First up, I loved what this reader had to say about choice…

I totally agree about the theory on famine (Previous email where I quoted a source which said, “When famine strikes, some die, some make their existing supplies last longer, then die, some find new sources of food, and some find new ways to feed themselves. Which option are we taking?”). You either choose to lay down and die, stretch what you have then lay down and die OR, as you point out, you get off your “duff” and choose to live.  Which takes a greater strength and determination but it sure beats the alternative!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God gives us a free will for ANY situation in our lives but, he also gives us common sense and tools to do what we need to do to survive. As for me and my agents, we chose to be in sales so it is up to each individual to get out and sell to provide for their families. I have given them the knowledge of our products and the tools to use this knowledge, such as training tips, brochures, leads, etc. but they have to do the leg work.  We are so fortunate to live in a country where famine isn’t the issue, only economy and poverty!

And a note from one of my readers on how not to succeed…

I know you are interested in stories of salespeople shooting themselves in the foot…

I just answered a call from a guy representing a company called (name given), asking to speak to one of my colleagues in a very peremptory (GI: Great word!) tone, “John Smith please!!”.  Now I know for sure this colleague NEVER takes sales calls, but I thought I’d give it a go.  I called my colleague, who flatly refused to take the call, as expected.  I went back to the caller, and said I’m sorry, John is not available right now, can anyone else help you? (I still wasn’t entirely sure this was a sales call).

The caller said, “No, I’ll call John back”.  I thought it was my human duty to warn him that the call was unlikely to be any more successful next time, so I asked him what it was about.  He said, “I think that’s up to me to discuss with John, thank you very much” and hung up in my ear.  Needless to say, John has agreed never to speak to this guy if he happens to ring again, simply because he was so rude.  Why do people think this is the way to get business?  Maybe he thought I was the receptionist and could safely be insulted…

Agreed! Being rude is never a good plan of attack for salespeople! This next take is rather more useful, this time coming from a reader responding to my question, “What would you achieve if you knew you couldn’t fail?” It’s a little while ago but I loved the sentiment and kept it to share with you when the time seemed right…

Hi Gavin

I must admit to normally ’skimming’ over your mails, I will try to absorb the content a little more in the future as there is some good stuff in there.  I have just stuck the attached poster on our office wall…

I firmly believe what will initiate the recovery from recession in the UK is the attitude and the determination of small businesses.  They can respond quicker, be more focused, specialised and flexible.  They can grow rapidly -  if every member of the FSB took on 4 employees, nearly a million jobs would be created.

Thre is no point moaning about our predicament or blaming the banks and wallowing in the mire of self pity.  We do not have the option to hide under the duvet until the recession passes.  The answer for us is to put more effort in. More hours, more miles, more calls.  There is still business out there – we just have to work harder to win it.  It can get demoralising, but we have nowhere else to go. Your mail was very timely – hence the poster.

As with Travis Pastrana on his motorbike, failure for us is not an option. I am determined to succeed.

Some great tips there so I thought I’d finish off with some of my favourite motivational quotes from the movies…

“Where does the power come from to see the race to its end?  From within.”
~ ”Chariots of Fire (1981), Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson).

“You get what you settle for.”
~ Susan Sarandon as Louise Sawyer in Thelma and Louise.

“I can’t tell you any sure way to happiness. I only know that you’ve got to go out and find it for yourselves.”
~ Gene Lockhart as Dr. Seldon in Carousel.

As Woody Allen famously said, “80% of success is showing up.” An easy quote to remember but a simple quote to forget. What do you need to show up for to make this week a great week for you, your sales and your business?

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The cold calling campaign at Sales Inc. was not going to well! I’ve seen plenty of sales offices that look like this as I am sure you have too. Perhaps you’re looking at one now and pulling your hair out! It’s amazing the excuses that salespeople can come up with when trying to avoid contacting new and (even) existing customers.

If you don’t want your sales office to look like this then why not speak to me about organizing an inspirational and motivational sales talk for your next sales conference, AGM or away day.

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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…

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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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