Muscle Memory in sales

One of the joys of my life is playing double bass in a big band.  Some of the music we play is at a very high speed.  I have to 1. read the notes; 2. have my left hand play the notes at the proper position on the neck; and 3. have my right hand pluck the proper string to have that note make a sound.  All at two to three times the speed of a heart beat.  You just can't do this if you have to think about what you're doing.
In sales, muscle memory is just as critical as in performing music.  When you're in a situation with an aggressive customer who has given you a couple of minutes of his precious time, you had better be able to present your case without stumbling--just like a musician performing before an audience.
A standard question and answer among musicians is: "what are the three things a musician must do to get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice, practice, practice."
In sales, being able to state the best qualities of your product in a couple of sentences, without hesitation and with conviction, is critical to success.
Step 1:  ask the smartest people you know to give you the 5 sentences you need to memorize that describes the best attributes of the product you're selling.  Step 2: memorize these 5 sentences until you don't have to think about them.  Step 3: be able to expand on each of these 5 sentences.  Have these sentences so deeply engrained in your brain that they are automatic.
And, if you're selling more than one product, you need to repeat this process for each product.
I can't emplasize enough the importance of this process.

Powerful Selling: Body Language

I am going to focus on body language to promote good selling for the next couple of weeks of this blog.  I strongly suggest watching this Amy Cuddy TED talk video.  What she says is critical to success in any field, but especially in sales.

"Always On": key to success in sales

I was talking to the owner of a landscape company who was replacing the trees at a location.  He was asking me--"who makes the decisions at this location.  I want to do the mowing.  I'm very reliable and can promise a great job.  Just introduce me to the decision maker."  He didn't know who I was or what I could do.  But he was "always on",  always selling.

A good sales person is always selling, primarily because you don't know know where your next sale is coming from.  A good sales person combines the "referral" with the "always on" concept.   Talk about your product with anyone who will listen and see where it goes.  

Sales is not a job.  It is a lifestyle.  It is a career.  Being always on and always selling is the lifestyle.  The important thing to remember is, when you're always on, you need to be very informational about your products, rather than direct. Your're letting people know what you do; what you sell.  Let them take you further; let them think they're helping you by referring you to someone who needs your product. 

Getting a Referral

I referred to an excellent salesman I know in a previous blog.  His name is Mike.  He taught me another important thing a sales person has to do: ask for a referral.  You have made your pitch; you have been successful--or maybe not successful.  You have the opportunity to turn the sales call into something more important--ask for a referral.  Ask your customer if he knows anyone else that can use what you're selling.  I can't make enough of a point about this.  We lose great opportunities when we don't explore the knowledge of our customers.  Maybe they belong to trade organizations or a local group and can provide an introduction.
This is an opportunity that is too often lost--the opportunity to ask the person we've just made a presentation to if there is someone else that can benefit from our service or product.
Ask for a referral and ask for an introduction to the referral.  Or you're missing out on potential sales.

The Perfect Salesperson: a blend

We've talked about the three types of sales person: the relational sales person; the route salesperson (or "order taker") and the transactional sales person ("get the order at any cost").   The perfect sales person is able to blend all three types into one.  

I used to have a plaque on my desk that stated: "It All Starts With The Sale".  The sale triggers everything; the sale creates jobs; the sale supports manufacturing, engineering, invention--everything. The sales job is critical to our economy.  A relationship sales person creates a feeling of trust; the route sales person creates a feeling of stability; the transactional  sales person creates a feeling of urgency.   Trust, stability and urgency are the three legs supporting the sales process.  The seat of the stool is a joyful attitude that what you are doing is important.

The customer wants to believe you, wants to know that you'll be there for the duration, and that you really want the order--you still have to ask for the order.  Can't get away from that.

That salesperson has "attitude"

I was discussing my blog today with someone I consider in the category of "excellent" in the sales profession.  Our conversation revolved around attitude, but not in the negative sense of "he's got attitude", but in the positive sense of someone who loves what he's doing, who loves to be alive, who loves to meet people and help them out, who is cheerful and confident.
Give me a person with a good and cheerful attitude, who is happy selling stuff, and I'll teach him the product and show him where to go to sell it.  You can teach product, but you can't teach attitude.  And selling, like many professions, involves rejection.  Dealing with rejection with a positive attitude, an attitude that says "I'll keep coming back until he gives me an order", is the essence of success in sales.
Give me someone who says--"I love to meet people and get to know people and to understand their  business", give that person product training and you have an unbeatable combination.  Hire a "Debbie Downer" with an engineer's knowledge of your product and he will fail as a sales person.

Transaction Man

If you've ever been to a timeshare sales event, you know what a Transaction salesperson is.  The Transaction Salesperson knows (or thinks) he'll never see you again, so anything if fair game--play on your guilt, play on any weakness he's been trained to spot.  He knows this is a one time shot and that sales is a numbers game:  talk fast and furious to enough people, and you'll land your quota.
So, the transaction salesperson is a popular style in situations where there is a one-time event with virtually no chance of seeing the customer again, so anything goes.  Beware of Transaction Man.
Never put your sales team into a situation where they feel that getting the sale is all there is. 
This style can be a danger to a commission only sales team.  If one's living is solely determined by commission, if the only way a sales person can survive is to close the deal--then you may be inadvertently creating Transaction Man.  A sales person has to be able to make a living with a base salary; a sales person has to be able to pay for his gas and expenses with an allowance.  If not, he may turn into Transaction Man and hurt your company's reputation.
Next, we look at blending the three sales types into the perfect sales person.

The Route Salesperson

A route salesperson does something that's very important in the sales process: keeps in contact with customers on a regular basis.  A route salesperson sometimes gets a bad rap.  But he performs an important, essential function for some companies and something that all companies need to put into their repertoires.  The route salespeople that immediately come to mind are SnapOn and Matco tool sales folks.  This group also includes liquor salespeople, potato chip distributors, soft drink distributors, etc.  The lesson we can learn from the route sales folks is that we need to keep in constant and regular contact with the customers who order from us again and again.  Do NOT neglect your good customers, thinking that they'll always be with you.  There's another salesperson lurking in the background who wants your customer's business.  Beware of taking customers for granted.

Relational Selling

Two years ago, I bought a used car. Used car salesfolks have a bad reputation.  They often get a very low rating on the professions scale.  My salesman, Calvin Schoon, calls me, faithfully, three times a year: on my birthday, on Christmas, and in the early spring.  He has no agenda other than to say hello.  But where will I buy my next car?--from Calvin.  Any salesperson, no matter what they're selling, can be a relational salesperson.  Calvin personifies the sales profession: future sales generated from relationships.  I'm not talking about taking the customer out to dinner or inviting his family to your house for a cookout.  I'm talking about caring for the customer and communicating this concern to him.  I'm talking about making the customer think that it's more than the order that is at stake.  That you're in this for the long term and that you'll take care of him long after the order is placed and shipped.

Classification of Sales Approaches

As an observer of sales people, I have come to classify the sales approach into three large categories.
1.  Relational Sales
2.  Transactional Sales
3.  Route Sales

My intention is to give the definitions in this post and go into depth in future posts.
Although I tend to favor relational sales, there is a time and place for each type.
A relational salesperson puts the relationship above capturing the order.  If the product doesn't fit the customer, the relational salesperson will tell the customer that the product won't fit his needs and lose the sale.  Sales managers don't tend to like this type.  My brother was the finest personal example of relational salesperson.  When he died, tragically, in 2004, hundreds of people traveled hundreds of miles to his funeral.  He was all about relationships and his sales were spectacular.
A transactional salesperson is all about getting the order.  This is the aggressive "closer" that books are written about.  For the transactional salesperson, making money and pleasing bosses is primary. The attitude of the transactional salesperson is: "I'll never see this customer again, so I need to make this sale and go on".  A good analogy is the automotive assembly line.  Phrases like "sales is a numbers game" is common among transactional types.
A route salesperson is a person with established customers who buy specific products and they need and want to be seen on a regular basis.  If it's the first Tuesday of the month, the route salesperson is at ABC, Inc.  Every first Tuesday of every month. Examples of route sales types are SnapOn or Matco tools sales people.  Many salespeople fall into the route salesperson trap.
More later.

The Master Salesman II

This is a continuation of my discussion of my father as a Master Salesman.  

I divide salespeople into two types:  transactional and relational.
The transactional salesperson (TS) wants the order at all costs and has probably already spent the commission.  TS is usually under great pressure.  He's got bosses hounding him to make his quota.  He's afraid of losing his job, so he may do a lot of things to get the order--some may even cross the ethical line.

The relational salesman (RS) is in business for the long term.  He knows that the customer drives his business and that patience and persistence may not get the first order, but will often get the next and the next.  Persistence and patience.

I plan to spend some time on transactional vs relational sales.  My point in this post is to show that relational sales makes a Master Salesman.  My father was the ultimate relational salesman.  His whole career as a salesman was building relationships.  Relationships he carried for his whole life.  

I believe in relationship selling because my father, my mentor, was very successful because of this style.   Build relationships and stop focusing on the order and you will have a successful sales career.

The Master Salesman

I had the great fortune of being mentored in sales by a master salesman, who also happened to be my father.

I have asked myself many times what the traits were that made him so successful. For one thing, he loved the sales process. It didn't really matter to him what he was selling--a $2 grease tip for a grease gun or a $150,000 oil water separator for an oil terminal--he sold everything with the same degree of enthusiasm. The commission dollars resulting from the sale didn't motivate him. The sales process motivated him; closing the deal motivated him.

We would attend trade shows and someone outside his territory would come up to him and start asking questions. He didn't slough the guy off to the salesman responsible; he made the sale, enthusiastically.

My first job out of graduate school was teaching in college. After 5 years I looked at my department chairman--the most unenthusiastic person on the face of the earth, and I looked at my father who was the same age and who lived each day full of enthusiasm. I asked myself who do I want to be like when I'm in my 50s and 60s. I left teaching to join my father and have not regretted it and at age 72 I'm still enthusiastic about my job. So I made a good decision.

So, enthusiasm for the sale and the sales process is one key ingredient.

We'll discuss more ingredients I learned from the Master next time.

The Sixth Commandment of Selling

"Don't stop til you get to the top"

Never give up on a sale until the top decision maker in the customer's company says no.  And when the customer gives you a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to getting the order, don't stop until the decision maker in your company says no.

In my experience, sales people give up on the sale too easily.  Don't give up.  Keep going until everyone who matters has said "no".