POST SIXTEEN

Summer is over and its back to the grind. I know that I see less out of office replies since Labor Day and those lovely voice mails that start with "PLEASE STOP AND LISTEN TO THIS MESSAGE" are over for now. Aren't they great? You would think that a major catastrophe occurred and that you need to hide under your desk only to find out that the message is letting you know that you have no shot of reaching the intended caller unless of course you have a PO or a job offer with a higher base!

Onto the issue of selling. Planning is key for any successful salesperson. Planning, along with effective time management is a sure fire way to make more money than ever before. I sell products that are often specified. Time management over the years has changed for me. In year's past, better than 40 percent of the cabling projects in my region had a preferred or required brand of cable/connectivity/metal for the installation. Today, I see less than one in five projects that are specified for only one brand of structured cabling products. Why is that? Do users not care? Is there a fear on the part of the user that they will not have a competitive environment if only one brand is allowed?

In today's economy, there are fewer projects to pursue. Our industry is down, on average, about 30%. If there are fewer projects in the market to pursue for specification, how does one reach his/her quota? You know, the quota that your boss tells you about that only requires 40 percent growth in the worst economy in the past 80 years? Hey, lets not let facts get in the way of a high growth quota right?

Its my belief that discretionary purchases are now nearly seventy five percent of our total sales. This figure may vary from market to market but is largely accurate. How do we get our chunk of the market to reach our quota and make some dough?

If users are specifying less, than the few projects that warrant specification are critical. As salespeople we need to cover these projects thoroughly. Some of us sell more than one brand. In those instances, get creative. Find a product that hits the mark for the users needs and drive that through to a hard spec. Pull your other products through while you are solving a problem for the user.

My first call after I leave an appointment with a large use is to the incumbent contractor. This organization is often influential or in some cases, the decision making body for what brands are installed. I let this company know that I met with one of their clients and tell them exactly what we discussed. Some of you are saying "Why the hell would you do that? What if they go run and tell the incumbent brand rep?" I say, let them! I want my competition to know that I am in their accounts and when that contractor calls my competitor to tell them about my visit, I force them to go into a defensive position. That is a great place to put a competitor. Remember the law of seven, it takes six no's to get a yes!

Other people that influence large users are design firms and distributor reps. How are you getting these influencers involved to get whatever projects you can. Everyone in our industry needs something....leads, design assistance, training, entertainment, samples, etc. Do you know what the most important influencers in your market need from you?

Inventory levels were reduced by a third in the early part of 2009 at most of our major distributors. As those levels slowly rise, how are your brand(s) represented. How is your "shelf space" for A items?

If you are like me, you don't have the right answer to all of these questions. The good news is only some of your competitors will work hard to answer the questions and gain from that knowledge. Remember, its about staying RELEVANT!

POST FIFTEEN

Thanks for all of the readers that visit the site and offer comments here and on our Linked in group page. I appreciate every one's participation and look forward to more interaction. Remember, this blog and our Linked in group were created to help us all sell more products and solutions profitably and repeatedly!

Recently my three year old son wanted a screwdriver. He is very skilled for his age with tools (my toolbox has a pen and a check book in it so it definitely came from Mom) so after the tenth request I caved in and gave it to him. It occurred to me that he simply wore me down. Not the first time and it won't be the last. John, like many young children is relentless when he wants something. I started to examine my sales efforts and asked myself, how relentless am I when it comes to an order. For John, his sister and Mom's sake the answer better be pretty damn bad since I am the breadwinner and live solely on commissions!

Many say that you might hear no twenty times before you hear yes. We can all relate to this after a day of cold calls with only a few new prospects and a feeling like you were kicked in the teeth repeatedly. These are the tough hard days of sales that the people who say how easy our job is don't get to witness. They see us golf, entertain, leave the office to go on appointments and say "I could do that, that guy is useless" yet they don't take the risk we do. Those ugly days of cold calling, networking, prospecting. preparing. closing are what earns us the right to follow an non-traditional schedule, work form home, attend conferences, and visit with customers rather than stay in a cube each day every day. To have the sales life, however, you have to sell, and in today's economy, there is no where to hide!

I am looking at every opportunity I get now and thinking about the word relentlessness. Define a goal with each opportunity, focus on the delivering the very best outcome for the client, make sure the client knows that you have no other interest but to overwhelm them and do it again! Don't create any room for the customer to even look for a competitor. When the competition comes along, how much better will you be. Stick to the basics, do what you say you will and then some, follow up, follow up, and follow up again but do it creatively....have something for your customer every time you call or risk being relentless and irrelevant, a bad combo!

Post Fourteen

Have you ever made assumptions about a deal and taken action based on those assumptions? Chances are you have and in some cases those assumptions may be accurate.  Recently I made some assumptions about an account and lost a big opportunity.

Its not the first time its happened and if I take an honest view of the circumstances, I got lazy.  I knew the owner of this company and quoted a great product at a very competitive price.  I followed up with the owner and found out that our price looked good and that our product not only me but exceeded the specifications.  

One of my competitors drilled further and realized that the General Manager of the company who I didn't know was much more involved with design.  My competitor flipped the specification for the entire design to his product set, brought real value to the customer, and I found out only after the products he sold shipped into the account.  I was simply outworked lost some huge commissions because I didn't dig deep enough.  If your business is like mine in June of 2009, you probably cant afford to lose business either and any loss hurts.  Losing to a competitor who outworked me really pisses me off.  

So, what am I going to do?

First, I am taking a bigger picture approach to the problem.  Assumptions, for me, are based on limited thinking or an arrogant approach that my summary of the circumstances are always right.  I am working with a new prospect at the moment and I am writing out a number of questions that are not yet answered.  I am already coming up with ideas that are forcing me to think differently.  As the years go by, I see this as real limiting factor for me and I need to change it to be the best at what I do.  I like the results I see from writing out unanswered questions and each answer offers more possibilities and creative solutions for success.  

The more I think the same way about everything, and think that I am right or smarter than everyone, the less I learn and the more deals will likely slip away.  Its hard work to analyze a sale, seek outside opinions, and be open to ideas from different people.  Its harder work to make less money and lose!  

I recently bought a new phone.  Sometimes I buy things because I need the novelty and all of the short term gratification that comes with a new purchase.  I am still enamored by this phone nearly ten days later.  This was not just any phone nor was it any store.  

We are in the worst global recession in nearly 70 years.  Consumer spending is at an all time low, and unemployment is still growing by 400K plus people per month here in the states.  Circuit City recently shuttered its local store and many others.  Starbucks is closing 700 locations and two local car dealerships are shuttered after fifty plus years.  The normal bustling suburbs now look like a special on Frontline about an old factory town gone bad.

Back to the phone.  I went to the store at an off hour so it wouldn't be too busy.  Wrong!  I counted 40 plus customers and over 15 employees.  The employees wear different color shirts that designate their role to make this place sing.  The first thing I noticed is the lighting.  It was perfect, hardly any shadows anywhere.  There is music playing but it is just at the right level, like a great server at a restaraunt that you hardly notice but tip twenty five percent.  All of the products are on display to use, explore, and test.  There is no pressure selling but there is an unbeleivable environment for spending!

 I met a concierge and told her what I wanted to.  She asked me a few questions, offered some helpful information, and told me that I would soon meet with a specialist.  I then met Lou about two minutes later and he said he would be happy to help me.  Great, Lou seemed like a good guy.

Problem....Liz the concierge told Lou (yeah, thats right, Lou and the other specialists have so many appointments that they need reminders all of the time about their schedule) that he had an appointment in 16 minutes and that he wouldn't be able to help me until 4:30.  It was 2:44 in the afternoon.  Lets review, I am ready to plunk down a couple of hundred bucks, sign a contract and leave.  The demand at this place is so high that the answer I had for a short second was, come back in one hour and forty five minutes and we can see you.  Mind you, Lou and Liz were incredibly nice and helpful, but hey, don't you people know who I am??

Fortunately Lou squeezed me in  had me out of there in 12 minutes and was early for his 3 o'clock.  I spent 200.00 and left with a new phone, but its not just any phone.

I was at the Apple store.  Thats right, the only place in North America's second largest shopping mall that has a line that regularly stretcches around the corner for premium products that you cannot buy anywhere else.  If you've had the experience of buying in these stores, you know that the employees are passionate, knowledgable and most importantly, users of the products. 

What does any of this have to do with structured cabling sales you ask....not much on the surface.  We don't work in a retail model.  We don't sell paper thin laptops or really great computers.  We sell passive copper and fiber systems and struggle to explain to our friends what we do and how our products work.  You know what I mean.  Your parents or uncles just give up and say you work "in computers"!  

Give some thought to the environment you create when you are working with a prospect.  How do you present your solution and deliver a message that separates you from your competition.  Are you creating the ideal buying enviroment for your customer?  In our business, this environment might mean eliminating risks for your prospect and using your creative strengths to do so.  

Referrals are a great start.  Ask one of your better clients to write a letter or call a prospect on your behalf.  Address performance issues by engaging a specialist form your company and a financial professional to talk about depreciation, leasing, or other creative financial solutions that make your client's risk levels diminish.  Tell your clients abut the amount of money your other clients spend every year to support a poorly planned cable plant or better yet, show them the actual costs and pictures.  This is not fear based selling, this is an asset to your prospect.

Apple gets people to line up for their products, pay more, and come back over and over.  Their stores are beautiful, their products are innovative and functionally awesome, and people use their products everyday.  Here is the scary part abut their growth potential, Apple computers make up less than 5 percent of the computer market. 

How attractive are you and your products to your market.  Are clients and prospects talking about their experience with you after the sale?  

How are you staying RELEVANT?

Post Twelve

Thanks to all of the readers and members of our LinkedIn group.  I hope that the blog and the group help everyone stay focused and sharp through the balance of this year and into 2010 where we hopefully see some improvement in our respective markets.

In prosperous times, we are sometimes able to respond to the flow of work/orders that are available without having to really dig and fight for every nickel.  Today's climate is a bar room brawl and requires a lot of patience and discipline.  Margins are seemingly neglected at times. Manufacturers are quick to discount on bulk orders.  Suppliers are forced to sell  at low margins to turn inventory and designers need to pay their people.

How will your company or client base look when prosperity returns?  We will see better days in the near term, hopefully in the next year.  Have you thought about your position with key accounts and prospects at the end of this recession.  Will your key clients survive?  Are you leveraged heavily with one or two clients?  Could an acquisition or bankruptcy of one of your key accounts take you out or force you to miss plan?

Take a look at your accounts and see how diversified they are.  Use some of your good clients for referrals and consider smaller opportunities than in the past.  There are fewer opportunities to pursue, make all of the count!

ELEVENTH POST

Today's post has little to do with Structured Cabling sales strategies.  Like most of you, I am critical of any presenters because I think I am better than most (ok I'm an egomaniac with an inferiority complex) and usually decide in my head within a minute of someone's talk that I could dust them in a debate or deliver a better presentation.  There is just one thing that is keeping me from doing that and it is drive.

Obviously the person presenting earned the right or figured out how to get in front of the group relegating me to the position of armchair quarterback.  How did that person get to present?  Maybe they were invited or asked or sent a video to the people deciding on content for the seminar or meeting.  Maybe they are so good that it made perfect sense for the host to ask them to speak.  How do we get to be that person?

Here are some presentation tips that I find are outstanding ways to separate yourself from your competition, peers and even friends.

• Presenters often say the word "right?" over and over when explaining a concept or topic.  It is annoying and unnecessary.  An example,  "So, 10Gb is the latest copper cabling system technology right?"  Eliminate this from your talks.  I've noticed this trend in technology presentations especially in the last ten years.
• Maintain eye contact with the people you are speaking with....all of them. This is critical in a conference room setting.  Too often presenters focus on only one person.  This is a really bad thing if you are a male presenter and you only focus on the male in the room and ignore the women or vice versa.  This behavior says, I don't really regard you so I am not looking at you.
• Use humor tactfully.  You should know your audience and draw whatever limits around certain topics you fell are appropriate.  If you wouldn't say it in front of your mother, my advice is save it for another time.
• People buy on emotion.  Sure you need to deliver facts and RELEVANT information, but if people bought on facts alone, we could send an audio presentation to accompany a white paper with an ROI model and go tee it up.  What are you doing in your presentations to get the buying juices flowing?
• Are you so good at presenting that you don't need to join a public speaking group?  Oh yeah, you are that good.  And LeBron James probably doesn't need to practice jumpers with three guys in his face and Tiger Woods doesn't put too much time in on the practice tee.  Toastmasters International is an excellent place to learn how to deliver great speeches, properly introduce people, and most importantly master the English language.  Lose the ahh's and umm's!  You will be amazed at how often these filler words creep into your talks.  How do I know this, because Toastmasters assigns someone to count your filler words.  This person is called the Ah Grammarian.  Join your local chapter.  Its affordable and a great investment.
• Do you use power point and read the slide verbatim?  If you do, please hand me a pen to stab myself in the eye so I can be distracted from your presentations.  Big ideas and high level bullets, charts that are easy to read, video and flash content are much more meaningful  Spice it up!

One of the greatest compliments I had was from a good customer that I've known for over fifteen years.  It was a simple comment.  He said I was memorable.  

Stay RELEVANT!

TENTH POST