Sales Blog with Professional Sales Tips

Welcome. If you like what you see, you can automatically receive these free semi-weekly posts by email or RSS feed. See the right side of the screen for instructions; it only takes 10 seconds. You will receive a verification email if you choose to receive by email. If you don't immediately receive this email, please check your spam folder. We will never sell or misuse your email address.

I use the term “commodity” frequently in this sales blog. Let’s get on the same page regarding its meaning in a sales context. First of all, it usually has a negative connotation. It implies that our products and services:

• Have few, if any, value added services.
• Are easily and commonly found.
• Are inexpensive.
• Are not unique or “brandable.”
• Are unsophisticated and simple.

“Commodity selling is a frame of mind…not a product or service.”

Commodity Selling Perspective
Selling a commodity product or service can easily deteriorate to price only…if we let it. If we’re not careful, we could turn selling nuclear power plants into commodity sales. However, we can also make corn (the ultimate commodity item) into something much more than just a commodity in the eyes of our customers.

Regardless of what we’re selling, we can control whether we create a commodity-selling situation, or not.

The Wrong Kind of Sales Tips
The following is the toxic formula that will result in your being a commodity salesperson regardless of what you’re selling (i.e., avoid all of these):

• Always talk about price first.
• Never discuss the added services your company provides.
• Mention your competitors frequently.
• Avoid all decision makers and spend all of your time with information gatherers or recommenders.
• Never add-on-sell, up-sell or cross-sell. Never let the customer know you have a breadth of products and services.
• Offer to quote prices on anything and everything, even if the customer doesn’t ask.
• Provide the customer every brochure, flyer, reference sheet and catalog your company has ever produced. Help them kick-start their paper recycling program.

The Right Kind of Sales Tips
If you use the following recipe when selling, you can lift yourself out of the commodity classification. This works whether you’re selling wheat germ (whatever that is), buckwheat or space shuttles.

Commodity selling is a frame of mind…not a product or service.

• Your first priority is to educate your customers about the added value you and your company make available to them. Negotiate price, etc. only after that has been done.
• Talk about yourself and your company. Avoid discussions about your competitors. You’re not there to talk about them.
• Find and get to the decision makers who will appreciate your added value. Decision makers understand ROI (Return on Investment) much better than recommenders and information gatherers.
• Look like the multi-line company you are by teaching your customers what you have to offer.
• Quote prices only when customers are serious about, and capable of, buying.
• God gave you words to sell with; their power can be Biblical. Use them to sell; marketing collateral alone doesn’t sell anything.

Sales Blog Epilogue
You can decide to rise above a commodity salesperson regardless of what you sell and you can decide to do it right now. Powerful stuff.

Further reading:

• Collateral Material, Sales Brochures, What a waste!
• A Great Selling Tip when Selling Commodities
• Sales Advice: Take this test to see if you have become an order taker.
• Transactional Selling Versus Solution Selling

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

How many companies are there in the United States? It’s a large number. I’ll give you the number a little later in this sales blog post. What I like about the number is that there are plenty of fish in the pond. You and your company only think you have tapped the potential of your markets.

“…quit wasting time on that prospect who’s playing a big game of hard-to-get when there are so many others interested in dancing with us.”

How Many are There?
A reliable and current source says there are 20,392,694 businesses in the United States. Over 20 million companies operate in the United States. And you know what? Sometimes we act as if there are 237 businesses instead of 20,000,000+.

He Needed Sales Tips for Dating
I had a friend in high school who fell in love with one girl who didn’t even know his name. His efforts to go out with her didn’t seem to work. He would obsess over this one girl. What drove us all nuts was that this guy looked like Brad Pitt. Many girls would have been happy to go out with him. However, he chose to put all of his “prospecting” efforts into just one girl. He didn’t date much.

When we’ve made a gallant effort to land a prospect but we aren’t getting anywhere, it’s smart to move on. There are many opportunities for us to “date” prospects, but we’re so focused on a handful of them that we lose site of the big picture.

Conventional sales tips tell you to “never give up” on a prospect. However, there’s a point where we need to quit wasting time on that prospect who’s playing a big game of hard-to-get when there are so many others interested in dancing with us.

Sales Blog Epilogue
Our prospect “black book” is huge in the United States. As sales professionals, we’re fortunate. Cross out the names of the ones that aren’t responding to your efforts and contact some of the other 20,392,693. There are plenty who want to go out with you, but first you have to pick up the phone and make a “date.”

Further reading:

• Sales Skills, Compliments of Cadillacs and Cosmetics
• Sales Tips: What is Cycle Prospecting or Perpetual Prospecting?

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

I’ll never forget. It was probably one of my worst sales calls. It was my first year in sales. Rookie mistake.

I had arranged an appointment with “Bill” who was the VP of Operations at a large electronics manufacturer. Even though I had confirmed the appointment that morning, he seemed startled by my presence when he met me in the lobby.

“Watching Bill “rush” his cigarette was not an enjoyable experience.”

The “Appointment”
When we arrived at his office, he told me he only had about ten minutes to talk instead of the hour I had requested. Something had “come up.” How did I respond? Not too well. I crammed a one-hour prospect call into ten minutes. I may have left a few parts of my presentation out, but I can talk fast so I think I got most of them in.

While I was talking, and stupidly not doing any listening, he lit up a cigarette and proceeded to inhale/exhale as if he were in a high-speed smoking contest. Have you ever seen someone “rush” a cigarette? That’s what he was doing and it was really annoying to observe.

Here’s the visual. I’m talking a million miles a second and he’s sucking down a cigarette as if he were in the Marlboro high-speed smoking Olympics.

Back out at the car I did a little self-debriefing of the call I just concluded. Do you ever do that? You sit in your car and think about what just happened. It’s one of the simplest sales tips you’ll ever get, but a good one. However, don’t spend all afternoon in a prospect’s parking lot or they’ll call the police. I’m talking just a minute or two here.

Sales Tips from the Parking Lot

• We’ve all had prospects schedule appointments with us when we feel they are hoping we don’t show up. I think that was what happened to me in the story above. However, rushing through my sales presentation didn’t help my case. It probably only reinforced what Bill didn’t like about salespeople in the first place (i.e., we do all the talking and we’re frantic when doing it).
• Watching Bill “rush” his cigarette was not an enjoyable experience. Prospects most likely feel the same way when they watch us go supersonic in order to cram in a sales pitch. Neither of these habits is very pretty.
• When we find that we aren’t going to have as much time as we thought with a prospect, we need to introduce ourselves, ask a few questions and schedule another meeting. If they really didn’t want to see us in the first place, they’re unlikely to schedule another appointment. This is a good thing; we can move on. If they actually had an emergency that kept the appointment short, then they will have no issue with rescheduling.  That’s a win-win to me.

Sales Blog Wrap-Up
Slowing down and changing our game plan in this kind of situation will make us appear more professional and less frenzied. It can also provide an opportunity to get back in front of the prospect when he or she can and will give us an adequate amount of time.

Further reading:

• Stop Making Customer Appointments for a Second
• Slow Down and Pay Attention During Customer Appointments and Presentations

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

I took a walk with my best friend in the world yesterday. His name is Fred. I love Fred. He’s my German Shepherd dog. My wife hates when I talk about Fred like this…jealousy.

“…if this guy kept at it long enough he would eventually catch a fish.”

What’s Going on Here?
While we were walking, Fred got very interested in a neighbor, named Joe, that appeared to be fishing in his front lawn. You read that right. And when I say “fishing,” I mean casting a lure in all directions and reeling it in. Over and over and over. And fast. He must have been casting once every 10 seconds.

The problem is that we have no water within about 37 miles of our neighborhood. Sales tips are what I write about in this sales blog; I was hoping that he wasn’t the author of a fishing tips blog. Seemed like ol’ Joe was a bit misdirected.

Fred was about ready to come off his leash because he found all of this so fascinating…we were both in agreement on that. As I got closer, I realized this dry-land angler was actually practicing his casting skills. He was using a rubber lure with no hooks.

He Might Actually Catch a Fish
It occurred to me as Fred and I walked by that if this guy kept at it long enough he would eventually catch a fish. I’m serious. Think about it. If Joe stood on his front lawn long enough, someday there would be a flood that would provide enough water for some fish-like thing to end up on his front lawn. If he relentlessly kept casting that hook-less rubber lure at that fish-like thing, it would eventually get tangled in the line and he could reel it in. Bingo. He just “caught” a fish.

Sales Blog Wrap-Up
If we’re honest with ourselves, we sometimes prospect like Joe. We will eventually land a new customer now and then, but the return on our time and effort can be abysmal because of how we go about it.

• When we take a pure selling-is-just-a-numbers game approach to sales this can happen.
• If we just go through the motions of prospecting, aren’t we making “rubber lure” sales calls?
• Making no effort to qualify prospects can make us dry-land anglers.
• Carelessly throwing cast after cast in the wrong places wastes our time.

Imagine the difference in results and satisfaction if Joe were to put a real lure on his line and carefully cast into water where his research indicated the fish were biting. It’s a much more enjoyable and productive way to prospect for customers too.

Fred was very pleased to contribute some sales tips to his best friend’s sales blog.

Further reading:

• Contrary to popular opinion, sales is NOT just a numbers game.

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

Humor can get us in big trouble with our customers. “But Scott, my customers just love my jokes.”

Don’t be so sure you are brightening their day every time you rip off a joke or launch a one-liner. Here’s what to be careful of.

“…the joke will be on us, and we won’t even know it.”

Sales Blog Comedy 101
Humor is centered on two basic principles.

• It is unexpected.
• It is based on some truth.

It’s that second item above that can get us in trouble. Simply stated, making short jokes about a 6′2″ person is going to fall flat. Why? There’s no element of truth to it. It won’t be funny. However, making a short joke about a man that is 5′2″, “in the spirit of good fun,” might garner some laughs.

While the short person is probably laughing with everyone else, I can assure you with 100% confidence that you have hurt his feelings deeply. You might think everything is cool because he doesn’t seem upset. Wrong. He’s laughing with everyone to cover up the tomahawk you just planted in him.

There Are Always Consequences
What are the consequences of the wrong kinds of humor with customers?

• If you’re careless enough to aim jokes like this at a decision maker, you will ultimately lose their business.
• Comedy that is even targeted at non-decision-makers will result in lost respect, at the least. For you that is, not the one targeted.
• Inappropriate humor aimed at people or groups that aren’t employed at your customer will still cause your customer to lower their estimation of you a notch or two.

Sales Tips on How to be Funny
So what kind of humor is appropriate?

• If you feel the need to make a joke at someone else’s expense…make sure it’s at your expense. Customers love when sales professionals make self-deprecating jokes. You’ll find instances where I’ve taken a few shots at myself in this sales tips blog. Doing that is not only legal, but appreciated by everyone.
• Just about any kind of humor that is not done at the expense of others, including persons or groups outside of your customer, is okay.
• I’d be careful about any verbal clowning that is rated much stronger than PG too. You never know when going too far - is going too far. Play it smart and safe.

Sales Blog Wrap-Up
Here are some sales tips that I know are true. Our words are our strongest and most powerful tool in sales. If we use these words to construct jokes with the intent of laughing at others, the joke will be on us, and we won’t even know it.

Further reading:

• Sale Tip: It’s not about you.

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