This new sales manager received the coaching he needed in the brown envelopes he found in his desk, on the first morning.  His predecessor had kindly passed on the advice he’d himself received from the guy who was there before.

Advice for New Sales Managers is one of our Sales Stories from the Front Line, in this case published in our Successful Sales Management blog.

Follow the link for the original article, but as a taster, here’s a precise:

The brown envelopes suggested a course of action for when the sales manager missed his number.  Each quarter his team failed to meet the target he was to open a brown envelope in which he’d find a course of action suggested.

Like the other sales stories, it’s counter intuitive, and ironic. And it recognises the realities of the job.

You can find lots of these stories in our Sales Stories category and a compilation of our sales and sales management tutorials in our eBook Succeeding in Sales Management.

If you find any value in this or any of our articles please help Mr.  Google know by giving us a +1.

This story about the salesman’s magic pen illustrates how the smallest detail, or idea, can make a big difference in any sale. It’s another in our Sales stories from the front line series – tales sales professionals tell in order to get their point across. Stories from the front line are counter intuitive and funny, or at least ironic. They entertain, and educate, but aren’t always true.
This one is true, and it goes like this.

John was intrigued. At this first meeting with Steve, he noticed the pen in his shirt pocket. A pen wasn’t unusual, of course, but this one was. John recognised the logo on the pen clip. He had one just like it himself. Those pens were gifted to prospects and customers by Steve’s fiercest competitor.

Steve represented one of the two hardware companies dominating the Unix server market. John was in the process of choosing a hardware supplier for the new database project. He’d already met with, and been impressed by, the other company. That was how he’d been given his pen. He didn’t understand how Steve would get hold of one, and especially couldn’t figure why he’d be advertising his competition.

The question had to be asked.  Why was Steve showing that pen?

Steve smiled, shyly.  He’d need to tell the story of how he came by it.

John already knew the competitor was eating Steve’s company’s lunch, winning just about every deal in the market. The business had professional sales people, a strong product line, and management refusing to lose new opportunities under any circumstances. (Perhaps Steve was hoping to be recruited by the other side?)

But that wasn’t the story of how Steve got the pen.

He’d been one side of the usual punch up over a new server sale, and in trouble. Despite proving his hardware was superior, and persuading management to let him offer an eye watering price, he still wasn’t winning. The other side was determined not to lose, and offered to supply it’s server for free, just to stop Steve’s company winning a deal, any deal.

Instead of giving up, He decided to stay in the game and fight. Cutting a long story short, Steve won the deal based on functionality, service, and a reasonable price, against the opposition’s free of charge.

At the meeting scheduled to finalise the contract, Steve’s new customer used the pen, given to him by the competitor,  to sign the paper.  This was too big an opportunity to miss.  Steve wanted that pen as a trophy.  He offered to exchange his own gold plated pen for the cheap plastic logo pen which had been used to sign the contract.  His customer readily agreed, happily joining in the joke.

Steve left the meeting with a signed contract, and what was to become his magic pen.

John chuckled at the story. Later he’d find out why that buyer had chosen to pay for a server when the alternative was available for free. Right now he still didn’t know why Steve was displaying the pen in his pocket. So he asked again.

This time the response was a broad smile. Steve carried the logo pen in his shirt pocket because, at every first meeting, his new prospects would ask why he was displaying the pen. Then he’d get to tell the story, of how his customer preferred to pay for Steve’s server, rather than have the competitors product for free.

Showing the pen in his shirt pocket caught the attention of potential customers.  They asked the question, and, as a result of hearing the story, realised they needed to seriously consider what Steve was saying about the strengths of his company and product.

With the help of that magic pen, Steve continued winning business. He was promoted, first to sales manager and then to VP of Marketing and Sales.

The competitor tried to recruit Steve several times.  Maybe it wanted it’s pen back?

The small detail of a plastic pen made a very big difference, because it caused prospects to ask the question and listen to the answer.

Check out our new Sales Stories From The Front Line, and hopefully you’ll have some fun. Anybody with experience of sales operations will find lots to relate to, and smile at.

And while you’re here check out our eBook Succeeding in Sales Management and our individual sales management coaching tutorials.

How do sales people sell to other sales guys? You might think they get very technical, preening themselves with demonstrations of their intellect. You might think they brag about past achievements and future opportunities.

In each case you’d be right, but mostly they sell using stories. Sometimes those stories are true and others they’re fiction. They’re always direct and simple. Mostly about wins, but also be about failures. And they are always counter intuitive, illustrating a point the audience wouldn’t expect.

Sales pro’s selling to other sales pro’s are like stand up comedians. They have to be funny, to engage the audience in the bar. They have to be insightful, to add value. At least one side has to ring true. There’s always a hero, and a villain. No story makes sense without the opposing forces.

They call these narratives War Stories – reports back from the front line about what works and what doesn’t.

Why is this? Why can’t a simple explanation of fact do the trick? Why aren’t sales people like accountants, or lawyers, or HR professionals, or administrators?

Because sales people are a cynical bunch. They have to be. Nobody gets told the truth less often than the sales guy.

Those War Stories tell the truth, even when they’re fiction.

Sales Managers, more than anybody else, tell War Stories. Often that’s the only way to get their point across, to CEOs, and accountants, and the guys they’re supposed to manage.

What are War Stories like? How do they entertain, and inform, and coach? How do they make the point, without lecturing?

Check out our new Sales Stories From The Front Line, and hopefully you’ll understand.  Anybody with experience of sales operations will find lots to relate to, and smile at.

And while you’re here check out our eBook Succeeding in Sales Management and our individual sales management coaching tutorials.

In every sale there’s more money to be made than the seller thinks. And yes, that means you and your deals. Here’s an interesting story which illustrates the point, but before we get into the tale, lets agree every sale is made at a point where buyer and seller agree to contract for a given scope, at an agreed price. And that’s where the opportunity to make more money is hiding.

Sales people who focus only on price, and agree to give the customer whatever she wants, are missing a trick. Agreeing a price and minimising the scope is a legitimate approach to negotiation. And, probably, easier to achieve than a higher price.

Leaving stuff out of the scope sets an opportunity for upselling later, when the customer is locked in and less concerned about price.

OK, so lets get on with the story.

The call came through just as the CEO passed his administrators desk. She’d stepped out for a few minutes, so he picked up the phone.

The caller introduced himself as a marketing consultant with an idea which would double the company’s sales, virtually overnight. He wanted a meeting to sell this idea to the CEO.

The company boss had heard this sort of claim before, from numerous marketing types. He was too busy to waste time on more of the nonsense. He demanded to hear the pitch, there and then, on the phone.

The consultant refused. He wanted to sell the idea, not bid for a future assignment. He suggested a short meeting at which he would give the CEO two words. This short phrase would double the businesses revenue, and would only cost it $1 million.

The idea was laughable of course, but nevertheless intriguing. Where could the harm be in taking a ten minute meeting, grabbing anything new and throwing the guy out? The pair agreed a date and a time.

At the appointed hour the consultant called on the CEO, to find him and his Chief Marketing Officer waiting for him. They wanted to hear the pitch, but they had no intention of paying for the two words.

The consultant explained he didn’t have time to waste. There were other places he could sell the idea. If this company didn’t want to pay, he wasn’t going to play. He would explain the idea only once the CEO and CMO agreed to pay the $1 million fee if they ever used it.

So they did.

He asked them to bring him the standard label for their product. The once which said ‘Wet hair thoroughly, massage into the scalp, and rinse’.

Now was the time to expose his idea. He insisted on written confirmation they would pay up if they used it. They agreed. The price didn’t matter, because they would never use it.

Once the agreement was signed, the consultant pointed to the label and explained they should add the two words to the end of the user instructions.

Those two words were ‘And Repeat’. And they made him a millionaire.

Did this story make you smile, or even think.

If so you’ll enjoy some of our other Sales Manager War Stories – short tales which make big statements about sales and prospects and customers.

And check out our downloadable eBook Succeeding in Sales Management for insight and suggestions on strategies, tactics, processes and tools for getting the most from sales operations.

Are there times when you’d do better approaching sales from the other direction. Times when the prospect doesn’t seem to be listening, even though your value proposition should be exciting. Times when the customer won’t even think about something new.

There’s an interesting story from way back which ranks at the top of sales manager war stories.

It makes this point simply, without lecturing. And brings a smile to even the most depressed of sales people.

Maybe its true, and maybe it isn’t, but that’s irrelevant. It gets the point across, like this.

Back in the days before Independent Financial Advisers, when ordinary people had savings rather than debts, and there were virtually no rules, some fast talking wide boys made a fortune, persuading family and friends to buy investment schemes.

They called it Life Assurance. It was regular savings, a portion of which bought insurance. The rest went into investments which, after 25 years would turn into a pile of cash.

These schemes exist in one form or another today, with one important difference.

In those days, the seller earned a commission equivalent to all the savings made in the first 18 months. That commission was paid as soon as the contract was signed. The sales guy took an immediate win, whereas the investment wouldn’t start until two years payments had been made.

Not surprisingly, sales people fell over themselves to get into the business – even though there was no base salary or expenses, and sales weren’t easy to make. Customers were rightly suspicious, but the rewards were eye watering.

The subject of the story, our hero, gave up a good job with a salary, and a car and a pension, to get into the Life Assurance business, confident he could cut the mustard. He had smart brochures, strong arguments, and a bunch of contacts.

His strategy was simple. He was a social animal. He was well liked. He got on well with everybody he met. He was always on the invites list, usually near the top. He’d attend every function he could, and pitch everybody he met.

After 6 months our hero was staring bankruptcy in the face. Things just hadn’t worked out as expected. He went to all the parties, but nobody would listen to his story.

Every time he met somebody new they’d chat. Eventually this person would ask “And What Do You Do?” Our man would smile confidently and reply “I sell Life Assurance”. And that’s when it happened. His new prospects eyes would glaze over at “I sell” and would look around for an escape route before the “Life Assurance” came out.

In desperation he decided to change his approach, and come at the prospect from a different direction. Luckily for him it worked. Within another year he was making more sales, and more money, than he could ever have dreamed. Ultimately he became the most successful guy in his business.

Some years later he was interviewed by a journalist wanting to know the secret of his success. Which changes had he made in the rags to riches transition? What insight could be helpful for readers?

“Well it was was quite simple really” our hero explained “I kept the same products, and strategy and brochures. Went to the same parties and pitched the same people”. “I just changed one word in my introduction, and then everything started to work the way it was supposed to”.

People didn’t walk away. They listened. Asked questions. Ultimately they bought products.

“When they asked me what I do, instead of saying I sell Life Assurance, I said I buy Life Assurance for people looking for safe investments with solid returns and no risk.

Would you like me to help find the right scheme for you?”

And that was him selling from a different direction.

Is there anything which makes the sales manager happy – apart from the usual sex drugs and rock and roll, that is?

Sales Managers are mostly sharp tongued cynics with an attitude. They have to be. Few people get told the whole truth less often. They have to read between the lines and work with what they find there.

The sales manager spends his, or her, life between the rock of the CEO’s quarterly numbers and the hard place of customer contracts. The job is a constant battle between the certainty of the revenue target and the uncertainty of the sales forecast.

Weighted %age probabilities make sense on the front line, but mean nothing to analysts and bank managers. Typical metrics – like activity rates, win loss ratios, revenue per head, days sales outstanding, time to order, calls per order – give bean counters perfect ways to measure an imperfect world, and call the sales manager to account for the differences.

Solve that problem and you’ll make any sales manager happy. But how can you solve that problem?

By being right, first time, every time.

Recognise when deals are too tough to win, or not worth the cost of sale, and qualify out early. Don’t waste time, money, or other peoples trust, chasing rainbows.

Recognise which deals can be won and commit early. Figure out your strategy, organise your plan, marshall your resources, recruit a coach, and manage your way to the win.

That’s how to make your sales manager happy. Reduce the uncertainty. Use your experience and skills to qualify the opportunity and then win it.

Our Front Office Box and Successful Sales Management blogs suggest ideas for reducing the uncertainty in any sales deal. Our Succeeding in Sales Management tutorials explain processes and tools you can implement to stay in control of your funnel or pipeline.

What do call a salesman you can trust (or saleswoman of course), if you can find one?

Sales people are paid to persuade you to buy stuff you don’t want. They get a commission when they can, and fired when they can’t. Like journalists they tell you what you want to hear, and not what you don’t. When it turns out you bought a pig in poke, there’s no point in complaining. The law is on the sellers side – Caveat Emptor – Let the Buyer Beware.

How could you trust somebody who’s interests are exactly the opposite of yours? You shouldn’t, right? You weren’t born yesterday.

That’s the buyers perspective. What does it mean for the guy doing the selling?

You’ll be familiar with the problem. When selling, you want the customer to trust you, and distrust the competition. Unfortunately the other vendors have the same objective, but the other way around.

You’ll substantiate your claims, with benchmark, and references. And so will they. You’ll focus on your USP – Unique Selling Point, and so will they. You’ll promise customer service and so will they. In fact you’ll say anything to prove your credibility, and so will they. Ultimately you’ll discount the price, and so will they.

The result is the customer trusts nobody, quite rightly. All you sellers are guilty of pitching your product or service at a price higher than you’re prepared to accept. You’ve just proved it.

If you’re prepared to mislead on your price, what else are you hiding? And why on earth would the customer trust you? Would you trust you?

The bottom line is buyers trust people who tell them what they don’t want to hear – the downside, and how to manage the risks.

Sales professionals who understand their products, their markets, and their customers, go the extra mile. They take the trouble to find out what will really work for the prospect, and show how they’ll achieve it. They evaluate the risks, and show how to avoid them. They focus on what prospects want to achieve, as opposed to what they’ll buy.

When sales people contribute their expertise to help customers achieve their goals, and minimise the downside, they become trusted business advisers.

That’s what I call sales people I can trust – trusted business advisers, who want to win business in their own interests, but understand it’s only business when we both get what we want.

Trusted business advisers who contribute their expertise to help me achieve my goals, and share in the proceeds I call Partners.

What do you call sales people you can trust?

Related articles

• Trust Me, I’m a Salesman. (successfulsalesmanagement.stevensreeves.com)

Close the sale like your CEO would. This technique is friendly, fun and best of all functional – as in it works – unlike most of the tricks you’ll hear about.

There’s a popular myth about Closing The Sale.

In sales folklore, the ability to close deals is the superstar’s secret sauce. Somehow the superhero isn’t intimidated by the customer, or the competition, or the price. He knows he can drop the right world, put on the right smile, and magic the buyer’s signature onto the order.

Such mystique makes ordinary mortals shiver at the thought of the Close – otherwise known as the dreaded Asking for the Order. Saying the wrong thing, at the wrong time, to the wrong person might lose a deal which is almost won. Maybe it’s better, more polite, less risky, to wait for the customer to decide? Maybe she’ll close herself?

As always the superhero isn’t what he seems and the mere mortal has no need to worry. There is no magic secret, and customers aren’t frightened by you asking for the order. (They might well be irritated by stupid closing techniques, but that’s a separate conversation.

Instead of thinking like a sales droid, mere mortals should think like a CEO. CEOs rarely get sent on those dreadful sales training courses. They don’t often listen to water cooler stories of heroics. They wouldn’t know how to manipulate a buyer with smart questions. But they do know about business, and specifically about making decisions on behalf of the business.

The CEO Close is a simple technique for staying in control while seeming to give it to the prospect. It’s a virtuous circle of three sequential phases – The Open Question, The Trial Balloon, and the Conditional Close.

It can be, in fact should be used on every sales call until the deal is won.

Here’s an example of the sales side of the conversation for your Sales Playbook.

You can add typical customer responses from your market and replace the ?????????s with whatever fits your business.

The Open Question
“What do I have to do to win your business?

The Trial Balloon
“How would it be if I could ?????????????. Would that do it for you?

The Conditional Close
“If I can offer ????????????, will you give me the order?

You’ll notice this is a simple, polite, conversation which gives both sides a chance to explore the rest of the sale, without committing to anything.

Your sales strategy is simply a playbook – what the sports coaches call the predetermined moves you’ll make in particular circumstances set by the opposition.

For a sports playbook you need to understand and stay within the rules of the game. You need to research the opposition’s past performances, seeing how they exploit weaknesses. You need to organise your own resources to counter the other team’s moves. And you need to play to your strengths when its your turn with the ball.

Selling is no different.

Of course it isn’t a game. It’s more serious than that. But the philosophy is the same.

Anybody with a responsibility for winning business can develop their own unique sales strategy.

Management and Marketing can’t do it. They don’t understand the particular chemistry of individual customers with particular hot buttons, and the moves the competition will make.

But you sales professionals can. You are on the street. You can feel the vibes. You know which strings to pull and what happens.

Just like sports coaches, you can do the thinking up front. Put your experience to work. Figure the angles and the plays. Write your own playbook of strategies and tactics which work for you.

That’s your sales strategy – your unique sales proposition – your USP.

If you’d appreciate some help? If you’d like a coach? If you’re not quite sure of how to manage your own destiny?

Check out our tutorial The Why’s and How’s of Sales Strategy which explains how figuring the plays out before the game starts wins you more business, at better prices, with less effort.

Where can sales managers go for training? And where can they access coaching – in the philosophies, strategies, processes and tools they need to get the most out of their sales team?

Usually, the best sales people get promoted to sales manager. They know a lot about selling, obviously, but rarely know much about management. That’s where the challenge starts. There are plenty of training courses in management, and probably even more in selling, but not in sales management. And sales management is different.

The sales management job mostly involves bridging the cultural divide between company management and revenue producers. Management believes all business activity can be measured, and assessed. Sales professionals know selling successfully involves an unfathomable combination of humility, tenacity, art, science and good fortune. The two philosophies are like oil and water, not mixing.

Where can sales managers find the insight to accelerate the learning curve? How much more effective could they be, more quickly? How much more value could they bring to the business? How much less stressful could the promotion be? If there was a coach to guide them?

The answer to all these questions is quite a lot.

A few pearls of wisdom from hardened professionals. Some tips on approach. Some processes and tools to deploy. Some empathy and some motivation. These are all gems of knowledge a coach can provide.

But where can you find them? That’s not obvious to me. I wouldn’t know where to look.

That’s why we produced our Sales Management tutorials – short, no nonsense, explanations of both the challenges, and the solutions – for anybody interested in solving the sales management puzzle – bridging the gap between sales and management.

If you are a CEO wanting your team leaders to integrate with your management team. If you are a sales manager struggling to bridge the gap. If you are an experienced sales professional wanting to persuade somebody you can make the step up? There’s something here for you.

The Successful Sales Management series is available for download here. Individual papers are relatively short – you can read each of them while you take a coffee break. They’re on topic – there’s no padding, just straight forward explanations and descriptions. They’re genuine insight into the experience of veteran sales managers. As far as possible they are generic – applicable across industries and businesses. They combine philosophy with strategy, tactics, processes and tools, and templates you can use to implement the ideas you’ll develop.

Here’s a list of the individual tutorials, with links to the download pages.

Success in Sales Management mostly explains the challenges of getting the job and how to win the promotion, and keep it.

The Whys and Hows of Sales Strategy details the benefits of developing and maintaining a sales strategy and includes a case study and a template on which you can base your own.

Principles of Professional Selling suggests counter intuitive rules which run counter to what you’ll see and here elsewhere, but result from real experience – not hearsay and BS.

Learn to Love Your Price describes tactics for handling price in the sales process. Price isn’t a problem – it’s a tool to help you win the business once you’ve understood our thinking.

Sales Management Processes and Tools explains the various roles in the organisation’s hierarchy and suggests processes and tools management can use to drive results from sales teams.

Sales Probability and Process Management combines sales process with sales forecasting using milestones and weighted probabilities to make forecasts more meaningful and the sales pipeline more manageable.

If there’s one single secret sale professionals use to win more business at better prices, it’s sales qualification which we explain in Sales Qualification – The Secret Sauce.

Well, what are you waiting for? Download our tutorials now and Up Your Game, starting in the morning. You’ll be more effective, more efficient, and more confident, with this insight to help you and your team to do a better job.