THE SALES HUNTER’S SALES MOTIVATION BLOG

Back in December, I did an informal survey of sales professionals. One of the most encouraging responses? About 60% of those who took the survey said they expect sales to INCREASE in 2010. 27% think sales will be about the same as 2009; only 6% thought sales would decrease. (The other 6% said they thought they would be looking for a different job!)

I talk with sales professionals all the time at companies that are finding ways to thrive despite the downturn in the economy. For some companies, the downturn in the economy is exactly what has opened up new opportunities and markets they hadn’t tapped into previously.

So how about you? How is your 2010 shaping up? Do not allow the economy, whether it is good or bad, to be your primary motivating factor. Determine on your own to keep your sales motivation high and to consistently improve upon the numbers you previously reached. For many sales professionals, 2010 will be their best year yet.

In a survey I did recently of salespeople, 83 percent said social media played either NO role or only a slight role in their sales process. This is the same survey where 91 percent said their new business comes from either prospecting or referrals.

I don’t want to bash social media, because there obviously is a time and a place for it. I myself am on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. I do, however, want to drive the point home that unless you can tie your participation in social media to profit rolling in the door, then you need to extremely limit your time on it — especially if THAT time could be spent prospecting or following up on referrals.

What place or purpose does social media serve? It can be an avenue to gain new ideas. In all that dialogue happening out there, as well as the sharing of links, posts, etc., occasionally you will stumble upon a nugget of gold that boosts your sales motivation. The key is just not to hang out there for hours a day (using the excuse that “it really doesn’t take up much time”). To be successful in sales, you have to keep social media in its place.

The more you hone your prospecting skills, the more you will begin to stand apart in your industry as a salesperson. There is no substitute for the person who is diligent in calling upon potential customers. Start building the habits today that deliver the greatest profit for you and your company.

Don’t cut your price. Instead, increase your value.

Cash is king, Donald Trump talks about this a lot and the same thing applies to how you price. In today’s market, it’s very easy to think the only way to close a deal is by cutting your price, if you’ve been following what I’ve been saying for a long time, you know that my position on this is firm — don’t cut your price, period!

If you’re pushed and you can’t get the customer to see and appreciate the value you’re offering them, then look to increase what you offer. Start first by offering to the customer something they will perceive as high value but that you can offer at a low cost to you. This is critical. Do not think by merely offering the customer something more you will both get the sale and make your profit number. When you look at what to offer them, be sure to also offer them something they will only need once. If you offer them something they will want time and time again, then you run the risk of having the added item or service become part of the on-going offer. Doing so will severely impact the profit you could make long term from this customer.

Look at this way: If you offer to the customer something that will cost you a lot, then all you’ve done is given up your profit. This is really no different than cutting your price. Keep in mind that increasing your value requires you to know what is important to the customer. This means you have to have spent time upfront asking questions that get the customer to reveal this information.

If you’re like so many other salespeople, you’ve found yourself joining various social media sites. The challenge is to not allow them to wind up sucking up your valuable time. When you first join these sites, it’s easy to spend too much time on them and I’m not going to yell at anyone for that. What I am going to get upset at is if you’re spending more than 30 minutes a day total on social media sites. The only exception is if you have definite proof that spending more time each day is a key component of your sales strategy.

When I say no more than 30 minutes a day, I also am saying this is not 30 minutes a day that is to be taken out of your selling time. It should be 30 minutes of time you would normally spend doing absolutely nothing. If you don’t have 30 minutes a day of that kind of time, then you don’t have time for social media.

Where I’m going with this is I want to make a strong point. I see too many salespeople leaving social media sites open on their computers all day long. They claim how little time they spend on these sites but if that were the case, then why do they keep them open all day long? They leave them open and more frequently than they will ever admit, they’re on them checking out the latest updates, etc. All the while, they sit there saying how it’s not taking them any time and what they’re really doing is prospecting. Come on, get real! It’s not happening! It’s a giant waste of time.

If you’re a sales manager, get firm with your people on this issue and this includes getting firm with people who have web enabled phones with social media sites. Social media has a place, but in every case, it must be done to a degree of time that holds people accountable.

Recently I noticed a sales call that should have resulted in a sale very rapidly. However, it was delayed a rather long period of time due to the customer’s inability to make a decision. Their inability to make a decision stemmed from the numerous options the salesperson was presenting. In essence, the customer was overwhelmed with too much information to process. As a result, their natural defense mechanism of slowing down kicked in.

Watch what you present and how you present. Don’t allow yourself to become so enthused about what you’re selling that you offer the customers more options than they can process. Yes, it may appear you’re potentially leaving out some sales by closing too early, but when the customer is confused, you’re not going to make any sales anyway.

The best way to work through this situation is by first making sure the customer is engaged. Are they giving you the information that allows you to determine what they really want and need? As you present options, only present enough options for them to make a decision. You can do this by trial closing as a way of finding out what their decision-making criteria really is. After you have one sale, you can always come back for more, but until you get the first sale, you can’t even begin thinking about the next sale.

Do you have a tough time keeping your sales motivation up? Is your sales motivation one-dimensional? What I mean is this… do you get in a rut and not explore new ways to stay motivated? Our technology filled world makes it EASY to seek new resources all the time! You as a salesperson have more access than ever before to tips and material that can help you keep yourself motivated. But are you doing it? Are you taking advantage of all those resources?

Make it a habit to explore new resources, even for 5-10 minutes a day. Find what helps your sales motivation and keep coming back for more. So much of it is FREE. You are reading this blog, but you can also go out and listen to my new audio podcasts on iTunes. Just search “The Sales Hunter.” Latest ones I have out there are “It’s All About You” and “Growing is Better than Surviving.” They are short and simple and might give you the added motivation you need in your sales process today.

YouTube: I also just posted a new video on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlV4CaDTt3Y. This is all about improving at least some aspect of your sales process by just 1% each day.

There is need for one-dimensional sales motivation. Read, listen, search and grow. You’ll see the difference in your sales success!

I was working recently with some inside salespeople who spend a lot of their time dealing with a very small number of customers. Their job is to maintain absolutely perfect customer service, and the whole time I’m talking with them, I’m shocked. On their desks was all kinds of stuff with their company logo on it, but none of them had even one item with the names of the customers with whom they talk. It’s absolutely essential you have the name of the customer with whom you are talking on the phone in writing in front of you when you’re on the phone.

It’s too easy to get distracted. I know… you are a sales professional and you may think your telephone selling skills are so incredible that making a mistake is unlikely. But it is very easy in a slight lapse of attention to forget who you are talking to. Write the name of the person and their company on a piece of paper in front of you before you pick up the phone. If you deal with the customer on a regular basis, print their logo out in color and post it in a very visible location in your workspace.

Your reputation does count. This is true always and maybe even more so when you prospect. What are you doing to ensure your name and reputation precede you when prospecting?

This is one of the reasons I say you have to monitor your social media very carefully. When people throw out on their Facebook the stuff they do regarding their personal life, and then turn around and expect to be taken as a professional the next day, there is a disconnect. I’m not saying you should live two separate lives. What I am saying is you need to be leading a life 24/7 that is a life of respect and allows you to live your reputation in everything you do.

If you expect people to refer you to others and if you expect to be viewed as a top performer in your industry, then you must live a life of respect, constantly having good discernment about your reputation. When you show respect to others and treat others properly, then you’ll have the reputation that not only precedes you, but also helps open doors for you.

Are prospecting and keeping your pipeline full the toughest parts of your job? If so, you are not alone. I recently conducted a survey of salespeople and found about half of the respondents cited keeping their pipeline full as their top sales challenge.

If you have read my blog for awhile, you know that I reinforce this point a lot: prospecting is a year-round effort on which you have to be relentless. It’s also the one that can serve up the hardest hit on your sales motivation if you become easily discouraged and do it half-heartedly.

To be better…to sell more… and to never have an empty pipeline, you have to entrench yourself in healthy prospecting habits. For one, don’t spend the first 30 minutes of your day getting ready for your day. Spend the first 30 minutes of your day making at least 3 phone calls to potential customers. This one habit will radically change your sales motivation and set you on a course for that year-round prospecting effort I’m talking about.

More to come on prospecting and keeping your pipeline full. Just remember — your sales motivation is worth the healthy habits that only you can develop. No one else can choose to do them for you.

I love to think and I place very high value on my level of sales motivation. At times, though, my thinking and my sales motivation are on a collision course, and often it’s the sales motivation that takes a hit. I saw this first hand recently in a phone call I had with a salesperson who is normally very positive and motivated. The person called me because he was concerned about an upcoming opportunity that he saw coming and how he felt for sure it was going to wind up becoming a huge issue. In his thinking process, he began to realize that his entire sales strategy was at risk and he was going to wind up having a disastrous year.

As he was telling me this, I kept trying to interrupt him to ask him a question to challenge his logic. He wouldn’t let me get a word in. He was so sure of everything, and the more he talked, I could just feel the sales motivation being sucked from him. Finally, I asked him how much time he had been thinking about this original opportunity. He said “a little while.” When I probed him more, he shared that he had been thinking about it nearly 100% of the time for the past several days. I continued to probe more about his thought process and he came to realize how obsessed he had become with the opportunity… and how an initial negative thought he had about it had become the cornerstone of his thinking for the last several days.

In essence, he spent way too much time thinking about everything that could occur and dwelling on the negative, rather than focusing on the positive. Clearly the solution for him was to quit thinking about it and go out and do it. I asked him to keep me informed not only on this opportunity, but also the entire year. I am interested in hearing how he recovers from “over thinking.”

After hanging up with him, I began to think back on some of the issues I’ve encountered. Sure enough, I began to realize there were times where I had way over thought things and allowed them to take my level of sales motivation down. The lesson here is simple: As important as it is to think through what it is we want to do, there is also a time when thinking is no longer necessary and it’s time to go out and do it.