THE SALES HUNTER’S SALES MOTIVATION BLOG

Never sell just to the Purchasing Department. Always know who the user of your product or service is and insist on having a working relationship with that person.

During each meeting with the Purchasing Department, be sure to ask at least one technically-oriented question about how your product/service is used. The objective is to get the PA (Purchasing Agent) to acknowledge they don’t know and ultimately refer you to a user or someone closer to the operations. This will more than likely begin a relationship you can use to demonstrate to the PA why your company is essential to their operations.

An alternate strategy would be to set up a “test” of some type that needs to be run to help you and the PA fully understand the return on investment of using your company. The test should involve some level of on-going measurement of performance that requires you to have contact with the operations and/or others who are using your product. By running a test, you will have contact with people other than the PA.

Plain and simple, if you work closely with Purchasing Departments and Purchasing Agents, strive to find ways to connect with the individuals who actually use your product.

I’ve been in the midst of a two-week trip to Singapore and India training salespeople from a number of Asian countries. Each time I travel outside of the United States, I always marvel at the quality of sales talent I encounter. It’s amazing the depth of sales experience and the skill level of people I meet.

For me this is always a great learning experience, because it helps me realize how I can never take my own sales skills for granted. I’m able to see how the internet has truly shrunk our sales world and it renews my senses to the fact that we are truly in a global economy. Our competition is not just the person down the street, but it is also the person around the world. Sales is one of those professions that is truly global. Even though each market or country has its own distinct traits, the concept of selling is unchanged.

Thank you to all of the salespeople I had a chance to meet and learn from. It’s always engaging to meet new people! May we all find ways to learn from each other and find ways to open up new opportunities.

Your price must be stated without any hesitation in your voice if you expect the customer to believe you.

This is big fatal mistake so many salespeople make when stating their price — they don’t say it clearly or strongly enough. Subsequently, what the customer is really hearing is how the salesperson doesn’t even believe in their own pricing. It doesn’t matter if it’s a B-B or B-C, the inability to communicate vocally a strong price is a huge reason why so many customers ask for a discount or complain about a price being too high.

As a salesperson, you have to believe in your price 100% without exception. You have to be able to state your price points clearly and without hesitation, all while giving the customer eye contact the whole time. This is why I say having a high level of sales motivation is so important to closing profitable sales. If your sales motivation is not high, then you don’t stand a chance in being able to convey your price confidently — unless what you’re doing is giving it away for free or some ridiculous low price.

Practice reciting your price out loud 25 times while looking into a mirror. I know it sounds stupid, but I’m amazed at the number of salespeople who can’t do it, and if you can’t do it by yourself, then there’s no way you can say it proudly and with conviction to your customers.

Recently, I was with a salesperson who I felt had always demonstrated a high level of sales motivation. Whenever I would engage this person on the phone, they were always upbeat and positive about their business and the prospects for the coming months. I never had a reason to doubt their level of sales motivation until the day I spent a couple of hours with the person and I got the shock of my life.

The salesperson wasn’t able to do anything outside of what they had specifically planned for that day, right down to the place where they intended to eat lunch (even though they were going to be eating alone). What shocked me about this rigid schedule was how they reacted to their cell phone ringing. First, they refused to answer it, even though twice when it rang, we were clearly in a position where they could have answered the phone. Second, the salesperson knew exactly who was calling and even why they were calling, but because it was not something they were specifically expecting that day, they didn’t think they could handle it.

Not only couldn’t this person handle taking the call, but they also proceeded to stew about it and how it was going to be such a pain to have to respond to them. I viewed those calls as simple quick interactions with customers, which ultimately means potential sales. But the salesperson was letting those incoming calls not only impact negatively their sales effectiveness for the day, but also hamper their sales motivation on a grander scale.

The reason I share this is simple. We have to expect deviations to come up — it’s what sales is all about! We need to remain positive about adjusting our schedule when needed and not letting such alterations negatively impact our sales motivation. Sales is all about seizing opportunities! They come in different shapes and manners to every salesperson out there. Be ready and willing to handle them, to capitalize on them and most of all to use them as a positive impact on your sales motivation.

Who are your heroes? There is a distinct correlation between your sales motivation and your heroes. Recently, I’ve found myself asking salespeople, “Who comes to mind when you think of great salespeople?” It’s amazing — people tend to choose heroes based off of their own personal experiences and their outlook. Highly motivated salespeople select others who have a very high level of sales motivation. Rarely do I find someone selecting someone totally outside of their own frame of reference.

I’ve been talking about this with sales managers the last few months, with the idea being for sales managers to ask their salespeople who their sales heroes. Managers can use this question to gauge the level of sales motivation of their salespeople. It also gives the sales manager a little more perspective into the sales personality of the salesperson. Whether you’re a sales manager or not, ask yourself who your sales heroes are. You will likely discover your outlook on sales in general. We often pattern our lives after those we most respect, so pay close attention to who you hold in high esteem.

What are you doing different today from what you did yesterday? Sales development is all about finding the best way to do things. I was struck by an article in the Wall Street Journal about Campbell’s changing the look of their iconic soup cans. What caught my attention is they’re talking the spoon off of the label.

The article explains how they tested each element of the label and found the spoon wasn’t doing anything for them. On the other hand, an item they added was the look of steam coming out of the soup. This is a huge change for Campbell’s, and yet they’re doing it to keep their brand from becoming stale and to help increase sales. I got to thinking about that and how it fits with how we sell. I wondered, “What am I doing that at one time made sense but now doesn’t do anything for my sales?”

Take a good look at your sales processes and activities. What can you find that isn’t a good use of your time? What can you replace it with that would be a better use of your time?

If you have a customer who has relentless tunnel vision on price, let them buy from someone else. You will never satisfy them enough to make a profit.

This is very hard for a lot of salespeople to understand, but I firmly believe there comes a time when you have to stop chasing customers who can’t see the value in your price. Customers who fail to see your value proposition wind up doing far more harm to you than you can ever imagine. These customers destroy your sales motivation, not just in the short-term, but also in the long-term.

When the only thing you hear are the screams of customers demanding lower prices and everything you do to get them to understand your value proposition goes nowhere, then it’s time to walk. The most valuable thing any salesperson has is their time and their sales motivation. It’s important to protect both at all times. When you let the customer walk away that is obsessed with attacking you on price, it will free up your time to deal with customers who do understand your value proposition. In the end, you’ll wind up with more satisfied customers and more profit.

Recently I attended a conference with a few hundred social media experts, and one item that came through loud and clear is a key reason to be using social media such as Twitter is to help you in with Google rankings.

Google treats each tweet as an individual page, this means each time you tweet you’re increasing the amount of content you have on the web thus increasing your value with Google. Of course, this assumes what you’re tweeting about is of value.

The other key area where social media helps you is with new customers, but in a manner you may not have thought of before. Prospective customers use the web to help them determine what to buy. They also use the web to determine who to buy from, and many times, a prospective customer who is buying a service will Google the salesperson’s name to see what comes up. What the customer is looking for is confidence. They want to be sure they’re not dealing with a person who has a questionable past. They’re looking for that final vote of confidence, and the amount of quality links associated with your name and your company will help you secure that new customer you didn’t even know about.

Use social media as a sales development tool that allows you to develop a reputation and a virtual presence that is at work for you 24/7.

Sales leadership is all about taking control and being responsible. In fact, this is a key component of sales motivation. I find the banter about how the federal government can’t seem to get anything right quite stupid. Why are we blaming everyone in Congress, President Obama and other government leaders for our problems?

Leaders don’t pass blame. They realize things will not go as planned and move on. Now this is not directed at those in Washington; rather this is directed at each of us. We the citizens of this great country must not continuously expect others to do for us what we need to be doing and can be doing for ourselves. It’s our responsibility. This is what I tell salespeople — in order to make it to the top, a salesperson must be a leader. And one of the first things about being a leader is not passing the buck or accusing others of not doing things. Leaders take control of what they can and deal with it accordingly.

In my view, it’s not that we have a failure of leadership in government. We have a failure of leadership in our citizenship. For those of you reading this outside of the United States, I ask you to look at this in the context of your own country. In every case, it is leadership that makes a difference and when we as a citizen or as a salesperson fail to accept responsibility, then we are only contributing to the problem. Sales is leadership and leadership is sales. When we lead, we are putting into practice our sales motivation. What are you doing to lead?

Yes, even people who have a high level of sales motivation can occasionally experience a disastrous sales call. The key is when you experience this type of a situation to not let it throw the rest of your day into the toilet. Now don’t go saying this has never happened to you. It’s happened to me, and the real problem is not the disastrous sales call, but how it winds up destroying the rest of your day or even week.

Next time you have a sales call that turns out to be a disaster, immediately upon ending the call pick up the phone and call your favorite customer. Let your favorite customer pick you up — engage them in a conversation and you’ll find yourself back on track in a few minutes. Whatever you do, don’t call your spouse, a girlfriend, or boyfriend or even your mother. That’s the worst thing you can do. The reason is very simple. If you call a loved one, the only thing they’ll do is sympathize with you and console you in your time of misery. Having them console you will only ensure the rest of your day is wasted from a sales point of view. You’re paid to make sales, so if you aren’t doing your job, you aren’t doing anything to get your sales motivation back up.

I’ve been recommending this technique for years, and in that time, I’ve had numerous salespeople tell me how effective this approach has been in helping them get back on track and getting their level of sales motivation back up to where it should be.