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Summary: Pre-selling in a relational sales environment is not selling at all; it creates a foundation for selling.

It is my observation that the majority of sales organizations still rely on beliefs about sales from the 1950’s. One of those beliefs is that sales is a very here-and-now process and is formulaic. You approach the prospect, show them your stuff, apply a standardized closing technique and take the order. That idea wasn’t especially effective 50 years ago, and is even less so today.

Because of the information overload available to buyers today, they are increasingly dependent upon personal relationships to discover the added value you and your organization bring. One of the ways that you can demonstrate your added value is through pre-selling.

Pre-selling means that you set the stage for selling. The key to pre-selling is to initially develop the relationship with the prospect without emphasizing the product or service you hope to sell them. If you start to “sell” a new prospect when you first meet them, what happens? They think, “Here we go again, another arm twisting salesperson.” When that happens they throw up objections to stop your selling process. If you’ve ever played golf with a prospect, you intuitively know this; you don’t talk about the deal until you’re on the back nine.

Develop the relationship first and then move on to your products and services. Once you start discussing your products and services be careful to just provide information at this stage. Don’t try to sell them, but instead, inform them.

Pre-selling is a three step process that flows very naturally. Develop the relationship, inform them about your product and services and then move on to the sale. If done properly and without rushing, the actual sales part of the transaction becomes a comfortable and third step in the process.

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Summary: Even though Microsoft’s PowerPoint presentation software controls the majority of the market, there are other products to consider.

Just like most areas where Microsoft competes, they dominate in presentation software with 90% of the market, so competition is fragmented. Below I’ve listed some of the better known product alternatives and an enhancement to PowerPoint. Please keep in mind that poor presentation skills won’t be remedied with different presentation software tools (see my other posts on using PowerPoint).

1. Ovation by Adobe is a $99 enhancement to PowerPoint. I tried this product and found that it can provide some animation beyond what is available in PowerPoint. The real standout feature is the ability to include moving backgrounds. For the most part it doesn’t really provide animation that is significantly sexier than what is possible with PowerPoint. At $99 the investment is not that substantial however.
2. Google has just rolled out a competitor to PowerPoint called Google Presentation. This is available for free and if you know Google you know that they will limit features to achieve ease of operation and that is exactly what they have done here (i.e., no sound, video or animation capabilities). This is a very easy tool to use with the strongest feature being the ease in which you can share and store presentations on the Internet. Google is not really trying to play nice with Microsoft when it comes to this product; you can import PowerPoint presentations but you can’t export from Google Presentation in PowerPoint format. This will become a problem if you need to share presentations and the recipient isn’t in the Google fold. This one is worth trying because it’s free and you’ll never have to worry about upgrading software again because it’s all online.
3. If you have an Apple computer you know that they make a competitor to PowerPoint called Keynote. This product is only $79 and has Apple’s customary outstanding graphic capabilities. There are features on Keynote that will probably show up on PowerPoint someday. The only big negative is that the audience for this product is limited to those with Apple computers.

4. If you hate Microsoft, love PowerPoint and don’t want to spend any money, then you need to go to openoffice.org and download their free competitor to PowerPoint that has essentially the same look and feel of the older versions of PowerPoint. This product is an Open Source project that is contributed to by Sun and a host of volunteer coders.

You can opt for different presentation software, but at the end of the day please remember that it is the presenter that will have the greatest impact on any presentation, regardless of the software used.

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Summary: There is a quiet revolution going on in corporate America. People are beginning to protest against Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.

I think it’s safe to say that most people think of PowerPoint as the presentation instead of just a tool to help them give a presentation. Are the really dull presentations a result of PowerPoint or is it the person using PowerPoint? It’s both, but the majority of the problem is usually with the presenter. PowerPoint lets you get lazy with presenting because you can simply read your presentation from the screen. As a result, a cycle of declining speaking skills and increasing audience annoyance ensues.

Below are some ideas for using PowerPoint (or any presentation software for that matter) more effectively:

The latest trend is to use little or no text whatsoever on PowerPoint presentations. By using graphics that match the speaker’s content, very limited (or no) text and good presentation skills by the presenter, it is possible to put together a great presentation. Warning: this technique requires more preparation than using a PowerPoint laden with text.

How about taking a course on presenting in order to sharpen your presentation skills? Relying on your PowerPoint presentation to be your presentation never works. We’ve all seen great presenters give outstanding presentations with really bad PowerPoints. If the presenter is a terrible speaker, the best PowerPoint in the business won’t pull things out of the fire. Get to the root cause and quit blaming PowerPoint for all your problems.

How about not using any presentation software whatsoever. What a radical idea! Flip charts, audience participation, speaker notes and role playing are wonderful and refreshing substitutes for PowerPoint, not to mention tried and true ones. Think of the best presenters you have ever seen. Did any of them use PowerPoint? This technique also requires more preparation by the speaker.

A good starting point for improving your PowerPoint presentations is to use better PowerPoint creation techniques. Let me get you started by listing some basic rules of thumb for crafting better PowerPoints.

Limit number of bullets to six per slide.
Cool it on the animation; less is more.
Lose all the fancy headers and footers.
Keep consistent and large font sizes and types.
Use no cartoon characters to depict people; only use photographs of people. Generally limit your use of all cartoon type graphics.

Audiences are tired of PowerPoint. But what they are really tired of is poor presenters. Creating a professional PowerPoint presentation and using good presentation skills are all under your control.

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Summary: Fifty years ago salespeople were taught “closing techniques” as if that’s all there was to making a sale.

I get a migraine every time I hear a salesperson use a classic closing technique that is ill timed and inappropriate. I get an even bigger migraine when I hear someone teaching these techniques to an unsuspecting group of new sales recruits. Classic closing techniques are outdated. Not only are they outdated but customers and prospects can see them coming a mile away. Please remember that most purchasers, decision makers and buyers have seen more of these techniques than you have.

Below are some of my not-so-favorite classic closing techniques (I’m not making these up):

Companion Close – the salesperson actually sells to the person with the decision maker.

Compliment Close – the salesperson flatters the prospect into submission.

Distraction Close – the salesperson catches the prospect in a weak moment.

Doubt Close – the salesperson shows the prospect that they doubt the product and lets the prospect disagree.

Hurry Close – the salesperson goes fast to keep the prospect from thinking too much.

Selective-deafness Close – the salesperson responds only to what they want to hear.

Shame Close – the salesperson shames the prospect into buying.

Treat Close – the salesperson convinces the prospect that they should give themselves a treat.

If you view the sales process as a series of steps you don’t need heavy handed closing. The final step of the sales process should be just another step to completion. This is why I like to refer to the final step in the sales process as finishing the sale versus closing the sale. If you’ve done all your homework and connected all the links in the sales process, the closing should be a non-event, sometimes needing virtually no input from you at all.

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Summary: A recent survey of employees found that the majority of sales and marketing employees question their manager’s leadership abilities.

SkillSoft recently completed a survey that questioned all levels of employees in IT, sales and marketing, customer service, finance, HR, etc. regarding the competency of their boss. This survey is interesting because it is one of the few that includes sales and marketing employees. Below are some of the more interesting findings.

65% of all employees (regardless of department) felt that their boss was a competent leader.

30% of all employees (regardless of department) felt their boss was not qualified for their job.

49% of sales and marketing employees felt their manager was a good leader.

While almost 2/3’s of all employees felt that their boss was a capable leader, less than half of sales and marketing employees gave the thumbs up to their manager’s leadership abilities. How can we explain the lower scores for sales management?

1. A good salesperson does not always translate to a good sales manager. There are many good salespeople that are promoted into management based on their sales budget attainment and not their leadership abilities. This is unfortunate because the employer loses a good salesperson and simultaneously creates management problems when the wrong person is promoted.

2. Sales positions are normally held by employees that are younger than the average age of all the employees at a company. Younger people tend to be more cynical about their manager. As we get older we become more accepting of our manager’s shortcomings and our own.

3. A sales position almost always carries with it a quota or budget. The sales manager has a budget that is the total of those for his or her salespeople. Sales managers frequently find themselves in crunch situations on their sales budget and subsequently apply pressure to individual salespeople.

Sales management can be a tough and thankless job. It looks good from the outside but once you become a sales manager you realize that you are responsible for everyone’s sales budget. Furthermore, the new sales manager quickly finds that they can only indirectly influence individual salespersons’ efforts and abilities. The next time you see your sales manager give ‘em a hug; it’s not as easy as they probably make it look.

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Summary: A study was done many years ago demonstrating that people respond in positive and unexpected ways to attention.

There was a famous productivity study that started in 1924 and continued for several years at the Western Electric Company in Cicero, Illinois. Industrial engineers wanted to know how different light levels would affect workers’ output at this telephone equipment factory. When I was first introduced to this study I immediately thought that it sounded like one of those infamous studies funded by the federal government whose findings would be predictable to just about everyone. Wouldn’t you think that more light would equal more productivity? It wasn’t that simple.

The results showed that increased light levels in the factory did in fact increase the workers’ output. No surprise there. But what I’m about to tell you is why this study is well known more than 80 years later. When they decreased the light levels, productivity levels continued to increase. Can’t you just see those industrial engineers with their white coats and thick glasses scratching their collective head? They started experimenting with different scenarios and found that no matter what they did with the light levels, productivity increased each time. They even took levels down to almost black out and, you guessed it, productivity levels continued to increase.

What’s the explanation? The smart folks figured out that it was the attention that the factory workers were getting that made the difference, not the light levels. The fact that a whole brigade of industrial engineers were watching and studying them made them feel important and part of the team. They responded by working harder and harder.

The analogy to our relationship with our customers is obvious. Customers like getting attention from you; it builds the relationship because it makes them feel important, just like the workers at the Western Electric factory. I have seen this in practice a thousand times when a new salesperson takes over an existing account base. All the love and attention showered on those customers by the new salesperson makes customers respond with increased purchases. The Hawthorne Effect even suggests that if we are nurturing the relationship with our customers that we can make a few missteps without being sent to the principal’s office. Never take your relationship with the customer for granted; stay in constant contact.

I want to conclude this post with a note to sales management. You guessed it; pay attention to your sales force too, for all the same reasons.

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Summary: Selling name brands for big corporations might look easy on the surface; it’s not.

It was my first day of my new job. I had worked for years for small companies and was incredibly excited to finally be selling for a really-big-company. This was a Fortune 10 company that everyone knew; I could finally let the products and services sell themselves and relax a little. I had paid my dues and I was now on selling-easy-street. I could not have been more wrong. Before you answer the siren song of a really-big-company sales position please consider the following.

Quota/Budget. Those really-big-company executives may have gotten their executive position for all the wrong reasons but they definitely are smart enough to know that brand name recognition normally translates into an easier sale for you. They compensate for that fact by giving you a large sales budget like you’ve never seen before.

Competition. As Reggie Jackson used to say, “Fans don’t boo nobodies.” The more visible your company is, the more likely your prospects and customers are going to be a target of fierce competitive activity.

Bureaucracy. You only thought you had to do a lot of paperwork when you worked at those smaller companies. Really-big-companies will bury you in meaningless and redundant paperwork, CRM systems, ERP systems, SFA systems, expense voucher systems, ad infinitum systems.

Account Base/Territory. You can’t believe how much really-big-companies segment sales territories. Since market share is high, they figure that you don’t need very much geography or accounts/prospects to meet your quota. The fewer companies you have to contact the more important it is that you don’t damage any sales opportunities, especially considering the big sales budget that is assigned to you. Every sales presentation can become a do-or-die effort.

No doubt there are some advantages in selling for a really-big-company. But don’t take a sales job for one of these companies thinking that it is going to be easy. Life and work have a way of always balancing advantages and disadvantages. Nothing that pays you a significant income is going to be easy.

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Summary: Colleges and universities guide their students toward non-sales careers in big corporations. They frequently don’t position sales careers as alternatives to a standard career path out of college.

About six people will raise their hands if you ask a group of 500 sales professionals if they have a business degree with a sales emphasis. I am surprised that there are so few formal sales degree programs at our colleges and universities. I suppose one of the reasons for this is the prehistoric belief that success in a sales career is primarily a result of a great personality. This belief is even more ridiculous when you consider the current hi-tech tools used in sales and the increasingly more complex products and services that sales professionals are responsible for selling.

What do America’s colleges and universities teach young minds about sales careers? For that matter, what do they teach students in general about their careers? Sadly I have to report that for the most part they teach the same non-sales-career-friendly three things today as they did 100 years ago.

Your goal is to find a job working for someone. A sales career is about as close as you can come to working for yourself while being employed. Comb through any college business textbook and you will find little to nothing about self employment as a career possibility. Entrepreneurialism is not given a lot of textbook or professor focus in college. Why? Most college professors are the antithesis of entrepreneurialism; as a result they aren’t normally going to be big proponents of sales careers.

Not only do you want to go to work for someone, but you want to work for a very large corporation. The holy grail of employment, according to your college instructors, is to go to work for the very largest corporation that will have you. They seem to set their students up for failure since the vast majority of workers work in small to medium companies in the U.S. I’m not too sure that large companies are always the best learning ground either. In a large corporation the new hire is just another salesperson in a sea of salespeople; they frequently do not receive a lot of individual attention or mentoring.

You want to negotiate the best salary and benefits you can. While you probably don’t have any argument with wanting the best compensation you can get, please note that they are not including “at risk” income in commissioned sales positions. The concept of commission to the staff at a college or university is about as well understood as animal husbandry is to Paris Hilton.

I’m a big believer in getting a college education if that’s a possibility for you. However, please don’t rely on your college professors for career guidance. They see an extremely small slice of the business world and as a result can’t see a sales career in context. Remember, self employment, working for small scrappy companies and sales careers in general have launched a multitude of stellar careers in the U.S.

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Summary: Sticking with bad sales habits will ultimately cause you to have poor sales results.

In sales training and coaching you often hear “shoulds.” “You should make more calls. I think you should start earlier in the morning. We feel that you should call on more customers per day.” People basically “should” all over you. I’m somewhat of an expert on the items that follow because I have been guilty of all of them. This is a list of things that will cause your sales results to suffer. These are the opposite of “shoulds;” these are things you want to avoid while simultaneously replacing them with more positive behaviors.

Calling only on customers. Error in thinking: You erroneously believe that your customers will stay with you forever and there is no need to grow your sales by prospecting. All customers will eventually leave the fold for one reason or another and all companies want their salespeople to grow revenue.

Ignoring customer relationships and focusing exclusively on being a good order processor/taker. Error in thinking: The reason you are getting orders from a customer is largely a result of the relationship you and your company have with that customer. Ignore this long enough and the customer will divorce you. If you’re just a warm blooded version of e-commerce why does the customer need you?

Dominating customer interactions and doing all the talking. Error in thinking: The biggest single complaint about salespeople is that they don’t listen. Asking open ended questions and then listening will not only help bust this stereotype but will get you needed information and build the customer relationship.

Keeping all of your customer information “in your head.” Error in thinking: Even Einstein had to take notes. Quit deluding yourself; you’re not able to keep track of all the information you need about your customers and prospects from memory. This is just a lazy copout. Ever have a waiter or waitress not write down your order and then get it wrong? Didn’t make you too happy did it?

Working only part of the day. Error in thinking: You incorrectly think that your superior sales skills will carry the day for you; there is no need to work a full day every day. Besides, you’re in sales; you’re expected not to work a full day. Here’s where this will nail you every time and it’s a slippery slope. You start out working ten hour days, then nine hour days, seven hour days, five hour days and before long you’re barely getting out of your pajamas. Your sales results will show it.

Believe me, there are more ways than this to grenade your sales career. I should know; I’ve done all of them. These five are some of the most prevalent. We have a tendency to think that we can get away with these things without consequence, but these bad habits will ultimately nab you.

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Summary: Which is most valuable: customer, prospect or suspect? You may be surprised to find that non-prospects can be of value too.

In a salesperson’s world time is everything. Time directly translates to money. If you keep time in mind when evaluating your prospect pool you might find that non-prospects have more value than you think. Consider the hierarchy of prospects:

Qualified Prospect, good chance of becoming a customer.

Prospect, has potential but more information is necessary.

Suspect, looks like they might use our products and services.

Name, just a company name and nothing else.

What about non-prospects and where do they fit in? What about those companies that you absolutely know will never buy from you or your company? They might even be companies that you don’t want to sell for one reason or another. Where do you put them in the prospect hierarchy?

You put them right under Qualified Prospects. The reason for this has everything to do with time. Prospects, Suspects and Names will, by necessity, burn time and require resources. If you’re like most salespeople you will never be able to adequately cover all of the prospects that are available to you. When you can eliminate a prospect as a potential future customer then you are free to focus on your better prospects. The sooner you know they are a non-prospect, the sooner you stop wasting time on them. It’s as simple as that.

Every cold call is valuable. When you are prospecting you are either moving a prospect toward being a customer or you are eliminating them as a prospect. If you are looking for needles in a haystack and you can eliminate some of the straw, doesn’t that help eliminate some of the clutter and help you zero in on the needles?

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer