Sales Training Motivational Speaker | Gavin Ingham» sales tips

If I Sold Cars I Wouldn’t…

Gavin Ingham — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:27:29 +0000

Yesterday I visited several car showrooms as I am thinking about changing one of the cars. I won’t bore you with the ins and outs of it and it doesn’t matter what makes they were or what companies but they were executive brands / companies and there were 4 of them. It inspired me to have a little rant about a few of things that I wouldn’t do if I sold cars!

If I sold cars I wouldn’t…

Sit comfortably in the showroom whilst potential customers looked at my cars on the forecourt – no matter how cold it was!
Chat with my 3 mates in the “sales” office whilst a customer read brochures and opened car doors in the showroom.
Greet my customer with the words, “So, do you want to buy a car today?”
Fail to offer a nice coffee from the flash coffee machine because it was 25 minutes until home time.
Wander off mid “sale” because I cannot think of anything to ask / say.
Bore my customer to death showing them how to log onto the company website… seriously!
Send my customer into a trance banging on about engine versions (one showroom), the history of the 4-wheel drive car (another showroom) or just waffle.
Fail to build rapport in any meaningful manner (all 4 showrooms).
Fail to ask any pertinent questions (3 showrooms).
Fail to hear the one critical piece of information (“…bad road so we were thinking 4-wheel drive…”).
Push something else (how good the 2-wheel drive version is) because I didn’t hear the critical information.
Not ask / be uninterested in the customers’ circumstances (in one garage the guy looked bored every time I said more than 4 words).
Fail to take interested customer details (all 4 showrooms).
Fail to give ANY literature out or anything to take away (all 4 showrooms).
Not make a sale, build a relationship or have any way of following up (all 4 showrooms).
Sit around moaning about the state of the market (probably all 4 showrooms).

These are just some of the things that I wouldn’t do if I sold cars…

Has Selling Changed? Is It Time For Out With The Old & In With The New?

Gavin Ingham — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:43:23 +0000

A lot of people over the last few weeks have been talking about “the best ways” to locate new customers and clients. A lot of people think that the strategies required have changed and that many of the old strategies don’t work anymore.

Out with the old, in with the new?

Not really. I agree that there are many “new ways” of reaching prospects and customers…

I have a LinkedIn account and a LinkedIn group (Sales Psychology & Performance if you want to have a look). I have a Youtube channel, I Twitter, I have a sales training blog and was blogging well before most other’s in the market place. I have numerous other social media profiles which I don’t use as much and I am also looking at the newest trends all of the time. I love to use the new ways and embrace change…

However, I think there is a real danger of throwing out what was and is still good about the old in chasing the new with comments like this one that someone made on one of my groups the other day when talking about traditional sales methods in particular prospecting…

“…you’ll be missing the 90%+ of the market that don’t buy like that…”

I am always suspicious of statistics but that one just looks wrong to me. To start with, if I only look at my own stats, I can see that my business comes from multiple sources. It does not just come from cold calling, or from blogging, or from videos, or from article marketing, or from networking, or from referrals, or from sales meetings…

In fact, most of my clients and prospects travel through multiple touch points before buying i.e. “Well I saw you on a video programme where you were a guest expert, then I read one of your articles in a (traditional print) magazine, then someone said something about you at a networking event. I always thought I might book you for my team but then I changed roles and someone sent me a copy of your newsletter and so I came to one of your seminars and then I thought “Wow!” I need this guy for my next sales conference.”

Furthermore, it is indeed amazing how much of it still comes from traditional sources… speaking, referrals (proactive and reactive), word of mouth, recommendations, networking, traditional sales… with a kicker that most have read my blog after they found me, or watched my Youtube videos or checked me out on LinkedIn etc.

There are some markets where many sales are made using totally new ways of selling and there are some where no-one is buying this way. I am constantly amazed by how many of my paying clients do not have video enabled on their PCs, do not use Twitter and have failed to respond to invites to any of my online groups or communities.

The only “new way” they respond to is my email newsletter (permission based but the only one that interrupts them) and then they won’t post a blog answer on my website, they prefer to email me their thoughts and questions instead.

The new way of selling is here. The new way of making contacts and differentiating yourself from the market is here but it is not about new methodologies…

The new way of selling is about adding value for your clients. The new way is about better engaging your clients. The new way is about caring about your clients and their businesses. The new way is about focusing on your clients and not on you. And if you can use new media to do this, that’s great.

But the new way of selling is not about activity, it is about mindset. Selling is an attitude that leaves behind a trail of techniques.

It is misleading to assume then that the old methods do not work anymore. When you apply the new mindset to them they work incredibly well but too few people (know how to) do this and therefore fail miserably.

After my cold calling seminar of last week, someone Twittered the next day to say they had already set up 4 meetings. After my cold calling seminar of Tuesday this week, someone already emailed me to say they would never have thought that they would be the person emailing me at all let alone saying that they had set up 5 appointments the very next day.

The old ways still work when you use the new mindset and new technologies to pimp them up.

It is also worth noting that many people using the new technologies do not have the new mindset and are just spamming anyway. The vast majority of comments and discussions posted in my communities are by people who ought to know better saying “go look at my seminar” or “see this article I wrote and spammed across every group”. They are no better than old school, bad, cold callers and I believe will be looked upon as the same in time. They add no value to their groups, no value to their communities, no value to their readers and this approach will not work long term.
Someone said to me the other day that I am the only person who consistently gives away stuff of value. This is clearly not true and I could name others who do too but it says a lot about the state of how people perceive the way people are using these new mediums.

People are unsubscribing from social media. People are clicking off from newsletters. People do not have the time to take part in discussions a lot of the time. I only need to look at the number of people who ring me and speak to me about booking me for a conference and who then fail to respond to emails. When I pick the phone up to them they invariably say, “I meant to call you,” and then book me.

And if every person out there started blogging, Twittering, Facebooking and videoing, firstly, many would just be no good at it and, secondly, no-one would be able to find anything worthwhile through the white noise…

So...

The expectation of salespeople has to change. The approaches you take have to change. The mindset you have has to change.

We have to add value. We have to utilise multiple routes to market. We have to employ new strategies, old strategies and hybrid strategies.

We have to use what works.

It’s not out with the old in with the new. It’s embrace the new, pimp up the old and mash up the lot to come up with a viable approach that connects and adds value for your clients. And this should include whatever strategies, old or new, that work best for you.

Sales Leadership, Are You A Duck Or A Goose?

Gavin Ingham — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 22:16:03 +0000

Over the last week I have been making the most of the glorious sunshine and have had trips to the Yorkshire Dales (beautiful weather) and the Lake District (raining as per usual!). I’ve also been out jogging along the canal near my home and although I run along it all year, perhaps the beautiful weather has caused me to pay more attention to my surroundings than normal.

Something I have been watching with interest are the ducks and the geese and their “management” of their young. It’s pretty interesting…

The ducks seem to have lots of ducklings, often into double figures. Being in a family of ducks is a pretty chaotic business. Even when the ducklings are teeny-tiny little balls of fluff, they seem to be expected to fend for themselves. It really is sink or swim. Mum and Dad duck just swim off and do their own thing and the ducklings straggle out all over the canal. For Mum and Dad, the responsibility often seems too much and the ducklings fall by the wayside, get into trouble and get lost.

When a duckling gets lost they cry plaintively and if they work out where Mum and Dad are they have to paddle like crazy to catch up. And if they can’t, tough luck! It’s sad watching their numbers dwindle and wondering what happened to all of those beautiful, hopeful, balls of life and energy? One pair of ducks even left entirely and the whole brood died. But hey, they had another brood so who cares?

Geese on the other hand seem to be pretty devoted parents. They have far fewer goslings and several along the canal only had two or three. When you see them swimming along the canal Mum (well I like to think its Mum anyway) swims at the front with the goslings close up behind her and Dad (?) swims conscientiously behind to check that no-one gets lost, injured or eaten!

When a gosling goes adrift, they are quickly helped back into line with a few squeaky noises which I guess are word of advice, encouragement and mentoring on how to survive and thrive. And this carries on until the goslings are quite big and well capable of looking after themselves.

Now you might be wandering what I am banging on about ducks and geese for and you may even think that I have lost my marbles and had too much sun? Or maybe you already made the connection?

Are you a duck or a goose?

Do you hire sales staff all coming to work hopeful and fresh only to see them fall by the wayside over the coming weeks and months until too few are left? Or do you support your teams, nurture them and help them to succeed?

Do you believe that hiring sales staff is a lottery so there’s no point spending too much time on them until they prove that they’re strong swimmers? Or do you ensure that they are given all of the help, guidance and back-up that they need?

Your approach in this will make a huge difference to your staff, your customers, your business and your success.

3 Simple Sales Tips For Sales Success

Gavin Ingham — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:27:27 +0000

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…

Have a PSA (Positive Sales Attitude).
Do what you say you’re going to do.
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.

Isn’t Under-Promising Going To Cost Me The Deal?

Gavin Ingham — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:29:05 +0000

On my recent Sales Apprentice blog, I was asked the following question (see below). I get asked quite a lot of questions via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and of course my success blog and it would take up all of my time to answer all of them however I do try and utilise the themes for later blog posts.

Some however are best picked up separately and this I felt was one of them as it is a question that I get asked in one form or another quite a lot when I am speaking at conferences or talking with clients…

Long time reader of these blogs but first time posting. I’m a big fan of the Apprentice, although I think the programme’s claims that the contestants rank among the ‘best business brains in Britain’ is a little far-fetched! That said, it’s one of the only shows that I and my better half can watch together (Desperate Housewives doesn’t do it for me, nor is Top Gear or Match of the Day really her cup of tea!).

My question to you, based on the above blog, is this. ‘Under-promise and over-deliver’ is often cited as one of the key strategies of successful salespeople, and in theory it makes perfect sense. However, when selling in a highly competitive marketplace (recruitment for me, although I think this applies to any competitive, non-commodity based selling) I can’t help but feel that by under-promising there is plenty of potential for a salesperson to lose out by appearing to fail to offer the same quality of service that the competition are offering. Agreed, those competitors are probably over-egging their ability, but how is the client to know this? Surely if one person is saying to a prospect ‘I can deliver this with bells on’ and the other is saying ‘I can probably deliver but I can’t guarantee anything at this stage,’ the client is more likely to go with what looks, on the face of it, to be a safe bet.

Thanks for taking the time to ask this question. I would totally agree with you about the claims made on The Apprentice (and in real life). The programme really should come with one of those fast, low-talking, legal messages like they have on the finance ads, “Warning! All claims made by Apprentii may or may not be true. Viewers may be disappointed by candidates’ inability to follow through on any of their plans.”

As an aside, I understand the frustration of looking for joint programmes. In our house Desperate Housewives vs Match of the Day sit firmly on opposite sides of the fence and The Apprentice is a safe bet. We also like legal stuff and quite enojoyed Silk recently…

Regarding your question, and it’s a good one…

I understand your fear about the “under-promise, over-deliver” mantra. And your fear about losing the deal to someone promising the earth. Leaving aside the fact that if a company constantly promises the earth and fails to deliver they will create a poor repuatation and consequently will lose business in the long term, we also have to consider the fact that companies are sick and tired of hearing bragging, boasting salespeople.

It’s not what we say that makes the sale, it’s the sales process and the sales conversation.

‘I can deliver this with bells on’ vs. ‘I can probably deliver but I can’t guarantee anything at this stage.’

Under-promising and over-delivering is a way of living it is not a line! If you constantly deliver more than you promised then your clients will become raving fans. But all of this takes time and commitment and needs to be attached to the right sales approach. It needs to be attached to the right conversations. It needs to be attached to the right relationships.

Most clients start from a place of thinking that salespeople are going to add little to no value to the sales process. They start from a place where they believe salespeople will get in and close the deal, saying anything to secure the commission to fund their next BMW or their caffeine habit. For this reason, they pay little attention to your claims or your details and therefore postitive “exaggeration” as you put it can sometimes seem more useful than simple honesty.

But this need not and should not be the case.

The best salespeople come from an ethos of wanting to help. They come from a land of “how can I add value?” They hail from a hometown of openness and honesty.

This is not a matter of using one line or another, it is a powerful philosophy and a way of being. Sales superstars genuinely don’t focus on the individual deal because they know that they add value and they know that they will form powerful relationships with the right clients. And they do enough prospecting / marketing / awareness / adding value that they always have opportunities.

So under-promising starts with mindset and genuninely caring about your client or prospect. It follows through with understanding why someone would buy not convincing them to buy. And it continues by knowing your market, knowing how you add value, working hard and never pushing people to buy when it’s not right.

When you have lowered the barriers to communication normally present in the sale and your prospect trusts you, they will respect your your honesty and connect with you to work out together whether or not you should do business now or in the future…