Scales....Yes, Scales

My hobby is music.  I play a couple of instruments (piano, bass, ukulele) and the thing I hate most about learning music is learning scales.  Scales are patterns of notes based on a "root" note.  The foundation of music is the "scale".  The foundation of any song is the scale.  Learning scales on an instrument involves learning finger patterns that are unique to the instrument and that produce the sound that makes the music beautiful.
I went to a concert recently ("Dead and Company"--the re-made "Grateful Dead" group) and was amazed by the perfomance of the 38 year old lead guitarist (I mention his age because the six member group's accumulative age was 485 years).  The camera closeups showed his fingers dancing over the guitar fretboard--seemingly randomly.  But NO!  He was playing scales as fast as a human being could in a pattern that created a wonderful musical sound.  The foundation of this music was scales.  And he would do these solos night after night in town after town--and they would sound fresh and exciting every time.  Just like a great actor in a play running on Broadway year after year.
What does this have to do with the fine art of selling?
We are musicians; we are actors.  We need to learn our scales or our lines (product knowledge) so intimately that we can perform them day after day.  We need to love what we do so much that the performing of these "scales" sounds fresh every time we solo.  Our fingers need to dance over the fretboard so well that the customer's only possible decision is to buy our product.
We, salespeople, often sell our profession short (pun intended).  Done properly, the sales job is just as wonderful as the rock musician's job, or the Broadway actor's job.
I was introduced to a church minister a few years ago and he asked what I do for a living.  I said that I was a salesman. He responded "I guess someone has to do it".  I wanted to say (but didn't out of respect for him) "Mr. Minister, you are a salesman.  Every Sunday you are selling."  And everyone, at some point in their lives, are salespeople: applying for a job, convincing your kids to do something, etc. etc.
Selling is a great profession.  Be proud of it.  Be good at it.  Be the best at it. Practice it like the musician practices his scales.

Spotlight on Passion

Mark Ruffalo plays a Boston Globe writer, Michael Rezendes, in the movie "Spotlight".  This was a very powerful movie, but what stood out for me was Ruffalo's characterization of a very passionate journalist.  The movie won an Oscar and the only reason Ruffalo didn't was because of Leonardo Dicaprio's incredible performance in "The Revanant".
Ruffalo protrays a journalist with true passion--the kind of passion that a good salesperson needs; the passion that comes from belief in your cause--in a salesperson's case, the cause is your product.
So how do you get passionate about your product?  Let me start with a negative: if you can't be passionate about it, you have no right to be selling it.  If it is just a way to generate income to support your true passion, you will not be successful.
If, after much research and study, you find out that your product is inferior to your competitors' products, then you probably can't be passionate about it.
I have sold industrial air compressors throughout my sales career; I have sold different brands of compressors.  My technique is to find the features and benefits of the product that I can be passionate about: the efficiency, the volume of air produced per horsepower--whatever.  I find it and I'm passionate about it.
Another product I've sold throughout my selling career are fiberglass tanks.  Through most of my career I sold one brand and then, because of circumstances, changed brands.  How do you change your passion for one into a passion for another?  By understanding the manufacturing and how it is better; by understanding the company and the company's service--going beyond that materials in the product to all the "bones" that make one company different from another.
If you can't find the passion, then you can't sell the product.  You can take orders, but you can't SELL the product.

Passion

I have written before of the importance of Product knowledge and Personality as critical ingredients for a good salesperson.  The third P is Passion.  Three legs of the stool: Product knowledge, Personality and Passion.  But not just the generalized notion of passion--but the ability to be passionate about what you're selling.  Product knowledge can be taught; even personality can be worked on; passion cannot be taught.
You know what you're passionate about.  I have a friend who gets very passionate about the subject of fusion; another who is passionate about rock bands.  But can you be passionate about refrigerators and air compressors?  Can you be passionate about Subaru's or a house you have to sell as a realtor?
Passion for selling as a career--not a job to create income for your true passion (whatever that is) is the first step on this path.  Passion for your product--truly believing that it is better than the other guy's, that it serves an important function for your customer,  that you truly believe in it, is critical to success as a salesperson.
Passion for your product arises out of product knowledge and knowledge of your competitors' product.  Passion for your product arises out of knowledge of your customer's business and how your product can improve your customer's business, or lifestyle in the case of a consumer product.
You can "feel" passion--when a salesperson believes in what he's selling.  That passion arises out of confidence in his product knowledge and confidence that he understands you as a customer.
Passion is the leg that the stool must have to support your weight.

Build up your nerve to sell by just doing it

The story below is from Dan at empowermentnation.com.  (Check out www.empowermentnation.com) The point of the story for this blog is that the best way to becoming a better salesman is to go out and sell.  Fear is the enemy of sales. Just Do It, as the Nike motto goes:
A few days ago, I was inside a cafe, having lunch, drinking coffee, and reading a book. Through the cafe window, I saw another guy at a table outside, also eating. (I'm one of those strange "people watchers" that always pays attention to the people around me.)

Shortly after he was finished, the guy (I later found out that his name is Brian) reached into his bag and pulled out a flute. The flute was one of those Native American-type of flutes with six holes, and it looked something like this:

A few minutes later, I could see that he had started to play it. Brian wasn't with anyone. It was just him, his empty plate, his bag, and his flute.

I decided it was time for an after-lunch coffee and moved outside with it to continue my reading. Now I could actually hear Brian. Honestly, he was not the best at playing, but was much better than I would be.

While I heard people comment about how he lacked skill, I thought what he was doing showed something else about him: he didn't care how good (or bad) he was; he didn't fear what others thought. He was enjoying practicing his flute.

Eventually, Brian had two, then three other people surrounding him, asking questions about the flute, while he gave little demonstrations of what he could play. (He must have played "Frère Jacques" ten times, which was driving some people nuts, but didn't bother me much.) He was more than happy to share what he knew to his little audience and didn't worry about what others thought.

Later, I walked up to Brain and talked to him. I asked him about his flute, and he was happy to explain what he probably already had explained multiple times to the others that were with him previously.

Then he told me something interesting:
He had only practiced for a few hours before playing in public.

After he told me that, I was really surprised by how little fear Brian had and that he didn't really care how good he was or not.

I said, "I have to give you credit: many people would fear playing in front of others like this." Brian then told me he practiced for a few hours and was "good enough" to play.

After those few hours of practice and with his little audience, it showed that he was "good enough" to capture the attention of others and to teach them what he knows.

Many times we think that we aren't "good enough" to help others or display our talents. Before we help others, we need to have more: more knowledge, more time to learn, more time to research... when we may already have the talent that can capture the attention of others, or help or teach them.

Just Driving Around....

When I was in business school in the 60's, there was a management concept promoted by Tom Peters called "Management by Walking Around" (MBWA).  The idea was that a good business manager does not sit in an office and manage by looking at spreadsheets.  A good manager walks around his shop and talks to his people and listens.
But how does this apply to the sales process?  When I started selling, my father was my mentor and he used to tell me--"if you really want to know your territory, don't take the highways--take the side roads; drive through the towns; see what's going on on the ground".
Sales people tend to drive to the customer's location and then drive to the next appointment and the next and then drive home, all on the highways.  "Avoid local roads if at all possible; I'm just too busy to take the time."
And how many times have I been in a retail store and watched the sales people congregate and gossip while I founder about looking for something?
Just as a good manager finds out what's going on in his shop by walking around, we all need to find out what's going on by looking around, walking around, driving around, talking to people. Spreadsheets are one dimensional. Don't stand still waiting for someone to come to you--go out and talk to people and look around and Just Drive Around.....
There's so much out there to see and learn if we just get out of our cars and offices and shells.

Doing What Comes Naturally

Everyone has something they do really well.  You may not have found this "thing" yet, but there IS something you do well.
This theory works the same in sales.  Our company sells tanks and air compressors.  We once hired a salesperson who had spent his sales career selling tires. After several months trying to sell tanks, he went back to what he was comfortable with: tires.  If you ever notice the sales people in a musical instrument store--for the most part, they're musicians. They're comfortable with musical instruments and music, and they often make good musical instrument sales people.
I consider product knowledge the most important ingredient for a sales person. Therefore, you're going to be good at selling something you want to learn about, something you love.
I am a manufacturers' representative, so I sell multiple products.  I love learning about anything and everything, so this profession worked for me--it was natural.
If you love your product and you love the people who buy your product, you'll succeed in sales.
This rule applies to every type of sales person--from the minister on the altar, to the Sears salesperson selling a washing machine, to a mother in a day care center. I know someone who struggled finding herself until she became a mother--and then she became the best mother because she loved being a mother.  Is she a sales person?  Yes indeed.  She works in day care and mothers entrust their children to her because she exudes "motherness".
Sales is something that's in your soul:  love what you do and do what you love and you can be the best sales person on the planet.

Listening Deeply Part Two

I attended three meetings this past month, one was a teleconference and two were two day meetings in a conference room with ten people at each meeting.
One thing jumped out at me--there was a very high percentage of attendees who were NOT listening.  You might wonder how I could tell on the teleconference when I couldn't see anyone.   Two ways:  1.  participation.  (If you're listening and mentally participating, you have to have questions. It's just the nature of things. Questions asked means that you're listening deeply.) 2. involvement.  (When the organizer asks for comments and only one or two comment, one can assume that the rest aren't listening.)
During the sales meetings at which everyone was present, out of ten people at each meeting, only five were listening deeply.  The other five were doing emails on their computers.  The thing about opening computers at a meeting, the organizer may think that you're participating and using your computer to make notes, so you think you can get away with it.  Or the organizer may not want to make a scene.  But how disrespectful is this!
Back in the "day", before computers, when I started in sales, there were no cell phones or computers.  Customers waited for their quotes or their call backs. Now, every salesperson feels that every customer needs an immediate response.  And what is the result of this "immediacy"?  Everyone loses.  The group loses the possibly important comments of the distracted participants and the distracted participants lose by not learning the content of the meeting.
This distracted "attendance" has to stop.  Computers and cell phones have to be shut off.  We need to LISTEN DEEPLY and participate.  Do the quote later.  The world will not come to an end if the quote is done later or if the call is not returned immediately.
Think about the financial investment that the organizer has in the meeting. When you're not involved, when you're not listening, you are wasting the organizer's money.
Show respect: to the meeting organizer and to the other participants.  Listen Deeply and participate!!!

Listening Deeply

Mark Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, when asked what the most critical attribute of a manager is, said: "Listening Deeply".  He cited two examples of this: Charlie Rose, the legendary interviewer and co-host of CBS Morning, and Steve Jobs.
What does "listen deeply" mean exactly?  First, it means listening with NO distractions: no cell phones, no computers in your face checking emails.  When I'm talking to someone on the phone, I know when that person is looking at emails on his computer because the response to a question is slow or non-existent.
We have become a rude nation.  We have stopped really listening to people.  We are constantly distracted.
Listening deeply means getting rid of thoughts about what you're going to say, and thinking only about what the person you're listening to is saying.  Listening deeply means shutting the cell phone down, turning off the computer, emptying your mind of distracting thoughts, and just listening to what the person you're talking with is saying.

Stop talking; stop commenting; stop finishing sentences.  Just LISTEN and ask questions with the purpose of deepening your understanding of what someone is telling you.  Great salespeople LISTEN DEEPLY.

Product Knowledge

Flex hoses in a jet engine

Several months ago, when I started this blog, I put product knowledge at the top of the list of necessary attributes for a successful salesperson.
I want to re-address this issue.
A customer that I'm familiar with lost an order for an air compressor recently because he said "the end user wanted rigid pipe connections on his compressor rather than flexible hose".  Our compressor had flexible hose and the salesperson did NOT have enough product knowledge to overcome the objection.
Our lives are surrounded by flexible hose of all types.  There are thousands of flexible hose connections in a jet engine; tens of thousands of flex hoses in a Apollo rocket.  Flexible hoses (usually a corrosion resistant interior liner surrounded by wound stainless steel braiding) are everywhere--look under your toilet at the connection to the water inlet.
Why are flex hoses so prevalent?  Two reasons: They're easier to install than rigid. And because they can absorb shock and vibration better than rigid pipe--flex absorbs, rigid pipe cracks.
We all know that rocket engines and jet engines vibrate, sometimes rather dramatically, so flex is a natural solution.
But air compressors vibrate and therefore, flex hose is a better option than rigid pipe.
Customers may want a particular configuration on a product you sell.  That configuration may not be an appropriate one.  The salesperson's job is to explain the issues to the customer, to explain why his product is better than the competitor's.
In my mind,  a salesperson without product knowledge is not a true salesperson.
An order taker is "transactional": take the order, give the customer what he asks for, and don't try to educate the customer on why he may be wrong.
Take the time to understand your product.  Take the time to understand your competitor's product.  Understand why your manufacturer's design may be different and use that difference to sell your product.  Don't be an "order taker".  Learn your product, right down to the little components that make your product different and better.

Linkedin.com as a sales tool

Linkedin often gets a bad rap as a resource.  I've had two conversations recently about Linkedin which were 180 degrees apart.  One VP of Sales for a large national company has found out how to use it to find potential customers.  Another, the president of a rep agency, was concerned about the privacy since anyone could see your connections and who were looking at you.
Both are corrrect, but the privacy complaint is fixable.  Just like Facebook, you can go into your profile and settings and set the privacy settings so that the people who may be connected to you or who may be viewing you are invisible to the rest of the world.
So, if you want people to see you, leave the privacy settings at the default.  If you want privacy, change your profile settings to allow privacy.
The next decision to make is whether to go "Premium" or not.  Before making that decision, let's look at ways to use Linkedin as a sales tool.
First, if you're on Linkedin and your profile is up to date, then you've basically opened the door to allow people to contact you. (More on this in a future post.)
Since finding the decision maker is a critical component of a successful sales strategy,  Linkedin is the absolutely best tool for that.
Our next post will show how to use Linkedin as a way of finding the right person.

The Long Tail (continued)

The long tail theory was not developed with the sales person in mind.  But there is an important lesson to be learned by the salesperson. Inside every customer demand (hit), are a lot of latent requirements (niches) that a good salesperson understands.
You go into a auto dealership to buy a car (the hit).  A good car salesperson pitches the navigation system, the satellite radio, the moon roof (niches).  These are the high profit items for the dealership.  An air compressor salesperson pitches the air compressor to the interested customer (the hit) but also pitches the receiver tank, the dryer, and all the fittings and regulators (the niches).
The manager or owner of a store or sales agency or distributorship realizes that the long tail theory means that adding products to the salesperson’s offerings works to everyone’s benefit as long as the products will be purchased by the same person, or same company. The expense of the call has been covered with the “hit”, the money can be made with the “niches”—everything else that the salesperson can sell during the same call.
Amazon got people to go their website by selling books.  Now, while someone is buying a book, he can buy anything else he can think of—almost unlimited.  While someone is going to iTunes to buy an Adele album, he can buy another other piece of music he may think he wants even if no one else is interested—almost unlimited--because the additional of additional songs adds insignificant cost to Apple.
Their secret is now our secret.  Make the tail long and make the sale profitable.

The Long Tail

The concept of the Long Tail was developed by Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of The Wired magazine.  The two components of the tail are: "hits" and "niches". The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.
What does that mean to the sales process?  I have discussed my ideas with Chris Anderson, and he agrees--a salesperson needs a "hit" to get into the door, but he needs "niches" to really make sales and money.  When you call on a customer, there is what Anderson calls "latent demand" and you don't know what it is unless you ask.
Start your sales call with the reason that you're there (your "hit"), but understand that the customer needs other things that you offer and unless he knows what these other things are, he may not know that he needs them.
Once Amazon developed their system, adding an infinite number of products became possible and every new product added revenue without adding significant cost.  The same with iTunes and Google.
We will discuss the long tail in the sales world next time.

Don't forget the little stuff

I was at a Van Heusen store recently and bought a pair of slacks, a couple of polo shirts, and some socks.  The cashier asked whether I needed a belt.  I asked him why he asked and he said:  "you seem to have everything that goes with an outfit but the belt and thought I'd ask."
So then I asked him where his salesmanship came from.  He said that his grandfather, a sales rep for a chemical company, used to take him on sales calls.  Sales was in his genes.
What do we learn from this?
A salesperson goes in to sell his main product, but all the stuff that goes with that product is forgotten.
There is a current theory in sales called "The long tail".  For example, once Apple developed iTunes, adding more songs to iTunes was relatively cheap.  The incremental cost of adding a piece of music that may sell very little was easily overcome with just a few sales.
The point here is, once the salesperson is making the call, once he's in the customer's office making the grand pitch, the cost of pitching additional products is infinitesimal.  The big expense is getting in front of the customer.  The Van Heusen cashier had me in front of him.  That was the biggest thing--the long tail is anything else he could convince me to buy while I was there.
When you go into a Men's Wearhouse and buy a suit--by the time you're fitted for the suit, an assistant has the shirt, tie, socks, etc. that will go with the suit all laid out.  That's The Long Tail theory of sales.

More on this later.