Sales Psychology & Performance, LinkedIn Group
Check out my Sales Psychology & Performance, LinkedIn Group. As an author and sales speaker I get asked questions every day. Many of these are face to face, up close and personal but, increasingly, many of them are “virtual”. After an inspirational sales seminar many people email me to say that they enjoyed it and then ask questions…
I welcome and enjoy these questions. After all, helping people to improve their sales results and build the businesses and the lives that they desire is one of the primary reasons that I became a speaker in the first place. Interestingly, most of these questions come via email and are never posted on the blog. Despite my best efforts this has remained the case for several years now. After conversations with my clients about this I have concluded that clients are “used” to asking questions via email and are comfortable with this medium. Whilst I do my best to answer all of them, it can get quite time consuming and also a little repetitive with me constantly “reinventing” the wheel.
Most of my clients however do use and are members of LinkedIn. LinkedIn, on the off chance that it has somehow passed you by, or on the off chance that you are still trying to ignore it and pretend that it could not add value for you is, in my opinion, the business social network of the moment. The reason for this is that anyone can join LinkedIn and you can get as involved as you like or you can be as passive as you like but you will not get spammed by idiots or have goats or pies thrown at you like you might on Facebook (*more on my plans for Facebook another day!).
So to let everyone have their say, communicate amongst themselves, get access to my blogs and videos and ask questions I have started a LinkedIn group, Sales Psychology & Performance. If you are wondering if the group is for you, then here is my description of the group…
For sales professionals, sales leaders & professionals who want to maximize sales. This group is dedicated to people who want to share sales superstar strategies & approaches that win more sales. Join the discussions, read the blogs or share your favourite strategies.
So in short, YES, if you are reading this blog or are a member of my GavinIngham.com newsletter this group is for you.
To join, you need a LinkedIn account and you may as well link up with me whilst you are there. I see this group as a good way of keeping your sales edge sharp, sharing best practice and keeping up with the Sales Joneses! The group has grown to 450+ members in under two weeks and that is just from mentioning it on LinkedIn. This is the first time I have mentioned it to my readership. If you are wavering here is an idea of the kind of conversations going on currently…
Question from me…
What’s your most effective strategy for getting motivated?
Every sales professional has faced challenges and, at some point, every sales person has found themselves in a less than perfect state of mind. What separates sales superstars from more mediocre performers is their ability to bounce back and get straight back into the game.
What is your most effective strategy for getting yourself motivated, in the right state of mind and at the top of your game?
This currently has 24 fabulous answers. Here is one of them from Angela…
Something that resonated with me was a session by Hunphrey Walters (amazing man – look him up). He talks about a winning team mentality, but it works for the individual too. Here are a few points…
i) Set and celebrate mini victories. This took me back to taking exams and having a sweet whenever I finished a section. I still do it now, it’s just that the ’sweets’ have gotten a little bigger! So don’t wait for the end goal, make sure there are many along the way.
ii) Never leave the game early. There are a few premiership football teams that could have learnt from this one this year! It’s the same as motivating yourself to pick up the phone again when selling. Apparently it’ll take 6 contacts with a new client to gain business, on average. Most people give up on the 3rd or 4th. This knowledge helps in the sense that you can tell yourself that each call it a step closer to the 6th one.
iii) Pride in the badge. Paul Burton was right in that it really helps if you love what you do, but also if you love the company you’re doing it for. Wanting to do a good job for others is a motivator in itself.
There are 5 others, so look him up. His book is a great read too. ‘Global Challenge’ by Humphrey Walters.
Enjoy, Angela
Angela Cripps, Lander Associates
And another from Sean…
Great question!
I am not sure my method will work for everyone, but it seems to work for me.
I use the same method in the gym in the morning and the same method during the day. Quite simply I break down my day into easily achievable targets, whether it be run for the next 5 minutes at x speed, or call 10 prospective clients. Whilst carrying out this challenge, I am already thinking about what my next target will be and so my work or work out moves smoothly from one challenge to the next.
I will often summarise milestones or tasks that I need to reach or carry out during the day. This gives me a rough idea of the path my day will take.
Hopefully, not always the case, by the end of the day I have reached all of my targets and had a solid productive day.
Sean Burling, V-HR
Pretty good answers I am sure you will agree… so check out Sales Psychology & Performance and link with me on LinkedIn whilst you’re at it. Take the opportunity to sharpen your sales skills, boost your sales attitudes and get the sales edge…
Finding Your Personal Motivation, part iii
The final part of my quick video on Finding Your Personal Motivation. Thanks for your kind comments and thoughts on this one. We’ll be launching the all new GavinIngham.com sales training, personal and business success website in the next few weeks and we will be releasing a lot more videos. This will be one of the last in this more formal format as we’ll be over to a new, exciting format that will allow us to get you sales training and personal success tips more frequently and more often.
Finding Your Personal Motivation, part ii
When people find out that I am a “motivational speaker” they often ask me to motivate them as if it is something that I can do for them or to them. We’re often at a party or in a pub and it is posed as something of a challenge however, many times, it is deadly serious too.
Motivation is internal and the ability to motivate yourself is something that you can learn to do if you set your mind to it. There are many different ways to build self-motivation and hundreds of techniques that you could use. Here is part ii of my video short Finding Your Personal Motivation and these are some of my favourite strategies that you can use to help to develop your own personal motivation.
10 Sales Training Tips That Will Help You To Make More Sales
I am feeling short , sharp and snappy today so here are 10 sales training tips that will help you to win more business…
- Play from a 10.
Attitude is your ability to access your skill. If you’re not on top of your game, you won’t make many sales. We all know that, yet many salespeople don’t fire on all cylinders when they need to. Try measuring your attitude on a scale of 1 to 10 and concentrate on ensuring that you are on top of your game for all important sales tasks such as prospecting, meetings, presentations, negotiations… - Believe & achieve.
If you believe you can, you’re probably right. If you believe you can’t, you more than definitely are! What you believe is one of the biggest predictors of what you will accomplish. Believe you can maintain profit margins, guess what you’ll fight to achieve? Believe you can’t, and guess what? Oh dear! Ask yourself, “What do I need to believe to achieve sales success?” - Care about your clients.
Many clients don’t engage with salespeople fully or honestly because they have been “abused” by a salesperson who was only interested in themselves at some point or other. Most salespeople care only about the sales and themselves, not their clients. Prove you are different by focusing on adopting the mindset of genuinely caring about your clients. - Set big goals.
Set your sights on the stars. Go for gold. Think big and go for it. Mediocre goals and targets are for sales wimps not sales superstars! What do you want to achieve in 2010? What clients do you want to engage with? How much revenue do you want to secure? What are your goals for yourself, your business and your life? - Take action.
Nothing happens when no-one does anything. Most people sit chatting, surfing the internet and faffing around with their “to-do” piles whilst sales winners make money. What can you do today that will take you one step close to your dreams and goals? - Ask great questions.
Sales superstars ask great questions. Great questions come from a mindset of genuine interest in the client, their business and their life. Do an audit of your questioning skills and habits. Plan and design some new questions to try out. What can you do to improve your questioning techniques? - Listen.
No point asking questions if you don’t listen to the answers. Listen to what your clients say. Listen to what they nearly say. Listen to what they didn’t say. Listen to what they meant. Listen to genuinely understand. Listen without an agenda. The objective of listening is to understand, really understand, what your clients are talking about… from their perspective. How would you rate your listening habits? - Add value.
How can you add value for your clients? How can you help your clients? Without knowing how you add value you will be constantly battling with your clients over price. You should be selling on value not price. What questions can you ask your clients to better understand why they want and need you and how you add value. - Match don’t pitch.
Pitch – the worst and most misleading word in selling. Pitch is what you do to a baseball, not a client.Dictionary: Pitch – to throw, fling, hurl, or toss. So that’s going to work then! You shouldn’t talk solutions until you know what a client wants and needs and why. Match don’t pitch. Ask yourself, “What does this client want and need and why?” Don’t guess, ask! - Keep learning.
Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone loses sales. Everyone gets knocked down by the express train that is life. How fast are you going to get up and what are you going to learn so that you can perform better next time? Great salespeople keep theirsales techniques and sales strategies sharp by reading sales books, attending sales seminars, learning from others and self-assessment. Do you?
Video: Finding Your Personal Motivation, part i
Sales Training Tips From Readers…
Although some of my readers respond on the blog, many don’t, choosing to email me instead so I thought I would share with you a few inspirational… and not so inspirational tales, stories and whoops moments from some of my readers…
In this first story, Sue shares with us how she manages to turn a client around after initially being rejected. She doesn’t use fancy sales techniques or gimmicky lines, she focuses on understanding and building trust with her prospect…
Morning Gavin!
Just wanted to share this with you…
I work for the market leader in the UK for disposable napkins. A couple of months ago I did a telesales call, got the appointment and happily toddled off the following week to meet the gentleman.
When I arrived at the restaurant and before I had finished my brief introduction to the lady behind the bar, she turned on me and told me that she “wasn’t interested, they only used linen and her husband should’ve known better than to waste my time and hers.”
Now, before this, as I had walked through the door, I had taken in my surroundings and realized a lot of time and effort had gone into the thought and design process in the restaurant. Also when she spoke to me I knew she was a “visual” person. From her hair to her toes…. everything was colourful.
So, having had the appointment turned on its head in 10 seconds flat, I smiled sweetly, thanked her very much and half turned away. As I turned to say goodbye, I said, “I have to say… fantastic atmosphere in here, the design is very good,” to which she replied, “Thank you, it’s all my own work.” “It’s lovely,” said I and I added that my company is design led too.
I was then offered a coffee, as she felt bad for wasting my time, and she gave me ten minutes. The ten minutes turned into an hour during which she was happy to tell me what she had done to the restaurant, how long it had taken etc. At no time during this time did I try to sell. She was so happy to look at what I could offer that when she had finished her tale I came away with a 5K order for 3 different printed napkins. I have since had two repeat orders, been for dinner and have been asked to help with her design for dressing the restaurant for Xmas!!
I now spend a few minutes in my car getting ready for my appointments and, as I walk in the door, I spend my time observing (not rehearsing over and over what I’m going to say)…..
Getting into my customers world really does help! I also realized that telling isn’t selling and listening is so important and can be so useful.
Kind regards
Sue
And the next one…
Just thought I’d share something with you that may hit home with other people. This week I went to an exhibition and I was astounded by how many people working for businesses on their stands wasted their time with this pointless exercise. It went something along the lines of…
“’Good day (they check my name badge) Spencer. How are you? Can I give you this to look at?” (offering me brochures).
“Is it relevant to me?”
“Errmm, ahhh, well what do you do?”Now I am no expert, but shouldn’t you attempt to qualify your leads, even in an exhibition situation? I was annoyed that they didn’t even ask a couple of questions to find out what I was there for and whether they could help me, rather than just showing me what they do and hoping it fits with what I might or might not need.
I wonder how many companies would benefit from a pre-exhibition coaching session on how to interact and make the most of what can be an expensive investment in a stand/staff etc…
Just my Friday’s ten pence Gavin.
Have a great weekend.
Spencer.
As ten pences go Spencer, a very valuable one. Far too many salespeople don’t do sufficient research, both at shows and in general, leaving themselves looking unprepared and unprofessional. It’s also, as you rightly point out, a waste of time and money. I wonder how they would prepare differently if they had to pay for the stand themselves?
Next up is Nick who has a quickie to tell us about how even the world’s best service can be met with a frown sometimes…
Hi Gavin here’s one for your Sales Tales, “Never satisfied.”
Many years ago a good customer rang up desperate for some rolls of lead (for leaded windows). What could we do? I fancied getting out of the office so I figured an hour to finish what I was doing, half an hour drive and add another half an hour because I am always late leaving. I thought I would impress my customer with a two hour delivery, not bad eh, even today?
“You couldn’t make it one hour?” was the response I got back.
Regards
Nick
You have to smile Nick. There’s no pleasing some people! And finally, one from one of my readers in the US…
Hi Gavin
This was my first newsletter and I wanted to let you know I enjoyed it very much. The only story I could think of happened the first year I was selling. I was selling janitorial services after being in operations for many years. I was on quite a roll having sold a quarter of a million in billing each month for seven months.
I had a sale lined up that was about 25,000 per month in billing. It depended on the hi -tech company visiting our offices in Worcester, MA. We did not have an office there however our company did clean a 30 story building in town and we had an office in the basement near the carpenter shop. The potential client would not have been impressed!
The Building manager had a tenant moving in on the 25th floor. The furniture was in but not the tenant. We put up a sign with our name on the entrance to the suite of offices. I met the client outside the elevator in the lobby and took them up to the 25th floor. I introduced them to our President and the V. P. of operations. We had a phone on the desk but it was not plugged in to anything. They admired the view and asked how I liked it. I rode the elevator down with them.
When I went back upstairs everything with my companies name on it was gone. It was like Mission Impossible. We got the sale which expanded to $85,000 monthly.
Charlie
Thanks Charlie, fabulous. I’m not recommending it as a strategy nor am I recommending being dishonest but you have to love your style!
Why not share your sales stories, anecdotes and tips below?
Cold Calling Blues?
Just under a year ago, I bought a new car. Many of you may remember this as I mentioned a BMW dealer who showed a total lack of interest in my questions and enquiries. He effectively made my decision for me to buy from a different manufacturer. Anyway, I was reminded of this incident when I got this email from one of my readers…
We lease some cars for sales staff on contract hire. Sales guy rings from the lease hire company and asks to be put through to me
“Hello Mr Smith.”
“Hi.”
“How’s the cars going?”
“Fine.”
“Good – give us a ring if you need anything.”
“OK . Bye.”You would have thought with the state of the car market he could have a bit more to say!
2′nd call – this afternoon – I answer the phone – something I try and avoid.
“XYZ company, Joe Bloggs speaking.”
“Hello, can I speak to the head of marketing?”
“What’s it about?”
“Marketing.”
“No – he’s not taking sales calls.”
“Can I send an email?”
“No – Bye.”Man – if he’d looked at our website my names there as the Director!
Idiot.
You’d like to think that these individuals were particularly bad wouldn’t you? Or maybe that they were just having a bad day. But that isn’t my experience of leasing companies… or of cold callers…
One of the biggest issues many of my sales training clients have is getting their sales teams doing the activity that they need to do to bring in enough opportunities to give them any chance of success. Helping businesses to improve motivation, increase lead generation activity and implement systems to support and improve their reach with new clients is a large part of my business but it’s not the only part…
You have to do it correctly too. Activity alone is not any good. There is no point repeating a totally ineffective cold call over and over again. As I am sure Mr. T might say, “Pity the poor busy fool!”
As a sales director, I used to get dozens of cold calls every day. Most did indeed go like this…
“Hello Gavin, how are you today?” (Ugggh!)
“Fine.”
“I’m calling from It’s All About Me Recruitment Specialists, are you looking to recruit any new salespeople at the moment?”
“No.”
“I have a really good guy I have just interviewed, can I tell you about him?”
“No.”
“Oh ok, bye.”
Pointless.
There’s no point cold calling your clients without thinking preparing first and then without bothering to find out what’s important to them. There’s no point going to networking events and then not following up correctly on the phone. There’s no point working to create a Web 2.0 presence to create new leads if you do nothing with them because you cannot structure your calls effectively.
For many companies, lead generation is something that they need to do more consistently but they also need to do it better. They need to be more effective, more structured and more professional. There is little point making more cold calls of the calibre of these unprepared and unprofessional fools above.
To be a successful cold caller you need to be focused, confident and prepared. You need the right structure and approach and you need to effectively warm your calls up so that they are relevant to your prospects. And then you need powerful questions that are all about them so that you can engage them and start a meaningful dialogue.
There is a huge difference between spam cold calling and legitimate new business calls. Which side of the equation are you on? What do your prospects and clients think of your calls?
When done well, cold calling is one of (the?) fastest and most effective route to gaining more new business leads. Critically, there are times when it would be incorrect to use cold calling and something else would be more effective… but there are also times when nothing will beat cold calling and when cold calling may be the only way to reach your target market.
One of my friends (and an ex-seminar delegate) and his team, set up 250+ appointments, closed tens of millions of business and took a major market share through the use of professionally targeted b2b cold calling in a very short period of time.
What areas of your cold calling do you need to focus on to win more sales right now? How can you improve your cold calling? How can you improve your approach to be more professional, more effective and more consistent?
Failure for us is not an option
I’ve been getting a few interesting letters recently and I loved this one from Julian Athawes of Halomec in answer to my blog post last week (What would you achieve if you knew you couldn’t fail?) talking about how important attitude is for the success of a company…
Hi Gavin,
I must admit to normally ’skimming’ over your mails, I will try to absorb the content a little more in the future as there is some good stuff in there. I have just stuck the attached poster on our office wall… (poster received but I can’t use it here as I do not have the image rights!)
Anyway, this is what I wanted to share with you:
Right now, I should be sitting in Ashton Gate football stadium waiting for Lord Sugar to dispense some pearls of wisdom to the attendant masses, courtesy of Business Link. At 8am this morning I told my wife that Alan Sugar is not going to recover last months dire sales figures (and those of previous months) and, that my morning would be better spent on the phone trying to win some business.
I was going to ask him what the most significant initiative he had initiated to mitigate the effects of the recession. I won’t get to ask him that now, but his answer is probably a world away from the realities that I face running a tiny business. Yes, we’ve done all the obvious stuff – cut overheads, reduced stock, not reduced prices, etc We share our financial predicament with our staff – warts and all. You may say that we shouldn’t burden or scare our people to this level. That may be the case for some organisations but, for us it works and our colleagues have responsed fantastically.
I firmly belive what will initiate the recovery from recession in the UK is the attitude and the determination of small businesses. They can respond quicker, be more focussed, specialised and flexible. They can grow rapidly - if every member of the FSB took on 4 employees, nearly a million jobs would be created.
Thre is no point moaning about our predicament or blaming the banks and wallowing in the mire of self pity. We do not have the option to hide under the duvet until the recession passes. The answer for us is to put more effort in. More hours, more miles, more calls. There is still business out there – we just have to work harder to win it. It can get demoralising, but we have nowhere else to go. Your mail was very timely – hence the poster.
As with Travis Pastrana on his motorbike, failure for us is not an option. I am determined to succeed.
Thanks for that one Julian. A Sales Success CD is on the way to you with my compliments.
What would you achieve if you knew you couldn’t fail?
I was meeting with a good friend of mine, Andy Smith (NLP and EI trainer), the other day and, over a tasty Chinese buffet lunch, we were talking about “things that truly make a difference”. Interestingly, and despite all of the training courses that we had both been on, we were in total agreement that you could track back the things that had truly made a difference for us to a handful of techniques and strategies. Perhaps more interesting still was the fact that, even with our very different backgrounds, it was very similar topics that had made the difference for both of us…
And, most interesting of all, the really powerful techniques that really changed our lives were the simplest ones.
Now, I’ve talked before about how sales people and business owners ask for the “advanced” sales training strategies, rushing headlong into studying “advanced sales skills” when they’re not even covering the sales training basics so I’m not going to say again how important nailing important sales principles and reviewing and practising them regularly is…
I am however going to share with you one of my favourite ever questions…
What would you achieve if you knew you couldn’t fail?
A simple question, and one which is easily overlooked. Don’t make this mistaake. Really thinking about this question and your answers to it could well change your sales results, your career prospects and your life.
I was reminded of the power of this important question this week when one of my readers sent me the following passage…
“Let’s imagine that for one day only, you will be guaranteed success on every single new business call that you make, and you absolutely cannot fail……..
What time would you set your alarm in the morning?
What time would you start prospecting?
What time would you finish prospecting?
How many new business calls would you make?
How long would you take for lunch?
How long would you spend socialising?
How long would you spend in the supermarket?
How long would you spend chatting to colleagues?
How long would you spend on ‘admin’?Now, compare your answers to the questions above to what you actually did do today.”
You’ve probably seen a question like this before. You may have even thought, “Good question”. Perhaps you were even slightly motivated by it. But you probably moved on and read something else without really benefitting from the inherent wisdom behind this question.
If you want a great day, stop now and take a break. Get a coffee and consider…
How would you spend your time today if you knew you couldn’t fail? What would you do? Who would you prospect? What would you ask of them? What would you achieve? What would you ask for that you’re currently not asking for? Who would you ring who you are currently avoiding? What price would you aim for? What targets would you set for yourself? What would you stop doing? How would you deal with distractions? How would you protect your valuable time?
You get my point.
What are you going to achieve today?
A sales training tip for estate agents… and everyone else!
I have a hobby, it’s called “door-kicking”. It’s a little like “tyre-kicking” but it doesn’t involve cars, it involves houses. When I’m not following my twin passions of motivational speaking and sales training, I love looking around houses… show-houses, old houses, new houses, penthouse flats, country cottages, farms… anything really. You could say that I am an estate agent’s nightmare but then I have bought every house I have ever owned when I was on a “door-kicking” outing.
Anyway, last month I was looking around a house without any serious intention and I loved it. Infact, I loved it so much that I negotiated with the seller then and there and put an offer in. She accepted and my Sunday afternoon jolly had just become a house buying trip! Next day, I contacted one of the well-known national estate agencies and asked them to come around to value my house which they did. The estate agent was polite, efficient and courteous. He valued the house at what I thought was a realistic price in the current market and told me how they operate. It sounded fine so I asked what the market was like at the moment in the local area. He said that it was picking up, that houses were moving again and that he should have no problem selling my house.
Based on this, I agreed to put the house on the market with ABC Estate Agency and they took over the process of selling my house. This, from what I have seen so far, seems to consist of…
- Take some measurements and some photos.
- Write up a description.
- Upload house onto RightMove and ABC’s company website.
- Sit back and wait for the proverbial chicken to fly into open mouth.
Are you joking me? These are the same estate agents who have been moaning about how quiet things are, right?
So, as you do, I checked out RightMove to look at my house only to see that…
- The house does not come up when you search my village.
- One of the rooms has been missed off the description of the property description altogether.
- Several of the measurements are wrong.
- The pictures are poor lousy.
- The room descriptions are non-existent.
- I could go on but I won’t because it is too depressing that anyone could be so inept.
If I ran an estate agency and the most junior person on my sales team had been responsible for this description I would have been kicking ass. Let alone, the most senior consultant in charge of the branch!
But hey, no-one is perfect and everyone can make mistakes…
So I emailed them… but they did not respond.
So I repeated the email… no response.
So I rang them and got their voicemail, “Sorry we are not in the office…” (well, I know you’re not showing anyone around my house, that’s for sure!) and decided to get into my car and drive down to their offices. With my (growing) annoyance kept well under check I explained to the one agent in the office the importance of 1) getting things right, 2) making a strong first impression through the advertisement and 3) the power of words like “mature, landscaped garden”, “stylish, open plan living” and “exclusive, residential area” (not just “garden”!”).
He looked bemused so I left a message for the sales manager to call me.
Surprise, surprise, 4 hours later and no call. These guys clearly need a motivational speaker and some sales training! So let’s fill in the gaps and put this into context…
Over the last few weeks I have visited with at least 8 estate agents. Out of all 8 only 1 took my name and contact details. The others knew that I was looking for a house but never asked for my details. Why not? I can only conclude laziness and having had it so good for so long that they do not even know how to do the job properly anymore. Our estate agent’s brain should have been whirring with people he could call the moment I listed my property… apparently not. So here we are, several days weeks on the market, no update calls from the sales agent and no viewings.
Now I accept my fault in this. I am a sales training expert and I should have made the time to see several estate agencies to “interview” them as potential salespeople just like I would for a client. After all, they are going to sell my house for me and interviewing salespeople is something that I am good at!
So about now you could be forgiven for thinking, “Well this is fine Gavin, but what does it have to do with me? I’m not an estate agent!” Good question… and the answer is… “Well, quite a lot … potentially.”
Estate agents are not alone in having had it too easy for the last few years. Estate agents are not alone in cutting corners when they get the chance. Estate agents are not alone when it comes to taking the easy route. Estate agents are not alone when it comes to doing the all important “sales” bit pretty badly.
As a sales motivational speaker I spend a lot of time working with, talking to and consulting with salespeople, sales managers, sales directors and business owners from a multitude of different industries. A rare few do everything they can to succeed but a far larger majority fail to achieve their full potential due to a lack of application in even the most simple of areas.
Simply put – many salespeople fall at the first hurdle because they just don’t apply themselves consistently enough.
As a motivational speaker I always strive to raise my game and challenge myself to push for the next level. I am constantly astounded by how even the slightest increase in your game can increase results dramatically. Raising your game by even 10% can make a huge difference to the sales results and successes that you achieve – both in your job and in your life.
So this weeks’ challenge is to raise your game. What area can you seek to improve to get a leap in your sales results?
