Yesterday I made some changes in the way I run my business. They’re not significant changes in many ways but in others they will make positive differences for my clients, my prospects and my readers. Hopefully, HUGE ones! There will be more tips, more strategies, more inspirational stories and more ways for you to read, listen, watch and get involved and get better results in your sales and in your life.

One of the things I am going to do more of this year is blog posting. I already do quite a lot some might say but it’s something that I enjoy and I know that it is one of the key ways that I add value for my clients and my prospects. As a motivational speaker, I have a lot of conversations on a daily basis to help individuals to improve their motivation, their focus, their sales and their businesses. Few of these ever see the light of day but yesterday I had a casual conversation with Rob Scott of Aaron Wallis and he posted our conversation. I thought I would do likewise.

GAVIN (TWEET): Welcome to 2012! Ignore doom-mongers & naysayers! Have dreams, set goals, take action.. make it a great one! Lots of great stuff coming this year… I have good feelings about 2012! You?!!

ROB: I always have good feelings – not much point in being any other way as there’s not a lot that little old me can do about the world’s finances!

GAVIN: I always have good feelings too however it is nice when they come to light! Personally, I think there is little wrong with the world’s finances that a dose of realism and hard work wouldn’t sort out!!

ROB: The FTSE is up 2% so far today – that’s 40% of the loss in 2011 gained in just one day – will this be in the news tonight? Probably not!

GAVIN: Agreed. We ought to spend more time being more positive and asking…

• What do we do well?
• What do others do well?
• What should we be doing well?
• How can we add massive value?

The whole of the West strikes me as bi-polar…. Manically depressive one day and manically up the next BUT at all times, with little handle on the reality of our situation. We need to make massive changes but we’re either crying and moaning about our lot or being extremely arrogant about being “right”.

Let’s start with positivity and hard work and then look for opportunities to add value… Oh, strange… that’s what I do… and you too!!

(ROB as editor) I just found this so true that I had to publish it – hope you enjoy it too!

So, there we are. Three little words that could change your, our, the whole world’s lot in 2012. But will they? How many people will maintain their positivity in the face of business and economic challenges? How many people will do the work necessary to create the opportunities they crave? And how many people will make and take chances to add huge value for their clients, their communities and their families and friends?

I can’t answer that question but I can tell you I will. You with me?

Related posts:

1. What Are Your Goals And Dreams For 2011
2. Take Stock, Take Charge & Take Action!
3. Why People Don’t Set Goals When They Know That They Should

After closing a sales conference this week, one of the audience approached me to ask about a sales presentation that they had recently failed to win. They wanted to know what they could have done about it and how they could improve their chance of winning a similar pitch next time.

After asking a few questions it became patently clear that the reason why the sale had failed was that the salesperson had never been treated as an equal by the client and was never really in the running.

Many things had not gone perfectly…

• Prior to the sales presentation the client had refused to answer any questions from the sales team making the presentation.
• The client had only informed the presenters of the time and date of the presentation the day before.
• The presentation was at 9am in the morning 200 miles away from the office of the sales team.
• The client was running late on the day and kept them waiting for half an hour with only a scant apology.
• The client’s team who attended the presentation deliberately refused to make any polite chat, refused to engage like normal human beings, were overtly rude and refused to answer any questions.
• No feedback was given at the time of the presentation and no promise of timely feedback was given.
• The sales team had no idea who they were “competing” against nor the criteria by which they were being judged…

A particularly bad example and I could carry on but I am sure that you have had to deal with many similar situations.

Far too many clients think that the way to conduct sales meetings and presentations is to treat your potential business “partners” as dancing puppets where all they have to do is tweak the string and you do the jig. And far too many sales teams accept this course of affairs as just the way things are or the way that they have to be.

One of my friends works for a well-known organization who set up meeting after meeting for him to attend. At every one, by the time he attends, the client is looking down on him from a great height. It’s a totally one-way process. He performs, they yell to him from the stage wings, “Jump!” and he has little choice other than to scream back, “How high?!” Failure to do so would be unacceptable to his clients and unacceptable to his management team who are the very people who position the meetings so poorly in the first place. His management team think that this is how you do business.

Once you are out of position it is difficult to get back into position. Once you position yourself as less important that your prospects, it is unlikely you will repair the mismatch. Once you devalue your offering, you will struggle to create the value or the relationships that you want and need to build the relationships and the business that you want.

Far too many sales presentations are one-way affairs where sales teams effectively beg for business and prospective clients bestow their deity-like, benevolence on the lucky “winner”.

It doesn’t have to be and it shouldn’t be this way. If you want partnership relationships with clients who believe in you and appreciate the value that you add, if you want to be paid commensurate with the work you do, if you want sustainability, satisfaction and success then you have to get your positioning right and this has to be done right from the start of your relationship.

Getting yourself in position may sometimes prove challenging and it may not always be possible but equally getting out of position is not something that just happens, it is something that you allow to happen!

I talk about this in my sales masterclasses and even run one off seminars from time to time on positioning. It is that important. I even touch on it in my New Rules of Selling seminar which will be taking place in London in November… but you can start to do something about it today by focusing on a few simple things.

Here are 6 to get you started…

1. Define your clients. Who are they? Why do they work with you? How do you add value for them?
2. Position yourself as an expert. Create a brand and a name for yourself that attracts clients to you because of what you can do for them. Clients come to me because of what I do not because I am just another sales speaker.
3. Keep your engines running. Far too many salespeople take their feet off the gas when they have “enough” business and their sales activities career to a grinding halt. Lack of opportunities can create desperation and desperation makes it hard to not start playing the fiddle furiously whenever anyone instructs you to dance a jig.
4. Get familiar with the word, “No”… saying it and hearing it. If you are in the wrong place, with the wrong client or pursuing the wrong opportunity and you cannot do anything about it, “No” can be the most liberating, time saving and sales boosting option.
5. Build huge value. It’s easy for clients to treat salespeople as “all the same” if they are pretty much interchangeable. Whilst technology and transparency may have made products and approaches pretty much interchangeable, your expertise, your personal approach and the value that you deliver is not.
6. Be honest. Many sales and business people have long wooden noses when it comes to not admitting that they are dancing like puppets on a string. Without honesty about your current relationships and your current situation, how can you improve it?

Start now by having a think about the relationships you have, where they’re at, how you can add more value to them and what you need to do to be seen as more equal than your competitors in the future…

Related posts:

1. The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 12, The Final
2. Sales Prospecting Persistence On The Costa Blanca
3. Does Cold Calling Work, 2?

I’ve had one of those weeks…. and it’s only Wednesday. I’m sure you have them sometimes too. Mine actually started 3-4 days ago with a nagging headache that built up and built culminating in projectile vomiting at 3am in the morning on Tuesday morning. In fact, I was still feeling nauseous, shaky and hadn’t slept at 615am and was due to get up in an hour to head down to London to give a sales motivational talk…

Over the years, I have spent tens of thousands of pounds and invested a good proportion of my time into self-development. Some of it has been personal development, some of it sales development and some of it more advanced stuff! I could bore you to death with talk of complex sales linguistics, hypnotic language patterns and the impact of using one word over another but unless you’re in my inner circle of The Ingham Academy it’s unlikely you will hear about these because for most sales and business people that I meet, it’s doing the simple stuff consistently and well that makes the difference and gets results.

Unfortunately, this is where so many people fall down. They fail to do the simple stuff well. They fail to do what they know. And they fail to keep doing the very things that made them successful in the first place.

Maybe this is because they forget. Maybe it’s because they get lazy. Maybe it’s because they get wrapped up in seemingly more important things…

No matter. Fail to do the basics and the basics will fail you. Often spectacularly.

When I speak at sales conferences and people email me or ring me weeks and months later to say that my talk helped them to double or treble their sales, I’d love to say that it’s the advanced sales techniques that I taught them, but, often times, it’s motivating, educating and inspiring them to raise the bar and do the basics with passion and commitment that gives them the sales edge.

People often ask me, what is the difference that makes the difference for successful salespeople? And whilst there are many more complicated answers that I could give, here are three basic sales principles that all salespeople should live by…

1. Have a PSA (Positive Sales Attitude).
2. Do what you say you’re going to do.
3. Give 100% commitment.

So you know, after an hour’s sleep, I’d stopped being physically sick so I got up and I made my way on the three hour plus journey to speak in London… Does this make me a hero? No, of course not. Like you and like every sales and business professional, it’s the simple principles that we live by that determine our destiny.

Related posts:

1. If Selling Is So Simple Why Can’t Everyone Do it?
2. Football, Fantasy & Sales Success
3. How To Destroy Sales Loser Beliefs & Catapult Yourself To Sales Success

It’s week 4 of The Apprentice and so far only boys have been fired. Will another chap go this week or is it time for a girl to be ousted? With just  15 minutes to get up, out of bed and ready for action the teams are asked to meet at The British Museum. Standing near the statue of Aphrodite Lord Alan set them the task of creating their own beauty treatment service and making profit. In one of the most profitable industries this shouldn’t be difficult but as we know, our Apprentices have a God-given gift of making even the glaringly simple complicated…

In tonight’s task the teams get to choose two beauty treatments from eight that they are shown, they are to choose a pitch in Birmingham, give the treatments and make money…

After a quick shuffle of the teams Lord Sugar appointed Zoe and Felicity (remind you of Lucinda Ledgerwood the harp playing, scarf wearer from season 4?) as team leaders; Felicity because he hasn’t seen much of her and Zoe because she’s been playing it safe so far. Lord Sugar’s idea of motivating his team leaders? To tell them what a strong guy he sacked last week and how no-one was safe. Brilliant. Don’t you just want to get your pen out and apply to work with him next year?

Sales motivation tip: As a sales motivational speaker I spend much of my time working with teams and individuals helping them to be more motivated, more focused and more proactive. Sustainable motivation does not come from threats. Motivation comes from helping people to understand what is important to them, ensuring they have the tools to take responsibility for their lives and helping them to employ them on a day to day basis.

The first duty of the night was to decide where to set up shop. In this the teams did not agree, Felicity and team opting to be in the centre of town and Zoe and team electing to site themselves out of town. More importantly was the layout, Felicity’s team only having one treatment room which was a long way from their sales area, Zoe having three more conveniently placed ones.

Second duty of the night was to pick two beauty treatments each from eight selected by Lord Sugar. What were they you ask? Hmmm… please don’t bother telling me if I get these wrong (!)… a chocolate facial, some kind of mummy-like-wrap, hair extensions, discreet male cosmetics, lava shells, a revitalising cold stone pedicure, a spray tan and… something else.

The snag? They have to do the treatments themselves. You know, it always amuses me that in all of Lord Sugar’s tasks people are left selling things that they either can’t do or can’t do very well. It encourages the teams to lie about their products and services and to over-promise and under-deliver. I have a real issue with this…

Sales training tip: A lot of people believe that selling is all about the gift-of-the-gab, the ability to influence, the art of persuasion. Week after week Lord Alan and the BBC pump this message out in this show and it’s very misleading. Selling is not about promising the earth, blagging it, hoping for the best and scraping through by the skin of your teeth. That’s why many companies are in the mess they’re in… they’re not adding enough value.

As a sales professional or busines leader you need to add value. You need to under-promise and over-deliver. You need to have clients who want to work with you again, clients who will refer you, clients who will write you case studies / testimonials, clients who will talk about you, clients who will add to your reputation…

You don’t get this by blagging it.

Rant over…

Both teams wanted the spray tan product recognizing that it would sell well, that it was relatively easy to do and that it was the most profitable. Zoe’s team however were the most enthusiastic when being shown this product and they were given the thumbs up.

Enthusiasm is important when selling. Not puppy-dog enthusiasm, that’s crass but professional enthusiasm. If you were looking for someone to represent your product wouldn’t you want them  be enthusiastic about it?

So Zoe and team were out of the gates with the spray tan and the pedicure and Felicity & Co with the hair extensions and the lava shells. For the first time, we were then told that the teams would also be able to upsell products. Now it may be that this had already been discussed and is lying on the cutting room floor but it’s the first we’d heard about it. It’s something I’d have wanted to have thought about when picking the products as whilst the main profit is in the treatments, a guaranteed upsell means you can ice that winning cake and stick some candles on it. As it happened, the upsell became a downsell but more of that in a moment…

Suzy, who had been shouting her mouth off all night about how this is what she did (beauty) and she knew this market inside out, made some ridiculous predictions for what they would sell. This reminded me of Dragon’s Den when the Dragons ask someone who has never sold anything or run a company what their forecasts are and they stick their finger in the air and say, “Well, we’ll sell £750k in year 1, £2.2 million in year 2 and £5.4 million in year 3.” And when asked why, they reply, “Because I fricking said so Theo.”

Anyway, Suzy stuck her hand up, pulled a rabbit out of thin air and said they would sell 72 units. On being challenged she just gave it the big “I am.”

Sales forecasting is one of the most difficult areas for salespeople, sales managers and business owners alike. As a sales motivational speaker I see many sales directors and business owners who are frustrated by their sales teams missing their “promised” targets. Setting targets and predicting sales is not about what you might sell, what you could sell or how much you ought to sell in the time allotted… it’s about what you are going to sell. Doh!

In Birmingham…

Leon delivered the line of the week. We haven’t had one yet this series but this was a classic to a female member of the public, “We can do two things for you today… we can either get you naked…”

With both teams selling products Zoe’s team were also selling treatments but Felicity’s team just were not selling any. It was not entirely clear whether this was down to poor sales skills, the distraction of the product sales, the distance between the sales arena and the treatment area or goldfish-like amnesia as to why they were there but if they didn’t pull themselves together they were going to get a pasting as all of the profit was in the treatments not in the products. They’re the icing remember but what good is icing without cake? Effectively, what was supposed to be a small upsell was acting as a huge downsell for Felicity’s team.

Realising that her team were not selling any treatments Felicity asked Tom to come down from the morgue-like treatment room to specifically sell treatments. This wasn’t a bad idea but didn’t answer the question as to why the incumbent sales team weren’t already selling them. It also didn’t help that Tom, clearly suffering from some forgetful disease, arrived on the sales floor and promptly started to sell… products!!

Meanwhile on the other team, Suzy was making less progress on sales than a very small snail climbing a very large mountain dragging a heavy loud hailer. Karen Brady was not impressed and pointed out that, “If you set yourself up as something you’re not, you’re in for a great big fall.” Well, that’s pretty much every Apprentice then…

But we needn’t worry because Suzy has the best excuse ever, “No-one has any money around here… everyone seems so poor.” That will be everyone in Birmingham then Suzy?

Sales training tip: Anyone can blame their products, their clients and their market. Anyone can say that their product is too expensive, their clients don’t have enough money and the economy is down the pan. Only sales superstars take responsibility, 100% responsibility for their own sales results and their own success.

Back on team Felicity, she was setting herself up for getting sacked if she lost the task, “It’s a bit of a pickle,” she said by way of explanation as to why they had not made more treatment sales…

Sales Director: “Felicity. Why have we not made more sales today?”
Felicity: “I’m not sure, it’s a bit of a pickle.”
Sales Director: “Oh, ok. Glad you explained that. Carry on.”

Maybe not eh.

At 4pm Felicity and team started to offer free massages to get people upstairs. Too little too late and why none of them picked this up earlier I have no idea.

Sales training and business tip: Many businesses and salespeople that fail do so for one main reason… not enough sales. It doesn’t matter how good you are at everything else, if you cannot sell enough then you’re fired! Devising, implementing, monitoring and managing your sales plan (no matter how simple) is essential if you want to succeed.

In the Boardroom…

“You’ve done your beauty stuff and now you have to deal with the beast,” quipped Lord Sugar vying for best line of the night not knowing that Leon had already stolen this title.

The results…

Zoe and Venture spent £734 and made £937 giving a profit of £203.01.
Felicity and Logic spent £924 and made £677 giving a loss of £246.28.

I sat and waited for the treatment results but there weren’t any. I even rewound the live TV in case I’d missed it. I hadn’t! They’d already been added. What? What? What?

13 people… ALL day… beauty treatments AND products… high footfall sites… and between the two of them… the teams had lost money?

Beyond belief.

As Zoe and team shuffled off to go dancing, Felicity and team headed for The Bridge Café. “I need to be PM so I am not in this position again,” mused Vincent to the camera with the self-assured belief that only an Apprentice can have after such an embarrassing showing…

Back in the Boardroom…

Sir Alan asked Vincent to elaborate on why it was a shambles, Vincent said, “We spent more than we made”, Lord Sugar said he was expecting specifics, Vincent said it was the spray tan loss, Lord Sugar said they lost the plot and sold peripherals and not treatments, Jim said he did not know the treatments were neglected,  Lord Sugar said they did not do a treatment until 330pm in the afternoon and Felicity and Ellie were doing bugger all upstairs, Tom thought they missed the point that the location was bad, Lord Sugar said they were all “unbelievable”, Natasha said there was no sales process in place, Jim tried to claim he saved the day, Nick Hewer shot him down, Lord Sugar lectured them on selling low margin products, Felicity said they over spent “as a team”, Lord Sugar quipped back that “as a team” one of them would be leaving today…

Felicity elected to bring back Ellie… I think for having a Yorkshire accent in a public place… and Natasha, probably for rolling her jacket sleeves up like some Wham reject from the 1980s.

The Final Showdown…

“Do you know why you’re here Ellie?” asked Lord Sugar. “Yer, arm here t’ be yur business pardner.” You got to love us Yorkshire folk. Literal answer to a literal question but not what he meant. She wouldn’t be getting sacked though!

Felicity tried to pin the blame on Ellie but you don’t put a good Yorkshire lass down that easy and Ellie stabbed back. Seeing her chance to keep the pressure on Natasha took the chance to join the assault…

What Lord Alan might have said…

“Felicity, I think you’re talking nonsense. Natasha, you’d say anything to stay here. Ellie, I have no idea what you’re talking about but I’m a bit scared of Northerners. Natasha you need to step up. Felicity you’re fired. Ellie, by ‘eck, if I see you again…”

And it was all over for another week…

Sales training tips of the week: Under-promise and over-deliver. Don’t just say it, don’t just think about it… Do it.

Related posts:

1. The Sales Apprentice 2011: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 3
2. The Sales Apprentice 2011: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week I
3. The Sales Apprentice 2011: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 2

Having the right attitude when selling is critical. If you’re not in the right state of mind then you are unlikely / not going to access your most resourceful behaviours and you are unlikely to get the best result. In selling this could easily mean… not getting the appointment, failing to build rapport, not engaging your client, failing to ask the right questions, dealing badly with an objection, failing to understand your client properly, making a bad sales presentation, closing for commitment half-heartedly, aggressively or not at all…

I could go on however I am sure that we all agree that having the right attitude is a pre-requisite for sales success. There are many ways to motivate yourself and as salespeople we need quick easy interventions for use in the moment as well as more long-term strategies. One easy way for changing your state is to listen to music… in the car, on your ipod or even in  your office. Depending on what sales activity you’re about to undertake and depending on your current mood this could be either to psyche you up or to calm you down

Whether to kick your day off, when driving between meetings or any other time, I thought it would be fun to share some of the pieces of music that we listen to to motivate us.

Don’t be scared, you know you want to! What’s your guilty motivational music pleasure?

Related posts:

1. What Are Your Favourite Sales Questions?
2. My Favourite Personal Development Books