Sales Blog with Professional Sales Tips

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We hear the following worn out sales tip all the time. Be professional. When the pursuit of professional behavior blocks the expression of our personality, it can hurt our sales.

“Don’t you get it? These…are part of your unique formula.”

A Story About “Professionalism”
Many years ago I was having lunch with one of the top sales professionals in our organization. His name was Kyle and I was his sales manager. We were having a nice lunch and were discussing sales tips that both of us could use to improve our performance. Please keep in mind that Kyle was a consistent top 10 performer in a very large sales organization.

Our lunch was going smoothly until he said, “I need to work on talking more slowly. I think I come across a little hyperactive to my customers. I just need to tone things down. I’m not professional enough.”

Our Inherent Value
I instantly put my fork down, leaned over the table and said to him, “Kyle, no one will ever accuse you of having low energy, that’s for sure. You definitely don’t waste any time getting your thoughts out either. It’s those things about you that cause people to like you and do business with you. There are millions of low energy, slow talking sales sluggards out there. Why would you want to look and sound like them? Don’t change anything; it will only come across as disingenuous anyway. Don’t you get it? These attributes of yours are part of your unique formula.”

Our Foundation
Our core personality is what makes our sales skills work in the first place. It’s the foundation from which our sales capabilities grow. We’ve all seen people in sales who had outstanding sales skills but sadly had been subjected to a “personality bypass” at an early age. Their successes were usually few. We want to act professionally, of course, but not to the point of masking our individuality and character.

A sales tip to sales managers reading this - please don’t try to change the personalities of sales professionals. It’s not possible. It will only damage relationships with them and will hinder any sales skills training efforts.

Kyle understood my message and has thanked me a dozen times for what I said to him that day. He was promoted into sales management and to this day has fortunately not changed his unique personality. He still talks fast, and we love him for it.

Further reading: What’s the difference between crazy and genius in sales? Results.

To receive this sales tips blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Only a few months after starting a new sales job I unexpectedly received a message from our CEO’s assistant letting me know that the CEO needed to chat with me. I knew why he wanted to talk. I had a customer that thought I had charged them too much on some materials I sold them. They told me they were going to complain to the CEO - and apparently they did.

My sales were great at my new job. In fact, I was a top-ten producer after only a few months. This turn of events threw cold water on all of that.

Was I ever in for a big surprise.

“Is this a good sales management strategy that I’ve used about a thousand times…?”

The Call
I was out in the field calling on customers when I got the message. I nervously dialed my cell phone. I was secretly praying that the CEO wouldn’t be in his office. Of course his assistant picked up my call on the first ring and immediately transferred me. Time stood still.

“Scott, I hear that XYZ Company wasn’t too impressed with your sales skills, specifically your pricing. They called me today and didn’t have a lot of nice things to say about you.”

There was, what seemed to me, about a 30-minute pregnant pause at this point since I didn’t really know what to say. I started to mumble something about some sales tips that I had gotten on how to price an order like this.

He interrupted me. “Scott, here’s what I want you to do. Are you listening?”

“Yes sir.” I wasn’t feeling too good at this point.

“I’ll take care of this situation and you keep on doing what you’ve been doing. You’ve demonstrated outstanding sales skills and I’m impressed with your results in the short time you’ve been with us. When you’re aggressively cross-selling to existing customers, finding new business and generally stirring things up you’re going to upset a few people along the way. It’s actually a good sign. I never get calls like this from the folks that are sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. Now go back to selling and quit wasting time talking to me. Goodbye and good job.”

The Aftermath
Was his sales tip on target about high levels of sales activity generating some upset customers? Absolutely.

Did he motivate me to work even harder? Is there any doubt?

Did I feel supported by the organization, specifically the CEO? No question.

Is this a good sales management strategy that I’ve used about a thousand times in my career? Definitely.

Further reading: Sales Tips Fiction: The Customer is in Charge

To receive this sales tips blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Have you ever thought about the balancing act sales managers must endure as they help develop our sales skills? Oh, I know, we frequently see him or her as a tyrant demanding that we meet unrealistic goals. However, think for a second about the chess game a good sales manager has to play in order to provide sales advice that we value.

“…give your sales manager a big hug.”

Close to Us
They must have a good relationship with us so that we listen to them and value the sales help they provide. While maintaining a good connection with us they must simultaneously not be a salesperson. We don’t want them running our accounts and upper management needs to see them as part of management, not as a sales representative.

Bootlicking Upper Management
While loving us they also must kowtow to upper management. A sales manager has to be close enough to upper management to get information but not be viewed as “one of them” by his or her sales team. Normally the valuable information gained from upper management is beneficial to the sales team and passed on as sales tips.

It’s not easy for a sales manager to keep the plates spinning and balanced. Every sales job has its notable challenges, especially the sales manager’s.

Now go give your sales manager a big hug.

Related links: Key Sales Advice: Your Sales Manager’s Password, Sales Manager and Sales Representative Working Together,Sales Tips to Keep Your Manager Happy

To receive this sales tips blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

There have been many studies researching the main reason that some sales reps are extremely successful and some are less so. Virtually all of the research comes to the same conclusion and it is surprising in its simplicity.

Sales managers want to know this predictor because it can help them hire the right people and provide focused sales tips in order to teach them how to sell. Sales reps want to know in order to improve their sales skills in an area that will have the biggest impact. This quest for the magic pill is one of the reasons that there’s a new sales blog around every corner.

“This predictor of success is not one that you have any control over…but in a way you do.”

What is it? Time in territory. That’s right, the longer a sales rep is in his or her territory the more likely he or she is to be successful. In the math world they call this a positive correlation. As the length of time increases, so does sales volume.

I think the implications for this are significant:

• If you’re a sales rep and thinking about changing jobs, remember that you’ll have to start the clock over again. Be careful about throwing away the time in territory that you’ve already earned with your current employer.
• Sales managers, do you have a long term sales rep that is not performing like you think they could? Then get out there and encourage and nurture them. You don’t want to lose his or her time in territory.
• Changing jobs frequently can hurt a sales rep’s career and a high sales rep turnover in a company can hurt an employer.

The bottom line sales tip is that hanging in there with our sales job or, if you’re a sales manager, hanging in there with a struggling long term sales rep might be the best thing you can do for your sales volume.

To receive this sales blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

[I had the opportunity recently to ask Jim Fowler, CEO of Jigsaw, some questions about his company. Jigsaw is a fast growing company with interesting concepts regarding leads that will be of interest to many sales professionals.]

1. You are the CEO of Jigsaw. What is the history of Jigsaw?

Jigsaw was founded in late 2003 with the mission of mapping every business organization on the planet. The concept was that salespeople could work together to build a gigantic shared Rolodex.

Jigsaw launched in late 2004, has raised $18M in venture funding, currently has ninety employees and has over 500K members (mostly sales professionals) who build and maintain the collaborative database.

2. Who do you consider your biggest competitors and what are the differentiators?

Jigsaw competes most directly with traditional data companies like Hoovers and InfoUSA. Jigsaw differs from them in several key ways:

They build and maintain their own databases. We believe there is no way a few dozen or even a few hundred employees can compete with an army of 500K motivated salespeople who build and maintain the Jigsaw shared Rolodex.

We have many more contacts and they are much better. Specifically, every single Jigsaw contact is complete – including email address and phone number. Seventy-two percent of Jigsaw contact records have a direct dial phone number. Virtually none of our competitors’ records have either an email address or a phone number.

We give our company data away for free. Members can download up to 50K complete company records at a time in the format of all of the major CRM systems.

3. As a sales professional what are some of the compelling reasons for me to use Jigsaw for leads versus more traditional ways of lead attainment such as leads lists and networking groups?

Jigsaw’s data is not only complete, but it is also much fresher than any other lead list. Jigsaw’s 500K members constantly clean the data, updating records and graveyarding dead ones.

Jigsaw is, in essence, the largest networking group around. There are currently almost nine million complete contact records on Jigsaw.

In essence, Jigsaw is doing to the traditional data companies what Wikipedia has done to Encyclopedia Britannica.

4. Is Jigsaw responding to a change in how professional salespeople network and acquire leads?

We prefer to think that Jigsaw is changing the way sales professionals network and acquire leads. Never before have leads of this quality been so easily obtainable. We believe the increase in transparency of data will fundamentally change the way salespeople sell. We believe that it will no longer be about just getting the data, but about how to rise above the noise. We believe salespeople are going to have to become better marketers in order to get a prospect’s time.

5. What is your sales demographic and industry demographic? In other words, are you marketing Jigsaw to certain types of sales professionals that operate in certain industries?

Technology sales professionals were the early adopters, but now sales professionals from all industries and company sizes use Jigsaw. We offer a Jigsaw Team product that allows entire sales teams to use Jigsaw. We have over 600 of these corporate accounts.

Members use Jigsaw for two main purposes – to find prospects and to map organizations in order to understand the buying influencers for deals farther in the pipe. Our market must almost always perform one or both of these tasks on a regular basis.

We also sell our CRM cleaning and maintenance services to CRM owners/administrators. This is the fastest growing part of our business.

[Thank you, Jim, for answering my questions. I think many readers will be interested in looking into Jigsaw further. Scott]

To receive this blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer