Sales Laundry

Posts Tagged ‘Leads’

 Bonus Tip #1:  Watch for the 1-off partners who happen to be working in some other area of an account and get wind of an opportunity with your product and an existing partner.  It may make sense to put these deals together from time to time, but pay close attention to their activities.  A 1-off partner can suck up a lot of your resources better spent on partners that will drive consistent revenue.

 Bonus Tip #2:  If you find your channel partner coming to you for discounts to win deals consistently or selling on price and destroying your perceived value add in a given market find out why, find out why their own value add is not helping them hold margin, and be prepared to turn them loose.  Again, there are exceptions to every rule.

Image courtest of http://socialsalespro.com/

Over the years I’ve been through several reshufflings of product, service or target market.  Some of these changes have been revolutionary following industry changes, some evolutionary, and some have been flat out ground up rebuilds when management transitions or other fundamental changes to the business were at hand.

 I have watched these changes occur from the perspective of an Account Manager, Sales Manager, Director and finally, VP.  One thing that seems to get missed in the discussions of deepening the offerings, broadening the offerings, positive average margin impact, vendor training, leads, and promised revenues is the grey matter between the account managers ears.

 There is only so much space in anyone’s head.  You can only keep so much information at the forefront of your peanut head at anyone time.  If you thought about it like an old school newspaper or your favorite new site, there is only so much premium space above the fold (or before you start scrolling down.)

If you have anything north of 10 offerings for your rep to drive out in the field, you really only have 1-5 that he is going to be actively working and watching for and maybe 10 offerings in total that he has sufficient depth to discuss in some detail. 

 The “Closet Offerings” as I call them, or everything beyond 10, do not get mentioned unless prospect comments or questions happen to push the conversation in that general direction.

 When you get a call to broaden your offerings or to go after an increasingly wide and diverse market (typically when sales are slumping and revenues tighten up,) resist the urge to simply pile on more products and new markets to your existing team.

If it is not on the billboard in your reps head, it is not going to get said.

 You would be better served reevaluating and reshuffling the offerings occupying the prime space, page 1 above the fold, in your Account Managers head.  From my experience a better quality and quantity of sale will result.

 As an added bonus, develop clear concise messages for you defined offerings to keep the sales team “on message” and ad libs to a minimum.  Develop policies and procedures on the backend to clarify how your operations and services units will execute and deliver on the products and promises your Account Managers are pushing out the door.

 Final thought.  The next time a vendor talks to you about adding product remember to consider your sales teams mental product line up.  To give mindshare to a new product you have to be comfortable with the fact that an existing offering will lose some traction or be eliminated.

Fill those minds wisely.

A man trying to go more than two directions at once is not moving at all.

image courtesy of http://www.worth1000.com

Trade show season is upon us and for those representatives that depend upon them to make their fortunes, I thought I would relate a story that might help spark some sales creativity.

Our company, focused on the financial services vertical, more specifically banks, decided at the last minute to rent a booth at one of the annual banking association shows.

At the time I was working in a new territory for the company building a new client base and relaying references from our client banks that were thrilled with our expertise and skill at eliminating a lot of the technology and regulatory headaches faced by the banking industry.

Approximately two days before the show I got a call asking me to staff the booth for the show with two of my fellow team members.

Two days and many miles later, I arrived early to make sure we got the booth setup and that we had all of the services/equipment we were paying the show company for.

As it seems to go sometimes, we had no carpet, we had no electricity but what we did have in abundance was mass confusion on the part of the show company related to what we had ordered, what was needed and when anything could get done.

Even allowing the extra time the show opened before we were able to work out all of the details and get our show strategy in place, but on the bright side, we did have a bowl full of candy.

Our last minute booth selection put us along the back wall, in a corner, that was far away from the sessions the bankers were attending. You had to want to go back there to find us. If you did manage to find the row, the massive stretch of concrete down one side convinced some to forego our isle and the exhibiting vendors on it, altogether.

Doing their part, the show sponsors staged raffles and other events almost every hour to keep the show patrons engaged, the challenge for us was that none of the sponsored events were close to our booth, so far from seeing a traffic bump each event was in fact a net drain on participants in our area.

We realized pretty quickly that to have any chance of making the show a success, we were going to need to generate some excitement to get patrons flocking to our side of the exhibit hall.

Plan A was to raffle off an expensive iPod and to place a hawker out in the aisle redirecting traffic to the booth. We later expanded this by sending two hawkers all over the show floor talking to and collecting business cards from any interested attendee.

The iPod drew interest at the time because no one else was doing it, not the case today, but even then that was not a compelling reason to get them to our booth, it was only a strong enough draw if they were in the immediate area.

Plan B inadvertently came to me while I was driving around trying to find a place to park for the event. I saw a group of 8 or 10 people having fun rolling around on Segways on some sort of tour of the city.

While at the show, I called the tourist board and found the number to the Segway Tours company, gave them a call and effectively negotiated a package including the Segway and an instructor to give lessons in and around our booth while we were at the show.

The Segway was a fantastic draw. We had lines of bankers at our booth waiting, working with the instructor or riding around the large concrete expanse around our booth.

When one banker would see another banker he knew riding around the show floor, he would head to our booth to get his turn.
The show turned out to be a success, with a lot of leads, a pile of new contacts, and a ton of awareness for who we were. For better or worse, over the next few weeks as I traveled around on follow up meetings I was introduced as the Segway guy.

The year that followed that event proved to be the best year to date for our company. I can’t tie all of our success to that one trade show, but I can say that the show was the spark that gave us an opportunity to demonstrate how the life of a banker would be better with us than without us.

Got a success story or tip? I want to read it. Any wild failures that led to a great lesson learned? I would like to read that, too.

Photo courtesy of  isdnvoices.com

Times are tough. Sales are down and Management is cracking the whip on the sales team. Forecast meetings have turned into an exercise in pain management as the same weak opportunities get hashed and rehashed week after week as revenues dry up and leads exist only in legend.

Does that about size up the sales effort so far this year? Well grind no more my good man.

Simply put, if what worked yesterday does not work today for one rep, look at what has changed about the rep. If what worked yesterday does not work today for the entire sales team, look at what has changed about the business of doing business.

In those heady days before 2008 when sales reps were writing new business in their pajamas or while still wearing the cloths they wore to the bar the night before, many sales professionals were able to check their skills at the door and become order takers, often times stumbling across an order or two blowing across the parking lot on the way in the office.

Ok, so maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but it is only to make the point that instead of complaining about the market, now would be a good time to hang up the order takers apron, knock the rust off the sales armor and go jousting.

“Our clients are laying off staff, they do not have the budget to do anything this year.”

Do they still need your service in these difficult times? If you were providing staffing for them, ah, maybe not. Or, they might just need you more than ever. If you have the relationship in place maybe you can suggest temporary staff that are more cost effective to help them wind down their operation until their new reduced permanent head count can wrap their arms around the business. Maybe not, but it is a thought.

Maybe you expand your business by snapping up the best people being let go and using the power of their resumes to land them positions and you some new clients.

Maybe you expand by delivering severance package services like executive retraining, interviewing skills, or resume services.

Maybe all of these will work, maybe none of them will. The point is if business is not coming in the door the old way, think about creative ways to change the business.

“My client is saying she does not have any money to do anything.”

If the company still needs your service, it sounds like it may be time to think about ways to creatively finance your offerings or find a strong leasing or financial partner/bank that can buy the deals you write and give you some needed cash flow.

If you are in a strong position financially, see if you can bump your prices in exchange for time and terms with your client.

Think like a partner when you are talking with your client. Listen to them. What is it that their business really needs to success, or in some cases, survive? Ask questions to expose the bigger picture.

Why doesn’t your customer have any money? Are there sales down? Do they have clients not paying at agreed terms? Are they having cash flow issues in some other area of their business that is limiting the amount of inventory they hold and turn?

Think outside of the box on this one. Is there any service, deals, crucial contacts, reciprocal arrangement or vendor partners that you can marshal to help solve an underlying problem for your customer that will put your customer in a position to solve your problems by buying something.

What if your own sales team dedicated some time to finding opportunities for your best client through your own contact lists, effectively growing their sales force in the short term?

What if you developed some joint marketing efforts, effectively cutting both companies costs in half for the same ad/airtime?

What if?

The take away here is now is the time to think about problems at a greater depth than you are accustomed to doing, and frankly may not have strong enough relationships with your clients to allow those conversations to happen. You may need to solve a problem or two that is higher up on your clients list of issues than the typical problems you solve within the scope of your offering.

Got any creative ideas or stories of how you or your company bailed out a customer? Let me know.

Are you getting any value out of the time and money you are spending at trade shows?

 While I can’t say I get a lot of value out of all of them, I can give you my tips for maximizing the time and the dollars you are spending to attend.

I am not going to go over the merits of having a booth vs. not having a booth here.  Most of these points apply either way, but I write this assuming, for the most part, you are not tethered to a booth.

1. Define a strategy for the show.  Figure out exactly what you want to achieve before you set one foot on the show floor.  With clear objectives it will be much easier to stay focused and tune out the chaos that can ensue when the show floor opens. 
2. While the show is still several weeks out, identify who you would like to meet with at the trade show.  For best results, avoid the standard practice of showing up and winging it.
3. Setup email campaigns and/or call these prospects and try to setup an actual meeting time at the show.  Meet in your booth, a lobby coffee shop or a good couch, whatever works.  TIP:  Pack a snack in case your schedule forces you to miss lunch.
4. There are an amazing number of people that will take a meeting at a trade show having no idea if you can benefit one another.  For the prospects you do identify, do a little research and figure out how you can potentially benefit one another or don’t take the meeting.
5. Confirm your meetings with the prospect face to face or voice to voice on the telephone.   TIP:  Only confirm with something that can feel responsibility or guilt.  I have seen some pretty sophisticated voice mail systems, but never one that will take a meeting with you if his or her owner skips out on you.
6. The tag scanners at trade shows can be great when all you need is an effective swap of electronic business cards.  Be careful not to fall into the trap of scanning the prospects name tag and just trusting yourself to remember what you talked about.  I use a 5”x5” ruled notebook for this purpose with a handy dandy $3.00 mini stapler.  
   

   Swingline Slim T Mini Stapler

   When we exchange business cards to start, I staple the card on the first blank page on the spot and write my meeting notes.  In doing this I have found that I do not lose business cards, I know everyone I met with because I have all of their cards stapled in the book and in the order of how they were sitting in the meeting so I can keep faces associated with names.  I will write more on the value of this little spiral in a future post.

    

    

7. In my most recent trade show visits I have had a full multimedia presentation and a demo reel showing our work.  I keep a copy of everything loaded on my Blackberry as well as my laptop and use the most convenient one based on the situation.
8. Get a rolling bag.  Skip the free bag you get at registration, or the laptop bag you carry around on your shoulder, if you will be carrying your laptop or anything significant in the way of sales literature buy a rolling bag with the a retractable handle.  TIP:  Pay close attention to the quality of the retractable handle.  A bad handle will pinch your hands and in some cases draw blood.
9. In some cases I have had up to 40 meetings over the course of a 5 day show.  I keep a small version of my schedule with meeting times, names of contacts and firms, and contact numbers to stay in touch at the show.  I typically keep this information on the backside of the name tag on the lanyard around my neck.
10. Business cards.  Take twice as many as you think you will need and hand them out to anyone you talk to.  Never miss an opportunity to build some awareness about you or your offerings.
11. Talk!  This is no time to be timid.  Develop some ice breakers in advance of the show if you have to.  I talk to people everywhere.  In the lobby, at lunch, at the hotel, over breakfast, on the shuttle to and from the hotel, anywhere there is an opportunity to have a short conversation.  Don’t whack all these people over the head with your offerings, but when you find one that seems like a fit schedule a time to meet “officially” or have a good 30 second elevator pitch prepared to entice them to want more information.
12. Get a hotel room as close to the show venue as possible.  The hotels closer to the show are a bit more expensive and fill up fast, but having the ability to get back and forth to the hotel without enduring significant time loss or  logistics issues will be money well spent.
13. Evening events.  In many cases there are show sponsored events and private parties scheduled once the day on the show floor is done.  Plan to attend these if you do not have any evening meetings or dinner appointments setup.  Look for the invitation cards while you are at the show and ask around as you meet with people to find out what private events are scheduled.
14. Plan a private event.  If it makes sense for your offerings and if you have the budget, setup a private event one night after the show.  A few drinks, great snacks or a nice dinner can loosen tongues and allow conversations to take place that would be difficult anywhere else.
15. Be prepared to meet a prospect anywhere.  I think of it as traveling heavy, with my rolling bag, all my materials, my laptop, etc. or traveling light with just my mobile phone (with presentations loaded,) business cards, and a small notepad.  I will sometimes carry my 5” x 5” notebook tucked into the small of my back under my jacket.  It works well for me.

Trade shows can be an incredible source for contacts, leads, and opportunities or complete dismal failures.  From maximum success I develop my goals; I develop a primary and secondary strategy unique to each show I attend.  I try to remove as much mystery as possible by defining my prospects, pre-scheduling my meetings, and researching my prospects developing a mini strategy for each meeting.

The last thing I can say is even with all this planning, keep a degree of flexibility built into your schedule.  As I have discovered, even with all my planning, I will on occasion forget something important, like remembering to pack my pants.

Got your own trade show tip?  Is there something you have done to turn a miserable show into a screaming success?  I want to hear about it.

Image courtesy of managemytradeshows.com

Several years ago, on one of my account calls I got an opportunity to tour the Kansas City General Motors plant. Trains brought raw steel in one end of the plant and through a maze of conveyors, yellow robots, and factory workers 95 new cars an hour rolled out the other end.

To me there are a lot of similarities between a manufacturing facility and a sales organization. Just like an assembly line, sales is a process that takes time to ramp up, to develop skills, time to develop relationships, and time to begin to deliver forecasted business.

From a standing start it can be painful to get sales teams in place and productive, but once the momentum turns in your favor a seasoned sales team can be a revenue generating fire hose. Just point, hang on, and let err rip!

For every management team out there with a sales cycle of any length, look at your sales team as a manufacturing facility and each rep as a little sales factory.

Sales factories do not need typically need much in the way of resources to be successful, but with some attention in some key areas, efficiency can be dramatically increased.

1. Sales needs raw materials in the form of leads. You can ask the sales factories to generate their own leads but understand that time unloading the train cars means less time being spent sending products out the door.

2. Tie marketing resources directly to sales efforts. Build email, direct mail, web, client testimonial videos and any other form of make sense marketing that will help the sales factories churn out revenue. The key here is to make sure the marketing message and the message the sales team is sending is at the very least the same and hopefully wildly complimentary of one another.

It would be a mistake to think of every marketing dollar spent as a dollar wasted. Marketing and advertising expenses, in some instances, can be directly offset by a reduction in the real cost of acquiring a new client by the sales department.

3. Analyze the activities of your sales team. Identify the non/low revenue generating activities that can be eliminated, ones that can be retasked to a more cost effective sales resource, or automated altogether.

For example, in one sales organization I noticed we were spending $27 on every email being sent by one particular rep.

Each email was extensively thought out with key phrases chosen beautifully but it was taking him over 30 minutes to craft each unique email.

Taking a step back and looking across the entire team, I found we were massively duplicating our efforts crafting emails. The messages were unique to the rep writing them, off message, and collectively eating 20% of almost every sales day, touching a painfully small portion of the market base.

The solution was to look at our outgoing emails, evaluate what the team was spending 80% of their time trying to communicate and crafting a variety of templates that were on message, could be personalized, and met with the approval of the sales team. Simple stuff, but that move effectively added half a sales rep to the team in terms of time and sales for nothing.

Look at your sales organization like it is an assembly line; make sure that internal processes and or inadvertent obstacles are not impacting your sales team’s acquisition of leads or the sales they are cranking out.

The last and most important thing I can say is do not do this in a vacuum.

Engage your sales team, solicit their feedback. Effective ways to get more sales are in their best interest as well. 

My first official outside job as an account manager began with an immediate wake up call.  I was walked to my new cubicle and directed to have a seat. 

 “Here is your phone.”

My new boss looked at me, smiled, nodded his head and pointed to a standard beige 12 button hotel phone.

 “There are your leads.”

He said, pointing to a phone book.

 “Keep track of everything and write your proposals on that.  They should have it working later today.”

 He said, pointing to a PC on my desk.

 With that he was gone and my sales career as an account manager was launched.

 I had exactly no idea who I should call or for that matter what I should say if someone answered the phone, except that I was selling computer networking equipment and services.

 At that point I made the single smartest decision a young account manager can make. 

 I flipped the phone book open to a random page, found the first listing and started dialing.

 At that point, not realizing it, I made my first mistake as a young account manager as well.

 My random page selection had me cold calling bail bond companies to make my technology fortune.

 Several calls and an appointment or two later, I learned my first lesson, that bail bond companies were not part of our target market.

 The point is do not let the fear of failure or the fear of not having 100% of the details stop you from swinging for the fences.

 You ARE going to fail sometimes.  You ARE going to get asked a question you do not have an answer to.  If you are in this business any time at all, trust me on this, it is going to happen.

 Don’t fear failure, accept it.   Accept it not because I said it or because it is an old sales adage, accept it because it is as much a part of the business as the shoes on your feet.

 New guys call their mistakes failure and get all upset. 

 I call my mistakes experience.  I learn from them and leave the new guys asking “How did he know to do that?” the next time the scenario presents itself, as it almost always does, again.