If this is your first time visiting, you can receive this blog by RSS Feed or email .

As salespeople we have to manage a million emails and files. We constantly need to find information on customers, products, proposals, presentations, etc. that is found in emails and files scattered throughout our computer.

It’s there somewhere, but we have no idea where to find it or when we created it.

There is an answer and it’s called Google Desktop. It’s free and provides search capabilities that will save you hours of wasted time trying to find information.

I’ve been using it for years and it definitely falls into the, “How did I manage without this?” category. People think I have magical powers of recall, but Google Desktop is doing all the work.

Once you download the program from Google Desktop it will index your emails and files and will instantly retrieve your documents and emails based on search terms. It works exactly like Google’s search engine except it’s searching on your files and emails.

Recently I needed to find a customer presentation from an event that occurred in 2005. I had no idea where to look. Was it attached to an old email somewhere? Was it in an old Word document stored in some folder? I just typed in “presentation, Chicago, 2005″ and it brought up the email with the attached Word document I was looking for in about one second.

In addition to finding emails and documents it will also help you find web pages you’ve viewed and it will even help you retrieve deleted files that you accidentally deleted but now need.

Microsoft’s latest version of Windows (Vista) has this feature built in, but Google beat them to the punch and has a product that is better suited to sales professionals and their needs in my opinion.

Get it on your computer and let me know what you think.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Chris R. of Lincoln, Nebraska submitted the following question, “Scott, I’d be interested to hear your take on leveraging social networking to develop prospects and clients.”

What a great and timely question. I’ve noticed recently that many sales professionals are not aware of how much things are changing when it comes to networking for business opportunities. I’m going to provide just an introduction to this important topic.

We’re all familiar with what I call “Legacy Networking.” This consists of schmoozing at your local chambers of commerce, leads groups and professional organizations. These forums work well, but there are new and potentially more effective ways to prospect using, you guessed it, the Internet.

MySpace.com and Facebook.com are the two giants in social networking on the Internet. These sites allow users to store all kinds of information about themselves and share this with others with similar interests. The only problem is that these sites have a social focus and not a business focus. They are trying to have more appeal to business professionals but still need further development in this area.

LinkedIn.com, Plaxo.com and Ryze.com are three social networking sites that are oriented toward business professionals. These sites can be a source for finding information about prospects. However, none of them are specifically designed to aid sales professionals.

Jigsaw.com is a social networking website that is specifically made for sales professionals looking for leads. It works like a leads group but with a lot more horsepower. You build up credits by submitting information which in turn gives you access to information. Because it’s web based the only geographical limit is the planet.

This site is an outstanding tool for those of us in sales and I would encourage everyone to take a look. The larger your geographic sales territory the more you could benefit from a site like Jigsaw.com.

We are in the early stages of social networking sites that are geared toward businesspeople. We are in even earlier stages when it comes to social networking sites that are specific to sales professionals. This is a trend that will continue and is going to provide tools that will ultimately change how we share information about prospects.

Thanks for your question, Chris.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Sales would be so much easier if all customers were the same. But we all know that we are paid to discern and act on the subtle differences between people.

One of these key differences is how people like to communicate. Our customers normally have a preference for one of the following types of communication and we would be smart to know which they prefer:

1. F2F (Face to Face Communicators). These are individuals who like to talk person to person. This is by far the most effective type of communication because it allows for all the subtle, and important, nuances of the interchange to be observed.

F2F requires a bigger time commitment from our customer, but the time investment is worth it to them in order to increase the quality of the communication.

2. EC (Email Communicators). People who prefer to deal indirectly with people usually prefer email. They like it because it allows them to control when they communicate and it provides a permanent record of the transaction.

Email communicators can frequently feel overwhelmed by salespeople whom they perceive as too aggressive. This is a way for them to feel in control of any communication they have with us.

3. PC (Phone Communicators). While many people consider the phone intrusive on their time, it is less time consuming than F2F and still provides a fairly high level of communication quality.

Customers who prefer the phone are trading off some of the quality of F2F communication for a smaller investment of their time. They’re usually busy individuals who want more than an email.

When we use the communication mode that best fits each of our customers, it can be amazing how positively they respond. We are appealing to their unique personality and isn’t that what the sales game is all about?

We have to be sensitive to the communication preference of every person we deal with and leverage this subtle, yet amazingly important and overlooked customer preference.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Peggy (not her real name) recently submitted a sales career related question and asked me to answer it in Sales Vitamins™.

“I attain my sales goal almost every single month and have done so for many years. I told my boss during an annual review that money doesn’t motivate me that much. He couldn’t believe that anyone in sales would want to be in sales if they felt that way. Am I wrong to feel this way? I love sales, but money is not the main reason.”

Just because many, if not most, sales professionals say they are in it for the money doesn’t necessarily mean they really are. In some sales circles it would be considered politically incorrect to enjoy a sales career for anything other than compensation.

This kind of one-dimensional view of our sales careers can rob us of some of the joys of selling.

Lots of research has been done as to what motivates people at work and, surprisingly, compensation does not come in as number one in most of them. Furthermore, most studies of sales contests indicate that the majority of salespeople prefer tangible awards instead of money.

What motivators are there in a sales career other than money? They include, but are not limited to:

1. Ability to develop significant relationships inside and outside of our company.
2. Outside sales positions provide significant freedom and mobility.
3. Real feeling of accomplishment and contribution, and one that is measurable.
4. Develops personal confidence because we work for a very important department at our company while we simultaneously interface with important decision makers at our customers.

Peggy, I think it’s commendable that you are aware of what does and doesn’t motivate you. Everybody has different motivators and you appear to be tuned into them and obtain your sales budget on a regular basis as a result. I would urge your sales manager not to ruin the soup. Don’t question good results.

Sales can certainly be financially rewarding, but there are many other factors that can make it a fun and rewarding career. Carry on Peggy.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

There is a stealthy serial killer in sales that many of us aren’t even aware of. It can kill deals and inflict injury on our relationships with customers. It is most frequently found in quotes, emails and other customer correspondence.

What is this silent sales assassin? The offender is the incorrect spelling of a customer’s name or getting their title wrong.

It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is a big deal to our customers. Dale Carnegie said that a person’s name is music to their ears. We love hearing our own name and our customers are no exception. People are also very proud of their titles and usually have worked hard to earn them. They want their name spelled correctly. They want their title stated accurately.

When we get a customer’s name or title wrong it communicates three not-so-good things.

1. It reinforces a negative, and incorrect, stereotype of salespeople. We don’t want our customers to perceive us as slap-you-on-the-back carnival barkers.
2. It communicates that we really don’t care that much about their business or about them as individuals. It doesn’t get any more personal than a person’s name or title.
3. It announces to the customer that we’re not too worried about details. If we can’t get their name or title correct, how persnickety are we going to be about other important aspects of the sale?

The larger and more complex a sales transaction becomes, the more the customer will view these kinds of mistakes as potentially fatal to the relationship.

While customers may not mention that we got their name or title wrong, rest assured that they have noticed and will not be impressed. We have to be careful not to think that their silence indicates this issue is not important to them. It is.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

There is most assuredly a chemical component to the salesperson-customer relationship. I like to call that bit of chemistry a salesperson’s “vibe.”

It can work for and against the sales professional.

We’ve all had days when every prospect and customer we touch turns to gold. I’m talking about those times when we almost become annoyed at the number of prospects and customers that are calling us to place large orders. It’s wonderful, but always temporary.

When we’re in the good “vibe” zone our positive “vibes” seem to gain momentum. We know that the next customer contact is going to yield even more gold. We have a good “vibe” going.

However, there are also days where we couldn’t sell a life preserver to a drowning man. We feel like we could quite literally give our products and services away and people wouldn’t be interested.

During those times nothing we do seems to work. Customers and prospects see us coming and head for the hills. They seem to have an early warning system. We have a bad “vibe” going.

When our “vibe” is good we must be sure to prospect, up-sell and cross-sell as much as we can. The “vibe” will end and we want to use it for all it’s worth.

For those times when we have developed a bad “vibe” we might want to consider calling it a day. My theory is, why ruin any more opportunities? I’m talking about a rare occurrence here by the way. If we’re getting a bad “vibe” more than once every quarter then we probably have other issues that need to be addressed.

What is this “vibe” that haunts and helps us? Is it confidence? Is it good luck? Is it the alignment of the planets? Is it God? No one knows. But rest assured that there is a “vibe” in sales and it makes the selling profession fun and mysterious. Learn to recognize and respond to it.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

As the number of subscribers increases for Sales Vitamins™ I am in the fortunate position of receiving many reader questions submitted from the Contact Me page. For today’s post I’d like to answer a question that was submitted to me by Richard F. of Denver, Colorado, with his permission.

“I like reading your blog and many in our office are regular readers. Why do you make such a big deal about prospecting? I’ve been with my company for about a year and am meeting my sales objectives most of the time without doing any prospecting. Why should I care about prospecting?”

Richard,

There are primarily four reasons that we prospect and I think all of them could be applicable to your situation.

1. We prospect because we lose customers. It’s inevitable. No matter how good we are, we will, over time, lose all of our customers for one reason or another. Since you have only been at your employer for a year you most likely haven’t seen significant customer fallout yet. Now is the time to start planting seeds to replace those customers that will ultimately start to wither and die.

2. We prospect to replace bad customers. We only have a limited number of hours in a day. Why would we want to budget our time around customers that are high maintenance, buy little and pay slowly? When we find better customers through prospecting we become more efficient selling machines by using high quality new customers to replace existing bad ones.

3. We prospect because order-takers make less income than consultative sales professionals. If all we do is process orders, we aren’t particularly valuable to our employers. Order taking is a bad habit we don’t want to get too comfortable with either.

4. We prospect to bring in new business in order to increase our sales and therefore increase our personal earnings (commissions). It appears that there might be some periods when you don’t hit your sales quota. Finding new business could help you hit your target more often and increase your income.

Thank you for your question, Richard. I’ve never seen a superstar salesperson that was successful over an extended period because of their order-taking capabilities. They did it because they had well developed sales skills and they were always looking for better customers to either add to their book of accounts or to replace undesirable customers.

Scott

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

There were many times as an inexperienced salesperson that I got a little overwhelmed with the fast paced decisions that I needed to make in order to effectively manage my accounts. Should I call on customer A? Should I propose a certain product to customer B? Do I need to go to the home office and expedite an order?

I struggled with this until I received some stellar sales advice from Bob, who was the Vice President of Sales at the company I was working for at the time. He was very happy with my sales results but knew that I was struggling with how to prioritize my sales activities.

He told me, “Son, you’d make life a lot easier on yourself if you focused on the needs of the people that will make you the most money in the long run.”

What a great piece of advice that I use to this day. It’s great advice because in one sentence it hits all the important aspects of sales planning:

1. Focus on customers, not tasks.
2. Prioritize your activities according to the expected monetary return.
3. Take a long term view of things; don’t let short term crises get in the way of long term strategies.
4. Make sure you take care of those people that support you in the home office.

As sales professionals we are expected to simultaneously manage an account base, look for new opportunities and keep up with the administrative side of things. It can be overwhelming. When you need direction as to which way to turn, remember Bob’s words of wisdom. He was a smart guy.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Fact: Every product or service has 7-10 common customer objections.

If you think about your prospecting and selling efforts over the last year you’ll realize that you heard the same 7-10 customer objections. These objections will be different depending on what product or service you’re selling, but they will be repeated over and over.

It’s hard to come up with brilliant answers when we’re standing in front of a customer and attempting to answer an objection on the fly. Doesn’t it make sense for us to prepare responses to these objections ahead of time when we’re in a better environment to do so?

Being ready with answers can benefit us the most when addressing specific objections that are unique to our industry or competitive environment. Let me give you an example:

Physician to pharmaceutical salesperson, “I don’t need another pharmaceutical company pushing their products on me. I’ve got reps coming out of my ears and too many drugs to keep track of as it is.”

This is a customer objection that is specific to this industry and would be difficult to answer if we weren’t prepared. However, this particular sales professional is prepared and here is her planned response when she hears this common customer objection.

“And that is exactly the reason you do need to talk to me. Our company has a comprehensive range of drugs that will meet the vast majority of needs you will see as a pediatrician. You’ll be able to actually reduce the number of pharmaceutical companies that you use.”

If you want to take this to the next level, get with your sales peers and compare notes. Agree on a list of 7-10 common customer objections and as a group create solid responses.

There is no reason to be caught with our pants down when it comes to customer objections that we encounter on a frequent basis. We can have answers in our hip pocket.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Is it just me or do newscasters almost get a grin on their face when they report bad economic news?

The reality is that the media likes to exaggerate bad economic news because the general public has an unhealthy taste for it. People don’t stop to stare at good driving. They stop and gawk at three car pileups. In journalism, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

If we don’t apply critical thinking to their message about the economy it can hurt our sales efforts.

What’s crazy about all of this is that the economy is actually growing even as I type this. Most surveys indicate that the GDP will grow at about .5% through July of this year. Not stellar growth, but growth nonetheless. The Department of Labor says that hiring for new college graduates this Spring will be up 16% over last year.

Think about it - the news media is hysterical because we aren’t growing as quickly as we have in past quarters. It’s an election year; all logic is off the table I suppose.

As professional salespersons it is essential that the following words don’t come out of our mouths or even enter our thinking.

1. “I guess you don’t need anything today Mr. Customer because of the slowdown…”
2. “I’m cutting out early today. It’s not like anyone is buying anything anyway.”
3. “I’m not going to waste my time prospecting. People are buying less, not more, in this downturn.”

Bad economic news that causes salespeople to slow their selling efforts is a result of the Pygmalion effect. Simply stated, the Pygmalion effect is when we bring our performance in line with our expectations. It works both negatively and positively and is also known as a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Those talking-head-newscasters could not possibly care less about your sales career. They are misrepresenting the state of the economy in order to sell news. Think of them as a psychological competitor.

Continue to call on your customers and prospects. The economy is growing. Really.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer