2006 November | CASKEY

Bryan Neale, Brooke Green,
and Bill Caskey

Value is the relief that your prospect feels when you can find and solve a pain they have.

Excerpt from post on:
December 14th, 2007

Archive for November, 2006

November 23rd, 2006 The Myth of the Enthusiastic Salesperson ===NOVEMBER 23 ADVANCED SELLING PODCAST=== (11 Minutes) In this week's episode of The Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale discuss the problems associated with ...READ MORE: The Myth of the Enthusiastic Salesperson
Thursday, November 23rd, 2006

===NOVEMBER 23 ADVANCED SELLING PODCAST=== (11 Minutes)

In this week’s episode of The Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale discuss the problems associated with being too enthusiastic about your product/service. The problem is that your enthusiasm can get in the way of focusing on helping your prospect solve their problem.

Enthusiasm in sales is OK, as long as you’re more excited about helping your client solve his problem than you are about your product. When you show up at a prospect’s office and the only thing that you’re excited about is closing a deal, the prospect senses that – thereby raising their BS detector.

This is a perfect episode for the “technical seller.” Pass it on to your technical team, if you have one.

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Right Click on “Download” to Save ===>The Myth of the Enthusiastic Salesperson.mp3

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Tags: podcast, sales, technical seller
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November 22nd, 2006 Your Knowledge. Your Value. I was reading an excellent book by Tim Sanders called, Love is the Killer App. In it he talks about the value that you bring ...READ MORE: Your Knowledge. Your Value.
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006

I was reading an excellent book by Tim Sanders called, Love is the Killer App. In it he talks about the value that you bring people, personally and professionally.

For so long we’ve been talking about “communicating value.” I still believe that in professional sales it is the “difference maker” between the elite sellers and the amateurs.

In “Love,” Sanders says that knowledge is value. This ties in perfectly with our belief that to be a high achieving sales professional you have to be a “go-to resource” for your prospect community. You can’t just be a hand looking for an order all the time (even though monthly and quarterly quotas dictate that behavior).

Knowledge Acquisition
So what is your plan for “knowledge acquisition?” And just why do you need to be an expert in order to have a position of authority with prospects and customers? The answer? Google.

Recently I wrote a piece called “The Googlization of Your Business,” which implies that if you‘re not looking at Google and how Google searches, then you’re missing business opportunities.

You see, Google is the ultimate selector of authority. You don’t get a top ranking in Google just by throwing up a web page. You get it by being referred by other websites and by being an “authority figure.”

If I’m looking for a commercial realtor in Miami and I Google “commercial realtor,” Google helps me filter out all of the non-authority sites/people and get to the people who are recognized as good resources. (It doesn’t mean that great realtors don’t show up on page 110.)

And because our society is becoming Googlized (a verb describing the automatic filtering out of non-essential choices) then you should look for the same thing to happen in the sales process.

You As Contributor of Knowledge
So the bottom line question is: Are you a valuable contributor of knowledge to the customer due to your authority stature and are you constantly working on your acquisition of knowledge to help keep you there? If not, shame on you, because your customers are expecting no less from you if they’re to reward you with relationships.

“But Bill, how do I do that if I think of myself as merely a sales person?” Well if you think of yourself that way, you won’t do it, because you don’t feel it’s your role to be an authority figure. The only role you see is to satisfy managements demand for “making quota.”

We’ll take up the “how” in a post some time soon.

Tags: comunicating value in sales, elite sellers, high achieving sales professional
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November 15th, 2006 Unclogging Your Sales Funnel ===NOVEMBER 15 ADVANCED SELLING PODCAST=== (12 Minutes) Having stalled deals in your funnel is one of the hardest things to deal with as a salesperson. But ...READ MORE: Unclogging Your Sales Funnel
Wednesday, November 15th, 2006

===NOVEMBER 15 ADVANCED SELLING PODCAST=== (12 Minutes)

Having stalled deals in your funnel is one of the hardest things to deal with as a salesperson. But have no fear, because this week Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale are here to discuss how to fix stalled deals and how to prevent future deals from stalling.

By making an upfront agreement and outlining a “clear future” for your prospect, you will start to notice that you have fewer stalled deals. This is great information to keep your sales funnel running efficiently. Also, if you want to search past Advanced Selling Podcasts, go to www.podzinger.com and watch this amazing tool at work!

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Right Click on “Download” to Save ===>Unclogging Your Sales Funnel.mp3

If you’d like to subscribe to this podcast so that it’s delivered to your desktop every week, go to iTunes and do so.

Tags: how to fix stalled deals, podcast, sales funnel, salesperson
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November 4th, 2006 Advice for the New Sales Person ===NOVEMBER 4 ADVANCED SELLING PODCAST=== (17 Minutes)In this week's episode of The Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale respond to a letter they recieved from ...READ MORE: Advice for the New Sales Person
Saturday, November 4th, 2006

===NOVEMBER 4 ADVANCED SELLING PODCAST=== (17 Minutes)In
this week’s episode of The Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill Caskey and
Bryan Neale respond to a letter they recieved from a listener. They
answer his many questions about being new in sales. He wants to be an
advanced seller, but he has to start somewhere.For those of you who have been in sales for years, it
might make sense to listen to this –sort of a back to the basics in
selling strategy. It has a lot of great information that can help to
boost revenue. Remember, if you have questions that you would like
answered on the air, leave us a message at 317.722.6299.

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Right Click on “Download” to Save ===>Advice For The New Sales Person.mp3

If you’d like to subscribe to this podcast so that it’s delivered to your desktop every week, go to iTunes and do so.

Tags: advice for the new sales person, podcast, sales, selling strategy
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November 3rd, 2006 Talking To CEO’s The Universe has a funny way of working. It seems to have the attitude of, “I’ll allow it to happen when it’s ready to happen.” ...READ MORE: Talking To CEO’s
Friday, November 3rd, 2006

The Universe has a funny way of working. It seems to have the attitude of, “I’ll allow it to happen when it’s ready to happen.” We see this in all phases in our life. We really want something—really bad. But we don’t get it. Then later, we realize we really didn’t want it. What if we were to get everything we think we want? Not so good. The Universe usually knows best.

It’s that way in business too. Everyone’s talking about how they have to call higher or get wider in organizations (call on the President.) But yet, when I ask what they’re going to talk about when they get there, I get mush.

Recently I did an exercise with a client called “Value Mapping.” We looked at the kinds of problems they could solve for their clients, what kind of value those solutions would bring to their clients, and at what level that value was felt.

We quickly arrived at the conclusion that much of the value was felt at the CEO level. Yet, when I asked the account development people what kinds of conversations they had when they got in front of CEO’s, the answer was “We never talk to CEO’s.”

Again, could it be that they aren’t getting in front of CEO’s because they never thought about it? Probably not. I used to think our reluctance to call on CEO’s was caused only by our own self-image. However, I’m beginning to see that there is another issue. Our reluctance stems more from our ignorance of how they think and what they want to talk about than it does our self-image of deserving to be at that level.

Therein lies a nagging and continuous problem in the communication of your value to your client companies. That is – the person who gets the most benefit from your product seldom knows or is involved in the sales process upfront. That would be the CEO.

The first critical point in understanding the discussion you should have with a CEO is to understand how your value or your solutions impact the following areas. These areas I list are the five most relevant topics a CEO deals with daily. So as you go through this list of five topics, scribble some notes at the end of each paragraph if you bring any value in helping them deal with these issues.

Profitability
Most CEO’s I know have a financial mind. They care about the net income of the company, either on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis. They also care about the trends and the indicators that lead to the final numbers. Does your solution have any impact on profitability? If so, your conversation with this CEO is quite relevant. If not, maybe you haven’t looked deep enough. The prospect is not going to connect these dots for you. You’ll have to do it yourself.

Employee Retention
With a tight labor market (unemployment less than 5%), especially in key positions, the CEO knows that she has to hang on to her best people. If you provide a solution that helps make employee retention more successful, you will have her ear.

Revenue Growth
Every CEO cares about new business capture, client expansion, new markets and general sales numbers. They may not care about the process their managers go through to get those numbers, but they do care about the end results. Do your solutions touch that at all? Before you say no, check it out. Do a mind map, where you start at the left of the page with the problem your company solves—then move to the right with the total impact of that solution. I’ll bet you’ll find some connection between what you do and their revenue.

Market Capitalization
If you are calling on publicly held companies, market cap is a big issue. If you’re calling on privately held companies, “creating stakeholder wealth” might replace “market cap” as the relevant topic. Peter Drucker says, “Businesses are in existence not to create profit but to serve customers.” While I agree, “creating profit” is a first cousin to customer acquisition and wealth for the stakeholders (not just the owners, but the employees, clients, vendors and the entire array of support people).

Vision and Strategy
Most CEO’s, if they are not visionary, should be. Most CEO’s, if they don’t have a strategy, should have one. Sometimes the very simple notion of you asking the questions about vision and strategy will cause the CEO to think about it at a different level. Just because the CEO talks about his vision and strategy doesn’t mean the other people in the organization understand what it is. j

john Kotter in Leading Change says, “Less than .05% of the time in a leader’s day is spent dealing with company vision.” So one must never assume that the CEO has done a good job of communicating that vision down the chain.

So as you go through these five relevant CEO topics, do you see any that you could help her with? If there is no link, then say that. But if there is a link, then you can look that CEO square in the eye and say “Ms. CEO, we help organizations who are looking to increase market capitalization and who are looking to expand their customer base. We’ve got solutions to those problems. You have to tell me whether these topics are relevant to you.”

Tags: calling on CEOs, communicating value, employee retention, market cap, profitability, revenue growth, sales process
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November 2nd, 2006 Check Out Your Selling Language. Is it Empowering You? We did a role play the other day in one of our clients. I was looking for language (the words sales people used). After the ...READ MORE: Check Out Your Selling Language. Is it Empowering You?
Thursday, November 2nd, 2006

We did a role play the other day in one of our clients. I was looking for language (the words sales people used). After the exercise, the group got into a heated discussion about the language of the new selling philosophy. We then made a list of the words of Selling in the 1900’s. And compared that to selling of the 2000’s.

Read these and check out your language. The language of the 2000’s is empowering language that will keep you in control of the sales process.

The Old Language
 What do I need to do to get your business?
 Here is what this product does.
 Is there any way I could get a meeting with him?
 I really need to see you.
 Here’s what we do…
 How much do you want to pay?
 I’m so excited to be here and to tell you what we have.
 I think I can beat that price
 Features and Benefits (galore)

The New Language
 I’m not sure I can help
 Regardless of what the product does, what are your objectives?
 What kind of cash flow are you expecting?
 What are you hoping the Return on Investment to be?
 Have you done a financial impact study?
 How does this fit with your customers?
 Who else cares about getting the problem solved?
 Why wouldn’t you just keep using the same vendor?
 Let me share with you how our process works

Hope this helps you take stock of your language in your sales process. Check with your manager (or someone around you) to see what they hear.

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Tags: sales process, selling language
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