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

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

Sales management has more in common with global warming than we think. Managing sales professionals, dispensing sales tips and teaching sales skills are not exactly precise sciences. I should know. I was in sales management for years.

“Is there a holy grail of sales tips and information?”

First: Does Sales Management Work?
Just as there is debate regarding the source of global warming, there is also debate whether sales management can actually have a significant impact on sales performance. Is sales management just an escape hatch for war weary sales professionals or can sales managers positively affect their employees’ sales levels? The answer to this depends on so many variables that it is impossible to objectively measure sales management’s impact.

Second: Are There Any Absolute Sales Skills?
On June 24, 1974 Time Magazine published an article entitled, “Another Ice Age?” It postulated that the world was actually cooling down and entering an ice age. They quoted all the usual smart people. These same smart people now say our planet is warming up. I’m not debating the different theories; I’m questioning how much faith we should put in these scientists. We’re trusting them for guidance on this issue.

Are there any absolutes when it comes to sales training and sales management? Is there one single sales tip that works 100% of the time? Is there a holy grail of sales tips and information? I don’t think so.

Third: Why This is Important for Sales Professionals
It’s hard to imagine an organization without some kind of sales leadership. However, just like the theories, facts and opinions about global warming, sales is not a discipline that lends itself to absolutes. Our sales managers don’t have all the answers for us. They’re doing the best they can with the information they have. Most would readily admit this.

Ultimately it’s up to the individual sales professional. We each have to cut our own path. While we can use the help of others, including sales managers, we ultimately must depend on ourselves.

Further reading: Do professional sales trainers agree on critical sales training issues?  Hardly.

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