I follow your regular updates with interest. I’m doing some work on goal setting at the moment both personally and for clients. One of the personal goals I’m toying with is the idea of hiring a personal sales mentor/coach.

I was interested to know if this was an area that you had an opinion on?

Do I have an opinion? I think all my readers will know that I must have. To try and help, I have broken the question down into several sub-questions…

Who should hire a sales coach?

• Salespeople who want to increase their skills, their sales strategies and their sales approach.
• Non-salespeople who want to ensure that their sales systems and processes are the most effective that they can be.
• Sales managers and team leaders who need to recruit, manage and motivate sales teams, both small and large.
• Sales leaders and business owners looking to develop powerful sales systems and productive sales teams.

When should I hire a sales coach?

Better question. Now, this is where I disagree with many people because many people would say, “All of the time!” Not surprisingly, most of them have coaching services to sell!

For many people, constant sales coaching loses it zing and may suffer from co-dependency issues. Personally, I think most if not all people involved with sales would benefit from having a coach or coaches at times but not all of the time. Maybe most of the time but certainly not all.

Coaching is great for salespeople looking to break through barriers, stretch for new sales goals, get unstuck orwho are taking on new projects. Here are some classic examples where a sales coach can help?

• Setting new goals, life plans and strategic direction.
• Setting out a sales and new client acquisition strategy.
• Developing new sales skills and sales processes, practising sales techniques and approaches and trying out new methods.
• Creating realistic systems and plans for achieving unrealistic goals.
• Getting out of comfort zones and motivation traps and re-motivating and re-energizing salespeople not firing on all cylinders.

Who should hire a sales coach?

• Salespeople and non-salespeople taking on new challenges where support or experience is limited.
• Team leaders, sales managers and sales leaders facing promotions, new responsibilities and new challenges.
• Anyone wanting to achieve quantum leaps in their sales results…. fast!

When should I not hire a sales coach?

• When you don’t want one.
• When you are looking for someone to sympathise with your “plight”.
• When you don’t believe in them.
• When you want them to do the work for you.
• When it’s forced upon you.
• When you don’t want to hear the truth (although this is, of course, just when you do need one!)

What are my alternatives to using a sales coach?

Sometimes there aren’t any but sometimes there are many options available and all of them may well be right at one stage or another of your sales career. Here are just a few alternatives…

• Self-learn from your own experiences.
• Read a book, listen to an audio, watch a DVD, join a sales progamme.
• Set up a Sales Champions group.
• Buddy up with a friend.
• Attend a seminar or a training course.

How do I choose my sales coach?

• Do some research, join some newsletters and watch some videos from sales coaches.
• Get referrals and advice from friends and colleagues who have used a sales coach.
• Ask some sales coaches some questions and facilitate a few conversations.
• Find someone you can trust and who has credibility and the credentials to help you.
• Make sure that they challenge you… this is not about blowing hot air up your rear end.
• Choose someone who inspires you.
• And feel free to use different coaches for specialist situations. This is not a one-size-fits-all scenario.

Will you be my sales coach Gavin?

Great question. I don’t know yet.

For many years, I have wrestled with the constant challenge of not having enough time to do everything that needs to be done. I only have limited time and only a small amount of that is allocated to very (very) committed clients who want to achieve extraordinary results in their sales and in their lives. If you have a desire to be average or, worse still, mediocre I’m not interested.

If you want want to consider coaching with me, spend some time reading the blogs and watch some of the free videos. Better still, read a few of my books, listen to an audio, watch a DVD or attend a seminar. If that juices you up and you’re up for making a quantum leap in your sales or taking your sales teams to the next level then use the contact form to tell me why you think I should work with you and we’ll take it from there…

No related posts.

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The APSCo Members Conference is firmly established as the largest sales conference in the recruitment profession in the UK and is market specific, content rich and enlightening day for both sales and sales management professionals in the recruitment sector. The focus is on providing information, techniques and tactics that will help to improve the consistency of success for even the most experienced of recruiters. Speaking at the event this year are…

• Ann Swain, Chief Executive, APSCo.
• Anthony Hilton, Financial Editor, Evening Standard. The Business Lessons of The Post Credit Crunch Recession.
• Chris Matchan, The Chris Matchan Partnership. Engagement in a Brave New World.
• Me, Gavin Ingham, How to Make Quantum Leaps in Your Sales Results.

There will also be several break out sessions away from the main stage with options for managers (Charles Bates, Know Why & Keep It Right & Duncan John, Transactional Analysis & Communication), salespeople (Graham Smith, How to Let Other People Have Your Way & Colin Forster, The Sales Relationship in a Brave New World) and executives (Rob Gee, Authentic Leadership).

The conference will the finish up with a panel discussion on “How Can Recruiters Adapt to Provide the Service Clients Need in Today’s Environment – And Still Make Profit?”

You can see the full APSCo Members Conference brochure here. And you can find members and non-members booking form on the APSCo website here.

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Or so I thought…

One of the things we need are some fitted cupboards for one of the bedrooms. It’s not a room we use and it’s not the main visitor’s room so it really is a case of find a good company and get it done. We ideally wanted to support a local company so when we saw a company with signage on one of the local roundabouts we rang them and they offered to send a “salesperson” around.

A few days later Steve, I have changed his name to protect the totally inept and ridiculously incompetent, arrived at the house. He was scruffy, his clothes were tired (jeans, trainers, t-shirt) and he looked a little dirty! He had no interpersonal skills and his sole “sales pitch” was to measure the wall (‘cause you know, I can’t do that) and then tell us to go to the showroom. Every question of any kind was met with the answer, “I dunno. You’ll have to go to the showroom!”

He left.

Now, at this point, I really should have cut my losses but, determined to support a local company and interested in what the showroom sales experience would be like, we did venture there on Saturday. Not a good decision! They had no idea who we were and made no attempt to find out anything about us or tell us anything about the company or their products. They simply quoted a ridiculously high figure and then let us walk out after I pointed this out to them (to which I got no response).

Now I was telling a friend about this this morning and he said, “Well, I thought you said it wasn’t about price, it was about value?” Well, yes, I did and I do and he was right, but there wasn’t any. Value cannot just be assumed because you decide it is so. Value has to be uncovered, value has to be built up, value has to be understood and value has to be about the customer, not you.

So I thought that it would be fun to look at how not to do it, so here follow 7 Rules For How Not To Sell High Value Products & Services.

1. Pay no attention to your personal appearance, dress and cleanliness.
2. Build no rapport with your prospects  – business, personal or otherwise.
3. Don’t ask any questions about what is important to your customers.
4. Don’t bother understanding what your prospects want or need.
5. Make no attempt to explain what is special, unique or bespoke about your services and products.
6. Don’t follow up on enquiries and fail to follow any proven sales process.
7. Let your customers think that you don’t care and you’re not interested.

I’d like to say that I’d give them another try in the future but I doubt they’ll be there. Whoever is in charge of their business needs to do some sales training fast.

Talking about selling on value not price is one thing, doing it is totally another.

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Here’s another question that came up recently. “When your prospect or customer says, “No!”, what do you hear? How do you react? Rejected or challenged? What advice would you give to somebody just starting out?”

As a sales motivational speaker I see the negative consequences of sales and business people dealing with this badly every day so here is my advice…

It’s not what is said, it is your interpretation that does the damage. How many people every year die of snake bites? The answer is none. People die of the poison, not the bites. Salespeople are not undone by “No” but by how they interpret that “No.”

If someone says to you, “We have an existing supplier”… what do you hear and what do you think?

Do you hear, like most salespeople, “We have an existing supplier so we’re not interested. Go away!”? And then think, “This job is rubbish, no-one ever has a need for our services.”

Or do you hear, like sales superstars, “We have an existing supplier which means that we’re in the market place and already see value in what you do”? And then think, “All I have to do now is find a way to demonstrate how we can provide a better service.”

One of the keys to being a top salesperson is getting, keeping and cultivating a positive, sales mindset. This can be done by reading good sales books, listening to sales audios, attending sales seminars, mixing with sales winners, employing a sales coach, learning from sales experts, focusing on what’s good about any event….

To someone starting out, avoid negative mood-hoovers,whingers and whiners, associate with sales winners, make sure you get plenty of the good stuff. Protect your positive mindset like it is a pot of gold…

Because it is!

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Here’s a question that one of my contacts asked recently that I thought I would share with you, “So I have got past the gatekeeper – after the introduction, what are the first 15 words (or so) I say to a prospect that’s going to get them hooked into a conversation?”

And here’s my answer…

One of the questions I always ask delegates in sales training seminars is, “How long do you have to make a first impression?” The answer they give me varies but is always no more than a handful of seconds. In today’s world, people make decisions very quickly and, upon receiving a cold call, even quicker still!

From a receiver’s perspective, they want to decide as fast as possible whether this call is a legitimate, business interruption or a nuisance, spam call. There are three things you need to consider to maximize your chances of achieving the former and minimize your chances of suffering the latter…

1. Plan and prepare effectively. Understand why you are calling that individual, why now and how you can make a difference for them. Also, get yourself into the right mindset. Mindset is critical for cold calling (and indeed for selling) and I will be posting some sales training videos on this soon…
2. Know how you answer their key question, “What’s in this for me?” If you can’t and don’t answer that, and quickly, you’re toast!
3. Avoid coming across as a salesperson and using “crash and burn” sales phrases. I teach people how not to use these on my programmes but the easiest way of thinking about them for yourself is to think about the cold calls you get and think about what really puts your back up at the start of the call… and don’t do it!

For more on cold calling, have a look at this short video I did on 10 tips for cold calling.

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Today, against Germany, we saw an English team bereft of team-spirit, energy, commitment or passion. OK, so they got robbed of a goal at 2-1 down but they didn’t deserve to be in the match based on how they had played and now they’re not. On several occasions, when they lost the ball deep in the Germans half, the English defence were so slow to react and so slow to get back, my Mum would have got there faster. I am sure many people will put up many “excuses” for the result and many others will blame anything, everyone and Capello but at the end of the day the least you would expect is players representing their country to chase the ball down in defence as fast as they can even if they had no chance of getting there. It is was the World Cup after all.

On the BBC commentary they mentioned our “world-class” players and that they wouldn’t swop more than a couple for members of the German team. Well, I would, I’d swop the lot, that way we’d be in the running still. And as for “world-class”…

It doesn’t matter how much talent you have, if you cannot make it work on the night, if you cannot get the result, then it’s irrelevant.

By contrast, look at the tennis match between Mahut and Isner. Two tennis players battling on for 183 games over the course of 11 hours and five minutes. The final set alone accounted for eight hours and 11 minutes of that time – 98 minutes more than the previous longest match on record. Now that’s commitment. Two men who wanted to win. Two men determined to succeed. Two men not prepared to give in.

Or what about Federer’s first round match where the defending champion was forced to mount a courageous comeback against Colombia’s Alejandro Falla? Having faced numerous match points in the third set he eventually won 5-7, 4-6, 7-6 (1), 6-4, 6-0. Federer could have slinked off into the night. He could have packed his kit bag and lost three sets to love. He could have claimed “illness” or some imaginary injury after such a bad showing but he hung in there, kept fighting, got a break and eventually came out on top. Likewise, Isner and Mahut, for three days running, went out on court and slogged it out. Giving anything less than 100% was not an option.

I’m not going to try and second-guess the mindsets of the English football team. Nor am I going to try and imagine what was going on in the heads of Mahut, Isner or Federer. I am going to quite simply ask you a question…

What do you want and how much do you want it? What are you prepared to put in to get it? How passionate are you about ensuring that your dreams become reality?

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We all know a Bert. We’ve all met a Bert. And we’ve all worked alongside a Bert. Maybe, secretly, you think someone you work with is a Bert. Maybe they think you are!

Bert is just a normal guy, with normal friends and normal colleagues and he faces the same normal challenges that we all do, every day. If Bert’s antics and adventures amuse, inspire, educate, strike a chord or just make you laugh then Bert will be happy.

But… most of all… Bert wants to be famous! So, if you think he should be, then forward him to your friends, colleagues and clients. And, if you have any great ideas for what you think Bert should do next, let us know…

He might just do it!

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Their (very simple but effective) strategy seems to be…

1. Find common ground with their prospect, “Hello, you English? Nice country.”
2. Build some rapport, “Nice holiday? Lovely weather.”
3. Understand the prospect, “What designers do you like?”
4. Give advice, “This one look nice on you? Stylish.”
5. Be persistent, “What about this one? Looks nice too.”
6. Be positive, smile and be upbeat.
7. Work hard, stay focused, keep going.
8. Ask for the deal, “Cheap price, 30 Euros. You buy?”

Not rocket science I know but not bad advice for anyone wanting to get into sales or wanting to break out from a sales slump either!

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“How do I avoid my cold call being viewed as an interruption by my prospect?”

Simple answer: You can never stop your cold call being viewed as an “interruption”. Prospects are not wandering around with their phones under their arms hoping that you give them a call and brighten their days up! And, in a way, this is good news, because it should serve to remind you that you owe it to yourself and the person you are “interrupting” to make it a good call.

There are two types of cold call…

1. Nuisance spam calls &
2. Legitimate new business calls.

You need to make sure that yours is a legitimate new business call. If you don’t you are never going to get the results that you want from cold calling and that means not enough opportunities and not enough clients.

We’ve all experienced one of those awful calls at home where you’re cooking the dinner and your phone rings and, full of hope that it is one of your friends or family, you answer the phone. But it is a cold caller. You listen agitated as they launch into their pre-prepared, pre-packaged, pre-canned script and eventually you slam the phone down annoyed.

You can never guarantee that your prospects will buy from you. You can never guarantee that your prospects will connect with you. And you can never guarantee that they will even speak with you. That’s just the way that it is…

But you can guarantee that you make cold calls that give you the best chance of being viewed as a legitimate new business call and you can guarantee that you can make your calls relevant to your prospects and not just yourself.

Here are my top tips for differentiating your call from nuisance spam cold calls…

Plan and prepare.

Planning and preparation warms your call up. It tailors your calls for the individual prospect that you are calling. It demonstrates that you have thought about them, their issues and their business and it separates you from junk cold callers.

“Play from a 10”.

When you cold call you need to be in the right state of mind. I call this “playing from a 10” (where 10 is the best state of mind that you can possibly be in). A large part of cold calling success is down to your attitude or your state of mind at the time that you make the call. Being on top of your game helps you to make your call sound like the kind of call that your prospect would want to take and helps you to connect more effectively with  your prospect than your also-ran competitors.

Add value.

Think about how you add value for your prospect. Based on your research, what problems and challenges do you think that they might be facing? How can you add value for them? What experience do you have working in this area and how can this help them and their business? Now use this in your opening statement and in your questions so that your prospect can see that you are different, that you have done your research and that you are thinking about them not yourself!

Ask, “How convenient is it to speak?”

Most salespeople don’t ask if it’s a good time for their prospect to take the call. When I tell them to, they say things to me like, “Well, do you expect me to let them get away?!” Look! This call is supposed to be about your client not you. Just because  it is convenient for you does not mean it is convenient for them. Don’t be so arrogant! That’s one of the things prospects don’t like about salespeople anyway.

(Footnote, as I am writing this sitting looking at the hills (in Spain), my phone just rang. Expecting it to be a client who was due to call I answered the phone, It was a cold caller from the UK who asked me, “How are you?”£ (Uggh!) then launched into a pitch. At 50ppm I canned the call. Did him not asking help him in anyway? Nope, got him canned faster.)

Ask, “How convenient is it to speak?” immediately after you say hello. This way you have been polite and asked but you have also maximized your chances of them continuing with the call. If they are truly busy then you are better off taking this call another time anyway.

If you have a sales questions that you would like answered then please forward it to me via this Contact Gavin form here or via my Facebook or LinkedIn groups. The better the questions, the better the answers and the better the book will be. And, in any case, where else can you get free advice?!

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Why?

Lack of research, planning and preparation. You might ask how I know he wasn’t prepared properly? Well, these two little gems to start with…

1. His opening gambit, “I don’t know much about your company”. For that, read, he knows nothing.
2. Having the nerve to ask me, “What are the main products and services you sell?”

Seriously, can you believe that? And to a sales motivational speaker too. He needs to attend one of my sales seminars!

Intrigued, I asked him how he got my details. The answer was not clear but it was something like, “Well, I have a list that came from research and my manager recommended you and I had a look and…” Oh, come on. No, you didn’t and no he didn’t and we both know that someone bought a list of numbers from somewhere and you rang it without a second thought. You’ve done nothing.

A lot of people think that cold calling doesn’t work anymore. A lot of people think that cold calling never worked. A lot of people think that cold calling doesn’t and won’t work for them. A lot of speakers are making a lot of money perpetuating this myth (watch out for my forthcoming video series where I set the stall straight on that one!).

The truth is that cold calling does not work for many salespeople. And it doesn’t work for several reasons…

1. They’re not in the right state of mind.
2. They don’t make enough calls.
3. They don’t know enough about their prospects.
4. They don’t personalize their calls for every individual.
5. They don’t ask enough questions.
6. They don’t know how they are most likely to be able to help that prospect.
7. They don’t listen.
8. They don’t tailor their solutions.
9. They don’t offer up enough (any) value.
10. They give up too easily.

Cold calling can and does work. I am not going to bore you talking about the clients that I have helped to explode their sales results, nor am I going to drone on about how I have helped individuals to create and sustain the lives they desire by being able to attend more proactive sales meetings and sell more when they get there. Instead, I am going to share with you the success a friend of mine, Clifton, who led a professional services sales team by running powerful sales meetings stemming from professional cold calling techniques…

They grew a division taking 700 meetings a year and turning £7m pa to a team running 1000 meetings a year and turning £25m pa within 2 years. On one specific project they had 250 meetings (gained through cold calling) and won £22m worth of revenues.

Cold calling doesn’t work when coupled with powerful sales strategies? As Bart would say, “Eat my shorts!”

But cold calling has to be coupled with powerful, proven sales strategies and it also has to be professional, purposeful and legitimate and this requires effective planning and preparation to even get off the starting line. If you review my list of the 10 reasons cold calling doesn’t work you will see that at least 8 of them (if not arguably all of them) could be addressed or massively improved by doing the right preparation in the first place.

I hope my cold caller reads this article. It might help him. It probably won’t as I don’t think he will think to check my blog, certainly not now… I’m just the guy who spoiled his morning and said that I wasn’t interested.

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