Take a moment to assess your team on the following criteria. Rank your team out of 10 for each one. (10 we do it all the time or it is clearly evident, 0 it never happens)

1. Clarity of vision which is shared by the team members
2. Strong leadership
3. Very skillful members and a depth of talent
4. Strong value systems that are shared by all the team members
5. A culture of success
6. Always looking to improve and learn from mistake
7. Accepts there is no blame only reasons
8. Has a strong system, that does not rely on any one person
9. Celebrates successes in style
10. Delivers results for the people that matter
11. Defends and protects each other from what they see as attacks from outside the team
12. Selflessness is demonstrated by individuals
13. Aware and tolerant of individual differences and personal needs and priorities
14. Willingness to provide open and honest feedback for the teams benefit
15. Has fun and is focused on the end result

Total score for your team? _______
From the list above select 3 criteria where your team could improve.

1

2

3

Together Each Achieves More

If you met one new person every day, stayed in touch with them and you introduced them to other people over time, then you would probably become the best networker in Australia. Two simple ways to change your life – the books you read and the people you meet. Great networkers are always focused on meeting new people.

This Christmas, as you entertain your loyal clients and wonder whether you will be working with them again next year, consider this: “Are you putting the work into building your network”? Notice the word “work” in network? It’s not called “net easy”, or “net no worries”, it’s called “networking”.

Marketing professionals know we like to do business with people we know and trust. For many of you it’s not easy getting out of your comfort zone and meeting new people. One lesson I have learnt in life is that your network will be closely linked to your networth.

What do great networkers do?

The best networkers I have met display most of the following traits:

• They are interested in people and finding out what makes them tick
• They don’t like talking about themselves, but can do, confidently, if need be
• They are excellent at remembering names and little details about people
• They make an effort to stay in touch with new contacts
• They make an effort to link others and provide referrals
• They ask interesting questions, probe and actively listen
• They turn up, a lot (they apply the Woody Allen rule – 80% of life is just turning up)
• They read widely and get involved with different associations and groups
• They speak at events
• They embrace social networking tools

If you want to assess your own networking skills mark yourself between 0 and 10 for each of the above.

10: You do it all the time
5: You’ve thought about doing this, occasionally
0: You never do it

Guidelines for events

Good to attend, better to host, best to be the speaker. I’ve wasted a lot of money, myself, over the years by attending events and not applying some basic networking principles. I’ve learnt from my mistakes.

Here are a few simple guidelines for events.

Don’t attend an event if you can’t answer these 4 questions about yourself:

1. Who are you?
2. What do you do?
3. How does that help your clients?
4. What’s your USP?

6 event tips

1. Act like the host – it’s obvious, but hardly anyone does it
2. Try and invite someone or a few people to join you at the event - a good client, staff member, supplier, etc
3. Ask these 3 questions when meeting new people, and then probe and build on their responses: “What prompted you to come along tonight?” “What type of work do you do? Wow, sounds interesting.” “Tell me, how did you get into that type of work?”
4. Think deeper rather than wider regarding new contacts. Focus on establishing rapport with 3 people as opposed to 30
5. Introduce people to each other and look for common ground
6. Use a strategy to remember people’s names

Staying in touch

Be careful. It’s a bit like dating. Don’t be a stalker. Too soon, with follow up, and it can smell of desperation. Too often, and if it’s not being reciprocated, you’ll do more damage than good. Maybe leave it a day or two. Send them a short email with your v-card attached. Ask them if they would be happy to be added to your distribution list.

Great networkers realise that it takes time to establish proper business relationships. If you meet someone this Christmas and they start immediately referring you work, I’d be concerned. We like to work with people we like and trust. Great networkers appreciate that networking is very different to speed dating.

Make an effort to stay in touch. How you choose to do that will vary depending on your role and people’s receptiveness to you. Don’t over-analyse this. I recommend communicating with new contacts once a quarter. Invite them to an event that you think they might be interested in. Ask if they’d like to be a speaker or guest at an event you are hosting. Find a way of staying on their radar without annoying them. Email those articles or links to sites they could be interested in. Remember their little details and build on this - kids’ names, interests outside of work, holidays, aspirations, people they know that you know. It all helps. Google your contacts from time to time.

What next

Firstly, you have to decide you want to be a better networker. Stick with it. It takes time. You need to work at it. The rewards are enormous. Attend some events and have a plan at those events. Take an interest in people and find out as much as you can about them. Make an effort to build your contacts. Aim for a certain number per month of new, meaningful contacts. As a starting point, I suggest try for one new contact per week.

Recommended reading

Get More Referrals Now - Bill Cates

Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive – Harvey Mackay

How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
Steve Herzberg is one of Australia’s leading speakers on networking and generating referrals. He works with clients including law firms, IT companies, car dealers and mortgage brokers.

Woody Allen once said 80% of life is just turning up.
Nothing could be truer in the world of selling.

Sipping on a long black up here on holiday with my family in Mooloolaba, I was thinking too much about high performing sales people.

I spend my life working with sales people. It dawned on me, all this talk about high performers, well what really differentiates them from their peers?

Over the years, I’ve worked with thousands of sales people across a range of industries. When you ask your clients to put their finger on what their high performing sales people actually do, they’ll normally tell you that
they are great at building and maintaining relationships.

“If only I had another 6 sales reps like Lucy.” They say.

“So, what do you think makes Lucy so special?” I ask.

Oh, she really understands her customers and her customers love her. She’s great at building relationships.

When you look at the data, what you tend to notice is the great relationship builders are not always your best sales people.

This is in fact a great sales myth.

One of the big differences in great sales people as opposed to great marketers or account managers is the business of relationship building.

Relationship skills are important for sales people. Although not half as important as having high energy levels and not being personally upset about rejection.

Great sales people just get on with it. They are out in front of prospects, day in day out, doing the numbers. They just keep turning up. They should be surrounded by systems that allow them to do what they want to be doing and are financially rewarded for doing and can solely focus on doing, selling to new and existing customers.

Ultimately B2B (Business to Business) selling is about getting in front of as many potential users of your service or product and converting those lookers into buyers. The best way for this to happen is to have great systems in place that allow your sales people to do just that.

Why waste money in training them in questioning and listening skills, presentation skills, closing skills, account planning and territory management etc?

Invest more time in structuring your systems so that your sales people can spend more time selling to potential new customers.

I’m not proposing that outstanding sales people do not need communication and interpersonal skills. However these are of limited value if they do not possess the key ingredient to success.

Energy, or as I like to say NRG. Transferring this energy into an enormous amount of potential customer (prospects) contact is the key to success. If you can match this with no fear of rejection, then you have the key ingredients for success.

Observe any outstanding sales person and compare them with an average performer from the same team and time and again you will notice the same results.

The high performers make more face to face calls.

Now, in order to keep making new customer calls, day in day out, you need another quality. This is what I call the NRG shield of armor. It is the ability to not fear rejection. Easier said than done.

I will address the topic of handling rejection in my next article.

Energy (NRG)
Large number of newbusiness calls
More sales linked to volume of calls made
Lower conversion rates
No fear of rejection

Think about any person in a sales role who fears rejection. What will they spend their time doing? Going back to people they know, like and trust. How can this assist them to win new accounts? Quite simply, it doesn’t work. There is only so much oil you can squeeze out of a rag. Once the account has been won, the high performing sales person should be elsewhere, chasing new business. Other members of your organisation should be in communication with the new account. Customer service, account managers and sales support all spring to mind. Let the hunter be free to hunt.

If the customer or potential customer requires support the best person for them to contact is someone they can reach. (eg: customer service / sales support) there and then. A good sales person is unavailable. They are too busy meeting with prospects.

I’ve noticed average sales people will develop all sorts of systems to ensure they appear and actually are busy.
Invariably this is time poorly spent. If a sales person is busy doing anything other than meeting with new prospects then you have an efficiency issue.

A well trained back office person, eg: sales support or customer service person should be able to handle all of the tasks related to processing an order with a customer.

In fact the irony is that administrators are actually much better at handling these tasks than most sales people will ever be. Most sales people will be tied down and restricted if they are encouraged to spend their time reporting / following up or tracking down parts or orders. Show me a sales person that thrives on writing weekly reports and I’ll show you a market researcher or an account manager.

High performers know what they need to do and keep doing it. On average 5-6 new business calls p/day, day in day out.

Busting the conversion ratio myth.

The high performers realise that high conversion rates in reality are an issue. Too much time spent with either soft targets or too much time spent qualifying opportunities. High performers are only interested in one thing, conducting more meetings with potential customers - turning lookers into buyers.

There is much debate about whether a high performer should even be prospecting for new business. This can chew up enormous amounts of time. Better that sales support organises all of this.

Busting the conversion ratio myth- Table 1

Looking at the above table Rep B is half as likely to win new business as Rep A. The initial response from a sales manager could be to train them up to improve their conversion ratios.

I’d say forget it. Sure, invest some time in Rep B to make sure they are trained in product knowledge and understand the difference between a prospect and a tire kicker.

It is better looking at putting a system in place to ensure that all future reps can conduct 30 calls per week.

What to do if you want more high performing sales people:

1. Identify all of the tasks you are currently asking your sales people to perform
2. Remove all non direct selling tasks from your sales people

   This list may include all of the following:

   • Customer service tasks
   • Administration
   • Invoicing
   • Sales follow up
   • Product issues or support
   • Marketing
   • Merchandising
   • Prospecting
3. Hire sales support staff to generate leads, establish appointments and liase with marketing to ensure there are on going opportunities for sales people to meet with
4. Agree on a realistic number of new business calls that should be conducted each week. Break this down in to daily new business calls
5. Consider paying sales staff on new business visits conducted

Allow them to focus solely on meeting prospects and then being able to influence those prospects to move into a business relationship with your company.

The top 5 skills you will see in High Performers:

1. High NRG levels – day in day out, keep going
2. Not be upset by rejection
3. Enormous confidence and knowledge in themselves and their products / services
4. Influencing and persuasion
5. Questioning / listening

So, if you are a marketer questioning why a new product has failed to be successful when all the research indicated the opposite, I suggest you go and do the following:

Track down your sales director and ask him the following questions.

• How does he identify high performers in his team?
• How many new customer calls per day are the reps doing?
• Why aren’t they doing more?
• Why do they spend so much time calling on existing customers, “maintaining the relationship”
• What non related sales functions are the sales team doing and can they be removed?
• Could the marketing department help to generate more leads for the sales teams?
• Could marketing assist the sales department by allocating additional resources to sales to helps set up meetings and provide appropriate follow up

Bottom line - Get your sales people doing more actual selling and less of everything else and judge the results for yourself.

22nd August 2007

Mr Geoff Dixon

Chief Executive Officer

Qantas Airways

QCA

203 Coward Street

MASCOT NSW 2020

Dear Geoff,

Congratulations on $1 billion of profit in the last financial year. If you can reduce costs even more on flights in the next 12 months, think of what the growth could be!

As a frequent flyer with your airline (FF No. 3589919), I would like to give you a little feedback from some recent flights

I’m starting to think it’s time to try the other carriers in the domestic market and give them a chance to see how they treat me as a frequent flyer.

Why have I included these oatmeal biscuits for you?

They were offered to me as dinner on a flight this week. After working all day, I was looking for something a little more nutritious and filling for dinner. Perhaps someone in your office would like them.

Background on my concerns

In the past year, I must have taken at least 25 flights on your airline.

I just wanted to highlight three recent experiences from the past two weeks.

1. Brisbane/Sydney - QF559 - 1st August 2007

The flight departed at 8.45pm. The snack on the flight was some nuts and sultanas.

Tremendous. “Any chance of dinner?” “No. It’s too late”.

2. Sydney/Perth - QF575 - 2nd August 2007

The flight was delayed 3 hours. That happens, and I understand. The compensation provided by Qantas? A $15 voucher which I could redeem at the airport. The meal offered to me on the flight at 12.45pm, 30 minutes after we took off, was breakfast. I don’t usually have breakfast at 12.45pm. The reason given? The catering could not be changed. It seems strange, as the flight was delayed for 3 hours. More likely, “if we change the catering, it will cost us more money. Why not just give them breakfast anyway, it won’t really matter. They are only customers back there on our flghts”.

3. Melbourne/Sydney - QF446 - 14th August 2007

The flight departed at 7.00pm. There were long delays at Melbourne airport that day, due to a security breach. Totally understandable. The meal offered on the flight?

Oatmeal biscuits (see enclosed). The reason given? This was a scheduled 4.00pm flight and catering could not be changed.

What I am seeking, Geoff.

1. Treat me with the level of service you would expect if you were in my seat on your planes and you had seen all of your marketing messages. Would you think you may be entitled to a meal when you consider the cost of your ticket, or the alternatives in the market? What sort of compensation would you expect for a domestic flight that is delayed 3 hours?

2. Consider my lifetime market value as a Qantas customer. Say, 20 flights a year at an average of $300 per flight = $6,000. Multiply that by another 25 years and, conservatively, you have $150,000 in revenue.

3. Compensation for poor treatment: Either an additional 50,000 frequent flyer points, upgraded frequent flyer status, or upgrades (if available) on my next flights to Western Australia, for my wife and I, and back (to Sydney).

I am looking forward to your feedback.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Herzberg

We all have a natural urge to be liked. Nobody is really comfortable being rejected. Yet the irony of success in B2B selling is you need to become comfortable about the concept of rejection. Being rejected sounds so ugly. I’d prefer you to think of it more like Family Feud. Pass or Play.

Three reasons why this is so important to your success in business:

1. There will be a limited amount of business you can extract from existing clients. There is only so much oil you can squeeze out of a rag, no matter how tightly you squeeze it.

2. I guarantee you there are prospects on your territory who have a need for your products or services. You can’t sell a secret. Go out there and track them down.

3. High performers know the fact that, ultimately, selling becomes a numbers game and they use the concept of rejection to their advantage. Law of averages indicates that the more “No’s” you are receiving, the closer you should be to a “Yes”.

The best suggestion I could make about handling rejection (or people choosing to pass) is:

“Get over it and never take it personally!”

There are any number of reasons why someone may choose to reject you or your company’s offerings:

• They have other priorities at present
• You remind them of someone they have had an unpleasant experience with
• They have no current need, or perceived need, for your offering
• Their values and beliefs are different to yours
• They have had a bad experience with your company before
• They feel guilty about making a previous commitment to you about something and hope to avoid this coming up again in conversation
• You personally do not match or connect with them

Accept the fact that we all reject others during most working days. This could be by failing to acknowledge or respond to an email, by not returning telephone calls or by ignoring someone on the street collecting donations. We play little games with ourselves to avoid feeling guilty about all of this. (I’ll pretend I didn’t get the message; our server has been down, etc)

What do the high performers do?

Over the years I have noticed a pattern in the best B2B salespeople. They take more shots. The reason they do this is, without doubt, they have realised the link that exists between being rejected and achieving more new business.

Remember the popular kids in school? What distinguished them from the others is not the fact they were rejected less often, but how they chose to handle those rejections.

As humans we want to be liked. It’s natural. The business world is rapidly changing and on any given day you can personally communicate with hundreds of people. The combination of email, Skype, SMS, telephone calls and face to face meetings allows for this.

Ironically, as families become less intact and society becomes more segmented, we are becoming less secure.

The growth of cities has seen the growth of loneliness. Years ago, people would have lived in smaller towns or villages and been part of a central unit where they felt they belonged. The brave new business world we are playing in now is not as friendly as the world a lot of us may have grown up in.

It took me a long time to fully understand how important it is in business to be comfortable with the concept of not everyone liking you. Without a doubt, it is one of the most powerful things that I have ever learned and, year in year out, helps me to grow my business - perhaps more than any other concept or idea.

We all find it hard - very hard - to say “NO! I don’t want to work with you”. It’s so much easier to say:

• “I’ll call you back at the end of the week”
• “I was actually just about to call you”
• “Could you resend it, so I could have another look?”
• “Can we look at this in more detail after Easter?”
• “He’s just stepped into a meeting; can I get him to call you back?”
• “Can you send me a proposal that I could have a look at?” (This is a classic B2B stalling technique. The chances are high it may never be read!)

When you hear all of this nonsense, the majority of the time you are being rejected. Don’t take it personally. Call someone else; they may be interested in what you have to offer.

How do I get better at dealing with rejection?

• Never take it personally!
• Get comfortable being uncomfortable and recognise it is part of the B2B selling process.
• Record the number of people who say “NO” to you each month. If you are not receiving enough “no’s” you are not meeting with enough prospects or avoiding asking the hard questions. (This will be restricting the growth of your territory / business)
• Ask people if they see some value in doing business with you. Then ask them how to best organise for this to happen.

If you are not experiencing any rejection in your search for more business, ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I avoiding calling people I don’t know?
• Am I really just a classic comfort zone operator?
• Do I hear “NO” often enough from my prospects?
• Have I designed a business where I don’t need to work outside my comfort zone?

Take more shots and never take it personally when people choose to ignore your offerings and watch your business and personal life grow.

Without a doubt coaching has become the fashionable anagement tool of choice.

I conduct a lot of business coaching sessions. When I’m asked to describe what it is I normally say “it’s about helping individuals or a team to fulfill their potential”.

My concern is very few companies really understand what it is, who should do it, who should be coached and how it can become part of your culture?

As a cricketer I always had coaches. They had different styles. Some would be very directive. You need to do this, this and this or you simply won’t get picked. Others would be more consultative.

How do you think you bowled today? What about when you went around the wicket to the left handers? Some would be more supportive. Heh, keep it up, you’re going well and a big performance could be just around the corner.

Business coaching could be viewed in much the same way.

Directive: Here’s what you really need to do, by when and how.

Consultative: Based on questions. How do you think that sales call went? What about the part when you tried to ask for the business?

Supportive: Is there anything particular I can do to assist you? Additional resources, some 1-1 time with me, some professional development in a particular area?

You need to decide what would be the best approach for the person you are coaching. Over time as they develop their skills you may need to adjust your approach with them.

8 tips for developing a coaching culture at your company

If you are thinking about introducing a coaching culture to your company I’d suggest the following 8 tips.

1. Make sure you understand that not everyone will respond well to coaching and not everyone will become a very good coach

2. Being aware of what coaching is and being able to coach are two very separate entities

3. For coaching to work it requires the coachee and the coach to respect each other and appreciate the mutual benefits

4. Most of the time you are best to apply the 80-20 principle to coaching your staff. Spend 80% of your coaching time and energy with the 20% of staff who are receptive to being

coached

5. Coaching doesn’t need to be done formally (unlike performance reviews)

6. Coaching should be ongoing, not done at specific times

7. Without realistic action plans being developed during and at the end of a coaching session the benefits of coaching will be very hard to measure

8. Most people despite what they say will have had very little experience of effectively coaching individuals in the work place

How to coach

Ultimately how you coach will depend on who you are coaching. The skill of the experienced coach is to adjust their approach in accordance with the coachee. There are a number of coaching models that explain the general coaching process.

One of the best books on coaching is The Tao of Coaching, by Max Landsberg.

He describes the coachee’s game plan as:

The Coachee’s game plan

 Landsberg uses the GROW model as a tool for coaching. It is a useful tool and an easy acronym to remember.

Goal - (What do you want to achieve from this session?)

Reality - (How are things progressing at the moment?)

Options - (Can we discuss a few ideas that might help?)

What Next - (Who needs to do what, by when, what support is needed)

I’ve found that in the best coaching sessions that I conduct I would only be speaking for about 20% of the session. Most of the time I would be asking open questions to try and help the coachee better understand and appreciate why they are doing what they are doing.

 1. Set the context

• Diagnose skill and will
• Agree the approach
• Build trust
• Motivate

 2. Provide ongoing coaching

• Use GROW sessions (20 - 60 minutes)
• Provide feedback (actionable, frequent, 5 - 10 minutes)
• Give praise (frequent, where warranted, 1 + minutes)
• Illustrate actively

 3. Conclude effectively

• Encourage coaches to reflect
• Elicit feedback for coach
• Agree next steps

 If I am coaching experienced sales people the following would be the sorts of questions I may use:

• If we had to conduct that sales call again would you do anything differently?
• How do you feel the customer felt about the price increase?
• Why do you think the customer stood up when she did?
• What did you notice about the relationship between the two people we saw?
• How do you think they will make a decision about using us / this service?

 I like to develop an Action Plan as I work through a coaching session. At the end of the session the Action Plan can always be refined. If there are no actions coming out of a session I would argue the session has been of fairly limited value.

Why most managers won’t become good coaches

 To become a good coach, one who is respected and achieves results takes time. From my experience most of the managers I have worked with are not willing to invest the time required to become an effective coach. Typically they are too busy chasing down new deals, recruiting new staff or putting out fires. Coaching sounds nice and yes, they’d like to be doing it, but they rarely actually do it. When I am asking staff about how often they have been coached in recent months, the normal response is not often enough.

The chances of becoming a good coach by attending a course on coaching are about the same as becoming a good swimmer by going to a swimming lesson. You need to be coaching on a regular basis to get better it. You also have to have a genuine willingness to see others grow and develop.

You need to be able to somehow assess if you’re coaching has been effective. This could be through measuring staff retention, attitude, increases in revenue, increased skills in the specific and related areas you have been coaching.

If you are shallow and insecure about your leadership skills you will almost certainly avoid coaching.

Ultimately a good coach should over time be almost able to put themselves out of a job.

How can I become a better coach?

1. Start coaching as often possible

2. Start reading more about coaching and noticing the different ways people coach

3. Ask for feedback from the people you are coaching about how you are going and how you could improve

4. Track the actions coming out of coaching sessions and consistently assess against these. The message sent is rarely the same as the message received

5. Attend a few sessions on coaching to learn more about what is involved

6. If you have children that play sport volunteer to coach one of their sides one season. If you can handle the parents of junior sporting kids you’re set for almost any coaching assignment

What about over coaching

Former Australian test cricket captain Ian Chappell once said that the Australian coach was something that the team toured around England in. His views of over coaching are very clear.

There is a danger that you can interfere far too much in an employees development through over coaching. From my experience, 95% of managers, partners, directors under coach. For the few that may coach too much I’d suggest be wary of spending too much time with the coachee. Think of the old Chinese proverb. If a man asks you for a fish and you give him a fish he will keep asking.

Teach him how to fish and you are free to move on.

Recommended reading on coaching

Coaching for Improved Work Performance, Ferdinand F Fournies

• The Tao of Coaching, Max Landsberg
• The One Minute Manager, Kennith Blanchard
• The Inner Game of Golf, Tim Gallway
• A Practical Guide to Growing Your Own Skills, John Whitmore
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey

1. Focus on your key message and repeat it over and over and over again. Use it running through all

your slides if you choose to use slides. Make sure the key message is a benefit to the audience

2. Know your content inside out. Do your homework on your audience as well. What will they want to

get from this presentation

3. Tell real stories about real people / clients. Each story should have a problem they faced, an

outcome they wanted and how you were able to assist them to achieve that outcome.

4. Use statistics to support your argument. 88% of statistics may well be made up or unsubstantiated.

People still remember them. Try and support your statistics with the source

5. Start every presentation with a powerful hook. Use the 3 R’s at the start of every presentation.

Rapport - Find common ground. Receptivity - make them thirsty about what is coming up and why it

will benefit this audience. Reason - be very clear about the reason we are all here today. What will

this presentation achieve?

6. Structure your content in a clear, easy to follow fashion. 3 key messages are enough. Any more

and they’ll struggle to recall anything. Any less and they may feel short changed.

7. Use regular response checks throughout the presentation to keep the audience engaged. “Have

you ever noticed…?” “Can I ask you to picture this…,?” “Can I get a show of hands of the 3 ideas I’ve

just suggested, who prefers the first, the second, the third?” “Take a guess. How many of our

current customers …?”

8. If you must use PowerPoint slides try the 10/20/30 formula. 10 slides maximum, 20 minutes

duration, 30 as the minimum font size.

9. Handle questions in a clear and concise fashion. Use techniques for dealing with them. Assess the

type of question you being asked before jumping in with an answer. Are you being challenged? Do

they need further information on something? Is the questioner just flexing his / her ego?

10. Clearly define the next steps at the end of the presentation. Who’s in? Who needs more time?

What is a realistic time line? Why can’t we move this forward?

Steve Herzberg is one of Australia’s most engaging and persuasive presenters. He works with clients including

Lend Lease, ANZ Bank, IAG and Fitness First. He helps their staff understand how to get their message across.

For more information on Steve and NRG Solutions please go to www.nrgsolutions.com.au

I’ve often said to sales teams I work with if you can’t really sell you should get a job in the post office, or perhaps the library.

When the economy is bubbling along the old adage about being in the right place at the right time will always ring true.

This article shows you 5 strategies that will ensure you can weather the storm when the economy turns.

Who wouldn’t be able to make a few dollars as a mortgage broker in a strong housing market? What about selling real estate in the same market? Not too tough. When the stock market is hot and everyone is trading it must give you a sense of comfort to know that the calls and the orders will keep coming in. How about being a financial planner when people are flush with funds and the superannuation laws change every 3 years?

You’ve probably noticed in the past 6 months that the economy is shifting. Customers are becoming more demanding. Purchasing decisions are taking longer to make, even avoided. Your customers will still need to buy products and services but perhaps not as many as last year. They may not be as flush with funds now as they were over the past 10 years.

Now is really a great opportunity to try and ascertain if you really are cut out for selling. Get through the next few years and you know you are in the right profession.

At NRG Solutions we sell a service, primarily its professional development. You could argue it’s a non essential spend in a tight economy. Many of my prospects and clients are doing a good job of positioning this with me at present! Obviously I beg to differ, but I’ll cover that in more detail in my next article.

Selling and surviving in a tight market - 5 strategies you must apply

1. Focus on selling additional value

 You’ve probably recognised that your customers will have become more discerning. They are on the lookout for discounts and deals. I’d argue they still need to purchase your products or services, although probably in smaller volumes.

In a tight market they may be more inclined to push harder for discounts or extended trading terms. By all means consider those options. Over and above sell value. If you are nothing more than a talking brochure then your time is limited. Buyers have a multitude of purchasing options that didn’t exist in the past. These include buying on line, 1800 numbers and purchasing through resellers. You need to offer real business value. The best way to do this is to try and understand your customers. What are their real needs? Where are their issues? Ask questions, observe, listen and take notice of how they operate. It’s the best way to provide real value.

Examples of additional value would include:

• Additional in office or in store training at no additional charge
• Email and telephone support included as part of the initial project or purchase
• Providing on site support and access to specialists
• Upgrades to later versions as part of the initial purchase
• Add on services (seminars, related products etc) bundled in to purchases

2. Widen the top of your funnel

Depending on what you sell you will notice in a tight market that your conversion ratio will be dropping. In a strong economy you may win 70% of the projects you quote on. Pitch for 10 jobs and you’ll win 7. To win 7 new jobs in a tough market you may need to pitch for 20. Your conversion ratio will almost certainly be a lot lower.

When the going gets tough you will need to take more shots to achieve the same results. Michael Jordan argued that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. You will need to take more shots in a tight market.

Consider how you can use technology to help you take more shots. Change your phone plans so you are not paying excessive amounts to make more calls. Refine and improve your data base. Create email newsletters of value. Make more quality calls more often. Ask existing satisfied customers for referrals.

3. Develop some great objection handling techniques

 You know you will be hearing plenty of these comments:

• ” Now’s not the right time, money is tight”
• ” Things have slowed down a bit at present”
• ” We’ve actually got a freeze on non essential spending at present”
• ” We’re cutting back in that area”

Like a boy scout, a true sales professional will always be prepared.

Plan well in advance how you will be responding to these sorts of comments. I’ve been trying a few of the following responses and have been having some success.

“That’s ok- lets only do a smaller part of the project at this stage”

“I’ll do the work now and invoice you next quarter”

“How can we find funding for this? What other budgets could be accessible? ”

“What do you suggest we should do to get things started?”

“Have a complimentary place this time. It’s the least I can do”

4. Focus on strengthening existing relationships

The reality is that when the market gets tight your best opportunities will exist with the clients who are already purchasing your products or services. Spend time with these accounts and focus on how you can further strengthen the relationship. This could involve extending terms and conditions, drawing up a preferred pricing agreement, perhaps collectively sitting down together and working out the best way to work together in this economy. The chances are they are feeling the pain as much as you are.

Recognise their loyalty and reward it. These are the accounts you can not afford to lose so don’t let your competitors get under your radar. Invest appropriately and put enough bricks in the wall to stop these accounts from escaping and to ensure against competitor activity.

5. Invest in yourself

I’m probably biased on this one as this is the core of our business. I’d say the 2 best things you can invest in would be:

 1. Yourself

 2. The key relationships in your life

 By investing in yourself you will remain in touch with fresh ideas. Keep yourself sharp and focussed by reading widely, attending relevant programs and continually working on strategies for business and personal growth. Transfer these ideas back to your customers and you start to create real business value (see point 1).

If you are not growing and developing as an individual then I’d say you are of limited value to your customers in the long term. Pablo Cassals (Google him) was asked at the age of 95 why he was still practicing the cello for 20 minutes a day.

His answer “Because I’m still making progress”

Summary

Stop talking about how it’s getting tougher. Do something about it. Get busy with lifting your activity levels and deepening your relationships with your best accounts. Be prepared and be creative about how you deal with standard objections. You need a plan and you can’t expect to achieve the same results in this market by applying the same approach you took in a strong economy.

 “If you change nothing, nothing changes”