What One Thing Do You Wish That You’d Known When You Started Out In Sales?
I recently sent out my Success newsletter and asked people, “What one thing do you wish you’d known when you started in sales?” Here are some of your answers. I think that they’re really good! You can join in by adding your own thoughts and ideas in the comments section below. Make sure that you check out all of the questions and answers in my Real World Sales Tips project amd make the most of this growing sales resource.
When I first started out in sales I wish I’d known how to seperate the timewasters from the genuine people that wanted to be called back.
Don’t EVER assume!
Under speculate and over deliver!
Customer retention, trust, loyalty and word of mouth marketing tool….
Rather than promising the world to a prospective client and then the product or service not turning out to be the best, I would be up front, playing towards the good points of a product but not over selling something that could be done. Then deliver a higher standard service/product to the customer.
1 person who receives a bad service from a company will tell 10 people about how bad the service/company was, whereas 1 person who receives a good service/product will tell 2 or 3 people about how good the service was. I would always want to provide a service/product that I had promised to a client and they receive a good service than a bad one or an over promised and under delivered one.
For example I used to work for a conveyancing firm of solicitors.
It was possible in approximately 10% of remortgage cases (with everything in your favour) to complete a case in 5 working days.
In 40% of cases you could complete a case in 7 working days (as in general, waiting on the postal service was a big factor).
In 40% of cases it would take around 10 working days to complete a case.
Finally in 10% of cases it would take longer again (Lost mail, clients not returning documents correctly, hidden bankruptcies etc).
I would always sell our service on the basis that if the case has no out of the norm complications (which the people who I was selling to understood (Mortgage brokers/mortgage companies)) we would complete the case in 10 working days.
If I received comments such as “Another firm have said they can do it in 7 working days rather than 10 working days like you”. 99% of the time they would receive a bad service whereby cases are not completing in the companies given timescale and the mortgage brokers/mortgage company (clients) would be disgruntled and move somewhere else. By under selling and over delivering, I would retain 95% of my clients all of the time.
Therefore I was always selling our service to a good standard in the market but always providing more when the service/product was delivered to a better than expected. In 100% of cases they were receiving exactly what I had sold to them (90% going through in under 10 working days and the other 10% being out of the norm cases).
This works as a good retainer of clients as they know exactly what they are getting from you. If you say you’re going to do something it’s done and usually done better than promised. You gain loyalty, trust and a word of mouth marketing tool for free and it makes it very hard for a customer to go elsewhere…
in reply to your question, I wish I had known when I started sales that what really mattered was what the customer perceives to be important, not what I consider to be important!
For example the fact that my new storage device is 20% higher capacity for the same price as last years model is only important if the customer is running low on disk space, otherwise why should they care.
This would have saved me endless hours of wasted sales visits and saved countless customers the boredom of an irrelevant pitch.
Understanding of Objectives and Goals and how to create to do lists and mission statements of the back of these.
My answer to the question is simple and that his how to handle objections correctly. When I first started out in sales (recruitment sales in the UK) I lost many sales I feel through poor objection handling. Since going on your “No fear cold calling” course I feel that I am more equipped in handling the objections from when I first started out in sales in the UK.
That a rejection (failed sale) does not necessarily mean personal failure. While no introspection can mean that you do not learn to improve, over analysing any such experience can mean that your mind is not focussed on the next sale. People say no for so many reasons and you can never know where the mind of your targeted client was at the moment you dropped into their life to make your presentation.
Share your expertise in the comments below.
My Favourite Personal Development Books
One of the most frequent questions that I get asked is, “What personal development books should I read?” Clearly, this is not an easy question to answer as it depends what you are reading them for and what you want to get out of them…
Most salespeople, business owners & entrepreneurs want to read personal development books that deliver quantifiable results. They want to read books that they can action. They want to read personal development books that will make a difference in their businesses and their lives.
Most business people, salespeople and entrepreneurs have probably wasted time and energy in the past reading personal development books that did not come up to scratch and that wasted their time!
To try and save you some time and effort and to get you straight to the good stuff, I have just made a list of some of my favourite personal development books. I will add to this from time to time. Follow this link now to see my recommended personal development books.
How To Use Email When Prospecting
I would like to know what to do when the only contact information you have is an email address. What do you put in the email, just bare fact, do you give as much as possible. Usually when I email a potential new client, I am not getting any response from them. Do you have any suggestions?
This is a great sales training question and one which there is no hard and fast answer to. Email is still a relatively new technology and the use of it in the sales process and the etiquette behind it is changing all of the time.
Certainly, some salespeople are over reliant on email which has led to some sales experts believing that email has no place in the sales process at all. A sales trainer friend of mine believes that you should never use email when selling at all and that you should always pick up the phone instead.
On the other side of the equation, some sales experts are advocating email “prospecting” as a first contact choice rather than the phone because “cold calling is dead” (Idiots!).
So who’s right?
Well, I guess that depends on what you believe and what you are trying to achieve. Ultimately, I believe that, as with many debates, both parties are right, at least in part.
In my business I get a lot of inbound sales enquiries about sales training products, sales seminars and keynote speeches for sales teams. Some of these enquiries I like to handle personally so a meeting will be set up with me by my admin team. In theory, this could be done by email as, after all, the prospect rang in and wanted to speak with me. In reality however, this is not the case, as less than 50% of prospects respond to this type of email despite the fact that they requested the meeting in the first place!!
Conclusion – people are really good at ignoring email.
I have clients that I talk to regularly, clients who have flown me to speak at their event first class, clients who have chauffeured me to their venues and treated me like royalty, clients who have profusely thanked me for coming to their events despite the fact that they have paid me…
Yet they still don’t respond to emails.
Maybe people just get too many emails to deal with. Perhaps people put them to one side and then forget to deal with them. Maybe people are just inefficient when faced with this kind of overload of information. Perhaps your sales emails are just not getting through to your clients at all.
Whatever! Socially and culturally it does seem that not responding to emails is, if not acceptable, certainly not a major crime!
So where does all of this leave us in our email dilemma?
Simple.
Email is a tool. It is a tool that you can use to help you in your sales efforts. Email is a tool that can save you time in your sales process. Email is a tool that can help you to boost sales success.
But email is also a weapon that can destroy your sales efforts if you become lazy or over reliant on it. Email can kill your sales dead. For example, salespeople chasing proposals by email is a cardinal sin! “Just checking to see if you want to move forward” emails are destined to produce far worse results than salespeople who talk to their clients face to face or on the phone!
Email should be part of your sales campaign not your whole sales campaign. If you have only the email address of your client then by all means send them one but don’t sit back thinking that you’ve done a hard day’s prospecting! You haven’t. There are many other ways to find contact details for your clients and you need to employ some of them here!
In answer to your question about the email itself, it depends again what you are trying to achieve, however, and as a general rule, less is more. Keep your email focused on benefits to your client. You want your email to be inclusive. You want your email to encourage your prospects to want to ring you to find out more. Give out too much information and they won’t need to call you; too little and they won’t see the need to ring you!
As a sales superstar you need to maximize your efforts and your results by utilizing modern means of technology to supplement and support your sales efforts. That’s supplement and support not replace!
Email is a powerful tool but also one that can be abused very easily. It does not release you from the effort and hard work required in becoming a successful salesperson.
Make sure that you are using it correctly!
Will Improving My Memory Boost Sales Success?
Gavin
Hi! Recently I have missed target a few times and have been hauled over the coals by my boss. I had lots ideas and suggestions as to how they could support me, and as to why I felt that my performance had dropped but my manager suggested that I improve my memory.
I am always prepared and know my stats when speaking to clients but when put on the spot I often do not know everything about my current sales opportunities without looking at my physical forecast.
My boss feels that I am not on target because I do not have instant recall on every opportunity in my head.
Could you advise me as to how important you feel it is to be able to retain ones total and specific sales figures for the purposes of spot checks by my manager, whether you feel that this does impact my figures and furthermore how I could go about developing myself in this way.
Yours Peter
Peter
Firstly, thanks for the email and glad that you enjoy the blog and newsletter. This is a great question and one that’s close to my heart.
So firstly, I understand where your manager is coming from.
As a sales manager, sales director and now as a sales speaker, sales consultant and sales training expert I am constantly frustrated by how lax many so called professional salespeople are about what they have to do.
I am bored of failing salespeople sitting in front of me saying that they want to “earn 100k” but having little or no idea what they would have to do to achieve that nor taking any tangible actions to move themselves towards that.
Knowing where you are now and what resources you have to drive yourself to the results that you want (in this case – sales opportunities) is essential if you want to make more sales and create a sales career to be proud of.
As such, I think it is essential that salespeople know what sales opportunities they have, where these sales opportunities are, how likely they are to close the sale, what they need to do to close those sales, and so on.
As a salesperson I always knew this information. I always had it to hand. I could recall it at a drop of a hat. I held it close to my heart and I reviewed it every day. I knew when I was on target, off target, what might close, what would close, what could close and so on. This knowledge was vital for my success. A lot of this is about having the right attitude and being prepared for sales success.
I encourage sales managers to ask these kinds of strategic sales questions as it heightens the awareness of sales staff to the importance of these questions. It keeps sales teams focused on important tasks and activities rather than getting sidetracked by less important ones.
Many sales managers are too lax around this issue and do not ask their staff for these figures frequently enough or at all. Many of them have salespeople wandering around in their businesses that I (or they if they asked the right questions) could uncover as not performing in a handful of questions if they asked the right ones.
We need to remember that there is no place for dreamers in sales, only doers.
But before you jump off the nearest bridge…
I understand where you are coming from too!
Depending on how many opportunities you have, how good your memory is and what else you have to think about at any given moment in time it may not be practicable, possible or sensible to carry all of this important sales information around with you in your memory so to speak.
As a professional salesperson, the important thing is that you know what you’re doing and that you have a robust sales system that supports this approach.
If you have on only a handful of sales opportunities and leads then I would expect you to be in charge of all of the facts and to have them committed to memory.
Why? Because there would be so few facts you would just have to remember them if you actually knew them.
On the other hand, if you had loads of clients, prospects, sales leads and opportunities then you may well not remember all of them easily or at all. Trying to and getting them wrong would surely be worse than taking the time to write them down!
Putting you on the spot and asking you to recall every detail of every sales opportunity and every client is a good way for your manager to easily assess whether you are focused and doing your work properly but it is not the only way and it is not always accurate!
Management is about doing what works for each and every individual. You cannot apply the same approach and management styles for everybody and expect to get the best sales results.
My belief is that as long as you can operate in the moment and you do a good job I would be happy with you accessing the information from paper rather than your head. The fact that you have this information on paper and to hand shows that you’re a focused, driven and professional sales person. It also sets you apart from 80%+ of salespeople who wouldn’t have a clue about this stuff in the first place.
As long as it does not impact your clients and you review it regularly and use it to get results, what does it matter?
In conclusion, I think that we need to remember here that there is no perfect sales system and what is right for one sales person may not be right for another. Different people understand, process, recall and utilize business information to help them sell more in many different ways.
Whilst asking you spot questions might give a clue on many occasions as to the lack of knowledge or application of an individual if that individual can produce their PDA (or whatever) and give me the answers then the result is the same.
Gavin
p.s. There are some great books written on memory at Amazon UK (and at Amazon US). Check a few out if you want to work on this area.
Sales Interview Techniques
Hi Gavin
I am going for a new sales role but I haven’t been interviewed for some time. Can you give me any advice or tips that will set me ahead of the rest?
By the way I have been on one of your courses. Thanking you in advance.
Thanks for the note. It’s good that you’re putting thought into how you approach your interview and using the resources and contacts that you have to prepare fully. Many salespeople don’t do this, thinking instead that they can “blag it”.
They usually fall flat on their faces!
With the intention of giving you the best possible answer I have included a few of my own thoughts but thought it would be useful to gain the insight of an expert in this area so I asked my good friend Justin Byrne what his thoughts are. Justin is the managing director of Certus Sales, a specialist sales recruitment company. Here’s what he had to say… with my bits in italics.
Key points to consider for your interview are as follows…
Do your research.
Not just the about us page on their website! Understand who their clients are and who they compete against. Try to gain an understanding of why their clients buy from them. If appropriate put in a call to the sales team and ask them why you should use them as opposed to a competitor.
Like selling, the more research that you do the better. Doing your research before your interview demonstrates to your prospective employer not only that you want to work for them but also gives them an insight into your approach to sales meetings.
Identify the key skills you think they will need.
And then identify where you have used these skills in the past and the results that you achieved.
Take evidence of your results with you.
This can include league tables from previous employers, references, P60’s or payslips.
I can’t tell you how many salespeople I interviewed over the years who made exaggerated claims about their sales figures and then failed to produce any evidence! This is great advice from Justin.
Know your figures.
You would be amazed how many good sales people are stumped when they are asked the basics ie. What were your targets? What did you achieve against target? What was your average order value / client spend? Etc.
I totally agree. It’s shocking how many salespeople fall down here. As an interviewer it makes you feel that they are being economical with the truth and creates a sense of distrust. Clearly not something that you want in a sales interview!
Prepare some questions.
Good ones include: What are they key challenges of this role? What has made people successful in this role in the past? What are the company’s goals over the next year? 5 years? What is the best thing about working for your company? What is the worst thing about working for this company?
A great opportunity to sell yourself and to demonstrate your sales skills by asking some great questions.
Close Close Close.
Any sales manager or sales director worth their salt will expect a candidate to close. If you’re given an objection, overcome it and close again. Whilst the objection may be real, they are often given simply to test your resilience! If you don’t close you halve your chances, regardless of the level of the position.
Finally, don’t forget to make an impact from the moment you arrive. Look the part and be confident without being arrogant.
Best of luck!
Thanks Justin. Some great tips and strategies.
Why not share your top interview tips and strategies by commenting below…
If Selling Is So Simple Why Can’t Everyone Do it?
How many people do you know who have tried selling at some point in their lives? Out of all of those people, how many failed?
The answer to the first question is easy, probably quite a few. At some point or other in their lives many people have had a go at selling even if only as a student or in their first job. You may not know the answer to the second one… it’s probably most of them!
Probably most of them.
Oh, for sure, they’ll tell you that they did well. They’ll tell you that they sold bucket loads! They’ll tell you that they were a top sales performer. They’ll even talk knowledgeably about how to sell. It’s amazing what a good game people who only sold for a few weeks and never had any sales training can talk! They’ll talk about open questions and wants and needs like they know what they’re talking about but… seriously… most of them failed!
Not all, but most!
Top salespeople lead an enviable life. They earn great money. They win promotions. They have job security. They have respect, opportunity and friends. They have freedom, career choices and financial independance. They have fun, challenge and variety.
So if you had all of that, why would you leave? Mostly only if you weren’t getting those things at all! I met a friend of a friend in the pub the other night and he looked scathingly at me when I said that I was a sales training expert and told me that he left sales for “more security” and opportunity. He earns in a month what I earn in a day. I recently heard that his company are looking to “cut back” in his department. Nuff said!
But why this tirade? And why today?
Simple. This week I worked with a really great team of salespeople. They were enthusiastic, interested, open and up for it. They embraced the fact that selling is simple and they wanted to master those simple skills. Sales is so simple infact that nearly anyone could be very successful in sales. So simple that everyone in the room could achieve sales success if they chose to go for it…
So if selling is so simple why can’t everyone do it?
Because selling is about attitude. Selling is an attitude. Selling is an attitude that leaves behind a trail of techniques. Now don’t get me wrong here… sales skills are very important, very important indeed. Anyone who has been through a sales training programme with me or who has attended one of my sales seminars will know just how important I believe sales skills are…
But they’re not the key factor in this equation. They’re only a part of the equation. And on the other side of that equation is attitude. Without the right attitude you won’t be able to access your skills. Frankly, without the right attitude, you’re in trouble. If you can get and maintain the right attitude then you will make a success of yourself in sales and selling. Period. If you can’t, you won’t. It’s goodnight sweetheart!
I would far rather hire someone with all of the right attitudes and potential and train them on the skills side than I would wrestle with someone with all of the skills and experiences who cannot be bothered any more! The former salesperson I can train because they want to learn, the latter I have to remotivate and reeducate. Possible but much harder…
You’ve probably worked with or recruited a salesperson who had all of the right attitudes but was light on skills. They probably did pretty well. It usually gets put down to “beginner’s luck” but it’s not “beginner’s luck”, its “beginner’s attitude”.
And it’s at this point that many people not in sales might be tempted to conclude that sales and selling is easy. Something for thickos, something that anyone can do.
Just so wrong!
The hardest thing in the world is getting, keeping, maintaining and improving the right attitude. In sales you never know when you might run into someone who is going to be your best ever client. You never know if the next sales call is going to win you a multi-million account. You never know which meetings are going to convert and which aren’t…
And this makes it hard becuase you have to be on top sales form for every call. Top sales form for every presentation. Top sales form for every meeting. Top sales form for every negotiation. Top sales form for every conversation. Top sales form for every communication. Top sales form. Top sales form. Top sales form.
Not for you the mindless “going through the motions” that some non-salespeople can get away with for periods of time. You have to be switched on, tuned in, fully focused, up for it, raring to go, playing from a 10, on the ball…
Salespeoople often say to me that cold calling (for example) is repetitive and boring…
Wrong attitude! You have to be on top sales form for every call. It might be your 47th call of the week or the day but it is your client or prospect’s first experience of you. You have to be on top form, you have no safety net!
To make matters worse, salespeople get faced with problems and challenges every day. Difficulties, challenges, issues, rejection and objection are a part and parcel of our daily lives and we need to smile through them and stay on top sales form.
So if selling is so simple, why can’t everyone do it?
Because selling is about taking personal responsibility for your own attitude, your own behaviours and your own results. Selling is about smiling when you don’t feel like smiling. Listening when you don’t feel like listening, Caring when you don’t want to care. Standing up when you feel like lying down. Pushing on when you feel like giving up. Firing on all cylinders when you feel like throttling down. Taking responsibility when you want to pass the buck.
Selling provides virtually unrivalled opportunitites for anyone who is prepared to commit themselves. Your degree won’t help you. Your qualifications and exams won’t help you. Your CV won’t help you. The only person who can help you is you. And that’s too much of a leveller for most people.
Handbrake off, safety net removed, crash helmet discarded.
Most people want to blame someone else. It’s all about what they didn’t get, who didn’t help them, who let them down, whose fault it is, why they weren’t on top form, why they deserve another chance, why they should have done better…
If you want to maximise your sales performance and be a top sales performer you need to let all of this go now and focus on delivering the right attitude at the right time, no excuses.
Why not take a look at my Sales Success sales training audio programme – it’s what sales motivation is all about.
How To Sell More In Competitive Markets
I received your newsletter. Thanks again. I wanted to ask you a question. I work for a (market given) magazine that is distributed for free to (consumers) throughout the local area. I sell advertising space in the magazine. Our magazine has been around the longest. It started in (our area) and has branched out to include (surrounding areas).
However, there are 2 other magazines that are distributed in the same area. One of the magazines has been in our county since 2000. The other magazine has been around in maybe the same time frame. I have two questions:-
1. How do I convince the advertisers that our magazine is a good place to advertise? I receive a lot of objections that include things like:
"We already advertise in ABC magazine and it is distributed in the same way as yours.”
2. I go to all of the advertisers that advertise in the other magazines to try and get them to advertise in ours. I also go to companies that don’t advertise in the magazines and sometimes even have better results because I don’t get that objection. However, with the companies that don’t advertise in the other magazines I have to convince them that advertising in our magazine is good because it is a very targeted audience and everyone who reads this is a potential client.
Name & company supplied.
Firstly, thanks for your ongoing readership of my newsletter – remind your friends that they can subscribe free at www.gaviningham.com but don’t tell your enemies!
The situation that you are facing is very common and not distinct to your marketplace…
I’d like to tell you a little story…
Once upon a time, in a far off land there lived a happy salesperson who had products and services that were new and fresh. He had no competition and he could easily stay ahead of the marketplace. The clients loved his visits because he could educate and entertain them and they were always enthralled by his amazing new solutions to their problems and challenges…
Did this mythical, unicorn of a salesperson ever exist? I doubt it! I agree that the marketplace is maybe quicker and faster than it ever was but at the end of the day, sales is all about competition. If you have a good idea, someone will nick it! If you’re onto a winner, someone will copy you. If you’re in a market by yourself, get ready for some competition!
If you had some time in that mythical, fantasy land of being the only magazine in the marketplace then great but it was never going to last…
The aim of the game now is to help your clients to understand that you are the one for them and that you are better and more relevant for their needs than your competitors.
Here are some tips…
1. Stop trying to convince them and start “knowing” that you’re the best!
Sit down and think about all of the services that you have and offer that are better than those of your competitors. Get a piece of paper and write them down.
Seriously. Just doing this exercise will make you feel better about what you are selling.
You need to come across as confident and congruent with what you are selling. Salespeople don’t sell well when they are desperate and clients don’t like desperate salespeople! You need to “act as if” you are the only company worth dealing with in the marketplace.
Remember – your client’s perception of the value of your offerings will be determined to a large part by how you are viewed by your clients.
2. Remember that your clients probably don’t really think that you and your competitors are all the same!
But they know by telling you this that they put you on the back foot. Most clients think that they have the upper hand and that we are all desperate to do business with them at any cost. Don’t be so eager, take your time and plan your responses to start to redress this balance.
Your clients more than likely don’t see you as the same as your competition. It just suits them to tell you that! You need to ask more questions and find out more about how you are uniquely positioned to help them.
3. Plan and learn objection handles for common objections.
Preparation is one of the main keys to successful selling. The only way you will get better at selling is by thinking through situations and asking yourself the question, “How can I deal with that better next time?”
With your specific objection…
"We already advertise in ABC magazine and it is distributed in the same way as yours.”
What about something like…
“That’s fine I’m not asking you to change now, merely have a look at our services to see how they might complement your existing services.”
Or…
“That’s fine, business is built on relationships. At this stage, all I want to do is find out a little more about you and your business and see how we might be able to benefit you in the future.”
Or even, if you feel the need to say more…
“That’s great. I’m pleased you realise the importance to your business of advertising in this medium however our distribution is not the same as theirs. I’m not asking you to change now, merely have a look at our services and see how they might complement your business objectives in the future. Tell me, how often do you advertise with…?”
Remember – the objective is to get them talking, to find out why they are using the service, to discover their objectives, to understand how successfully they are meeting those objectives and then to offer something better and more relevant to them.
For more on objection handling have a look at my book Objections! Objections! Objections! available on www.amazon.co.uk.
4. Perception is everything.
Even if your services are exactly the same as your clients (or indeed are not as good!) it is whether the client thinks they are or aren’t that matters most. This means that it is your job to find ways that your services are more relevant to them than those of your competitors.
On your second point, you are right in your strategy. There is no-one more destined for failure than a one-trick-salesman. You need to be approaching both new customers to your service and customers who are using your competitors. As you have rightly pointed out, these two groups of customers will often require different sales strategies.
For the potential clients who don’t advertise at present make sure that you are ready to deal with likely objections. They will more than likely have been “sold” to before so when they object with “I have looked before and it’s not for me" objection handle with a gentle reframe…
“That’s fine. I’m not asking you to buy now merely have a look at how our services might complement your existing advertising strategies. Tell me, how do you currently…?”
Then get interested in their current situation, how they advertise, what their objectives are and how you might be able to help them now or in the future.
Let’s face it , until you ask and listen you’re not going to know whether you can help them or not. Best of luck and remember to sell with passion.
Making More Time To Make More Sales
Gavin, I have a new client that needs constant hand holding and she seems to think that she is my only client.
Have you got any advice as to how to keep her happy but not put all my other clients on the back burner, which for the last week I feel I have been doing???? Thank you for your help!!!
Thanks for the email, this is a sales question which I get asked a lot when running sales seminars and when sales training. The aim here is clear, we need to help you to get some control back over your client and some balance back into your sales activities. Failing to do this can result in you spending a disordinate amount of time with one client and lost sales due to you missing out on other important sales activities such as prospecting!
Pareto’s Law explains that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your activities and this is as true when selling as in any other discipline. When I run sales training sessions we often discuss how much sales energy and time some clients demand compared to others and it quickly becomes clear to delegates that some of their most profitable clients require very little input and some of their least profitable require massive input!
Clearly, there will always be clients on the “good” side of normal and clients on the “bad” side of normal and that is normal! But your aim should be to maximise the clients on the “good” side so that you are delivering more sales results and profitability from the same amount of effort. Achieving this is down to the clients that you work with in the first place (!) and in how you approach the sale.
Here are a few ideas and thoughts to help you…
Some clients are more demanding than others. This is the way it is, the way it always has been and, I’ve no doubt, the way it always will be. Some clients will look after themselves, others will need hand holding! Some clients will be on the phone all of the time, others will rarely ring you. Some clients will expect the world, others will be happy with what they have already.
As with many sales challenges and scenarios your mindset and approach will play a critical role in which types of clients you have. Many salespeople exhibit a “desperation” to please at any cost. This is not good and if you do this it may well be the case that it was you who encouraged your client to be this demanding.
If your client is the type who has a tendency to over demand and you have been prepared to jump through hoops every time you were asked (and sometimes before) then their expectations may well be very, very high. It may even be the case that their expectations are wholly unrealistic. Much of the responsibility for this probably lies with you and the other salespeople who wooed them in the first place!
The key to satisfied AND manageable clients who do not over-demand and who work in partnership with you is to under-promise and over-deliver. To do this effectively you need to set boundaries during the sales process so that everyone understands what is required, expected and needed of them. This can be difficult at times but it is essential if you are going to keep your clients happy, build a strong reputation and protect your time.
If you fail to set boundaries and expectations you may never please your clients! That will hold your sales development back so it is essential that under-promising and over-delivering is something which you know how to apply.
Once you have set “realistic” expectations then your job is to over-deliver. Bingo! You have the time to do your job and your new client is delighted.
Unfortunately, many salespeople over-promise during the sales cycle and are then incapable of delivering even the standard that they promised. This will more than likely result in even more excessive demands and, ultimately, unhappy clients.
In your sales scenario where the sales process has already been and gone I would suggest trying to gradually regain some control through your language and your approach when you are dealing with the client. Be polite but start to “reframe” their expectations of the relationship. This may take some time but the earlier you start, the quicker you will start to see some results.
Whilst you are resetting expectations make sure that your client knows how to contact you and that they remain comforable with the relationship. If you are working with someone else on this client it would be worth discussing and brainstorming the best ways for reframing this client and their expectations whilst keeping them happy.
Ironically, if you do not reframe their expectations, you may never be able to please them no matter what you do nor how much effort and time you put in. You could well end up losing the client.
Remember however two things.
1. For there even to be an “average” maintenance level some clients have to demand more and others less!
2. If this client has “expectations”, you need to be very careful how you reframe them so that you do not upset them and lose the client.
For more on how to set client expectations and build truly profitable, partnership relationships with clients check out my Professional Selling Skills seminars and programmes.
Should I Only Be Cold Calling Prospects I Convert Most Easily?
Hi Gavin,
I am wondering if you could help me with a problem I currently have. I work for a web development company. We supply our services to designers and web design agencies. In recent weeks I have been calling a list of graphic designers and a list of web designers. For the graphic designers I normally seem to get an appointment from 1 call in 10 (ish), however for the web developers/agencies it seems to be 1 in 25.
I have two questions, firstly, do you think it is worthwhile to contact web agencies where their objections are that they do the website prgramming themselves?
Secondly, if it is, in your opinion; how do you get around the fact that the majority tell you upfront they do it themselves and it is a core business? What would you say to get them to engage further?
My opinion is my time would be better spent calling design agencies where they may need our services, but i am interested as to what your opinion on the matter is
Thanks for the question. Without more detail this is quite a difficult sales training question and the sort of scenario I will be discussing in my new No Fear Cold Calling teleseminars which will be launched soon.
First off, let’s deal with the question of which client type to ring. The answer to this is not simple as it might seem. Cold calling different clients at different times is going to get different results. You need to pay attention to this and is just one of the reaons why it is important to record your personal sales results so that you know what your success and conversion ratios are for every step of the sale.
I work with many companies where they work on generic figures as ratios. This is fine for beginners just starting out or when you have nothing else but it is important that you start to collate your own information as quickly as possible. Knowing your statistics allows you to ask questions like this one and also to monitor the market, find skills areas in which you can improve and calculate likely results ahead of time.
Anyway, on the face of it, it looks like an open and shut case. You should be ringing the clients where you are getting a 1 in 10 return first. This seems a good investment of your time and a fair result which, with skills training and "call warming", you will be able to improve over time.
That said, 1 in 25 is not bad either and there are plenty of successful cold calling industries where 1 in 25 would form the basis of a very successful business.
Here’s the snag however…
Your conversion ratios are not the only figures in play here. What I have just said ONLY APPLIES if the deal sizes in both clients are the same, if the lifetime value of the clients are the same and if your meeting to sale conversion ratio is the same. To really know that your 1 in 10 clients represent a better use of your time you would need to know the average deal size, the lifetime value of a client and your conversion ratios.
Consider this, if the average deal size in the web agencies was 3 times the size of that in the designers who would now represent the best use of your time? Has that changed your mind?
What if the deal size was the same but the frequency of purchase was 5 times as high thus making the lifetime value of the client higher? Unless you’re desperate for business now that may well change your plans too!
Or what if your conversion ratio was better in one than the other? You’d then need to look at "why" but again that could change your plans.
So, in brief, you’re on the right tracks but make sure that you have all of the figures to hand before making your decision and know that the web agencies will still make good prospects when you have finished!
With regards to the objection that you are getting. I am not surprised that they are saying that. It would seem the quickest way to get rid of cold callers like you! But you have the advantage here because you know that objection is likely and you can plan and prepare for it. What you need here is a good reframe objection handle which allows you to back off into questions.
Ask about what they design, when, where and with whom. You are looking for gaps, challenges and problems with the way they currently do things. You need to find a way that you can add value to their existing approach. Remove this objection and that alone might siginificantly change your ratios!
For more on objection handling check out my book "Objections! Objections! Objections!" and make sure that you join my newsletter as I often talk about objection handling.
Audio Interview Of Sales Motivational Speaker Gavin Ingham On ExpertsOnline.tv
And now for something a little different…
I thought it was about time we did a bit of podcasting so here is an mp3 for your enjoyment! Sales motivational speaker and sales training expert, Gavin Ingham (that’s me by the way), interviewed on ExpertsOnline.tv.
In this interview we talk about sales strategies, sales techniques and sales atitiudes and a lot more besides so grab a cup of tea, a biscuit and a pen and enjoy.
Interview length 22 minutes 30 seconds.
This is the first of several interviews and audios that I will be posting at GavinIngham.com so make sure that you join my newsletter now and you will be the first to hear about them.
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