the most important person in any transaction, but I'd like to take that a step further and say that the customer is the only important person in a transaction. After all, no customer, no transaction.

You see, I did have a third option: I could have asked Home Depot for a refund and taken my business somewhere else. The only reason I didn't was that it would have created a greater inconvenience for me at the time; however, you can be sure next time I will probably opt for one of their competitors. Remember that your customers have this same option available to them, as well. No matter how good you or your products or services are, your customers can always get similar or better products or services from one of your competitors, and probably for a lower price. If you resort to the use of the five lamest words in the English language, you can be sure they'll exercise this option. So what if there really is little or nothing you can do to resolve a customer's complaint?

First, realize there is always at least one thing you can do and that is to empathize. To empathize means to identify with another person's feelings or difficulties. A simple statement like, "Mr. Kennedy, I understand how you feel, and I can assure you I will do everything in my power to resolve this situation to your satisfaction," would have gone a long way toward making me feel better about my experience. At least I would have known that someone cared. You can always do at least that for your customers: let them know you care and that you will exhaust all your options to rectify the situation.

Of course, you have to follow that up with actually doing everything in your power to resolve the problem. In other words, you should be an advocate for your customer. If he or she has a problem, take ownership of that problem and see it through to resolution. Fight for your customers, argue for them, bend or even break the rules for them, but never, I mean never, be caught telling them "There's nothing I can do!"

Jerry Kennedy is the owner of Inside Out Business Solutions, a sales and customer service training provider based in Northern California. With a lengthy background in petroleum sales, Jerry has been on the front lines and knows the challenges sales people face every day. You can learn more about Jerry and Inside Out Business Solutions by visiting http://www.inside-out-solutions.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jerry_Kennedy

The Painting Business - Tough Economy, What Do You Do?

The first thing so many painting businesses do is to run around and low ball every estimate. Why?

Because they firmly believe that painting customers buy exclusively on price. But, studies show that for the most part that is not true. Painting customers want the best value.

Best value and that is? Think about what reasons you buy for. Try to get into the mind of the customer. If you have a really nice home in an upscale community, and you want your home to look good, the finish to last (good paint jobs are not cheap, even the cheap ones are not cheap) and actually sometimes cheap things cost more, the first time that you buy, and you pay the second time to do it the right way first. And they want the painting contractor to start and stay until done, not to take the deposit and leave only to work in dribs and drabs, until the owner finally throws the bum out. They want value, and this means a good job relatively priced, from someone they perceive to be honest, hardworking, going to do a good job and is not going to kick the dog, drink on the job and smoke in their house.

People buy for the most part on their emotions; people buy because they like you. Or they trust you. If you take a $5000 paint job, one guy quotes $5000; the other guy quotes $5050. And the client needs to pick one. The first guy looks sloppy, he was late for the appointment, and when he got out of his truck a beer can fell on the ground. The other guy is clean, came on time, and his truck looks like it was just washed. Which will they pick? The low ball painter only thinks the one who is low bidder will get the job. But if you were buying something this big, and you had doubts, would you buy from the low ball or the painter that you were confident in?

What if the prices were $5000, and $5051? Is that enough of a difference? This is supposed to be a 10 year paint job. Spread $51 over 10 years, does it matter then?

What if the prices were $5000, and $5100, at that point what is another $49? What about $5000 and $5200? $5300? Maybe if they need to buy that job badly enough, and they could not feel good about the low ball painter no matter what the price difference, they might even pay a few thousand more.
I have heard the catcalls, at a PDCA dinner that was for getting new members, from the cash painting contractors were sitting at the table all the way in the back. When the speaker was telling the audience about his hourly rate. It was (4 years ago) $65/hour. The goons in the last table were hooting and laughing, the last thing I heard was them saying he was "full of it", and he would never get that price here. And here was Princeton, NJ. If anyone knows the Ivy League Schools and the towns and communities around them. They know that this area has some of the highest paid people in the states. What was funny to me was that I had been talking to this painting company owner, for a few months prior to this dinner and, I was then charging $65 per hour in that exact area.

It is all in the mind. What do you perceive? What does the client perceive? What is their perception of you? If you want to win more jobs at a higher price than your competitors, then think Value, not low price.

By the way just today, I quoted on a new porch and deck that a decorator referred me to. She also referred 2 other respectable painters. I talked for a while about the benefits of the job, (keeping my estimate hidden), never mentioning price. Talked about the benefits of a quality job, from the primer on the new cedar rail, and what to use on the new mahogany deck, mostly emphasizing quality. I felt that they liked me. Finally they asked me for the price, at which time I told them verbally, without the estimate. I said $2196 for the porch work, and $850 to bleach and rinse the house to clean the mildew off. They said, "how do you explain that Harold quoted $1400 and $450 to bleach the house"? Saying nothing negative about Harold, (actually he is a pretty good guy), I just explained what we would do and how much time it would take. Then they said Steve quoted $1800, after that I just said I don't understand their prices.

Long story short, he said can you do both the porch and the wash job for $3000?

I walked out of there with a $1000 deposit. And this happens a lot to me.

Last year in another part of town, I took a $10,000 exterior paint job, my competition was $6000, but I got the job. And hey, we are good.

So quit dropping your price because nobody cares.

By the way, I bet Harold is thinking that his price was too high.

Click here to find out more about Getting Higher Prices than your competitors, for your Paint Jobs.

Patrick Cavanaugh has 30 years+ running a successful painting business.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=P_E_Cavanaugh

Periscope Down

Lately I have been working with a number of creative people. When I say creative they range from coaches to salespeople to web designers; from artists to store owners. They are all creative in their own way and they all struggle with the same challenges. Among those challenges is planning. Planning, or lack thereof, can dramatically impact a company or organization.

It isn't enough to be good at what you do; you must be able to clearly define details and plans in order to successfully communicate with, sell to, and maintain a client base. Remember it's that client base that equates to income.

So, we are going to take the periscope down and focus on four areas: defining scope of work, identifying the target market, developing the sales plan, and implementing a client retention program. These are the nuts and bolts of a successful business. They need to be established, monitored, and modified as needed. Without clear planning in these areas you will find yourself floundering instead of sailing.

Scope of Work

This is one of those key areas that many entrepreneurs fail to address effectively. Before you ever make a single sale, you must define what it is you will do for how much money. It may sound obvious but too many people fail to address this topic at the outset. Imagine wanting to contract someone who couldn't tell you exactly what they were going to do, roughly how long it would take, what the process was, and how much it was going to cost you. Would that instill confidence? I don't think so!

In addition, if there is gray space, it's open to interpretation by the client. They may believe that you are going to do more than you intended. Without a clearly defined scope you have no way of combating that belief. You will end up doing more work without receiving more money. Not a great idea.

So take the time to define the work. You can and should have different packages. You can even keep it a la carte if you wish. The point is to make sure you have a clear definition of work you offer along with the corresponding cost to the client. Once defined, put it in writing. You'll be amazed at how much easier it will be to sell your service or product. Moreover, now you and your prospect will know exactly what to expect. No surprises.

Target Market

Do you believe your product or service is good for everyone? Well maybe. I submit to you that this may not be true. And at the same time, it's terribly difficult to sell to everyone. Target marketing keeps things clean and clear. It helps you focus - and that focus will help you market your product or service more effectively.

Whether you sell something that everyone can and should buy is not the issue. The issue is to break down the possibilities into workable pieces. Select a section of the market that you can focus on. It's easier to set up a sales plan when you aren't all over the place.

Focus your time and energy on that one market and go deep. Try to penetrate it as far as you can. Once you've established yourself in that market you can always pick another segment and repeat the process. Now you have a focused, clear road to go down.

You may have noticed that we've been going in order through natural business growth steps. You can't pick a target market until you've clearly defined what it is you offer. Once you have your target market your next step is to structure and implement your sales plan.

Sales Process

You now know what you are offering and who you are offering it to. So, how are you going to sell it? Whatever you decide to do, you have to do it consistently. The worst thing to do in the sales process is to stop contacting people once you've started. Having a plan of action will help you avoid that problem.

There are many ways to develop a sales plan. The most successful will be the one that you'll feel comfortable doing. For example, if you don't like the idea of cold calling (and most people don't), then you have to find other ways of getting your information to your market. It may be an introductory letter; you may decide networking is the way to go; maybe you offer workshops or seminars to share information and become known to your market. Perhaps you hire a telemarketer or try direct mail marketing.

Whatever path you choose, remember that there are always more steps. You can't just send out a direct mail piece and wait for people to knock on your door. You can't send an introductory letter and expect people to call you. You have to craft a plan of action - several steps - that you are going to implement and maintain. Once you've sent out the introductory letter, follow up with a phone call. Create a process for follow up calls. How often, at what time of day, for how long.

Creating a sales plan will help you keep focused on the process. Without a plan, you'll struggle to realize sales and therefore your business will suffer. Keeping your focus on the process and tackling each step will keep the momentum going and the sales coming in.

Client Retention

Now you've acquired clients - congratulations! So, how do you keep them? Too often salespeople and business owners are so focused on the acquisition process that they fail to nurture the clients they already have. Keeping current clients is far less costly than gaining new ones so there is real value in retention.

Having said that, it can be hard to put your energy here when you think you should be working on gaining more clients. That's where planning comes in. Take some time to consider and establish a clear, workable system for nurturing your client relationships. Once that system is in place - stick to it!

When you are clear about where you want to go and how you are going to get there, it becomes much easier to proceed. Planning provides you with the road map and the directions. The most successful businesses are the ones where the people have taken the time to periscope down and think about, investigate, and create the processes necessary to move ahead. Take the time to work with the details at the beginning. It will free you up to be able to effectively head down your road toward success.

Staying Committed

We've all been there. . . that perfect moment in the business life of a sales professional when we've made the sale and turned that prospect into a client. It feels good. We've done our job well. But maybe something seems a little off.

This feeling is something to pay attention to. Commitment is a tricky thing, a loaded word with connotations of "being stuck" and these days it seems many people are terrified of commitment in all arenas.

What should you be watching out for? When a person gives you a commitment the biggest thing to look for is, are they congruent. Is the person hemming and hawing? Do they say things like, "I can probably swing that." The word 'probably' is a dead giveaway. So is the word 'try'. If someone's trying to buy or make a commitment, they're not actually buying or making a commitment.

Were they really congruent when they gave you the 'yes' answer? Or were they less than specific? "Yeah, I reckon so," they might say. Well, 'reckon so' doesn't mean they fully agree to it necessarily.

You might be able to hear it tone of their voice (which is a hard one to describe in writing, but you know . . . they stop and start and um and uh). Does their tone, when they agree, make you feel that they are really not committed?

You need to really evaluate if you've gotten a commitment from somebody, are they congruent? Do they mean it? If you spot any of the things like I just mentioned, the wisest thing to do is to stop and find out what the issue is. It's easier to fix an objection or a problem right then than it will be later on when you gloss over it (and letting the little nagging doubt grow into something larger) and just assuming or trying to convince yourself, well they must have been telling me the truth. After all, all prospects tell the truth, right? Just like all sales people do.

The thing is, we are truth tellers. We tell the truth for all the obvious reasons, not the least of which is, that we want our unconscious mind to believe us.

It's really important if you see any issues of congruency that you stop and say, "Listen, you know, you told me this answer but I'm just wondering if there's anything else going on there that we need to explore." And then at that point, you'll be able to deal with it and it won't become a festering sore that will eventually erupt and lose you the deal.

Baby Steps With Commitment

None of us start out knowing how to crawl, walk, talk, chew, understand language, read or control our bladders. . . but we all learned (hopefully) and we all learned one step at a time. We learned to communicate, we learned to be mobile, we learned to send e-mails, we learned to cook microwave popcorn. . . there's no end to what we've learned in our years on this planet.

And it all started out with baby steps.

The good news is, we continue to learn. We can learn anything that we set our minds to. By parsing anything into small chunks, we can do absolutely anything -- learning a new language (which, incidentally, is something that I'm experiencing at my ripe age and through techniques such as the light and sound machine where I achieve the brainwaves associated with early childhood, I'm excelling in Spanish at an incredible rate), learning a musical instrument, learning a computer program, even learning how to have total congruity and living honestly with ourselves and everyone around us.

Here's what I want you to do. Pick something that you can absolutely be 100 percent in control of and commit to doing it. Let me give you an example. Let's say today, and this is one I like because I can be in control of doing it, I'm going to go out at 3:00 today to the mailbox. So let's say that 3:00 is 10 minutes away from now. I'm going to go check the mailbox and come back. No matter what, I'm going to keep that commitment to myself.

You can do that, can't you?

Here's another one: Tell yourself you're going to go home from work today on a particular route. Let's say it's slightly different than normal, and then force yourself, be vigilant and alert because your normal reflexes will take over and you'll do it the same way you always did unless you pay close attention.
Or maybe you decide you're going to clean up your desk by 5:00 o'clock. Then at 5:00 o'clock, you simply clean your desk. Do it.

I don't care how little it is, but whatever it is, pick something little and do it.

Then when you want to go a little further, extend the time frame. Tell yourself, I'm going to check the mail today at 4:00, so that's three hours from now. The key is that you do not allow anything, no matter what, to get in your way of doing what you committed to do.

The next extension is to enlarge the magnitude of the task. Maybe it is something you don't really want to do -- yard work, exercise, or making an appointment for the dentist -- once you've established within yourself that you can go get the mail, you will be primed to conquer the larger tasks.

What you might find in doing this exercise is that you make all kinds of commitments to yourself and others that you have no intention of keeping. Is it any wonder you're not getting ahead faster than you are right now?

Again, to see how fast you are or are not getting ahead, look into your environment because that will show you really quickly how powerful your will is.

Increase Sales by 25 Percent

All sales people need to have a monthly sales goal for themselves. They also need to know how they arrived at that specific goal. Many times, these goals are based upon their past sales performance, but past results may not be indicative of performance.

You can increase your sales by 25 percent or more. Identify what causes mental barriers that produce limited results and how to overcome them. Many barriers are caused by conditioning, circumstance and emotions. Many people associate money with the following phrases: "Do you think money is grown on trees?" "Do you think we are rich?" "You can't afford that." "Money is the root of all evil." This is why many people have limited and negative beliefs about money.

Examples of the three limiting factors are:

Conditioning.

The US is the richest country in the world. Money is printed every day here. So in reality, what's the difference between it growing on trees or on a printing press?

Circumstance.

All people have negative experiences and setbacks in their lives, these experiences can lead you to let circumstances limit your beliefs about success or money. When you anchor your future to the past, that's exactly what you get. History is meant to be a rudder not an anchor.

Emotions.

Emotions are some of the most powerful sources of energy in nature. Negative emotions are also caused when your conscious mind and subconscious are in conflict with one another. Example: If you set a goal to lose five pounds, it is done in your conscious mind. If later that day, you walk by a bakery and smell cookies and walk in and eat a half-dozen, that action was controlled by your subconscious mind. Can you see the conflict? Your subconscious reacts to information and emotions given to it without regard to your goals. If not properly directed, negative emotions limit actions, habits and results. If rejection dominates your emotions, you have lost the war before the battles began.

What you can do to explode your results. First of all, you must change your questions. Your life and your results are a direct reflection of the questions you ask yourself. Don't ask what you want based upon what you have or what you have done. Ask bigger and better questions. Many trainers who teach goal setting say to make your goals believable. All goals are simply choice. You can make almost any goal believable if you change your questions.

Use this exercise to help you get your conscious and subconscious mind going in the same direction. Write down your goal in a positive present tense paragraph without any limiting beliefs.

Example: I am happily and easily selling 20 cars or more a month without struggle or conflict. My sales and other resources are creating an abundance of money for my family and me.

It's easy to dismiss exercises like this. However, one trait found among massively successful people is their open-mindedness in pursuit of success. Skeptics rarely are successful, let alone happy people. Ask yourself, "What have I got to lose?"

Three things determine your path in life: philosophy, free will and choice. Your own personal philosophy is determined by your questions. Everything is determined by your free will and choice. Ask the right question, and they will lead to the right thoughts. Have the right thoughts, and they will create the right emotions. Feel the right emotions, and they will lead to the right actions. Take the right actions, and they will create the right habits. Having the right habits will create the right results. Your results will form your destiny, and yes, you can increase your sales by 25 percent or more.