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[Note: Watch for upcoming posts where I'll be interviewing some CEO's of companies that are changing the tools we use as sales professionals.]

If you’re selling a product that is virtually, if not exactly, the same as all of your competitors, then you are selling a commodity. Many salespeople mistakenly resort to discounting as their only selling strategy in order to get business when selling commodities.

You don’t always have to resort to this. There is a way to deal effectively with commodity selling that I’ll share below.

When selling a commodity you are also selling your personal capital too.

What is personal capital? It’s the attitude, knowledge and skills that you bring, as a sales professional, to the customer that are independent of the products you sell.

What are some examples? There are a million of them: product knowledge, knowledge of how the customer needs to be invoiced/shipped/packaged, good people skills with the employees at the customer, ability to run customer meetings with productive outcomes, anticipation of customer needs before they are expressed, etc.

Here’s the best part about all of this. Customers are willing to pay you more for the same product they can buy from your competitors because of the personal capital that you bring to the table. This is exactly why order takers make such poor commodity salespeople.

“This sounds great Scott, but my customers don’t even appreciate that I do these things for them. All they talk about is price.”

The problem is that you haven’t communicated to them the extra value that you bring. Customer surveys have consistently shown that most customers don’t know the added value that you provide to them. Furthermore, these same surveys also show that if they were aware of the added value they wouldn’t be as price sensitive.

So, how do we communicate this extra value?

Every six months show them a formal report that tells them what they are buying from you and include a section labeled “Additional Services.” List all the added value services you provide (such as the examples listed above) in the Additional Services section and put a big N/C next to each item. You can deliver this report to them at a scheduled meeting that you advertise as your semi-annual customer satisfaction/update meeting. This information will open their eyes to all of the added value that you bring that goes unnoticed. You’ll probably get some good feedback too.

If you’re selling a commodity, be sure to sell yourself first and your product second.

Please tell your business associates about Sales Vitamins™. To subscribe: <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> for the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

In the 1973 movie, Magnum Force, Harry Callahan (played by Clint Eastwood) says his now famous line, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

No matter how inflated our ego is or how much we suffer from low self esteem, we all have two things in common: a key selling strength that must be optimized and a key sales weakness we must navigate around. It’s how we are put together by the big man upstairs. No one is exempt.

Highly successful athletes, politicians and actors are examples of people that showcase their greatest strength and do their best to conceal their greatest weakness. The key to all of this is that they know these things about themselves.

Since sales success is so critically dependent on a number of skill sets, doesn’t it make sense that we should be aware of our greatest strength and use it to our advantage? At the same time wouldn’t it be helpful for us to be cognizant of where we are not strong?

Tiger Woods is generally considered to be one of the best golfers that has ever lived. He acknowledges that his short-irons are a weakness for him, but he also knows that he can hit a driver like no other. Guess what his game strategy is? He uses his driver (his strength) in a way to avoid as many short-iron shots (his weakness) as possible.

We might be tempted to ask, should we work on our weakest sales skill in order to make it stronger? Yes, but I have a few rules for this:

1. We must work on our weak area only after we are sure that our strongest area is razor sharp. Our strongest area is our money maker.
2. When in front of a customer we must be sure to leverage our strength to the maximum; this is not a time to be experimenting with improving our weakness.
3. We can and should use a coach (e.g., sales trainer, sales manager) to help us with our weak area.
4. We can’t always avoid exposing our weak area, so we should ensure that we have at least an adequate and acceptable strategy for handling it.

Sales professionals can be either weak or strong in the following areas: prospecting, account management, presentations, customer meetings, product knowledge, account planning, time management, record keeping, etc. This is a concept where sales management can play a valuable role in helping their individual team members fortify their strength and manage their weakness.

Now go to work on making your sales strength even stronger and your weakness manageable.

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

Price objections. Salespeople expect to get them and customers expect to give them. Most of the time we greatly exaggerate their importance and significance and I can prove to you that I’m right.

There have been numerous studies on the most important issues to buyers when they choose a vendor. The issues identified in these studies are consistently and virtually identical. These issues are (ranked in order of importance):

1. Availability of product or service
2. Risks of partnering with the vendor
3. Service
4. Quality
5. Price

Notice that only items one and five have an objective measurement associated with them. We can tell the customer if we have the product or not and we can certainly tell them a price.

However, we can’t provide meaningful quantification regarding risks, service or quality. Our customers know that we can’t accurately give them this important information so they don’t ask about it.

But they do ask about availability and price. Customers seem to have an unending stream of questions about price, which makes us think that it’s a priority to them. It’s not, but they know it’s a question with an answer.

How do our customers get data in order to answer their higher priority questions about risks, service and quality? They get it through time and relationship with us. Over time a customer’s experience with us and our company will fill in those information gaps for them.

Evidence of this can be found in long term customers’ price sensitivity. Generally speaking, the longer we do business with a customer the less price sensitive they become. Why? We have provided them with answers regarding risks, service and quality, so price has been relegated to its proper place in their perspective, fifth.

Remember that most price objections are stated objections, not real objections. Our prospects and new customers are simply trying to learn something about us when they ask about price. We’ve got to be careful not to read too much into questions about price.

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

The following post is not intended as a political commentary about any candidate, but rather a sales analysis that uses a public figure as an example.

On January 7 while campaigning in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton was asked the following question by Marianne Young, “My question is very personal. How do you do it?” She was referring to the challenges that Hillary faces in campaigning for public office and managing her personal life. During her answer Hillary became emotional and began to cry.

Senator Clinton admits that this tear-up may have helped her win the New Hampshire election. Was it contrived or was it real emotion?

In January of 1993 her husband, Bill Clinton, became President of the United States and served until 2001. She undoubtedly had to deal with a lot of stress regarding her husband’s “extracurricular” activities before and during this period.

Since her husband has left office she has been very visible as a New York Senator and has been vigorously campaigning for the Presidency over the last year. In this entire time and through all of these events, is there any record of her crying or even showing any significant emotion in public before January 7 of this year?

On February 4 in New Haven, Connecticut Hillary welled up a second time while speaking to a small group of women at Yale. For at least 15 years Hillary has been in the global spotlight and we had never seen her cry, yet in a one month period she teared up twice in front of the cameras.

I feel confident in assuming that the crying was orchestrated. That kind of craftiness can get you in trouble with your customers and it may ultimately cause problems for Hillary. When we do things in sales that are not consistent with who we are, it ultimately turns our prospects and customers off. People resent being manipulated in any way.

What are some examples of ways we try to manipulate customers that almost always backfire?

1. Trying to exude a personality that is not our own, but one that we think the customer will prefer.
2. Pretending to deeply care about a customer’s personal life when we really don’t.
3. Acting like we are really having a bad month, when we’re not, in order to get a mercy order.

While Hillary won the New Hampshire primary she hasn’t done so well since. I can’t help but believe that one of the reasons is the lack of emotional authenticity that she has recently demonstrated.

Ironically - or maybe not - Marianne Young did not vote for Hillary in the primaries.

You’ve got to be real with your customers. Any time we are less than genuine or authentic our customers can tell and we lose credibility. Sales is a relationship game and the foundation of relationships is honesty.

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

Summary: Some of the most effective sales techniques we can use are completely counter-intuitive; they work in a way that is completely the opposite of what we are expecting.

I love watching the old Star Trek episodes. The episodes that involved battles between the Starship Enterprise and the Klingon starships were especially great. Phasers, photon torpedoes, I enjoyed it all.

In one episode the Starship Enterprise was completed outgunned by multiple Klingon starships. There was no way that Scotty was going to be able to work his engineering magic in time to pull them out of this one. At just the moment that most captains would have made a desperate and feeble attempt to fire on the Klingon starships, Captain Kirk told Sulu to “lower the shields.” That’s right. He instructed his helm officer to turn off all of their remaining defenses and become completely vulnerable.

What happened next? The Klingons were so surprised by this “laying down of arms” that they followed suit. They stopped attacking and opened up communication with the Enterprise. They started talking and a compromise was reached. Captain Kirk’s insight saved the day (and consequently allowed them to make many more episodes and movies for me to enjoy).

While this is science fiction, the principle is not. If you want to open up the lines of communication with your customer, especially if there is conflict, then “lay down your arms.” Defensiveness and aggressive behavior toward an unhappy customer only serve to make the situation worse by making them increasingly defensive and aggressive. Consider the following:

Customer: You guys completely messed up our last order and caused our production line to be down for 48 hours, costing us $450,000.

Salesperson #1 response: That may be, but I can prove you ordered the wrong parts. I’m not taking responsibility for this one.

Salesperson #2 response: I know that having your production line down for that long is completely unacceptable to your company. I want to do a post-mortem with you on this order and let’s see what we can do to ensure that this never happens again.

The first salesperson only caused the customer to get more upset and defensive. This salesperson was ultimately going to lose the battle. By “lowering the shields” Salesperson #2 started to immediately diffuse the customer’s anger and laid out a blueprint for future business.

We’re all human. Our natural tendency is to respond to a customer’s anger with defensiveness. But it doesn’t work very well. “Lowering your shields” provides a pathway for communication and inspires your customer to turn off their phasers. Captain Kirk knew best.

Do you have a customer service issue that could be addressed by “lowering your shields?”

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: Most of us know the Golden Rule, but have you ever heard of the Platinum Rule? You may not find it in your place of worship, but it will come in handy with customers and prospects.

We all know the Golden Rule which says to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” In other words, treat others like you’d like to be treated. There is no doubt that this is a great rule when applied correctly; it certainly applies to the moral areas of our lives.

However, there is another rule that is a relative of the Golden Rule that we need to use in sales, especially with our customers and prospects. That rule is called the Platinum Rule. The Platinum Rule says to “Do unto others as they would like done unto them.” In short, treat people like they would like to be treated, not how you would like to be treated. People are different. Not everyone shares our likes and dislikes.

Example 1: John says to his customer, “Bill, are you open tomorrow for lunch? I’m dying for some Chinese food.”

Debbie, using the Platinum Rule, says to her customer, “Mark, are you open tomorrow for lunch? I found a great new Greek place and I know that is one of your favorite foods. Does that sound good to you?”

See the difference? It’s actually quite profound. Mark feels his wants are important to Debbie…not so much the case with Bill and John.

Example 2: John says to his customer, “Bill, I just sent you the contract by email. I normally just email contracts to my new customers. I hope that is okay.”

Debbie, again using the Platinum Rule, says to her customer, “Mark, how would you like to receive your contract? I can fax, email or overnight it to you. Please let me know what is best for you and I’ll get it sent.”

Again, a significant difference, and Debbie’s words signal that she is tuning in to her customer’s wants. Debbie’s customer is much more likely to view her as a sales professional that listens, is more concerned about her customers than herself and provides a high level of customer service. Customers love - and respond to - all of those qualities.

The Platinum Rule does not require that you change your personality or that you act insincerely with your customers and prospects. It simply helps us focus on what our individual customers want versus trying to make the world fit our wants.

Can you put this into practice today with your prospects and customers?

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

The sociological definition of a dysfunctional work environment would broadly state that as a consequence of a social practice or behavior pattern the stability of the group is undermined. It’s disturbing to me that the subject of dysfunctional work environments is one of the most popular business topics today. Most workplace psychologists agree that every company has some kind of dysfunction. There is no perfect workplace. That really shouldn’t come as a surprise to us since nothing is perfect in this world. Families, churches, schools, etc., none of them are perfect. People are messy.

While virtually every workplace has some level of dysfunction, there are levels and types of dysfunction that are tolerable and those that are not. There are books written about this and I have personally worked in sales environments where there were some really nasty things going on. The dysfunctional behavior I want to touch on in this post is that of management by intimidation. This one is particularly prevalent in sales management. The sales manager thinks, “If I put pressure on those lazy stupid sales people and show them who’s boss, I’ll increase their productivity.” The worst part about this “strategy” is that it works, but only in the short term. People will in fact work harder for a boss that is screaming at them, but only long enough to pacify him or her. While the sales manager is throwing his or her daily/weekly fits at selected individuals, these same individuals are planning their exit. The ignorant sales manager is also most likely naive about the outgoing salesperson’s plans to take their customers with them. One important note here. It has been my observation that management by intimidation is not gender biased. While I have certainly observed unbalanced individuals that were men, I’ve seen women that were equally as bad.

How can you tell if you are working for a sales manager that rules by intimidation? Here’s a quick checklist with some common symptoms:

Always fault finding
Various threats, most are veiled
Reckless and irresponsible behavior
Belligerence toward customers
Substance abuse
Temper tantrums
Needs subordinates to be completely submissive
People frequently comment about his/her irrational behavior
His or her boss also rules by intimidation (or a corporate environment of intimidation)

If you find yourself in one of these environments see if you can get moved to a different boss. This is a primary strategy although I have to caution you that if a company tolerates this kind of behavior from one manager, they’ll probably tolerate it from others. Your next strategy is to find a new company to work for. Please do not wait for the individual to see the errors of his or her ways and get better. That won’t happen. While everyone can have a bad day and say something that may hurt someone else’s feelings, a sales manager that continually rules by intimidation is someone you need to get away from before you internalize their toxic message.

The stereotypical salesperson is portrayed as shallow, money hungry and untruthful. Most non-salespeople might be surprised to learn that those are unfair characterizations, especially the last one. Let me give you an example.

Customer: “Debbie, I need these parts and would love to buy them from you, but Bill at XYZ, Inc. down the street has them for, oh, um, let me see, 25% less than you do.”

Salesperson: “I’ll talk with my manager and see if I can meet that price.”

What is going on here? Well, that’s the issue. We don’t know for sure what is going on. Is the customer telling Debbie the truth about XYZ, Inc. or is he manipulating the facts to his advantage (i.e., lying)? After making literally thousands of sales calls, it is my anecdotal observation that some customers modify the facts more frequently than salespeople do.

There are a number of ways that customers like this stretch the truth a bit sometimes. Here’s a short list (all of which I’ve observed on more than one occasion): a fabrication about why your invoice is not paid; a story about how they didn’t receive those items you shipped - although they really did receive them; creativity applied to “needed by” date on a shipment to provide some padding for them - but killed you to make it happen; how they absolutely did tell you about a certain specification that you must not have written down, etc.

Do all customers get reckless with the truth sometimes in order to get themselves out of a pinch? Thankfully, most don’t. Unfortunately this type of customer behavior happens more than we probably are willing to accept or may be aware of. So what’s the lesson to be learned? Know that a knee jerk reaction is not always required when a customer throws up an objection or problem. Analyze the situation and the customer. Ask yourself if you think they are representing things accurately before you decide on your course of action.

The relationship you have with your customers needs to be a partnership, and partnerships can’t and won’t last without honesty from both sides. Invest your time with customers that trust you, and that you can trust.