Sales Training Motivational Speaker | Gavin Ingham» Sales presentations

Sales Partner Or Dancing Puppet?

Gavin Ingham — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 14:50:51 +0000

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…

Define your clients. Who are they? Why do they work with you? How do you add value for them?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…

How Not To Sell High Value Products & Services

Gavin Ingham — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:30:08 +0000

At the back end of the year last year I moved house and over the last few months we have been gradually putting our own touches to the house. I don’t have a lot of time (what with speaking at sales conferences and writing sales books and audios) and I don’t do things myself and I am very much of the belief that if I can pay someone to do something and I can get on with my life then that’s great. This makes me something of a salesperson’s dream because if the deal’s right I don’t shop around and I will make a decision fast… and not one based on price either.

Or so I thought…

One of the things we need are some fitted cupboards for one of the bedrooms. It’s not a room we use and it’s not the main visitor’s room so it really is a case of find a good company and get it done. We ideally wanted to support a local company so when we saw a company with signage on one of the local roundabouts we rang them and they offered to send a “salesperson” around.

A few days later Steve, I have changed his name to protect the totally inept and ridiculously incompetent, arrived at the house. He was scruffy, his clothes were tired (jeans, trainers, t-shirt) and he looked a little dirty! He had no interpersonal skills and his sole “sales pitch” was to measure the wall (‘cause you know, I can’t do that) and then tell us to go to the showroom. Every question of any kind was met with the answer, “I dunno. You’ll have to go to the showroom!”

He left.

Now, at this point, I really should have cut my losses but, determined to support a local company and interested in what the showroom sales experience would be like, we did venture there on Saturday. Not a good decision! They had no idea who we were and made no attempt to find out anything about us or tell us anything about the company or their products. They simply quoted a ridiculously high figure and then let us walk out after I pointed this out to them (to which I got no response).

Now I was telling a friend about this this morning and he said, “Well, I thought you said it wasn’t about price, it was about value?” Well, yes, I did and I do and he was right, but there wasn’t any. Value cannot just be assumed because you decide it is so. Value has to be uncovered, value has to be built up, value has to be understood and value has to be about the customer, not you.

So I thought that it would be fun to look at how not to do it, so here follow 7 Rules For How Not To Sell High Value Products & Services.

Pay no attention to your personal appearance, dress and cleanliness.
Build no rapport with your prospects – business, personal or otherwise.
Don’t ask any questions about what is important to your customers.
Don’t bother understanding what your prospects want or need.
Make no attempt to explain what is special, unique or bespoke about your services and products.
Don’t follow up on enquiries and fail to follow any proven sales process.
Let your customers think that you don’t care and you’re not interested.

I’d like to say that I’d give them another try in the future but I doubt they’ll be there. Whoever is in charge of their business needs to do some sales training fast.

Talking about selling on value not price is one thing, doing it is totally another.

The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 12, The Final

Gavin Ingham — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:09:03 +0000

The final of the Apprentice. Cool, professional Kate versus passionate, entrepreneurial Yasmina. Their brief, design and pitch a new brand of chocolate. Sir Alan said they were his best candidates ever and that it was his hardest decision yet. Either could have won. Yasmina did.

So that done (!), I thought I would sum up some of the core sales training lessons from this year’s Sales Apprentice…

On sales motivation and mindset…

Top sales performers perform, they don’t talk about performing. Sales is not about what you say you’re going to deliver. Sales is all about what you actually do deliver.
Sales success is all about action. Success in sales does not come to those who watch the game. Success in sales comes to those who pick up the ball and play their hearts out, right the way to the final whistle.
Maintain your focus because sales superstars are focused. They know what they want. They work out how to get it. And they take action to achieve it.
Sales success is about taking responsibility – responsibility for yourself, your sales activities and your sales results.
Sales success is directly related to effort.

On prospecting…

Know your client, know your client, k-n-o-w your client.
Set objectives for all sales activities and prospecting calls.
Get proactive and get your prospecting done. Procrastination and lethargy are the enemy of successful new business winners.
Get yourself in the right mental state for cold calling. Attitude is your ability to access your skills.
Know where to expend your energy. Working smarter is the route to success.
Know your product. Know your product. Know your product.

On selling…

Under promise and over deliver. Delivering on your promises is essential in any business.
Develop trust and credibility if you want top class client relationships.
Always give 100%. Nothing short of 100% if good enough if you want to be a sales superstar.
When negotiating, sound like you believe in what you’re saying and plan your negotiation tactics and strategies.
Sell on value and not price.
Maximize the impact and effectiveness of your sales activities.
Understand your clients, their markets and their needs. Your sales presentations need to be matched and tailored to suit their wants and needs and not just your own.
Ask better questions. Listen harder. Seek to fully understand your clients.
Know that people buy on emotion and justify with logic.

On presenting…

To make powerful and persuasive sales presentations you need to know your stuff, you need to know what you’re presenting, you need a solid and proven structure.
Know your audience. Know your audience. Know your audience.
Do your preparation and planning.
Have a call to action. People need an incentive and encouragement to buy now.
Practise. Practise. Practise.
Give 100% and be yourself.

On sales leadership…

Watch out for sales terrorists in your business who focus everyone on the negative and undermine your business. In today’s turbulent economy you cannot afford to have negativity like this in your teams.
Utilize the skills of your team effectively. Different people have different strengths and different weaknesses and using these to best advantage is key.
Be approachable and personable so that your team will communicate with you, confide in and support you.
Encourage involvement and participation and create team spirit.
Take responsibility and make decisions.
Judge the reality of a situation not just what you believe it to be.
Learn to delegate. Being a great leader is not about being able to do everything yourself.
Get the right salespeople into your business to build high performance sales teams and get great sales results.

So that’s it for another year. What did you learn and what are you going to do differently to get the sales results that you want?

No related posts.

The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part X

Gavin Ingham — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:29:10 +0000

If you spent tonight watching Manchester United play Barcelona in the Champions League then the good news is that you didn’t miss a lot in the way of sales training and business tips on tonight’s Apprentice. What you did miss however was Sir Alan sacking someone that, based upon your emails to me, many of you had thought would make the final. I agreed with Sir Alan’s decision but more of that later…

Tonight’s task was to select products to sell live on a TV shopping channel. The team that sold the most would win. A task like this is all about picking the right products for your target audience and then selling them effectively. How would they fare?

On team Ignite, Howard volunteered to project manage Lorraine and Kate whilst over on team Empire, Yasmina volunteered to project manage James and Debra. Debra also wanted to be project manager and agreed to Yasmina leading the team somewhat ungraciously, “For me, I am happy to be project manager every week,” she stated. Err, yes Debra, but that’s really not what it’s about though is it?

Both teams split in two to select products which the other members of their team would have to sell on TV the next day. All were treated to “sales presentations” on various products which they could choose from. They may have asked but, if they did, we never heard one question or one comment on target markets and audiences…

Sales training tip: Much as knowing what the products do is important, so is knowing who the audience are and what they buy. Me, I would have spent rather more time asking questions. Who are the audience? What do they like? What do they normally buy? How many did this product sell last time? When was it last on the channel? What have they bought that’s similar? How did they sell? How do the prices compare? How price conscious are they? What compels them to buy now? Etc etc.

Choices were made. Kate selected a hideous leather jacket with silver or gold leaves on and a healthy chip pan for Howard and Lorraine to sell. Howard and Lorraine selected a rather bizarre pet craft kit and a mini electronic, air guitar for Kate to sell.

Over on the other team, James and Yasmina selected a leaf grabbing contraption and a polo-neck, scarf type piece of clothing for Debra to sell and she in turn selected a cheap remote control car and a pack of elasticated hairclips for them.

Notably, James, Yasmina and Debra did not have a product priced over £29.99 whilst Kate, Lorraine and Howard had two approaching £150. Would this make winning hard for Yasmina and her team or would their cheap “pile them high, sell them cheap” approach work?

On the TV…

James was cheesy, “If you’re not first with this, you’ll be last with this”, he quipped, “Stop spying and start buying.” Debra meanwhile looked slick but did claim the line of the week, “This is the answer to the scarf,” she stated confidently. What was the question again Debra?

Over on the other team, Howard and Lorraine looked uncomfortable working together. Selling the chip pan they waxed lyrical about the chips but said little about how to buy the product. Kate looked like she was enjoying herself selling the air guitar, perhaps a little too much.

Sales training tip: Every sales message needs a call to action. People need an incentive and encouragement to buy now. They need to know when to call, why they should call now, the number to call, the numbers that are selling, the number of people hanging on the line etc etc.

In the board room…

Empire had sold £1541.88. Ignite £1376.73.

A win for Yasmina and her team. Apparently Debra had been “exceptional” according to the TV channel representatives. Howard and his team had failed to win despite their higher priced products. Neither the leather jacket nor the fryer had sold to the expectation levels of the channel.

During the conversations that followed it became clear that both Howard and Kate blamed Lorraine. Lorraine thought Howard should go due to being over cautious. In private, Nick vociferously stood up for Lorraine to Sir Alan, “She is so often right.”

In their defence…

Howard said that he is a great communicator and works well in teams. Nick told him that he lacked ambition and is not brave. Lorraine said she has natural business acumen. Sir Alan asked why she wanted to work for him then? Kate said she has been a strong team player. Sir Alan said that one of them is “not going to be very happy.”

“Kate. I think you stepped back in my eyes in this last week. You say you’re not a one trick pony… but you might be… Howard you’re a steady Eddie… Lorraine you speak a good game, your age has got nothing to do with it… I’ve noticed a couple of times that you seem to make your mind up afterwards and I ‘aint got time for people like that either… This is a very difficult decision because you three people have come a long way in this process… Howard, you’re fired.”

An interesting decision and one I agreed with. Howard has never really stepped up. We are one week from the final and he is still a figure in the background. Worse, he has twice been present when bad decisions have been made and has seemingly done and said nothing to contradict the bad decisions being made. But he is a nice guy and eminently enmployable…

Howard in the cab, “I’m gutted. Really gutted…. If Sir Alan thinks I am risk adverse then ok I will take on board the feedback.”

So…

Kate, Lorraine, Debra, Yasmina and James remain to face the wrath of the interviewers from hell next week. Who will survive the ridiculous, unrealistic, un-PC, verbal attacks of Sir Alan’s attack dogs? Who do you want to see in the final?

The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part IX

Gavin Ingham — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:04:38 +0000

Week 9 and this week the apprentices had to select and sell two baby products per team at the Baby Show in Earls Court. The team who sold the most would win and on the losing team, someone would get the sack. Leading Ben, Debra and Yasmina (Empire) this week was James. Leading Howard and Kate (Ignite) was Lorraine.

I’m really not sure who I wanted to lose this week or who I’d like to sack first. Lorraine is singularly annoying, Debra is contrary and aggressive, Ben is puffed up and ego-tastic, James is Tim-Nice-But-Dim… Howard, Kate and Yasmina seem the best of a bad bunch with Kate perhaps my favourite…

Anyway, back to the plot and our teams had 6 hours to visit suppliers, view potential products and make their selection of the products that they wanted to sell the very next day…

In Holland Park, James and Yasmina loooked at a birthing pool. In an attempt to influence their decision the client informed them that they had recently sold £5,000 worth of stock at a similar event over three days. Useful information but why did they not ask this question themselves and why did they not ask any follow on questions?

Sales training tip: Selling is all about asking questions. Selling is all about understanding. Selling is all about asking the right questions to aid understanding for both you and your client. Even when the client offered useful information why did they not ask more questions about where this other event was, how many attendees there were, why the people bought, what the competitive products were etc. I would have even asked them what they knew about the Baby Show and whether they’d been to that show before…

In South London Debra and Ben looked at a protective head cap for toddlers. As they left Ben was dismissive, “I’d want my kid to get cuts and bruises” he said, implying that children these days get molly-coddled. Debra agreed with him. And so do I…

But this has nothing to do with Debra and nothing to do with Ben and nothing to do with me. This is all to do with parents and future parents and, more specifically, the parents and future parents at the Baby Show. Would they make an impulse purchase to protect their child’s skull? Is this something that they would buy? I wouldn’t but I think they probably would.

Sales training tip: When you make assumptions about your prospects and your market based on your own preconceptions and beliefs you run the risk of getting it wrong. This is why planning, preparation and research are a critical part of the sales process.

Next up, Knightsbridge, and Debra and Ben fell in love with a horse. A wooden, rocking horse to be more precise. “We are known as the best rocking horse makers in the world… they sell to kings and queens everywhere”, boasted the rocking horse maker. I couldn’t visualize many kings and queens gracing Earl’s Court with their presence and I’d heard enough to move on but Ben and Debra were enchanted… “if you only sell one”, dreamed Ben.

Yes Ben, IF.

Kate and Howard meanwhile had realized the potential of selling the protective head cap that Debra and Ben had dismissed by playing on FEAR.

Sales training tip: People buy on emotion and justify with logic. Protecting your child is natural for any parent and, particularly, for first parents. At £15.99 this could be an easy sale… whether you agree with it or not

Decision time…

James asked Debra what she had seen that she liked and she said that as long as they got the rocking horses she didn’t care. “What’s your second choice?” he asked and Debra replied, “I wouldn’t choose any of them. I got to be honest, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t put my kid in a cradle, I wouldn’t put high heels on a 6 month old and I probably wouldn’t pick a head guard that they’d pull off.”

James and his team selected the birthing pool and the rocking horses. On the other team Lorraine, Kate and Howard selected a foldable buggy and the head guard.

The show…

Lorraine and her team quickly discovered that there was another company selling the same buggy as them and that they were selling it for £35 cheaper than them too. Oh dear.

Sales training tip: Ask better questions. Most salespeople just do not ask enough questions nor do they ask the right questions. In this case, Lorraine failed to ask the question as to whether anyone else would be exhibiting the product at the show.

Kate and Howard, true team players (!), whispered to each other, “I can’t believe she didn’t ask if anyone else was selling it”, whispered Kate, “Do you know what? If we lose, we’ve got a reason, we’ve got an excuse,” replied Howard. Good to know that they have a plan in place… even if it is their excuses if they fail!

Lorraine, meanwhile, was making a hash of demonstrating the buggy. “She’s making a complete horlicks of it”, commented Nick. Lorraine knew that she could not work the buggy last night and yet she had walked in to the show itself still unable to work it. What is that about? Why did she go to bed before she could take that buggy down and put it back up again blind folded, one-handed and wearing boxing gloves?

Sales training tip: Everyday I see salespeople who know that they have not completed something adequately but who pack up their bags and go home at 530pm anyway. Sales success is directly related to effort. Often, I have worked through the night to complete something important. That’s what important means, worth dedicating time and effort to. Clearly, operating the buggy was important and I would not have slept before I had mastered it.

And then a prospective customer showed Howard, Kate and Lorraine how to operate it. “We just don’t look professional when people ask how do you recline it and then they have to show us. It doesn’t look good”, said Howard implying that Lorraine was at fault. You knew you couldn’t operate it too Howard and you went to bed as well. You could have worked it out yourself you know.

That’s two weeks now that he has claimed innocence whilst seemingly being present whilst bad decisions were made. He does remind me a little of the Jasper Carrot sketch, “Never been involved in an accident… seen thousands”.

Over on the other team, Ben was half-heartedly trying to get people to talk with him about the rocking horses, “Can I interest you in our rocking horses?”, “Would you be interested in our rocking horses?” and “Excuse me, could I interest you in our rocking horses?”

Sales training tip: Closed questions of this kind are not the best kind of question to get people talking to you. It is far too easy for a client to say, “No”… and they all did. Planning and preparing your approach for engaging clients is critical. When you work a show or a stand you need to plan and prepare a strategy for enticing, engaging and converting prospects. You need to know what you need to achieve and how best you can achieve it.

In the board room the results were in…

Empire (Ben, Debra, Yasmina and James) had sold £722.
Ignite (Lorraine, Kate and Howard) had sold £1606.89 (or was it £1666.89?).

Debra was quick to cast blame, “In my mind, if you are a family, you will always have a need for a buggy…” What? She is unbelievable and so contrary. She says one thing one minute then reinvents history and says something else the next. Debra, do you not remember saying that you would be gutted if you did not get the horse?

James was criticized for choosing the birthing pool when only 2% of people have home births (or was that birthing pools?). James took this on the chin but said that they had also spent far too much time championing the rocking horse and far too little selling the birthing pool.

Sales training tip: I don’t know enough about this market to comment on their choices and anything I could say would be based on best guess and not research however… James is right about the strategy. Debra and Ben seemed to be looking for the knock-out punch, the big one, the retirement sale. They (rightly) pointed out that if they could sell one rocking horse they would win.

But they didn’t sell any rocking horses and they didn’t win. Too many salespeople rely on one big deal or one important deal to help them to hit their targets but then when it doesn’t come in, which is frequently, they miss target. They whine about how unlucky they were, how close it was and what would have happened if…

Debra continued to say that there were other options and that she had told James that. No Debra, I wrote it down. You said, “I wouldn’t choose any of them”. She continued about the choice of the birthing pool, “They beat us because they picked a product that everybody needed”… Ah, of course yes, because everybody needs a rocking horse Debra!

James elected, not surprisingly, to bring back Debra and Ben…

Ben claimed that he had shown Sir Alan raw business talent. He said, “I’ve shown you that I can be a compete grafter?” Apparently he can “compete at a world class level” and, did I tell you, he had a “scholarship for Sandhurst”?

But Sir Alan wasn’t having any of it, “It’s a very tough decision and it’s not a nice one for me to be perfectly honest but I feel that the light at the end of the tunnel has gone out quite frankly and I think it’s time Ben for you to leave this process. Ben you’re fired.”

Bye-bye Ben.