Selling to Consumers | Sales Training Blog by Skip Anderson

When Selling, do You Make Ear Contact?

Everyone knows how important it is to make eye contact when selling face-to-face. Eyes, being the windows to the soul and all, are a powerful vehicle to connect with another human being. Since prospects are human beings, this works out to everybody's advantage.

But equally important as eye contact is ear contact. If eyes are the windows to the soul, than ears are the heartbeat of the soul.

Do you sell using your ears as much as your eyes? Are your ears a finely tuned instrument? Does listening play as important a role in your interactions with your prospects and customers as your eyesight? And your voice?

The next time you are interacting with a prospect in a face-to-face selling situation, pay attention to how well you use your hearing, listening for nuance in communication, listening for meanings rather than just words, and listening for unique speech patterns and your prospect's choices of words. All of the data your ears pick up can be used to better understand your prospect and his needs and buying requirements. And the next time you're speaking with your prospect on the phone, shut your eyes to shut of visual stimulation (or distraction) so you can zero in on the clues being presented to you aurally.

Eyes aren't overrated. But ears are underated in selling. What better way is there to engage your customers than by actually listening to them?

 

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by leveraging the buying potential of every prospect and shopper.

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Try Something New For a Change

After a while, the ebb and flow of our days becomes second nature to us and we are no longer fully aware of what we do or don't do during a customer interaction. Just like most human beings, salespeople become creatures of habit.

Habits can be good, like when we see a red light and automatically ease our foot on the brake. Or, they can be bad, like when we finish our customers' sentences for them because we already know what they're going to say. To keep yourself, your selling, and your perspective healthy, it's beneficial to shake things up once in a while. But because we're creatures of habit, we have to consciously seek new, different, and fresh ways of doing things.

When's the last time you checked in with a prospect or customer on the phone and said something fresh? Or interesting? Or do you always say the same thing, such as "I just wanted to check in with you after your visit to our showroom to see if you had any questions or to see if I could help in any way." Blah, blah, blah.

How am I supposed to feel good about dealing with you, Mr. Salesperson, when you don't help me along a little bit? I've been greeted a thousand times in a thousand retail stores in the same way. How interesting is that? I want to be surprised, delighted, intrigued, entertained. Show me something different. Or show the same old thing in a different way. Speak to me in a new language or with a new voice or from a different lectern.

Prospects and shoppers are bombarded with messages, most of it being meaningless drivel. What if, for just a day, you helped your prospects sort through the drivel and acted as a filter for them, instead of adding to the din. What if you were the protector from the drivel, instead of a contributor to it?

Set asude your brochures and your Powerpoints for a day. Really listen to your customers. Really notice what words are coming out of your mouth. Take note of your body language, your posture, your facial expressions. Today is a new day in the universe. Shouldn't we treat it like one?

  

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by leveraging the buying potential of every prospect and shopper.

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Deciding: The Salesperson's Very First Step In Selling

A few minutes ago, I decided to take a break from what I was doing at my desk. I consciously told my body to move my chair back away from my desk, then I told my legs and arms to lift me out of my chair, and then I told my legs to transport me to the restroom.

Notice the word "decided" in the first sentence above. None of us will ever take a break from what we're doing at our desk unless we decide to do it first. The precursor to movement away from a desk is a decision made in our mind. In fact, it has to be made in our mind before we can execute the movement.

Successful selling is no different. 

> We can decide to be successful or we can decide to be unsuccessful (we can also decide to be tentative, to not put in too much effort, to wait and see what happens, etc. - each will bring a different result).

> We can decide to craft an effective presentation or we can decide to wing in (which may feel good to us, but will probably result in less success).

> We can decide to improve our sales closing skills or we can keep doing what we're doing ( in which case we will almost certainly get the same result)s.

> We can decide to become a better manager by improving communications with our staff, or we can blame our staff for not getting it (a sure-fire way to lose your staff, or at least its loyalty).

> We can decide to role-play a challenging part of our sales process or we can wait to see if it comes together over time (I don't want my surgeon seeing if his skills come together over time).

> We can decide to talk to our manager about an issue that concerns us or we can decide to not do that and instead gossip about it to anybody who will listen (thereby reducing the chance that something will be done about the issue).

Life is series of decisions, the results of which will show success or failure or something in between. Becoming either a top-tier salesperson or a short-lived one is also determined by our decisions - many of them - both big and small.

What decisions, big and small, do you need to make today?

 

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by leveraging the buying potential of every prospect and shopper.

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Sales Success: It's All in Your Head

When I was losing weight, I would sometimes convince myself that my plan to lose weight would allow me to have a couple chocolate truffles here and a few doughnuts there. Intellectually, I know that chocolate truffles and doughnuts are not foods that are known for their nutritional value or for their ability to create weight loss. 

Yet, I somehow convinced myself that "just this once" was okay, even if "just this once" happened several times per week, and even if it didn't include truffles or doughnuts but instead included french fries or pork ribs. Although the weight I was carrying was in my body, it was allowed to stay there (and grow) because of what was in my head. 

As it turns out, I wouldn't lose weight in my body until I took responsibility for what was in my head. Crazy thinking leads to crazy behavior.

Selling can be like that, too. 

We know that there is a path to success in sales. We've learned this path either from others in our company (colleagues, mentors) or from our salespeople parents, or from books we've read, educational seminars we've been to, from our sales manager, or from our experience. Yet, our crazy thinking creeps up on us, and we start to believe we can take shortcuts, yet achieve the same level of success.

So we don't upsell, or make the number of calls we're supposed to make. We don't follow the sales script or follow all the steps as defined in our sales manual. We talk about features but leave out the benefits. We convince ourselves our prospects don't want to hear what we have to say, or won't accept the price increase the company has just announced.

So our crazy sales thinking sabotages our real world sales success. We become our own worst enemy instead of being our own best supporter and cheerleader. We move backward instead of forward.

Your head will tell you...

... whether to greet the next prospect in your store or office with sincere gusto or with dreadful monotony.

... whether you'll be able to sell your widgets at $1150 instead of the old price of $1000.

... whether to practice a sales script until you know it or dismiss it as unnecessary or unimportant.

... whether to work until 5:00 on Friday afternoon or sneak out at 2:00 (haven't you already done that the last seven Fridays?)

... whether to put in the little bit of extra effort to do this or that instead of choosing the easy way.

... whether your prospect is a prospect or isn't a prospect (because it doesn't look like they can't afford your product or service, or they don't look like your typical customer.

... whether you learn or get stale, whether you energize yourself or bore yourself, whether you reach for the stars or don't bother reaching at all.

Sales success: It's all in your head. And whatever is in there will determine how successful you become. 

  

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by leveraging the buying potential of every prospect and shopper.

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Get This Bad Song Out of My Head!

I've had a terrible song in my head this past week. As far as I know, this song only exists in my head. Apparently, it's a tune my subconscious mind created, perhaps out of boredom, or perhaps as a payback to my conscious mind for something bad it did to my subconscious mind at one time.

It's a really bad tune. It's not a song that I've ever heard or ever would want to hear. Yet, I catch myself humming it and thinking about it throughout the day...over and over again, and then I do it again the next day. This song has been consuming my mind this past week.

Clearly, I need psychological help. Or perhaps a psychiatric intervention.

Having a bad song stuck in your head is very similar to the negative self-talk that can help to ruin a salesperson's career. Constant negative thoughts, fear of failure, and persistent doubting takes it's toll on a salesperson's psyche, similar to how it might affect an athlete. Nothing good ever becomes of these harmful thoughts taking over a sales professional's mind. 

Where a salesperson's thoughts go his behaviors will follow. This can work to his advantage or his disadvantage.

Negative thinking requires speedy intervention. Replace negative thoughts with positive ones. As silly as it may sound to some, personal affirmations can serve to remove the negativity by replacing it with nurturing, positive nourishment for the salesperson's mind.

Sorry to cut this short, but I've got to run now. I'm going to put my earbuds in my ears and rev up my iPod to play some of my favorite music in hopes it will crowd out the really bad song in my head. I'm hoping this works. If it doesn't, I'll be writing my next blog post from my friendly neighborhood psychiatric hospital.

Here's to positive thinking. And good mental health.

 

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment.Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by leveraging the buying potential of every prospect and shopper.

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Knowing What to Do vs. Doing It: Successful Selling Requires Knowledge AND Action

As a long time sales manager and corporate sales trainer, and in the last six years as a business consultant and sales trainer for hire, I've worked with thousands of people who either want to improve their sales or whose boss wants them to improve their sales. What I offer is knowledge: how to sell, how to sell more, how to sell more efficiently, how to make more money selling...I'm lucky to have a lot of sales knowledge. And I'm lucky to be able to be paid well for sharing it with others.

I offer this knowledge in my writing, in my webinars and seminars, in my public speaking engagements, and through business consulting and sales coaching.I want salespeople, sales managers, and sales executives to have this knowledge.

So I share this knowledge with my clients and my audiences, and even in this blog. But I can't make people take action on it. Knowledge is one thing, but salespeople who want to excel must take action on that knowledge. Successful selling requires sales behaviors that yield the desired results. When sales knowledge and sales action walk hand-in-hand, success reigns!

Sales actions (behaviors) are determined by both knowledge and self-talk. Once knowledge is present, the salesperson's self-talk can either lift a salesperson to a new level of sales achievement or can act as a limiter of career and income growth.

So to all you salespeople out there: Gain knowledge! Take action!

> Read [books - blogs - articles]

> Listen [podcasts - speeches - manager - sales veterans]

> Participate [webinars - seminars - conferences - classes]

> Observe [other salespeople - yourself -customers] 

> Analyze [others - yourself - behaviors - strategy]

> Seek [mentoring - coaching - help - inspiration]

> Act  [do - move - call - write - do]

> Reach [beyond - farther - deeper]

> Commit [to yourself - to your employer - to your prospects and customers - to your career]

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment.Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by leveraging the buying potential of every prospect and shopper.

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It's Fearless Friday!

It's the last day of April 2010, and I hereby proclaim today a Fearless Friday.

What is Fearless Friday? Well, you'll have to decide for yourself, because that's part of being fearless today. But here's what Fearless Friday could mean:

> Today, you go after finding prospects with renewed energy and with reckless abandon, putting your fears aside. Today, you are not tentative, you are fearless.

> Instead of offering one add-on sale to your customers, you offer a second one. Or, since it's Fearless Friday, you offer a third one.

> You commit to putting your fears, whatever they are, aside for one day in the name of selling more.

> You stand taller today than you usually do. You put your shoulders back a bit. You make yourself feel fearless today.

> You march into your manager's office and say this: "I don't always act like it, but I love my job. And I want to move up in this company. How can we make that happen?"

> You pick up the phone and call the prospect you should have called a week ago or a month ago or a year ago, but "never got around to it." There's an important call you have to make but haven't done it yet. Make it today.

> You quit being tentative in your selling today. Today, you forge a new path of confidence and you assume the sale for once and for all. You don't use tentative language today. You don't dance around difficult issues. Today, on Fearless Friday, you meet them head on. Today, you are the victor over the doubts that have plagued you.

> You finally follow the recommendations of your manager. You've resisted. You've complained. You've made excuses and rationalized why you can't or won't do this or that. Today, you do it. Man up, boys and girls.

> Today, you finally eat a healthy lunch. You've been saying you need to for months. But today, you don't eat at Taco Bell or McDonald's, today you have a salad or a bagel with turkey and some veggies (no mayo, no cream cheese, no sauces). Today you are fearless against your cravings for unhealthy food.

> You look your prospects in the eye today. You notice the color of her eyes. You notice the shape of them. You peer into her eyes with a new sense of purpose and a zest for understanding the person living with those eyes. Eyes are the windows to the soul, as they say, and today, you see souls that have existed all along, but you never took time to look deeply at them.

> Today you don't fidget when a shopper gives you an objection. Today, you stand with both feet planted on the ground. You don't shift your weight left and right. You don't umm and ahh. You speak with confidence and maturity. You are fearless today.

> Today you realize that your fast talking is a defense mechanism you've used to avoid rejection or avoid to discuss sensitive issues. But on Fearless Friday, you slow down. You speak each sentence as if it mattered. No more blah-blah-blah. Today, you matter. And the person you're talking to matters.

> You spend more time with your prospects. You've been cutting them short because you're in a hurry. You've got to do this or got to do that. Today, the prospects matter. You've been cheating them. No more. Not today.

> You take the sales class or read the sales book you've been thinking about. You invest in yourself today. You hire that sales trainer to come into your company and, for once and for all, get your sales peeps selling like you know they can.

> You make that difficult decision today. You know, that one that's been floating around in your mind for all these days or weeks or months. The one that's been screwing up your psyche and holding you back. Maybe it's fear that's holding you back, maybe it's lack of action. Today, the fear is gone. Action is inevitable today.

> You thank that individual that you've thanked so often in your mind while in the shower, while in the car or on the bus on the way to work. You've thought about it for months. Today, you pick up the phone.

> Today you commit to selling excellence for the month of May. You've been cutting corners. You know it and I know it. May is the fifth month of the year two thousand and ten. Make May count. You don't know if there will be a June or a July. All we have is right now. Make now count.

> You will lead today. Not in title, but in actuality. You will tell that negative attitude person in the breakroom to stop it. You've bring positivity to your life and to others today. You will stand up and take a stand today.

> You will fearlessly feel joy today. You've been stressed, distracted, lazy...but today, you feel joy, and others will see it on your face today. And it only happened because you decided to make it so. Your mind and spirit is a beautiful thing today.

> You will prevent a cancellation of an order today. Yes, it's potentially uncomfortable for the customer, and for you, but today, you are going to put your persuasion skills on the line and you will stop a cancellation. No pussy-footing around.

> Today you break beyond the self-imposed barriers of self-doubt. Today, you have self-imposed self-belief.

> Your smile is bigger today. Let it envelope your customers with its sincerity and it's unbridled optimism.

> Today, you shake hands with people like you mean it. You are happy to have an opportunity to interact with customer, with a prospect, with a tire kicker. You hold your handshake just a split second longer than you normally would. And you look the recipient of your handshake directly in the eye while you do it. Smile. Mean it.

> You go visit that person in person who could help you or your business get to the next level. You know who it is. Introduce yourself. Tell him/her what you have in mind. Put yourself out there. Be fearless.

> Today, you embrace failure. And in doing so, you are embracing success. The failures of the past lead to success today.

> Today you don't just present your product or service. Today, you are an orator. You speak with clarity and power. Your impact stuns your prospects today. Your voice is an instrument of success today.

> You get rid of the clutter today. You know, that clutter that's been the wrench in the finally tuned machine that is you? It might be the clutter on your desk, in your drawers, in your locker, in your bag, in your head. Today, the clutter is dealt with - and you have renewed focus because of it.

> You ask for the sale today.

> Today, you work harder. You work smarter. You work more creatively. You don't walk, you leap. Your mind is on steroids. Your actions are purposeful. You are an improved you today.

What's been holding you back? What do you need to be fearless about today on Fearless Friday?

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment.Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by realizing the buying potential of every prospect.

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Do Steroids Help Salespeople Sell More?

Steroids have been in the news this past week with Mark McGwire's admission that he used steroids while playing Major League Baseball in his interview with Bob Costas on the MLB network.

Athletes can use anabolic steroids when they want to bulk up or use other performance-enhancing drugs to build strength or endurance (even though use can lead to breast formation in males, shrunken testicles, and aggressiveness, just to name a few). Professional athletics seem to have a double standard: their public face says performance enhancing chemicals are bad and shouldn't be allowed in professional athletics, yet their use continues in the dark shadows of the world of sports.

But steroids won't help salespeople sell more. The salesperson's steroids are knowledge: Knowing how to do this things called selling, how to do it well, how to keep doing it, and how to do it better and better each month. 

There are no shortcuts in selling. Only knowledge that changes selling behaviors to sell more, and to sell more more efficiently and profitably.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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Humble Confidence

The manager, business owner, or salesperson who possesses humility allows engagement with other people (employees, partners, vendors, customers, prospects, suspects, etc.). They are accessible and present. They are not toxic. They are thankful for their riches and often flexible with others. The ego is successfully managed.

Add confidence to all that humility and you have an individual who is certain he will successfully handle the management issues with which he is faced, or the customer issues he will encounter. He is able to deal successfully with people of all types, change prospects into customers, move the business forward, and solve problems that need to be solved. Confidence instills confidence in others, so the humble and confident business person inspires those around him. He often takes a leadership role even when it is not a formal one.

Who do you know who possesses humble confidence? How have these traits helped their business? Their sales?

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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Only 2 Years to Meet Your Sales Goals! The World is Ending!

 
So Hollywood tells us that the world is going to end in 2012. Yikes! That means we only have a couple years to meet our sales and career goals! Better hurry...

> Ask for help. If you need to find prospects as part of your selling job, start beating the bushes like you've never beat them before. Get out there. Time is of the essence!

> Learn how to close sales quicker than you used to. Whenever possible, accelerate the speed of the sales cycle for your prospects. Hurry up now...

> Do more of what you do well. If you sell well on weekends, work every weekend. If you sell well immediately after you get a haircut, get more haircuts. If you sell well after you work out, start working out every day. You get the idea.

> Don't waste your time. Some salespeople waste 80% or more of their time on unimportant non-selling activities. Stop doing that. Please.

> Clean up your act. If you're on the fringe of being a sales professional, clean yourself up and join the profession of selling instead of the dark underbelly of sales. Use unsavory business practices? Stop. Need a shave? Ditto. Sleeping with your prospects? Not anymore. After all, there's only two years left to sell. Sleep on your own time.

> Be remarkable. Perhaps for the first time in your life, become a remarkable salesperson. Do what it takes to cross the threshold of remarkability. 

What can you recommend to your fellow sales peeps to maximize their sales by 2012? Let our readers know! Post a comment!

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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Free eBook: "27 Can-Do Steps to Sell More in Tough Economic Times"

My new eBook is 33 pages and it's absolutely free. Download it here at free sales ebook.

And please email this link to your colleagues and friends so they can download it, too:

http://sellingtoconsumers.com/27_can_do_steps_to_sell_more.htm

 

Don't Let Sales Skills Atrophy

If we don't exercise, our bodies deteriorate. Muscles atrophy without constant use. If we don't use our brain power, our brain power goes away. If we don't maintain our automobiles and our homes, they begin to decay.

Without attention, sales skills deteriorate, too. "Going through the motions"f doesn't maintain or improve sales skills. But self-analysis, role-playing, discussion with mentors, coaches, and coworkers grows sales skills.

When we force ourselves to be mindful about our selling, we position ourselves for self-improvement.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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What Are Your Sales Strengths?

As a salesperson, what are you good at?

Is it something broad, like "retail selling" or "telesales?" Or is it something specific, such as "Getting customers to see the investment potential in our ABC mutual fund," or "Adding lamps to the order whenever I sell a sofa." Whatever it is, celebrate your sales strengths.

What I sometimes see are salespeople who don't take full advantage of their existing sales strengths. In an effort to be more balanced, (or to respond to pressure from management), they seek to moderate their outcomes by focusing on areas of weakness, and in doing so, they lessen their success in their areas of strength.

I want to suggest that you start using your strengths like nobody on the face of the earth can do what you do. If you're great at selling lamps whenever a customer buys a sofa, why not try selling two lamps instead of just one, or three instead of two? You've already discovered you're good at selling lamps as an add-on sale, so take that ball and run with it.

Or maybe you can expand your strength into selling lamps along with beds, too. Whenever you have a bed customer, there should be two lamps on the delivery truck with that customer's name on them.

And if you're tops in your organization at getting prospects to see the potential in your "ABC" mutual fund, perhaps you can also have the same effect when you propose your the "DEF" fund to a slightly different customer with slightly different needs.

Some people are only vaguely aware of their strengths, or not aware of them at all. Start by clearly identifying your sales strengths. Ask your manager, your coworkers, your boyfriend, your customers...ask whoever would know what your strengths are. Don't settle for vague or general answers. Drill down to specifics.

As your understanding of your strengths grows, identify opportunities to use those strengths in an even more significant way. Out of this process can grow new opportunities for rising sales.

Next, look for ways to use your strengths in new, fresh, unexpected, or expanded ways. When you do that, you have even more opportunity for sales growth.

What are your sales strengths? Tell the world by clicking "comments" below...

If you like this post (or don't) please click on "comments" below and share your comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, in the financial, real estate, and insurance markets, and other consumer-selling industries.

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Don't Worry About H1N1 - NAS is More Dangerous

Forget about H1N1. Here's the real affliction making the rounds in the sales profession: Negative Assumption Syndrome (NAS). NAS is the real [career] killer.

Salespeople can be their own worst enemies! I see it often. Salespeople decide for their prospects if they're going to buy. Then, once the salesperson makes this decision, he acts in congruence with that decision.

As of this date, there is no vaccination for Negative Assumption Syndrome. But there is a remedy:

Let the prospect decide if they're not going to buy - Don't do it for them.

Unfortunately, many salespeople don't use the remedy. Just like an expired bottle of pills wasting away in the back of the medicine cabinet, salespeople know they should assume the sale, but they forget. Instead, they exhibit NAS, like these salespeople:

- The rug salesperson who said to his coworker, "I know they're not going to buy...they said they were looking online for rugs...I'll bet they'll buy online."

- The real estate agent who - while driving to his open house - "The weather's too darned nice today...nobody's going to be out looking at houses today."

- The interior designer who says "I know you have to talk to your husband, so show him my plans and then let me know what you guys decide."

- The fitness club sales rep who thinks, "She can't buy a membership...she's got three kids! I only have two kids and I couldn't afford it if I didn't work here."

- The department store salesperson who never offers credit accounts because he says "Anybody who wants a credit card already has one."

- The furniture store sales representative who shows the cheapest recliner first, instead of showing the premium product first because "the economy sucks."

- The door-to-door salesperson who skips a house because "their bad siding tells me they can't afford a security system."

- The optical store rep who doesn't try to add on sunglasses because "times are tight and people can't afford two pairs of glasses these days."

You cannot predict the future. So don't waste time on dire predictions.

If you're going to make assumptions, then make assumptions that you ARE going to be successful, that your prospects ARE going to buy, that you WILL find a way to make it through challenges, that your hard work and sales skill CAN and WILL take you to new heights, that you MUST improve, and that you DESERVE to rise to the top.

Wherever your mind goes, your behavior follows, so select your assumptions carefully.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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2 Reasons Salespeople Fail at Effectively Handling Customer Objections

The biggest reason salespeople fail at handling objections from their customers is that they don't know what to say or do when they hear an objection, so they talk.

This is primarily a sales training issue, of course, but once trained, it becomes a sales management and coaching issue. Salespeople need to be reminded (daily? weekly? monthly?) how to effectively handle objections so that a simple customer objection doesn't kill a sales interaction prematurely.

The second reason salespeople fail at objection handling is anxiety. They get nervous, impatient, and loose their composure, often resulting in a haphazard response or an end to the dialog.

Again, this is a sales training and management issue. Just as anxiety control is important in being a pilot, a hockey player or a comic, anxiety control is important to the sales professional, too. High anxiety causes comfortable person-to-person timing to become rushed. During an episode of objection anxiety, sales reps loose their ability to listen, to think, and to react effectively.

If your sales team is struggling with handling customer objections effectively:

1. Make sure everyone knows what to say when the most common objections are expressed by prospects; and

2. Make certain salespeople know how to control anxiety through slowing down, improving listening, and lots of role-playing.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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Why the Universe Gave Us Failure

The universe (or God, higher power, karma, nature, or whatever) gave us failure so we never forget to appreciate our successes. Failure is a good thing. Have you failed lately?

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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A Successful Life is About the Journey; But What is Successful Selling About?

A successful life is all about the journey: friends old and new, school, jobs menial and important, family, activities, sports, hobbies, causes, contributions, travels, learning, experiencing, feeling, growing, challenging, committing, overcoming, enjoying, being...

But successful selling isn't about the journey. It's about the destination.

If you think selling is all about the journey, you may be one of the gazillions of salespeople out there who love talking to people, who love meeting people, who love the action and the interaction, who are passionate about their product or service, but who can't get to the producing revenue part of the equation any more often than the average sales representative.

Don't get my wrong: the journey is very important in selling. And you certainly have to enjoy the journey or you will be miserable in a sales career. Yes, selecting the right path and the correct behaviors will get you to your destination in selling or in anything. In fact, I make my living helping people improve and enhance their journey.

But what's important is that the journey gets you to where you must go if you earn your living selling.

The world is full of salespeople who love their product, their company, the action...but can't sell. Don't be one of those people. The destination in our profession, whether the process is simple or complex, is a completed buying transaction.

Commit to the destination. Commit to the deal.

*  *  *  *  * 

Read "Working in Sales? Don't Make These 5 Common Career Mistakes," an interview I did for examiner.com.

*  *  *  *  * 

Today is September 1, which means that two-thirds of 2009 is now history. You have one-third of the year to make your team's - or your individual - sales goal for 2009.

It's not too late. Contact us to see how we can provide sales training that will help you make your year!

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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The Accidental Salesperson

In the world of B2C selling, I often run into accidental salespeople - people who ended up in sales by accident, perhaps because of a particular love or passion they possessed for a particular product or service or company. These individuals often have many challenges making the transition from product expert or product loyalist to revenue generator, which is the number one role of the sales professional.

There's the young HGTV addict who decides to go to college or trade school for interior design. He has a passion for fabrics, finishes, and an intense interest in planning spaces that work. But when he graduates from school, he ends up selling furniture or bathroom remodeling where success is more likely determined more by the dollars sold than the quality of his design.

Or there's the member of the discount buying service who remodeled her kitchen using the services of the service and thereby saved $15,000 in the process. She decides to take a job selling memberships for this company. Despite her passion for the service, and her direct hands-on experience using it, she's unable to meet her membership quota and is terminated after only three months.

Take the car nut who's fiddled for years with cars in his father's garage, and then later in his own garage. He's been an avid car show attendee and a car magazine junkie who decides to sell cars for a local dealer after losing his job of thirteen years. He knows cars inside and out, is an avid follower of the automobile industry, and a passionate fan of all things auto. Yet, he cannot close a sale with any of the dozens of ups he's taken in his first month of employment. Ouch.

One of the most dramatic misconceptions about selling is that if you have passion for the product and substantial technical knowledge about the product, you'll be able to sell that product. Especially for big ticket items like furniture, remodeling, and automobiles, passion and technical knowledge are only two pieces of the selling puzzle, and they're usually not enough to complete the selling picture.

Sellers of consumer products and services must also have a passion for sales and a passion for results. Selling cars is quite different from wasting away a Sunday afternoon reading your old issues of Car and Driver while sipping on a margarita.

B2C sellers must also be accountable and assertive and have a healthy dose of tenacity. No amount of passion for interior design or a particular make of car will make up for absent assertiveness or tenacity, or a history of not being accountable for one's own performance.

Selling is a wonderful, lucrative, and rewarding profession. But it's not for everybody. Passion for a product or a company is a great starting point, but it's not the end point. Learning and personal growth can infuse these salespeople with improved performance, but both manager and employee must understand what will be required to get the sales rep from point "A" to point "B".

Passion for the product does not build a sales career - it only initiates it.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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It's Not Just Food and It's Not Just Selling

I love great food. I love to eat it, cook it, serve it, talk about it, and read about it. Dining at an excellent restaurant is one of my favorite pastimes.

I appreciate the care a chef takes to prepare an stunning menu. I'm so impressed with chefs like Charlie Trotter and Thomas Keller who give maximum attention to every element of a dish and of the dining experience as a whole. It's mind blowing, really. 

Take a look at this amazing menu from Thomas Keller's famous French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, California (Download pdf).

Zounds! A oyster and caviar sabayon. Duck foie gras with apricots, almonds, and toasted brioche. Pekin duck with sunchokes, pine nuts, arugula and cherry sauce. Coconut milk sorbet with lime foam and valrhona chocolate cocoa nibs with a mango-chili relish. Sign me up! The meal is a bargain at only $240. Food of this caliber is worth every penny. It's not just a meal, it's a celebration of life for the body and mind and spirit.

Look at photos of some of Keller's work at the French Laundry site here (go ahead, click on some of the links on the French Laundry site - it's wonderful). This isn't just food, it's art...and science...and amazing.

Watch a short interview with Charlie Trotter from ABC News here. He's not just a cook, he's an artist and technician who is obsessed with excellence. Just wait until you taste his food.

But bazillions more people eat at Old Country Buffet or Golden Corral each evening than eat at Charlie Trotters in Chicago or Vegas, or at the French Laundry in the Napa Valley. More diners are happy to stuff themselves with a plate (platter?) overflowing with mac & cheese, roast beef, lime gelatin, mashed potatoes, broccoli and cheese "soup," and garlic toast than they are to experience the flavor nuances of impeccably prepared sauces, the inspiring textures of ultra-fresh vegetables, and the amazing flavor of perfectly prepared meats and fish.

A similar phenomenon exists in selling, too. Most consumer salespeople muddle through the day, if not their career, spewing information to and fro, taking advantage of opportunities when they present themselves, and doing enough to get by. Most have never read a book about selling and most have never attended a sales training seminar or webinar. Most have never hired a sales coach or read articles and blogs online about improving their selling skills. Most have never recorded a sales interaction to listen to it to analyze what's working and what's isn't. For most, good enough is good enough. Excellence is for someone else.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of selling going on out there, and that's a good thing. But to become a true professional, a leader in the sales profession, and a master salesperson, one's commitment and attention to detail must soar above the fray. You must allow yourself to become aware of subtleties in selling that others miss, of nuances that go unnoticed to most. You need to be passionate about excellence and customer service and prospects and your career. You need to be an engineer of processes, a painter of dreams, an interviewer of stellar standing, and a presenter of possibilities.

Please be more like Charlie Trotter and Thomas Keller. Anybody can cook at Old Country Buffet.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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Now I'm on Michael Jackson Overload; But One Last Thing...

It's been two weeks since Michael Jackson's his passing. We've been bombarded with commentary, video clips, interviews, remembrances, and reexamination of the King of Pop. I've been a moderate fan of Mr. Jackson and have enjoyed the retrospective of his life and career, but I don't want to hear any more about him for a while. I'm ready to move on. I need to move on.

But before we move on: I have been touched by many of the comments I've heard from his friends and colleagues. Portraying Michael as a tireless perfectionist and serial hard worker, many have commented on his unrelentless pursuit of excellence and his work ethic: The long days of rehearsals; the constant repetition of practicing dance moves and music riffs; and his incredible insight into all the elements of pop music performance, production, and song-writing.

So what can salespeople learn from Michael Jackson?

• Be tirelessly committed to your craft.

• Be curious. Learn.

• Improve your skills.

• Work your ass off.

Many salespeople expect success, but the reason many of those expectations aren't met is because these traits have been missing. For most of us, success doesn't just happen; it's engineered by extraordinary hard work, long hours, commitment, and ceaseless effort.

Yes, Michael was apparently a troubled soul. But he was also brilliant. He achieved prominence in pop music like no other. Even though, as sales professionals, we work in an entirely different field, can't we learn from him? Shouldn't we?

 

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training.

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5 Brief Motivational Videos That Are Motivational

Business motivational tools can be trite, over-produced pieces that play on emotions but rarely have long-lasting effect.

So I was very pleased when I ran across five brief "motivational" videos by Jerry Kennedy. Their messages are powerful, the production is simple, and the videos are fantastic. I know Jerry, and nobody is more genuinely interested in helping others succeed.

Have a look and get motivated today!

Jerry also created Motivation 101, a fantastic audio program which I highly recommend, too. I've listened to the audio program in my car a half dozen times and will continue to do so.

Jerry's You Tube videos:

Got Purpose?

Got Focus?

Got Passion?

Got Optimism?

Got Motion?

Check out Jerry Kennedy's Motivation 101.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training.

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Static: A Roadblock to Success

STATIC is distracting aural noise. It's unnecessary visual stimulation. It's wasted words and lack of clarity. It's missed opportunities, confusion, and misunderstandings. Static is like dirty water, polluted air and tainted food. Static prevents us from achieving excellence.

Is there too much static around you?

Sales static: You think you know what the customer wants but you don't know. You talk more than you listen. You assume. You babble and spew. Your timing is off. Your energy is too high or too low. You show brochures instead of engaging your prospect face-to-face. You're not connecting the dots.

Management static: You don't do what you say you're going to do. You don't walk your talk. Your team is dysfunctional - therefore it's not a team. You don't lead, you react. You are confusing, nebulous, and possibly irritating. You retreat to your office, avoid decision-making, you don't delegate, and you don't bring out the best in others.

Marketing static: Your message is not consistent. Your brand is not consistent. You're a "me too" entity. You're not memorable, unique, or particularly effective. You follow the crowd, even if the crowd isn't going where you want to go, and you're not even sure that you know where you want to go.

Personal static: You don't have clear goals. At times, you are a zombie-like creature going through the motions. You don't excel. You're in a fog and have quit looking for sunlight. You've built a box for yourself but you hate the box you built. You lack direction, passion, or both.

Will you stop the static?

Thanks to Drew Jones for the graphics in this post. If you like this post (or don't!), please consider leaving a comment. Subscribe to our free sales tips newsletter to read more sales tips and commentary about selling and sales.

Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is mad about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

You Might Be a Sleazy Salesperson if...

You might be a sleazy salesperson if...

 
...you make fun of your customers behind their back. Alot

...you don't just take advantage of an opportunity, you take advantage of a customer

...you don't keep private information private

...don't treat your customers with genuine respect

...cheat someone out of something

...view your prospect as being your opponent

...have a fake smile

...wear polyester ties

...wear a top that is two sizes too small (applies to men and women)

...or even one size too small

...you can't help out a colleague without expecting something in return

...your ego is bigger than your humility

...take anything of the customer's that isn't yours

...hit on your customers

...say "trust me"

...show too much leg

...act like a gangsta

...you line up with other salespeople, peering out the windows of your car dealership

...with binoculars

...eat in front of your customer, unless you're dining together

...wink a lot

...your perfume/cologne lingers two hours after you've left the room

...prematurely bring your sales manager into the conversation to "close the deal"

...tell a unabashed lie to your prospect

...don't do what you say you were going to do

...use colorful language in front of your prospects that don't use colorful language

...you call a customer "babe" or "baby" or "honey"

...say inappropriate things around children

...look anywhere in your customer's home that you shouldn't (if you sell in the home)

...chomp on gum while with a customer

...say "I gotta go take a dump" to a customer, unless that's how your customer talks

...don't play by the rules

...don't know the rules

...don't care that you don't know the rules

...wear too much jewelry

...have breath, clothes, or a body that smells like an ashtray or worse

...have too many buttons unbuttoned on your blouse or shirt

...stand around your store or showroom talking trash with other salespeople, especially when customers are present

...answer your cell phone when with a prospect

...itch yourself where you shouldn't

...for too long

...you think know the world evolves around you

What salespeople do you know that are on the sleazy side? What else should be on the list that I'm missing?

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Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

Free Sales Training: Listen to a Sales Podcast

Our latest Sales Podcast was posted yesterday. “The Essence of Selling” offers six tips to help you get your prospects to make a decision and get off the buying decision fence. Listen below or visit the Selling to Consumers Podcast site to hear all the podcast episodes.

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Other Podcast Resources

I've become a big fan of learning from others via podcast. I download them to my iPod and I like to listen to them on the plane or in the airport during my travels. There’s always something to learn out there, and I’ve chosen several recent podcasts to recommend to you:

-Ian Brodie's lead nurturing podcast is a worthy listen if you prospect for your own leads. Ian says approximately 70% or sales leads are long term in many businesses. They are prospects who pass all your qualifying criteria, but there is no immediacy in their propensity to buy at the moment. Create a relationship with these prospects so it's time for them to buy, you’re on their radar screen. Unfortunately, many sellers tend to drop leads the moment they realize they're not going to buy in the next month or so. Ian says this is a big error. Almost all these prospects will buy from someone in the next 24 months. The role of Lead Nurturing is to make sure that someone is you. Listen to Ian's lead nurturing podcast.

-The new episode of the Sales Management 2.0 sales podcast features Will Fultz and a discussion about what motivates sales professionals, and what companies should do to keep top sales performers motivated. Listen to Rewarding Your Top Producers.

-What’s in Your Pipeline?, a podcast from Tibor Shanto, declares that the pipeline is core to sales success, as in sports, a strong core allows you to excel in all other areas of your sport. As with sports, keeping a strong core or a healthy pipeline is more about discipline and proper execution.  Here we discuss key elements every sales person can put into practice to ensure a consistently healthy and vibrant pipeline.

-The next episode of Sales Evangelist TV in the Taking your Message to the Street Series will be “Thinking About Thought Leadership?” The focus will be on what it means to become a thought leader. Learn more about the benefits of building a reputation as an expert in your industry. Visit Sales Evangelist TV on Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 7:30pm PST. 

-You can also find several excellent sales-oriented podcasts on the SymVolli blog. Some are B2B oriented, but some also apply to consumer sales.

If you like this post (or don't!), please consider leaving a comment, or subscribe to our free sales tips newsletter.

Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

Deliberate Practice & The Pursuit of Sales Excellence

Thanks to Ian Brodie, I recently learned about the work of psychologist K. Anders Ericsson from Florida State University. Dr. Ericsson studies expert performance, especially as it is created by what he calls "deliberate practice," i.e. focused practice aimed at improving a particular skill set or desired outcome.

Dr. Ericsson's studies have concluded that expert performance derives mostly from two factors:

1. Regularly obtaining concrete and constructive feedback

2. Deliberate practice

This is fantastic knowledge to have! Now we know what we need to do if we want to achieve expert performance! Read Practice Makes Perfect to learn more about these concepts. 

According to Dr. Ericsson's research, experience alone does not result in great performance (practice is fairly benign as a technique to achieve maximum human performance), but deliberate practice is. This is why accurate, focused, role-playing and other practice tools are effective human performance enhancers for the sales professional.

Sales managers: keep role-playing with your people. Practice deliberately. Do it often, and provide constructive, direct feedback, even if your sales team doesn't like it (One of my favorite compliments to get is when one of my clients or former employees tells me, "When I was with the customer, I could hear your voice in my head, telling me what to do! That's the power of deliberate practice). Direct, constructive feedback should be a priority for all sales managers in their day-to-day work.

If your sales manager isn't providing this kind of feedback, or isn't providing it with the frequency you desire, consider hiring a sales coach or find a mentor who will give you time, attention, and direct feedback. Then listen to it.

Only deliberate, perfect practice makes perfect.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

It's Fearless Friday - Sell Without Fear Today!

It's Fearless Friday!

What does that mean? It means today you go out into the world and sell without fear. No fears are allowed on Fearless Friday. What are you afraid of?

- Failure?
- Success?
- Your prospects?
- Angry customers?
- Asking for the sale?
- Change?
- Challenging yourself?
- Picking up the phone?
- Asking for referrals?
- Networking?
- Cold calling?
- Door-knocking?
- Looking "like a salesperson?"
- Being a salesperson?
- Paperwork?
- Your boss?
- Your colleague?
- Doing something differently to get a different result?
- Learning?
- Working hard?

Many salespeople have a fear that is holding them back from the next tier of success. What is the fear that's holding you back?

Once you identify it, make today the day that you confront your fear head-on. Be fearless today. It's time for a new, better, more fearless you to make an appearance.

If you like this post (or don't!), please consider leaving a comment, or subscribe to our free sales tips newsletter.

Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

Excellence, Not Perfection

"Perfection is usually not attainable;
but excellence often is."

Skip Anderson

Some people spend their careers trying to achieve the unachievable: perfection. The pursuit of perfection wastes time and resources, and causes missed opportunities. Why seek perfection if it's usually not attainable? For most people in most situations, excellence is good enough.

I propose that we in business focus on excellence, not perfection.

What does dysfunctional perfectionism look like? Here are examples of business people seeking perfection instead of excellence:

• A kitchen designer who includes a half-dozen intricate custom products in his design for his prospect that go far above and beyond typical custom cabinetry. In an effort to wow his client and pacify his personal need for perfection, he has to retrieve special pricing quotes from his production department and require the installation team to do intricate work that is beyond their scope of expertise. And if the prospect never buys, all the design effort was for naught. An excellent design within the comfortable capabilities of his company would probably have been good enough. 

• A business owner who spends months crafting his marketing campaign, but then never does anything with his creation. Her perfectionism got the best of her.

• The salesperson who spends eighteen hours researching his prospect before he cold calls them. Some research is often an excellent idea. Too much research is never a good idea.

• The retail manager who expects merchandise to be displayed perfectly. She has made it clear to her staff that this is her priority. But shouldn't selling that merchandise be the first priority? Excellent merchandise displays are very helpful in achieving business goals; perfect merchandise displays are unattainable (especially when customers are involved in your displays).

• The salesperson who rehearses his presentation to an important prospect ad nauseum, and therefore puts all his eggs in this one basket. If you have other prospects to sell to, other customers to serve, other prospecting to do, and other tasks on your to-do list, spending too much time on one presentation is not a good idea, especially if the customer doesn't buy from you.

When our focus is on perfection, we force ourselves down a path that  will almost never make the best use of our resources. Some people wear the badge of perfectionism with pride, but for most in business, perfectionism is a roadblock to success, not a route to it.

Strive to be excellent, not perfect.

If you like this post (or don't!), please consider leaving a comment, or subscribe to our free sales tips newsletter.

Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

Your Sales Stimulus Package

With the economy in turmoil right now, sellers everywhere are facing major challenges. We all hear stories about:

-Sales opportunities that grind to a screeching halt or disappear altogether.

-Declining business from existing customers who are also struggling with the economy.

If you are responsible for prospecting to find your own customers, you need more high quality prospects in your pipeline now more than ever. That's why I wanted to let you know about the Sales Stimulus Package, an online sales training event created specifically to help you with the challenges of selling in a down economy.

The goal? To stimulate your sales. To give you a massive dose of fresh, highly effective strategies you can use today and tomorrow to find more prospects and close more business.

Sales expert Jill Konrath has gathered thirteen of North America's savviest sales gurus together to share their highest impact ideas and strategies. I personally know many of these experts and I can recommend them to you. Take a look at all the speakers' bios here.

The Sales Stimulus Package is an intensive two-week program that requires just one hour a day. It's designed to immerse you in new approaches, concepts and skills.

The Agenda

Take a look at what's on the agenda. Could you benefit from this information starting May 4th?

-Exactly what you need to create a full pipeline quickly, despite the longer sales cycles and fewer buyers.

-Get great advice on using LinkedIn, social networking sites, Sales 2.0 resources and online intelligence sources.

-Strategies you can use to speed up your sales, even when your prospects are slowing down their decision process.

-How to quickly build relationships where you're positioned as a trusted, high integrity advisor who's committed to your customers' best interests.

-What deadly mistakes are causing you to lose sales and how to avoid them.

-How to overcome sales objections and - even better - prevent them from happening in the first place.

-Plus, you'll also get a chance to ask live questions and get answers from the speakers. Each one-hour session has 10+ minutes set aside for Q&A.

Go here to see all 12 sessions.

Session Recordings

Each session is recorded so if you have a conflict, you won't miss anything. And you can listen to the experts over and over again for the rest of the year, ensuring that you're constantly at the top of your game.

This Sales Stimulus Package is your chance to learn from some of the best. Make sure to check out all the details and sign up right away. The Sales Stimulus Package is a one-time only event. 

40% Off NOW!

You can get 40% off if you act now. There are twelve information-rich sessions on how to get more prospects and more sales in tough times. Be sure to check them out.

 

If you like this post (or don't!), please consider leaving a comment, or subscribe to our free sales tips newsletter.

Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

Sales Manager, How Are You Going to Spend Your Time Today?

"The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership."

-Harvey S. Firestone

Outstanding sales managers create a learning environment. Their workplaces become laboratories of sales education, or experiential learning, of human development, of human nature and psychology.

Great sales managers are always looking for potential in their people. When they find it, they develop it - not just during initial training upon hire, but always. They look for learning opportunities for their employees at every juncture. They are perpetual sales trainers and role models.

When teaming up with another salesperson during a customer sales interaction, they observe so they can identify points of success and opportunities for improvement, then they coach the salesperson on those points and opportunities. They only take over the selling role for the salesperson when they want the salesperson to observe and learn, but would prefer to let the salesperson sell so they can observe and then coach.

Great sales managers have confidence in their salespeople, even to the point of allowing them to experience instances of failure so they can learn valuable lessons in that failure and themanager's coaching that goes along with it.

They are not merely paper-pushers, administrators, or yes-men (or women). They don't spend all day in their offices with the doors shut, noses firmly planted in the space between their computer keyboards and monitors. They don't spend their time selling.

They are teachers, doers, cheerleaders, motivators, nurturers, disciplinarians, recognizers of achievement, back-patters, shapers, and social workers. They remove barriers to success, run efficient operations, have fun, foster teamwork, create respectful work environments, and challenge their people. They identify their salespeople's strengths andfind ways to use those strengths. They spend time with their people, walking around, observing, talking, asking, noticing, rolling their sleeves up and getting busy.

They provoke, inspire, help, and develop. They create success in their people, and experience their own personal success as a by-product of their team's success.

Sales managers, how are you going to spend your time today?

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Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

Windows to the Salesperson's Soul

I meet lots of salespeople every week. I teach them. I observe them in selling situations. I talk to them. I listen to them. I watch them.

Some have mastered the art of eye contact. An individual's eyes can draw you into conversation. They can put you at ease. They can make you listen. Great salespeople make great eye contact.

On the other hand, I see many salespeople that have very weak eye contact with others. They look down. Their eyes dart left and right and up and down. Their eyes fidget. They avoid eye contact or give up eye contact too quickly.

You know what Shakespeare said: "Eyes are the windows to the soul." Here's what I say:

"If eyes are the windows to people's souls, then eyes are certainly the windows to salespeople's souls, too. If you have a soul, and you want your customer to see it, make plentiful eye contact. And you might even see the customer's soul looking back at you."

-Skip Anderson

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Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

Successful Selling: The Secret & The Puzzle

If you knew there was a secret to selling successfully, would you want to know what the secret was? Of course you would.

First, I want to say I don't believe there is one secret to selling. Secondly, I'm suspicious of sales trainers and authors who try to sell books, seminars, and webinars by overstating the importance of their offerings with outlandish and exaggerated statements. 

Having said that, I believe that good selling skills are like a secret. Once you know how to accomplish this or that, you've unlocked almost magical powers to achieve remarkable sales success. There isn't one secret to successful selling; there are many secrets.That's why I started Selling to Consumers Sales Training: to help companies and salespeople achieve remarkable sales performance.

Here's a puzzle that illustrates the value of knowing a secret morsel of information: 

Directions: Connect all nine dots below by drawing four connected straight lines without lifting your pen from the paper. Each dot must have only one line touching it, and you can't backtrack with your pen.

You can download a pdf version of the 9 dot puzzle (sales managers: this is a nifty thing to do with your salespeople during a sales meeting).

When you're ready to see the solution, you can see it here, or download a pdf version of the solution.

Could you solve the puzzle successfully if you didn't know the secret? Could you achieve your maximum sales performance if you don't know the secrets to successful selling? 

Suggestion: Subscribe to the Selling to Consumers Sales Tips Newsletter for more sales secrets, and consider subscribing to the RSS feed of this blog. Learn the secrets to successful selling!

If you like this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to our free sales tips newsletter.

Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

Sell with Enthusiasm

Don't we just love it when we run across an individual with sincere, genuine enthusiasm? It could be an athlete, a public speaker, a politician, a teacher, or a new friend, but people love to be around enthusiastic others.

We're talking about real, natural, enthusiasm here, not faked enthusiasm. Nobody likes to be around someone who isn't really enthusiastic but is trying to act like they are.

If you could watch a video recording of your last dozen sales interactions, or your last week at work, or your last week at home, where would your life rate on the enthusiasm meter? How would your customers rate your enthusiasm? Your coworkers? Your manager? Your employees? Your family?

Today, be enthusiastic about:

• your product;

• your company;

• your job (lots of people don't have one right now);

• the opportunities you have in your career;

• your life; your family; your friends; your health, if it's in good shape;

• your potential as a sales professional; and most of all...

• your prospects.

Do you need a bit of inspiration to help you along today?

I'm a big fan of classical music (and lots of other music, too). I was blown away by a TED video of a youth orchestra from Venezuela under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel (The 28-year-old Dudamel will become the Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic this fall). In the video, these young musicians play extraordinarily difficult music with incredible enthusiasm. Even if you're not into orchestral music, I hope you'll take a few minutes to watch this video. It's awesome. Crank the volume!

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Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

TMI in Selling

Providing TMI (too much information) is an affliction from which many salespeople suffer. Giving TMI is worse than TLI (too little information).

Prospects don't want all the information you have. They only want the specific bits of information that applies to them, their needs, and their particular situation. Anything above and beyond that is TMI.

I experienced the TMI effect recently (and I was to blame for it) when I told a group of my buddies how I like to sit around the house in my underwear and watch TV on my days off. I told them sometimes I even leave out the underwear. Disgusted shouts of "TMI" wafted from the group.

I was just kidding about the whole thing (much to their relief) but it's clear that TMI has the potential to be a very damaging element in any interaction, and that includes a sales interaction. Control your urge to give too much information.

Here's a conversation I witnessed when I stopped at Bruegger's Bagels recently for lunch (note that Brueggers has recently started selling panini, which is made out of bread rather than bagels):

CUSTOMER: How much is a loaf of your bread?

BRUEGGER'S GUY: You know, we'd have to charge you so much that it wouldn't make sense.
CUSTOMER: I love your bread; can't I buy a loaf to take home?

BRUEGGER'S GUY: They haven't found out a way to price it so that it would be affordable. The way it is right now, I would need to charge you an immense amount because of how the sandwiches are priced, and so it would come out to some astronomical price like fifty dollars or something, and I'm sure you don't want to pay fifty dollars or more for a loaf of bread. We've been talking about the pricing and I know they're working on something but what I'd have to do is charge you for a sandwich but without the filling and stuff and multiply that by how many of slices there are in a loaf of bread. We get our bread from a supplier and we'd need to get better pricing if we were going to sell just the bread alone and not in a panini or sandwich. The way it is we have some problems with our supplier so I don't know if they would look for a different supplier or maybe something else because we don't bake the bread in our stores like we do the bagels. So I can't sell you a loaf of bread unless you want to pay like fifty dollars.

Most of Bruegger's Guy's words were wasted words. They didn't add value to the customer or strengthen the relationship between the customer and the vendor. All the Bruegger's Guy need to have said was, "I'm sorry, but we don't sell loaves of bread at this time, but feel free to check back again in case that changes."

Or better yet: "...if you want to leave me with your name and phone number or email, I'll let you know if we start selling loaves of bread."

Don't fall prey to the TMI effect!

- - - - -

There are two free tickets being given away to the Art of Sales conference in Toronto on March 26, 2009. The conference features Jeffrey Gitomer and other presenters. For more information, go to Art of Sales.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to our free sales tips newsletter.

Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

How to Sell More by Reducing Risk | Free Sales eBook

I formed the Sales Bloggers Union in 2008 in an effort to bring together some of the best sales experts in the world. Made up of nine prominent sales bloggers from the U.K., Canada, and the U.S., the union is active in the online community to advance the sales profession.

The Sales Bloggers Union has released it's new free eBook. All nine of us have contributed articles on the subject of "selling more by reducing risk." You can get the free reducing risk ebook here.

 

The Sales Bloggers Union members are:

Nesh Thomson, Sales System Developer at Symvolli

Tibor Shanto, Principal at Renbor Sales Solutions

Tim Rohrer, The Sales and Marketing Loudmouth

Will Fultz, Top Sales Blog

Brad Trnavsky, Sales Management20.com

Colin Wilson, Managing Director of First Border

Karl Goldfield, The Startup Sales Mentor

Skip Anderson, Founder, Selling to Consumers Sales Training

Your comments are always appreciated. Please share your comment by clicking "comments" below.

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to our free sales tips newsletter.

Hamsters I Have Known

I invented a word last year: "hamstering."

You can see the definition of my word here, on Urban Dictionary (please visit Urban Dictionary and give my definition a "thumbs up").

Hamstering is when a person appears to be busy, but is actually wasting time and getting nowhere. It's named after hamsters exercising on an exercise wheel...they work hard, but don't make any progress (although I'm sure their cardiologists are happy).

Here are some hamsters in business that I have known:

Hamster #1. This person worked in sales in a design-oriented industry. He would spend hours perfecting his designs before presenting them to his prospects. But his designs were over-designed. He was unable to leverage his extra effort into extra revenue. Result: Long work hours, low revenue production, his omnipresent feelings of being under-appreciated.

Hamster #2. This business owner was passionate about creating new ways of doing things. The problem was that often the old ways of doing things were the most efficient ways of getting them done. Breaking new ground is a very good thing, but only if the new ground leads to more efficient processes, better products, or happier customers (or employees). Result: Mega hours spent creating new products, marketing ideas, and systems with no increases in revenue, along with lost opportunities to service both external and internal customers.

Hamster #3. This individual would take a simple project and make it complex. He would allow himself to get sucked into new projects (actually, he loved to get sucked into projects, and then would complain how insanely busy he was), always spending more days, more hours, and more effort than required, and frustrating the entire organization in the process. Employees would avoid asking him to do anything because his over-involvement in projects would often spill over to those who asked him for help. Result: A frustrated organization, and an employee who couldn't be counted on to do simple projects, or to deliver them on time.

Here are three questions to help you determine if you are a hamster:

Question #1. Do I leverage the extra time I put into initiatives so that more revenue or lower costs are the result?

Question #2. Do I rarely hear others around me often encourage me to keep things simple or to not spend too much time on initiatives?

Question #3. Do I know when to "say when" and be done with a project?

Question #4. Do I often embrace the concept less Is more?

If you answered "no" to any one of the questions, you might be be a hamster. If you answered "no" to two or three of them, you're definitely a hamster. If you answered no to all four, you need emergency intervention now. You probably are divorced, have few friends, drive your colleagues crazy, and your customers, too.

I appreciate your comments. Please share your comment by clicking "comments" below.

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to our free sales tips newsletter.