Tactics for successful selling
I heard Vince Thompson of Middleshift speak recently on a panel at Amplify.LA, where we are both mentors. He offered some fine tactics for successful selling that I want to share here. He told us ~
Selling is done is steps: get each small step completed, then move to the next. In a short phone call or email, take these steps:
- ask for a short (20 minute) F2F meeting (or phone call, if that is appropriate).
- offer 2-3 days and time-ranges that can work for you, so your prospect can respond quickly and simply. Or, offer something general, as in “Tuesday or Friday afternoon this week.” Commit and confirm the time and day and location (wherever is easiest for the prospect).
- Keep that meeting short, after brief opening friendly talk, move quickly to the point of the meeting, and ask for the next step. What do you want and why do you want it? A pilot program? A scheduled time to demo to the prospect’s IT or Sales department? A referral or introduction to someone?
- Follow up with whatever will make that request easier to implement. Send it as soon as you can.
- Smile. Keep a smile in your voice whenever prospecting or selling. It matters that folks hear this energy.
- With each level of your selling cycle, keep these ideas in mind.
Another interesting idea came from that evening: Put your request at the beginning of the email. Then justify or add additional information to support your request. Lots of folks read “above the fold” or scan and may not get to your request at the bottom of the message.
I always put the critical information above the fold. And I go one step further — I use indented bullets for every issue that requires an answer. And often I get all the answers at once.
- So, do you have other selling tactics to share in the comments section here?
Work smart #4: getting work while doing work
In my consulting work with CEOs optimizing their early stage tech ventures, and with expert consultants maximizing their practices, I train my over-committed clients to “work smarter.” Here continues a series of articles sharing some of those tactics.
Getting work while doing work
The first rush of success (or your current rush) is thrilling. Sales are up, new prospects are filling your pipeline, a new and challenging consulting gig is just starting, and you are being invited places and becoming known.
As always, you must be careful what you wish for. Of course we want this success, and this very success will threaten your discipline with the best of excuses.
One of the first disciplines that gets lost during a rush of business is the consistent structure of seeking the next new work while you are busy fulfilling the work you just closed.
I see this phenomenon year after year, especially with new or growing companies and consultancies. The excitement of the new work takes over, and balance is lost. In the focus to do excellent work, the prospecting and marketing that will fill the pipeline is forgotten.
Real paying customers, strategic partners and new clients fill all your waking consciousness. This success implies the next success (except that it doesn’t imply that — it simply offers you a chance to create a satisfied, hopefully testimonial-writing success story and perhaps a referral).
The consequence of losing your balance and forgetting to create new prospects in your pipeline — a serious down-draft of no work, no customers, no sales, no gigs — can easily cost you your profits for the year. In this vacuum, you must scurry to catch-up, to re-build, to start again to build the visibility and momentum that brings the new work.
The discipline to continue to prospect, market, network, speak and publish is critical to working smarter. To keep your balance, you must continuously create visibility for your venture. Prospecting while you are busy working, and creating outreach through networking, speaking and publishing, will make certain your pipeline is filled, and that new opportunities arrive in a steady stream.
Working smart #3: setting boundaries and saying no
In my consulting work with CEOs optimizing their early stage tech ventures, and with expert consultants maximizing their practices, I train my over-committed clients to “work smarter.” Here continues a series of articles sharing some of those tactics.
Setting boundaries and saying no
None of the working-smart tactics are of much use if you do not set your own boundaries of what you will and will not do.
If you allow your schedule to be compromised consistently (see #1 Time Management http://bit.ly/zZttas ), you will return to the inefficient and stressful putting-out-fires style of management that hurts you, your workers, and your bottom line.
If you assess that an opportunity is likely to be low-margin or no-margin or high-maintenance (see #2 Watch your Margins http://bit.ly/xZFBy8 ), and you pursue it anyway, rather than refusing it or avoiding bidding for it, you will again return to inefficient and stressful experiences for you and your team.
We are not trained to say “no.” We are trained to “be polite,” to “not rock the boat.” We are all trained to avoid conflict.
And yet, the ability and discipline to say “no” will return your profit and your balance to your venture.
You can say no and still be polite, especially if you apply your assessment of the opportunity early, before anyone else’s expectations are set. You can learn phrases that work to put aside any low-margin work.
- “Thanks, but we don’t have the available resources to handle this project to the best of our ability at this time.”
- “Yes, thanks, we will see if we can match that bid, and if we can, we will get back to you.”
- “I appreciate your interest, but I am overbooked with deadlines for the next 3 or 4 months, and couldn’t give you the attention you need during that time. I would want to do an excellent job, and right now I can’t promise that.”
This boundary-setting is part of each of the other “working smart” elements: setting meeting schedules, sticking to your structure, scheduling your buffer time and your organization/private time so you are most efficient every day, and assessing, then turning away work with minimal margin.
These disciplines are not learned overnight. They require practice over time. But if you try them, and remember to notice the results, you will find that these approaches work and that nothing as dreadful as you imagined actually occurs when you say no.
After awhile, all these tactics are embedded in your business dealings every day, and you find a better balance, and a better bottom line.
Be careful what you wish for…
Just this week I said to one of my best clients, “The point of our work together is not to build you your most successful business (although we are doing that too), it is to build you the best life you want, which includes a business that challenges and inspires and rewards you, and also allows you all the other parts of your life you want to pursue and experience, too. Our aim is your best life, even more than your best profitability.”
Then I came across this interesting article by Susan Steiner in the Guardian, which echoed my perspective. It summarizes the findings of Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse, who has written a book on her experiences with the dying and their life lessons. I record the Guardian article here, and include the links if you should like to explore more deeply.
Top five regrets of the dying
A nurse has recorded the most common regrets of the dying, and among the top ones is ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’. What would your biggest regret be if this was your last day of life?
There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. And among the top, from men in particular, is ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’.
Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. “When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently,” she says, “common themes surfaced again and again.”
Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
“This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.”
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
“Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”
What’s your greatest regret so far, and what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?
Working smart #2: watch your margins
In my consulting work with CEOs optimizing their early stage tech ventures, and with expert consultants maximizing their practices, I train my over-committed clients to “work smarter.” Here continues a series of articles sharing some of those tactics.
Watch your margins
I have seen my clients commit time and resources to the pursuit of opportunities (customers, clients, sales, deals, gigs) without assessing the value of the return they will receive on that investment. It is as if all opportunities were created equal, each deserving the same attention.
Not true. Some work you should turn away immediately, no matter how much you may need the revenue. Some work returns nothing, and drains you of resources that could be focused on getting high-margin revenue. You need to identify that kind of no-margin work very quickly.
Now, folks trained in sales, particularly with compensation based on profit margin, are experts at assessing where their best rewards will be found. But many of us are not trained to think this way, and need some simple systems to assess a good prospect from a bad prospect — whether that is a sale, a client, or a customer.
To begin, this can be done simply.
- Define your ideal target customer, client or deal: what industry, what company size, who is the check-signer, how much will they buy, using what deal-terms, and how much effort does it take to close? From this ideal profile, you can determine what margins you will gain by closing this deal.
- Carefully assess the deals that may not return you any profit margin (or a very low margin). This may be a high-maintenance client who demands more time than your retainer allows, or a product customer who needs multiple proposals or bids to win a narrow-margin deal. It could be a strategic ally that offers you access to an adjacent marketplace, but needs too much re-configuration of your product (at your cost) to make the deal worthwhile.
- Create a system, or just a profile or checklist, of those criteria which represent both your best and worst margin opportunities, and review each new client, customer or deal against this profile at each point of effort. Just begin — you will learn more from this new context and you will refine the system as you go along.
With these tools, and a bit of discipline, you can sort which opportunities to follow and which to reject. The secret is to apply these tools at the beginning of the sales cycle, not half-way or most-of-the way through the close.
When your assessment tells you the profit-margin is low, then avoid, refuse, or stop bidding on those opportunities which show you a limited return on your investment of time and effort. These low-margin deals will deplete your resources and interfere with your closing the high-margin deals.
Working smart #1: Time management & setting priorities
In my consulting work with CEOs optimizing their early stage tech ventures, and with expert consultants maximizing their practices, I train my over-committed clients to “work smarter.” Here begins a series of articles sharing some of those tactics.
Time management & setting priorities
I completely understand the pressure of time, the need to prioritize tasks, and the cycle of exhaustion and exuberance that comes with building and growing a venture or a consultancy. I used to work more hours and less smart too.
We all need the discipline of time management and prioritization to move us beyond “putting out fires” every day, so we can focus on the important stuff. If we can gain this focus, hopefully well before a deadline, we have time to refine the task and then feel confident in its value. Here are some ideas to try.
- Restrict and schedule pro-bono or “non-margin” meetings into a couple of hours during the week’s least-pressured time on your least-pressured day. That is, set that time aside on your calendar, and put these “giving-back” meetings into that time-slot on a first-come, first served basis, and restrict it to two hours each week on that same day.
- If you have multiple clients (or investors or direct reports), set a schedule when they can rely on your presence and/or full attention. Work around other requests from them as best you can, and always inform them when they can expect a response for each of their requests.
- Also, train them to make their requests clearly, and to specify what level of response they need and when they need it. This will allow you to plan your time of response (say, later in the week?) and not jump to put our their fire when it pressures you. This allows you to focus on your own priorities and deadlines.
- For product proposals, allow yourself adequate “buffer time” to prepare a bid, if it is not time-sensitive. Ask your prospect directly when the proposal is needed. (And then, of course, do not leave the work until just before the deadline!).
- Book at least two hours at the end of the week, or the beginning of the week, with no interruptions (none!) so you can organize your week’s priorities. List these priorities in descending order of urgency.
- Each day, give yourself 15 quiet minutes to plan the day’s priorities in the same way. Do not distract yourself– just plan the day’s work.
- Use technology and personal support as best suits you to offload the tasks you do not do efficiently, to free up your time for your unique skills.
- Establish simple templates for email responses, promotions, responses to proposals and other recurring tasks. Of course you can personalize them, but learn to use your own templates to save time and energy.
Sometimes my clients outdistance me in my own smart-work. One of my clients has built his own intranet for the two of us, and every system we have developed is captured in a template. I have seen him send out a proposal on any of his various pricing models in less than 3 minutes!
This time management and organization takes more discipline than it takes time to actually do. And it can keep you calm throughout the day, and more efficient than your earlier mode. And you can get more of your “other” life back too.
Pitching & selling: don’t rush your prospects to close
Whether you are leading a product business or expanding your consulting practice, you cannot rush your prospects to close the deal. You must be persistent but not annoying. You must be available but not “chasing.”
Defining your strategies to respect this invisible line, and to judge when to take an action, is critically important and often learned through experience. And the more personal your contact with the prospect, the more loaded your expectations for a response.
So, here are some approaches that have worked over time:
Make certain you are speaking with the person who can sign the check (the decision-maker). This is done during the first meeting, often by simply asking what decision-making structure exists (is there a management committee, boss, or Board that needs to approve the deal?). If you are not speaking with the decision-maker, move quickly to determine how much work you must do to reach that decision-maker (a simple introduction to him or her, or a series of proposals or bids that move up the chain of command?) and then determine if that work and the margin involved is worth the effort of the close.
Be gracious. Be available to help, offer some top line expertise or sample products, and move to negotiation after there is an initial relationship created. The initial relationship is that the prospect feels supported by you and encouraged by the value of your offering, and that you feel as if you can close and support this prospect and still maintain appropriate margins.
Don’t panic. Often prospects take much longer to close than you would expect. They have some other agenda or hidden issues they may not be sharing with you, other than the decision-making issues.
Don’t believe everything you hear. Sometimes prospects lie. Sorry, sometimes their egos drive them and they mislead you in some way as to their importance or power, or sometimes they are trying to get your strategy in a proposal with no intention of hiring you to execute. Be especially aware of this in international work, where cultural norms and expectations may be different during negotiation. But it can happen often in the U.S. as well.
Don’t take offense. If the close is delayed, do not take it personally. You don’t know what is involved in the decision on the other side. No one is “conning” you (except if they are lying, see above). Stay supportive and persistent without chasing.
Don’t show you need the deal. This “negative-selling” approach is most effective. While you are being supportive of and patient with your prospect, be (or seem to be) easy in your approach to the timing of the close. Imply that all is well, and you are ready when they are ready. Don’t show tension for the new revenue, or in meeting some monthly or quarterly goal. None of this will help.
The customer or client will not sign until they are ready. There may be many reasons for the delay that you will never know. This softer side of selling tends to create longer-term relationships, based on your availability and support, and on your not embarrassing your prospect.
Remember that this prospect is likely to become a client or customer, and this closing phase is the beginning of the lifelong relationship and value you want to create.
Words to live by from the dawn of technology
I’ve been thinking of all those pithy sayings about living our lives, like the Chinese “May you live in interesting times” and “Be careful what you wish for…”
And I have found my new message.
So, I am only about 50 pages into the nearly 600 pages of Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, and I have already found my favorite part – that new message.
Mind, I have been in the technology business nearly as long as Steve Jobs, although not as long as Atari-founder Nolan Bushnell, with whom I worked some many years later, after Atari.
But there were Nolan’s words for me to live by, on page 44 of the book, revealing the simplicity of his approach to technology and design: the instructions for Atari’s Star Trek game:
1. Insert quarter. 2. Avoid Klingons.
Your year in review and the lessons you can learn from it
We are at the next turning point, closing off the past year (2011) and looking forward to the next year (2012). I wanted to re-post a version of my year-end reminder to myself and all of you, to take an hour of quiet time to review your year and learn what it has to tell you.
It is time to surge ahead into a new year, to take stock of our work, and make our plans for new actions. Caught as we are between the Western New Year and the Chinese New Year of the Dragon on January 23rd, we have a brief time to settle our old issues, clear the clutter, and embark on our new agendas and dreams.
Every year about this time, I sit quietly for an hour and review my calendar for the past year. This review does many things: it allows me an hour of reflection. It shows me what I thought might happen that did or did not come to pass: that prospect was the Big One (who never signed), or that conference presentation which I nearly declined brought me two long-term clients, or that unlikely referral source brought me a $200K client.
This review is a walk through lessons learned, and I have done it every year for as long as I can remember. From this information, I add to my wisdom of what to do next time. This wisdom, which we all carry, and which adds to itself like layers of silt-knowledge, is solidified into our sense memories, becoming an innate savvy.
Then I move on to my current prospects’ folder, and take a look at which ones will never become clients, and which ones need some attention. And I respond appropriately to each one on the long list — now, this week, when we are all awakening to what needs to be done.
And finally I review the current, after-holiday status of my current clients and make sure I am ready (and they are ready) to move forward.
During the holidays, if I have been righteous, I have cleaned up the administrivia that plagues all small businesses (closing or reviewing the year end books, re-organizing new and old files, updating software and security). This turn of the year is often the only quiet time to achieve this clean up.
And, if you happen to know your next adventure, you will have spent some time already preparing for its launch or next growth stage.
So, are you ready? Have you completed these tasks or your company’s equivalent tasks?
As I remember reading once some decades ago, “Life hits you with both barrels.” And if the New Year rushes off into new adventures, it is good to be ready.
Five New Management Metrics
I was impressed with this guest blog in Forbes.com, “Five New Management Metrics You Need To Know” by James Slavet of Greylock Ventures.
James Slavet introduces some behavioral approaches to knowing if your team or company is getting the most out of its time, its meetings, and its behaviors. Here is his list:
1. Flow State Percentage – how much of your team’s time remains “in the flow” without interruption?
2. Anxiety-Boredom Continuum – how are you balancing your team’s excitement and pushing them to stretch their capabilities (without discouraging them)?
3. Meeting Promoter Score – how often do you check to see if a meeting was productive, necessary, or needing improvement?
4. Compound Weekly Learning Rate – what are you doing to keep your team constantly learning, and using what they learn?
5. Positive Feedback Ratio – are you checking in on how many positive comments are offered to your people, in relation to how much criticism or aggravation?
It’s a good read: http://onforb.es/s1WIZc