Sales Laundry

Archive for the ‘Obtaining Product Knowledge’ Category

Getting ready for the Austin IT Symposium on Tuesday I made a few calls trying to find a 30” monitor for our table to loop a great video clip related to virtualization.  I was also on a mission to find something nice to raffle off as part of the event.

First stop, the AV company providing the equipment for the event, figuring this would be the easiest option with the least amount of work for me.  I was right, but I was not counting on the fact that $250 was the going rate to rent a monitor for 1 day.  That is the approximate price as a new TV/monitor.  Something is wrong with that model but that is a topic for another day.

Cut to Best Buy….

At Best Buy I admit I had high expectations and was not disappointed by the quantity and brands of televisions on display.  However, even with four+ Blue Shirts in the area and another guy trying to sell DirecTV systems, I could not get any assistance.

Cut to Sam’s Club…

At Sam’s Club, I was greeted in the TV section and asked if I needed any help.  He did a nice job of explaining the features and helping me figure out what feature/function trade-offs happen at different price points.

I asked him how he came to know so much about TVs and he said he did a little research on his own and asked the guys at Best Buy to explain the pieces he did not understand.  Sam’s guy got his TV education by walking down to Best Buy at the other end of the shopping center, but that is not the most interesting part.

A few more minutes of conversation revealed the guy did not even work for Sam’s Club.  He worked for DirecTV and was there to sell satellite systems.  Once I had my TV for the event he asked me if he could explain how DirecTV could give my new HD TV more HD channels, a lower monthly price and true 1080p HD quality that I was not getting from my cable provider.

I said yes.  Yes, because he earned it helping me.  Yes because he helped me solve a problem that many would say it was not in his best interest to do.

Through blind luck or careful planning, he discovered that helping me solve my problem of which TV to buy created an opportunity to talk about DirecTV.

Helping me solve my problem created a problem he could solve.

Contrast this guy with his counterpart at Best Buy selling Direct TV.  That guy was not interested in helping me buy a TV; he was only interested in selling DirecTV.

The lesson here is that even if you are the best and most knowledgeable sales professional on your particular product or service you are still going to miss opportunities if there are problems your customers need to solve before they can focus on your offering.  Get good at identifying the problems that keep your prospects from even considering your offering, learn how to help them solve those problems, and your sales efforts will be rewarded accordingly.

I heard an interesting quote today on a CIO Magazine webcast from Steven John, Strategic CIO of Workday, speaking about “The Cloud.”

“If you are doing what someone else can do then what only you can do is not getting done.”

Steven John, Strategic CIO, Workday

Steven’s point, that if another organization is more capable of doing what you are doing, give or take some due diligence, push the work out and focus your efforts on what you are uniquely skilled to do as an individual or a company, makes sense.

So much sense, in fact, corporations in this country have been following the strategy of pushing out jobs to the other side of the border and the other side of the world because the skill is there, the pay is low and they work while we sleep.  In short it does not make sense or cents to do the work here.

C-level executives are wrestling with this “Cloud” problem figuring out answers to “Cloud 101″ questions today like how to best deploy their human capital.  Tomorrow they will also be fighting upstart competitors in “Cloud 201: How not to get eaten by the little guy that has a lower cost basis than you and no legacy gear to work around.”

OK, so what does this have to do with you?

It is time for you to take stock and figure out what “only you can do” and get busy getting good at it before the Cloud comes and rains on your parade.

If you are an IT executive, look for opportunities to free up your IT resources.  Create an internal cloud; use a public provider or some hybrid model pitched by VMware and Citrix to push the things you don’t need to be doing, the commodities, to the line of business or a strategic partner.

Consultant?  Find and focus on your niche and push off everything else including and mowing the grass on those days you work from home to specialists if your revenue stream permits.

There are real live schools contemplating replacing teachers with computers in some specific test cases, how far could behind could a sales or consulting job be that is built on the model of being paid to educate others and demonstrate expertise?

As I build up the territory I am in, I am facing a similar problem today.  To hit my self-imposed targets for the year the math tells me I need to do more research and make more new contacts than it is practical for me to make in a day and still work on the rest of what I do.

I spent four hours building a nine page spreadsheet detailing every aspect of my business and defining the ratios I need to monitor to stay on track.  (in retrospect, probably should have farmed that task out)  Now I am faced with three choices.

1.  Keep doing what I was doing, and go look for my Ignorance is Bliss T-shirt.

2.  Focus on where I am strongest, building my community of customers and growing those relationships, pawn off low level client research and paperwork tasks, and follow my plan.

3.  Try to straddle the fence and will myself to do it all, not let anything fall through the cracks, maintain exceptional customer service, toss a hand grenade into my personal life and get “We miss you” cards from my kids at work because I am never home.

The quote I led off with and my spreadsheet exercise really opened my eyes.  This morning I would have said I was on track to have a great year.  Now I realize to hit my personal stretch-goal I need an assistant to help me find and research 2200 prospect firms with at least one of ten pain points, with a certain organizational structure and head count so I can have 200 meetings to earn 43 net new clients.

And I need to streamline my process so that this activity level will be practical and my own best intentions do not blow up in my face.

Can you make the changes that will let you find and focus in on what only you can do?

I’m ready.  Are you?  To the Cloud!

In twelve minutes, John Nese, owner of Galco’s Soda Pop Stop, is going to make you want a bottle of soda pop.  John is also going to teach you something that will change the way you look at soda pop from this day forward, and make you want to buy that bottle of soda from him.

A business focused on a niche makes for focused sales people.  Focused sales people become niche experts and niche experts, in many cases, sell circles around sales generalists without really trying that hard.

I like the way John said it better.

Ready for that soda pop?  Head on over to the Soda Pop Stop and say hello to John for me.

Every sales representative needs to have the ability to wade into an unknown situation with some confidence when all the facts and details are not available to take advantage of opportunities that develop out of no where.

 In short everyone in sales should have some skill at winging it.

 Let me clarify that by “winging it” I am not talking about creatively lying on the fly or just flat out making things up.  That would destroy your credibility and sooner or later, your career.

 I am, however, talking about two important factors that in my humble opinion give you the best opportunity to wing it when you have to.

1. Knowledge.  You can’t wing what you don’t know.  You need to develop a complete understanding of your products features, capabilities, AND be able to apply those to real life problems your prospects face.  I as a customer could care less that your product is 20% faster this year unless you can explain to me how my business is going to be appreciably better with your new whiz bang super speedy device.
2. The ability to Speak on Your Feet.  You have got to be comfortable being able to communicate with any one any where at any time.  If you are fearful, or caught up in the mechanics of how to speak, you will not have enough brain power left to figure out what to say.  If you acquire the ability to speak confidently then you will not have to focus on how to’s of speaking but instead focus on what you are going to say.

 Research I have read suggests that the fear of public speaking, or Glossophobia, is the number one global fear.

 Some try hypnosis, some try beta blockers though I have no idea why, some try self help books.  My recommendation would be to just practice speaking.  Join Toastmasters in your area or a community group that will force you to speak.

 While some of these methods may work very well, I have a hard time believing that you will get better at speaking without, you know, actually speaking!  Even if it is only to yourself in the mirror.

 But I digress.  The ability to recognize an opportunity for your product or offering and just wade in throwing caution to the wind and “wing-it” will serve you well in a sales career and from my experience, serve you well in almost every other aspect of your life when it is time to speak up.