Sales Blog with Professional Sales Tips

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This is part three of a three part series with sales tips on our personal characteristics and priorities and how they are inseparable from our sales careers. I hope these three sales blog posts have been meaningful to you as we end one year and start another.

This Really Offends Me
One of the sales management sales tips that makes me want to punch the person saying it is, “Salespeople are nothing more than coin operated employees. They’re just interested in the money.” The reality says something quite different.

“One of the most important sales tips…is that you are not a coin operated person.”

There’s More To This Than Money
Virtually every survey that has been conducted with sales professionals indicates that money is not their primary motivator. Surprised? Read many sales blog posts and sales articles and you’ll find sales tips that are mistaken when it comes to this area. Let me be clear, I’m not arguing for lower pay for sales professionals. However, I am pointing out that our sales careers mean more to us than just a paycheck.

I know that most of us are justifiably proud of the money we can make in sales. It can be a big motivator. I also know that my personal observations and reader feedback from this sales blog indicate there are other motivators that can be more important in making us great and satisfied sales professionals. If you can’t look deep down and see some of the following non-money motivators in yourself, you may be in the wrong profession.

Helping People. The best sales professionals I have ever worked with really get a buzz out of connecting their customers with the right product/service. They get a great feeling of accomplishment out of helping another person get their job done.

Social Interaction. If you don’t like people, then you need to change careers. May I suggest a future in purchasing (just kidding)? We love, no, we need human communication. We thrive on it. The best part is that the customers of super star sales professionals love their account manager.

Positive Energy. Have you ever been in a room when someone walks in and it’s as if someone just flooded the room with additional light? The energy of the room is transformed. People perk up and become more engaging. Those sales professionals who are in love with their jobs carry this kind of charisma. They can’t help it. It’s intoxicating and their customers enjoy it. They routinely contact me through this sales blog and even their written words fire me up.

Personal Priorities
Let’s recall the wise sales trainer who stood in front of my new hire training class years ago. He wrote out these personal priorities for all of us to see:

1. Spiritual
2. Family/Friends
3. Work

Think about it. These three priorities in our life also mirror the attributes we can have as sales professionals when we love our work.

1. Helping People - Spiritual
2. Social Interaction - Family/Friends
3. Work - Positive Energy

Our spirituality is the glue that holds everything together and is the most important priority in our sales career. This is seen in our desire to help people. Our family and friends represent an immediate support system for us and we express this in our affinity for people. Finally, the positive energy that we bring to people is how we show our customers that we are passionate about our careers, and about serving them.

One of the most important sales tips I’ll ever give you is that you are not a coin operated person. You’re much more than that.

Further reading:

• Sales Tips From The Roman God Janus
• Wrestling With Fear in Sales
• The good news, we’re in charge of our sales careers.

To receive this sales tips blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. ©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer

This is part two of a three part sales blog series with sales tips on our personal priorities and how it is impossible to separate them from our sales career.

Sales Tips From My First Boss
I had just started my first job out of college. I was 22 years old and thought my 38-year-old boss was ancient. Not worth listening to. He once told me that, “People who are going through a divorce have trouble selling for almost a year. Family and friendships can impact you more positively or negatively than people know.” I found little reason to listen. What did he know? Why did I care about this little tidbit of non-information? I wasn’t even married.

I didn’t realize this morsel of wisdom would help me manage people in the future and help me through my own difficult times down the road. Your family and friends are everything in your life. This was another of the important sales tips an experienced sales professional would give me when I was still just a sales newbie.

“Know what a camera tripod is? Our family and friends are one of the legs.”

Lessons Learned By A Rookie Sales Manager
About ten years later I was working for a different company and had been promoted to my first sales management position. I knew I could sell, but I had no idea how to be a sales manager. I was scared to death. One of the people that worked for me had recently lost a child. How do you handle that? What do you say? What should I expect? Would this affect their sales?

Then I remembered what my first boss told me. If it applied to divorce, it had to apply to this tragedy as well. I knew this sales professional’s sales levels would almost certainly decline and I should plan accordingly. I did, and we worked through things together. Ultimately everything normalized and I saw the importance and applicability of what my first boss had told me years ago.

Sales Tips That Dig Deeper
Remember the wise and articulate sales training instructor I wrote about in my first post in this series?  Recall how he quietly stood in front of our new hire class and wrote these words on the whiteboard:

1. Spiritual
2. Family/Friends
3. Work

Over time, I have seen how events, both good and bad, regarding family and friends can affect people (e.g., divorce/marriage, death/birth, illness/health, separation/union). I understand why family and friends made the number two spot on his list. Our family and friends provide an immediate support system for us. Take that away from someone, or damage it significantly, and every part of that person’s life will be affected. Make it strong, and the individual will be fortified and buttressed in every area of their life.

Know what a camera tripod is?  Our family and friends are one of the legs.  Remove this leg and the camera will crash to the ground.

Sales Blog Epilogue
My many years since then have taught me that point two of what this instructor said was right on target regarding the importance of family and friends to our sales career.  I want to  apologize to my first boss for acting like such a know-it-all.  I also want to thank him for planting a seed of wisdom that I have never stopped using.  I now understand that our family and friends are critical to effectively navigating through the turbulence of our life and sales career.  They’re inseparable.

In part three in my sales blog series, I’ll introduce you to how our sales career is impacted by how we view work.

Further reading:

• Do you think your sales manager is competent?
• Can Sales Management Make Us or Break Us?

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

This is part one of a three part series with sales tips on life’s priorities and how they can’t be separated from our sales career.

Sales Tips From An Old Sales Fool
“Make sure you go to church. This will keep your sales strong.” This was one of the sales tips that an older sales professional, named Luke, gave me when I was just a young sales pup. To me he was just an old fool making useless comments. I was too young and inexperienced to realize that he was teaching me profound truths about sales that I would only fully understand years later.

“Sales professionals who have their divine house in order sell more. Period.”

A New Kind of Sales Training?
Fast forward a few years in my career and I found myself sitting in new hire training at a Fortune 500 company. Their training facility was the size of a college campus with dorms, cafeterias, etc. This was a Really-Big-Company.

One of the training sessions I attended was on how to prioritize our work. Yawn. Haven’t we all had this class about 473 times? Well, I was in for a big surprise. This particular training session helped bring what Luke told me years earlier into focus.

Sales Tips That Dig Deeper
The well-respected and articulate instructor silently stood in front of our large new hire class and slowly wrote these words on the whiteboard:

1. Spiritual
2. Family/Friends
3. Work

I immediately knew this wasn’t going to be your typical training on how to prioritize. What he said after writing those words won’t be found in too many sales articles, or in another sales blog either. Politically incorrect, I guess. Too close to home, maybe. Asks some questions that we’d rather not deal with, possibly.

“These are your three priorities in life. Get them out of order and not only will your personal life suffer, but so will your sales. Our corporation is not a church, but we do know that when someone ignores the spiritual side of their life, the other two areas will decay.”

“We are not out to promote one type of religion, faith, belief system, etc. over another. To pretend we don’t have a spiritual dimension is to pretend we don’t have a head or a torso. Even corporations have a heart and a soul. You’re much more than a corporation.”

“We know that the spiritual side of a person is the glue that holds family, friends and work together. We are talking about your spirituality today because, frankly, we as a corporation are selfish. We know that if you have this part of your life in order, you’ll find satisfaction in other important areas of your life too. Namely, work.”

“We are here to earn money. Sales professionals who have their divine house in order sell more. Period.”

Sales Blog Epilogue
My many years since then have taught me that what this instructor said was accurate. And Luke, thanks for at least trying to introduce me to a truth that I was too immature to understand at the time.

In part two of three in my sales blog series, I’ll introduce the importance of family and friends in your selling career.

Further reading:

• There are no atheists in sales.
• A real health issue in the sales profession.

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

A popular trend in purchasing over the last five to ten years is known as supplier reduction. It’s also called vendor consolidation, lean supply chains and a host of other names found in other sales blogs and publications. Whether you realize it or not, it has affected your sales efforts because many medium to large companies have probably already looked at you as a candidate for elimination.

However, I have some good news and sales tips I’ll cover below in this sales blog post.

“It sounded like such a good idea when presented by the bean counters.”

Supplier Reduction 101
Before I share the good news, let me provide some background. As companies became increasingly aware of the cost and overhead of dealing with multiple vendors, they came to the following conclusions:

1. Having fewer suppliers means less administrative overhead.
2. Having fewer suppliers provides more leverage with the remaining suppliers.

Estimates vary, but medium to large companies have been attempting to reduce their number of suppliers by 50 to 75%. I’ve heard of some reductions as large as 90%.

Positive Sales Tips
Now for the good news. This is one of those “the pendulum always swings the other way” stories. A recent IW Best Plants report indicated that for the first time in four years companies are adding suppliers again. There was a small net gain in the number of suppliers for the sampled companies.

This study seems to indicate many companies may have overreacted to the supplier reduction concept and now realize it takes more than a handful of suppliers to efficiently and effectively provide their needs. We’ve been saying that all along in this sales blog.

What kinds of sales tips can we garner from this study?

At a time when we’re endlessly hearing media types frothing at the mouth with excitement over the latest tidbit of bad economic news, there is actually some positive news here. This good news influences our selling environment directly.

Sales Blog Epilogue
Medium and large companies across America have collectively concluded they might need more vendors and suppliers after all. Supplier reduction sounded like such a good idea when presented by the bean counters. In practice, however, it’s not working as well as they thought.

Time to go help a prospect find a much needed supplier. You.

Further reading:

• Lean & Agile Supply Chains
• Lean Supply Chains Require Investment in Suppliers

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

This is part two of a two part series containing sales tips on how to educate your customer on two important issues. For those of you who missed my last sales blog post, I discussed training your customers in relation to discounts.

You won’t normally see these kinds of sales tips in other sales articles or in another sales blog because I’m challenging you to take control of customer behavior. As sales professionals, we too often allow ourselves to be dominated by the customer. We have more influence than we think in defining our relationship with them. This sales blog post and my last are but two examples.

“Teach them the right way when they’re young and impressionable and you’ll avoid future problems.”

Fred’s Sales Tips
As is true of my last sales blog post, Fred, my German Shepherd, assisted me with this sales blog post. He made me realize he had been training me for years instead of my training him. All dog owners understand this principle. Unfortunately, we allow our customers to train us in ways that can hurt our sales effectiveness.

Customer Training Sales Tips #2 of 2
One of the many ways we unconsciously train our customers is in the area of accounts payable. Most companies require that a customer’s bill be paid in order for the salesperson to be paid their commission or to keep their commission. For this reason, most sales professionals are interested in selling to customers who pay their bills in a timely manner.

With new customers we frequently let them “slip” a bit on paying their bills. We don’t want to stir up the waters. They might pay their first invoice in 40 days, their second invoice in 60 days and before you know it they’re paying in 90 days if we’re lucky. By not intervening with their accounts payable department and even shutting off delivery of products and services, we are subtly educating our new customers that we are one of those suppliers that isn’t a stickler on payment. We jeopardize our commissions. Personally, I hate working for free.

You have to let your customers know from their very first order that you are not one of those companies that takes a “whatever-whenever” attitude on being paid. The bean-counters at your customers know which suppliers will let them “slide” and which ones won’t. The earlier you train your new customers that you aren’t one of the “sliders,” the sooner they will learn to put your invoices in the “pay now” pile.

Sales Blog Epilogue
As with sales tips #1 of 2, customers are like children. Teach them the right way when they’re young and impressionable and you’ll avoid future problems. You and your company have a right to be paid promptly for the products and services you provide. Remember, teaching your customers these “rules” for doing business will improve your relationship with them in the long run and make you more effective and profitable.

Further reading:

• Bad Accounts are Like Weeds
• One of My Most Startling Sales Tips
• Fire a Customer for Fun and Profit

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