Archive for April, 2006

April 27th, 2006
Who’s Approval Are You Waiting For?

Malcolm Fleschner (www.sellingpower.com) just wrote a nice piece in the latest issue. He quoted us extensively in it. Thought you'd get a kick out of ...READ MORE

Who’s Approval Are You Waiting For?

Thursday, April 27th, 2006

Malcolm Fleschner (www.sellingpower.com) just wrote a nice piece in the latest issue. He quoted us extensively in it. Thought you’d get a kick out of reading it. Who Loves Ya’ Baby?

One of the issues he brings up is the idea of “calling the game.” When someone is lying to you, you must call it out–or else it’s you who is out of integrity. I don’t talk about that much in Same Game New Rules, but it’s a fact. Every time you have a feeling (that you’re being misled by your customer) and you fail to call him on it, you lose self-esteem.

Now, there are ways to call it and ways NOT to call it. I prefer the very soft, simple approach we might call,”Broaching The Subject.”  You say, “John, a couple of things don’t jibe with me. Can I bring it up then you react to it?”

I like that approach because there is no pressure. You aren’t accusing him/her of lying. You make it an “I” message. “It’s just me not having understood something.”

By “broaching the subject”, you send a signal that you are listening intently to what he’s saying. And that you take this whole thing seriously. When you’re getting misled, you have to call it–and not worry about the approval (or lack thereof).

Hope that helps with the courage to take a stand and demand the truth.

Come to think of it…we just did a podcast on the topic of truth as well. 

Tags: Malcolm Fleschner, same game new rules, Selling Power
Posted in Inner Game | No Comments »

April 19th, 2006
Money, Money MONEY!!!

by Bryan Neale Question:  What did your parents teach you when it comes to talking about money with others? Answer: "Don’t talk about money with others. Don’t ...READ MORE

Money, Money MONEY!!!

Wednesday, April 19th, 2006

by Bryan Neale

Question:  What did your parents teach you when it comes to talking about money with others?

Answer: “Don’t talk about money with others. Don’t ask them how much they make. Don’t ask them how much they paid for their house. Don’t ask them how much money they save. Just don’t talk about money.”

Now flash forward to your current role as sales professional. Suddenly your parent’s insistence that money is a taboo, private matter is suddenly getting in the way of you closing deals. You don’t like talking about the money. You avoid it and hope they don’t ask. You put pricing on the last page of the proposal. You don’t talk about it at all before sending them your quote and they fall out of their chair when they get your pricing.

So what’s going on here? Unfortunately many sales professionals suffer from ATTAM: Aversion to talk about money. If you’re one of them, you’re likely losing deals and opportunities because of it. So what to do about it:

Here are a few ideas:
1-Accept It: It’s the way you’re wired. You’ll need to face the fact that you don’t like discussing money before you can fix it.

2-Share Your Uncomfortableness With Your Prospect: Just be real and tell your prospects how you feel. “We need to talk about the money and I find that’s not always a comfortable subject.”

3-Make Yourself Talk About It: Make it mandatory to talk about the money before you leave the call. If you leave without it, call ‘em back and tell them you need to meet again. Don’t ever send pricing without talking about it first.

4-Relax: Money’s just money. It has no REAL value. It’s nothing more than a piece of paper or a computer screen with numbers. We humans are the one’s who put the emotion into it.

The best sales professionals put the Moose on the Table when it comes to talking money. It has to happen. Just realize that it may be counterintuitive to how you’re hard-wired. The good thing is, you can always change your thinking. And when you do, watch the money in your life grow exponentially.

Tags: sales, sales professionals, talking money
Posted in Basic Sales Strategy, Inner Game | 1 Comment »

April 14th, 2006
Caskey Video Blog: The Fundamental Shift

In our last newsletter, we hinted that soon we have our newsletters enabled with multimedia. Well we are at Caskey, as an Easter treat for ...READ MORE

Caskey Video Blog: The Fundamental Shift

Friday, April 14th, 2006

In our last newsletter, we hinted that soon we have our newsletters enabled with multimedia. Well we are at Caskey, as an Easter treat for our loyal readers are giving you a preview of our video-blog. What is a video blog, well like a blog a video blog is a individual discussing a certain subject, usually in form of a brief essay. A video blog is like that but instead of using either text or html we are using web video to discuss a certain topic.

The subject of our first video blog, is a brief introduction to the concept of “THE FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT” , a term we use extensively in our sales training. This short video is presented by Bill Caskey. We hope you enjoy it.

 

  Click here to download FlashPlayer

  This video blog is best seen on a broadband connection

Tags: Bill Caskey, Fundamental Shift
Posted in Inner Game, Video Blogs | 3 Comments »

April 13th, 2006
Modern Sales Training–What’s Smoke? What’s Real?

Since we train business sales organzations, I thought I'd devote one post to the notion of sales training. (This applies not just to the sales ...READ MORE

Modern Sales Training–What’s Smoke? What’s Real?

Thursday, April 13th, 2006

Since we train business sales organzations, I thought I’d devote one post to the notion of sales training. (This applies not just to the sales team, but to the technical team, the executive team and the customer service team. All need good training).

I realize a lot of sales managers (VPs of Sales and the like) read this blog. And I also know many of you are looking for ways to train your people. Moreover, I know we aren’t the right sales training company for everyone, so I thought I’d give you some hints on what to look for when you get ready to invest in your people.

–1  Is the sales problem clearly identified? Great question…seldom answered. Because no one wants to look deeper at the real issue. Here’s a tip. When you identify a problem–say, not enough prospecting activity, then look in two places for the cause: a) the mechanical and b) the conceptual.

The mechanical is ‘I don’t know how to do it’ and usually gets back to lack of skills. The ‘conceptual’ means ‘I don’t have the capacity to do it,’ meaning too much fear…poor inner game…lousy self concept. Every sales problem has a ‘conceptual’ component to it. I know many of you hard-hitters think this is psycho-babble. Sorry, but it’s not.

–2   Reinforcement. If you’re going to train, you have to reinforce. You can do this through meetings and phone calls, or, better, you can do it through technology–podcasts, blogs and video blogs. In your business it may be difficult to introduce a topic through the PC, but you can surely reinforce it. I just set up a podcasting service for one of our clients who wanted to get our content out to their large, remote sales force. Podcasting is easy.

–3   Measurement. Inspect what you expect. Most sales programs have very little measurement. We’re sometimes guilty of that as well. Your return on investment will be higher if you inspect behavior and measure results. You can’t just look at how sales training impacts revenue. You have to look at the soft inputs, too. Things like: Are your people having better conversations? Are your people more confident? Is your team discarding prospects from the funnel if they aren’t real? Those are clues too.

If you’re a sales leader, take heed. Some of your competition is using training and professional development as a hiring point. Are you investing in your people? If done properly, investing in sales training will pay back 300-1000% as an ROI. Where else can you get a return like that? Take these three tips and implement them in your world. Or, call me and I’ll walk you through how to do it.

Tags: sales, sales managers, sales training
Posted in Sales Management Content | No Comments »

April 7th, 2006
I Was Tedious–And They Said ‘No.’

Not sure what got into me...but during a sales call recently, I spouted, rambled, and opined. All to the detriment of the outcome. I was ...READ MORE

I Was Tedious–And They Said ‘No.’

Friday, April 7th, 2006

Not sure what got into me…but during a sales call recently, I spouted, rambled, and opined. All to the detriment of the outcome. I was tedious for the listener. I lost the deal, but I hope you can learn something from it.

When communicating with another (as we do every hour in sales), the message received has little to do with what’s “intended” by the transmitter. And has more to do with how it’s heard and understood by the receiver.

The Advanced Seller (which, apparently I was not on that day) articulates the message in a manner consistent with how people take in information. There are three lessons in all of this.

1. Chunk.  If you have several points to make during the transaction, tell them that specifically. Say, “I’d like to go over three things (not ’several’) with you today, first—, second,— and third.” Then get into the details of each. That way they know what’s coming and will already be taking mental action on your points. Communication is a path–you have to let them know they’re on a path. You do that by giving them the highlights first.

2. Introduce Outcome. (Stephen Covey says, “begin with the end in mind.”) At the beginning of a conversation in which you want some action at the end, you have to say, “after we’re done today, maybe we can explore how or if we should talk further. Does that sound appropriate?” The idea here is to tell the listener that we will have a specific outcome after this dialogue.

3. Finish With Future. At the end of the discussion complete the circle by saying, “what do you want to do next?” or “how would you like to proceed from here?” Have an action plan that you can both stick to. Never let things hang in la-la land.

By doing these three simple things, you’ll no longer be tedious, but will be efficiently articulate in how you communicate. And you prospect/customer will understand you better.

Be a student of exquisite communication. If you’re a manager, listen to your sales people as they talk to clients. Don’t hesitate to call them out (coach them). It will help them get better–and help your company generate income. Communication is the key. Use these three lessons as a forum to discuss their skills.

Tags: communicate, sales, Stephen Covey
Posted in Communication Skills | No Comments »