Heavy Hitter Sales Blog

2008: Do You Want to Be a (Penta) Millionaire?

In order to be counted among the richest 1% of Americans you must be a pentamillionaire and have a net worth over $5 million. Today, there are more than 930,000 pentamillionaires. Anne Kadet of SmartMoney.com wrote a very interesting article about what it takes to become rich. As you read the excerpts below, note the striking similarities between becoming a pentamillionaire and a Heavy Hitter (a truly great salesperson).

• The people who amassed their fortunes are, first and foremost, entrepreneurs — risk takers for whom wealth is a byproduct of pursuing their passion. Only 10% of pentamillionaires inherited their wealth. One might think that good fortune would play a role, but even luck is largely a matter of one's own making. Psychologist Richard Wiseman has found that people who describe themselves as lucky share common habits that account for their success: They're friendly and fond of new experiences, traits that put them on a collision course with new opportunities. In addition, "lucky" folks simply have higher expectations of success — they're too pigheadedly optimistic to heed the long odds and call it quits.                          

• Not to say that getting rich is simply a matter of having a swell attitude. The path to riches usually involves the kind of risk that would make most people feel a little queasy. Harrison Group head Jim Taylor recently persuaded more than 3,000 pentamillionaires to discuss their path to success. Perhaps not surprisingly, none of them had a cushy union job down at the DMV.

• Surprisingly, today's very rich say that money itself wasn't much of a motivator. Once you've got food in your belly and a big-screen TV, the mere prospect of more Benjamins isn't enough to get you leaping out of bed at 5 a.m. Rather, rich folks often make their fortunes after they make up their minds to solve a problem or do something better than it's been done before.

• Getting rich also requires a certain amount of stubbornness and clarity of purpose. Being rich means freedom: to spend your time as you please, to pursue your real interests and to take a chance without courting utter ruin. Paradoxically, the road to riches often means acting as if you already have that freedom.

The Year End Cesspool

December is the most important sales month of the year? Make sure you don't get stuck in the Year End Cesspool like Brian’s story below…”                  

    

Brian was presenting his forecast in front of his teammates and was explaining why a deal that he had originally forecasted to close in the quarter came in three months later. Here’s his story.

    

Brian was excited that the account he had worked on for months had selected his software solution. After several weeks of ensuing price negotiations, a $300,000 purchase order was submitted into the customer’s capital expenditure software system (referred to by the customer internally as the “CES system”). Since several weeks were left in the quarter, Brian expected that he would receive the purchase order well before the quarter’s cutoff.

    

In Brian’s mind the deal was done. The purchase order would be printed and signed and he forecasted the deal accordingly. However, Brian was quite surprised to learn that the rules-based CES system required that a purchase of that magnitude be approved by twenty-one different people. The purchase order had entered the cesspool of order approval.

   

Between vacations and busy schedules, it would take another three months before all twenty-one signatures were gathered. In the meantime, Brian embarrassingly had to explain to his manager why a deal he had positively guaranteed would close wouldn’t.

   

His assumption about the purchase order turnaround time was dead wrong. If only he’d had the foresight to ask about the details of the procurement process before he committed the deal on his forecast.

Tip: Always ascertain the customer’s procurement process with the same diligence you devote to understanding the customer’s selection process

How to Select a Sales Kickoff Meeting Keynote Speaker

Let’s assume you are in charge of planning your company’s annual sales kick-off (global sales conference, annual sales meeting, or national sales meeting), the most important sales meeting of the year. You’ve picked the best location, chosen the right hotel, and are in the process of finalizing the meeting agenda. However, one critically important task remains to be completed--you must select the perfect keynote speaker. After keynoting more than one hundred sales kickoffs, I’d like to share my sales meeting ideas with you.

There are four main types of keynote speakers to choose from; celebrity, motivational, industry mavens, and sales experts. Celebrities (entertainment stars, sports heroes, business icons, politicians, etc.) will speak mainly about their personal experiences. Conversely, industry mavens are analysts and consultants who talk about current issues and future business trends. Meanwhile, motivational speakers exuberantly try to touch listeners’ emotions. And finally, there are sales experts who share their specific sales-related wisdom and knowledge with the audience.

So, how do you decide which one is right for you? Here are five questions to ask a potential keynote speaker in order to help you determine whether or not he or she is right for your meeting.

1. What is the profile of the typical audience you present to?

There aren’t any two sales forces that are exactly alike. Every sales force is unique in three different ways; complexity of the sales process, the average level of sales experience, and the state of morale. Perhaps the biggest mistake when selecting a sales kickoff presenter is picking one whose main message doesn’t apply to the products you sell or resonate with the sophistication of the sales force. For instance, even though a keynote speaker has successfully presented to mid-western real estate agents in the past, he or she would not be a good fit to for a software company.

Ensuring that the speaker is in tune with the sales forces’ morale is another critically important consideration. Even though it is an imperfect world, you are in charge of creating the perfect experience for an audience that is in a variety of states of contentment. Many salespeople are happy, some are apathetic, and others are downright despondent. Ideally, you want a speaker who is experienced in speaking in this type of difficult circumstance. For example, if your company has been part of a recent merger you want a speaker who is familiar with the intricacies of this situation and how it affects morale.

2. How would you prepare for our meeting?

Even though you may sell the same products as several other companies, your sales force faces distinctive competitive challenges. For instance, there’s a big difference between selling for an eight-hundred-pound-gorilla-sized company than an upstart competitor.

The successful keynote presentation should include major messages that are applicable to the realities of your company’s competitive situation. Therefore, the presenter should conduct extensive pre-presentation interviews and diligent background research to ensure he or she understands your marketplace, products, and salespeople.

3. Do you customize your presentation?

Since salespeople present for a living they know when they are being fed a “canned” presentation. The most successful keynote presentation will incorporate elements of the salespeople’s daily lives into the actual presentation. This may include tangible advice to defeat your archenemies and tactics to present your products more effectively. As a result, the presentation needs to be customized so that it helps address the toughest obstacles your sales force faces.

A one size fits all presentation delivered exactly in the same way over the past five years has a high likelihood of falling flat today. Audiences appreciate a presenter who has taken the time to understand their challenges and provides them with strategies they can put to use immediately.

4. When do you typically present at sales kickoffs? At the beginning, a nightly dinner, or the meeting’s end?

You wouldn’t use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail. Similarly, the particular speaking slot you are trying to fill requires a specific type of keynote speaker. If the speaking slot is at the meeting opening, you most likely want a powerful presenter with an impactful message (because he or she is probably speaking right after your company’s chairman, CEO, or VP of sales). A keynote to be delivered during a dinner gathering should be fast-paced, up-tempo and include a healthy dose of humor. Conversely, a closing speaker needs to be able to rally the troops and reinvigorate them with a sense of purpose.

5. What takeaway materials do you provide?

A typical keynote presentation will last just an hour or two at most. Given such a short timeframe, how can it be more than just a “feel good” experience? The best way to achieve lasting impact is by providing takeaway materials that the salespeople can reference over the long-run. That’s why I’m a big fan of presenters who provide copies of their books, informational CD’s, and PowerPoint presentations to the audience.

Finally, one of the most important factors you should continually remind yourself of during the selection process is how well does the speaker dovetail with your sales kickoff theme. The best speaker will center their presentation on your theme and work his or her material around it. If you’re still not one-hundred percent certain what your theme should be, they should possess the practical experience to help brainstorm with you on an appropriate theme. Because the best speakers understand that your success and their success are intimately intertwined.

Free Sales Strategy Webinar

Please join Steve Martin, author of Heavy Hitter Sale Wisdom and Heavy Hitter Selling  as he presents “How to Map the Complex Sale.”  Sales forecasting systems show deals at all stages of the sales cycle, but they fail to provide the types of information needed to ascertain true account standing. Since the forecasting systems are based mainly on numbers, they don't include the most important aspects of selling: the creation of the sales strategy, the human nature of the decision makers, and other important subjective judgments such as internal politics. Winning the complex sale requires you to be able to collect and have command over a diverse range of sales cycle details. The best way to comprehend all of this information is through Account Maps. Account Maps provide a visual representation of all the attributes of decision makers, the competitive standing versus the other vendors, and the strategy to win the account.

Mapping Out a Winning Sales Strategy!

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 13, 10 AM PST

REGISTER HERE

What's Wrong with Sales Training Today

Almost all sales training programs today share the same fundamental flaw. None explain what is truly at the heart of all sales: how to build relationships between people, how salespeople incorporate the elements of human behavior into their strategy, and how to say the “right” words at the “right” time to persuade customers to buy. They don’t offer help where help is needed most--how to deal with the humanness of your customers and the internal politics of decision making.
   
The existing training methodologies do not explain or fully take into account the human characteristics of the people who actually make the purchase decision. They concentrate on the logical and procedural aspects of the sales cycle. In short, they offer frameworks that are limited to the “tangible” processes of the sales cycle. These may include the basic questions a salesperson commits to memory, such as, “What is your budget?” and “What is your time frame?” Other programs emphasize the business benefits and financial justification of the salesperson’s solution. They explain how to create a return-on-investment (ROI) model in order to show customers how much money they will save by selecting their product. However, every company supplies their own ROI and extols their unique benefits. Therefore, how do you stand out from the pack?

Somehow, “successful” sales training has become associated with a thick binder of material the salesperson lugs home from the class (never to open again). The classroom experience is based upon rote memorization of facts. There is very little interaction, exercises, or meaningful conversation about the difficult “real-world” obstacles that need to be overcome. The training classes are pre-packaged sessions that are taught the same way over and over again regardless of the audience’s unique situation. The goal is get through the material, not to learn how and where to win (and the skills needed to do it). When in reality, every training experience should be a one of a kind unique experience because every company occupies a different position in the competitive landscape.

   

Most importantly, today’s customers are smarter and savvier than ever. Technology has become a way of life. Our cars, appliances, and recreational toys have become computerized tools. Via the Internet customers can research products, prices, and opinions. Collectively, this has raised the level of sophistication (and skepticism) of the customers we must converse with and sell to. Today, the balance of power is definitely in the hands of buyers and the situation will only continue to get worse. Unfortunately, most training programs assume customers are the same as they were ten or twenty years ago.

   

Your competitors have not sat idly by either. They’ve educated themselves about your products and sales tactics, and they’re more focused on defeating you than ever. Fortunately, they still believe in the use of brute force and think the best way to defeat you is by frontal attack, when in reality, winning over the hearts and minds of customers carries the day.

   

For all of these reasons, a new generation of sales training is needed. Sales training that understands the new generation of smart buyers, acknowledges competitive realities, and offers entirely new strategies to influence the decision making process.

How to Leave a Compelling Voice Mail

Telephone lead generation guru and friend of mine Travis Eakes wrote a great piece on the importance of using neurolinguistics when leaving a voice mail. Here are his thoughts:

Leaving a voicemail is one of the most common tasks salespeople perform. However, very few leave an effective message that motivates the recipient to return their call. The biggest mistake is leaving a message based on “1-way communication,” which the customer perceives to be a canned sales pitch. The reason this happens is because most salespeople use the same cold call script over and over again. They view leaving voice-mail messages as playing a numbers game. Of course, the prospect realizes their doing this too.

   

We have found that using neurolinguistics, the study of how the mind receives and transmits linguistic information, is the single-most important factor in getting a prospect to respond. Let me explain this further, a generic pitch does not resonate with the prospect because it is patterned exactly like the 15 preceding voicemails they have just deleted. When you use neuorlinguistic operators (additional words that help your message to be received correctly), your credibility builds and you are differentiating what you are saying versus others.

   

For example, rather than saying, “We provide a solution that has helped companies like yours to save money”, we use specific operators to build meaning such as, “We have worked with companies such as X,Y, and Z to lower their operating costs by 15% while increasing their product availability by 25%.” Neurolinguistic operators attach reality to your claims.

   

To further reinforce our statements, we then offer additional proof such as, “I am sending over an e-mail with a case study we conducted with company X for your review.” Remember, the ultimate goal of leaving a voice mail message is to start the process of building customer rapport. If you are successful, you will have a solid foundation with the prospect over the long-term.

How to Select a Sales Kickoff Meeting Theme

When I was a vice president of sales, one of my key responsibilities was to ensure that our sales kickoff was a complete success. Because it was the only annual gathering of the entire worldwide sales force, I wanted everyone to leave the meeting trained on our new products, well-versed about competition, and most importantly, re-energized to get back into the field and sell.

After participating in more than one-hundred sales kickoffs as a keynoter speaker, I can now attest that the first step toward conducting a successful sales kickoff starts with choosing the right theme. With this goal in mind, here are five factors to consider when selecting your sales kickoff theme.

1. Sales Force Morale

One of the most important factors to keep in mind as you chose your theme is the level of the sales force’s morale. All sales forces go through periods of high and low morale. When morale is high, you can be more creative and take bigger risks with the theme you choose. For example, one of the best sales kickoffs I ever participated in was based upon the theme of “A night at the Oscars.” In advance of the meeting, each of the sales regions created their own video about the average day in the life of a salesperson. The videos were exceptionally well-done, full of side-splitting humor, and their ingenuity was inspirational. Everyone loved watching them and a judging panel of company executives awarded Oscars to the best.

Conversely, I wouldn’t recommend such an over-the-top theme during tough times. In this situation the theme should be more commonsensical like “Better, Stronger, Faster,” which provides a platform that meeting presenters can use to talk about changes and improvements. If you are in the midst of a merger, pick a theme like “Winning Together” that promotes teamwork, or something like “The Power of Synergy” that emphasizes how the companies combined are greater than the separate parts.

2. What is the Sales Mantra?

The leader of every sales organization will typically have a clearly defined area of sales force improvement for the new year. It might be to close more seven figure deals, sell more of a certain product line, increase customer satisfaction, or to get the reps to consistently make their quarterly quotas. Obviously, it makes sense to make this mantra the underpinnings of your sales kickoff theme.

For example, one company wanted to focus their sales team on closing bigger deals. They selected a theme centered around baseball and used the tagline, “Swing for the Fences!” Throughout the meeting they showed movie clips of the greatest home run hitters of all time. At their awards dinner the vice president of sales presented inscribed baseball bats to the top sales performers.

3. Should the Theme Focus on Your Arch-Rival?

Every company has enemies, and every sales force has an arch-rival that is truly despised. If you really want to rally the troops and concentrate the meetings focus, use a competitive theme that directly targets your arch-rival. For example, instead of a nebulous theme like “In it to win it,” use the name of your competitor in the sales kickoff them like “BEAT ACME!” Remember, sometimes the most straight-forward theme is the best.

4. Can the Presenters Dove-tail to the Theme?

The theme’s tagline is critical because it provides the centerpiece idea from which the meeting presenters can embellish upon. Recently, I attended a meeting where the theme was “Reach for the Stars” with an accompanying graphic of a rocket heading into space. Although it’s not necessarily a bad theme, it proved difficult for the presenters from the marketing, engineering, and customer support departments to incorporate into their presentations. A better space theme would have been “All Systems Go!” This would have enabled the presenters to better-explain what new products and improvement programs were being launched in their area of the organization.

5. Consider the Meeting Takeaways

It’s very important that sales kickoff attendees are provided three types of meeting takeaways. First, all of the presentations and information that is presented should be available online over the internet. Don’t fall into the trap of associating the success of your meeting to the thickness of the materials you hand out. Second, you should provide some type of sales skills self-improvement takeaway (a copy of book on advance sales strategies for example). Finally, always give company-logo’d chatska (T-shirts, hats, pens, mouse pads, etc.).

Ideally, you would like your takeaways to tie into your meeting theme. For example, “Swing for the fences” meeting attendees were given different colored company baseball hats and jerseys that designated which group they were part of in their team-building games and exercises. Be sure not to skimp on the takeaways, because your annual sales kickoff is the most important sales meeting of the year.

Top Five Sales Kickoff Mistakes

Every vice president of sales knows the most important meeting of the year is the annual sales kickoff. It’s usually the only time during the entire fiscal year where the worldwide sales team gets together. Therefore, the success of this meeting is critical.

Perhaps the best way to measure the sales kickoff’s success is whether or not the salespeople leave better educated about their products, enlightened about their company’s future direction, and most importantly, energized to attack and conquer the new year’s sales quota. With these three goals in mind, here’s the “Top Five Sales Kickoff Meeting Mistakes” based upon my participation in more than one hundred sales kickoffs.

#1 It’s Too Long!
Studies have shown that the average person will hear only seven and a half minutes of a one-hour presentation and remember only half of the words he or she hears. Here’s another startling fact based upon a massive study completed by the US Air Force. Within 72 hours of a meeting, attendees forget 95% of what they hear. You should keep these studies in mind if you are planning a three, four, or five day sales meeting (because you are going beyond the point of diminishing returns).

#2 Not Enough Individual Recognition
No one has ever been fired for saying too many compliments or handing out too much recognition. Awards are extremely important to salespeople. As a vice president of sales, I experienced more motivation and a harder work ethic from my sales team by handing out a $45 trophy than would be achieved by increasing the compensation plan by one hundred times that amount. Salespeople enjoy the acclaim and the public identification as a role model within their group. Therefore, compliments to individual salespeople should be given out continuously throughout the sales kickoff and awards should always be done in full view of the entire organization.

#3 Too Many Presenters
More is not always better. I once attended a sales kickoff where there were thirty-four different presenters over the course of a two day meeting. It seemed every departmental manager within the company wanted their fifteen minutes at the podium, regardless if they had anything significant to say. By the end of the kickoff, the audience was completely anesthetized to the president’s closing comments and call to action.

#4 Not Enough Humor
A recent study found that hypertensive men who drink moderately and have one to two drinks a day had a 44 percent lower risk of dying from a heart attack than nondrinkers with high blood pressure. Of course, salespeople have known this for years… Sales is a stressful, high stakes profession. Humor helps release pent-up tensions and reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously.

One of the most impressive (and funniest) things I have ever seen at a sales kickoff was a competition between the various sales regions to create a marketing video for a soon-to-be released product. The movies were incredibly creative, totally hilarious, and so well done you would have thought they were made by Hollywood professionals. As the movies were shown, the entire sales organization bonded together through laughter. While you don’t have to stage elaborate competitions, you shouldn’t forget to insert some laughs into your agenda.

#5 Too Much “One Way” Communication
An old adage about military style communication says, “Tell it to them once, tell it to them twice, and then tell it to them again.” Unfortunately, too many sales kickoffs subscribe to this philosophy and forget to involve their salespeople in any aspect of the presentations. I strongly recommend every sales kickoff include panels where top salespeople are interviewed about their major wins and losses. At the very least, key salespeople should be asked to present summary overviews of their most important wins.

Closing Thoughts
What is your company’s greatest asset? Is it its patents, products, or brand name? Technologies will come and go as new products are continually introduced into the market. I doubt you own any record albums, a typewriter, or a Ford Pinto. And while we tend to think of a company’s brand as unique, it is only as valuable as the integrity of its people. Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco were once very respected company names.

In reality, every company’s most important assets are its customers and it is salespeople who are tasked with the vital responsibility of recruiting and keeping them. In this regards, salespeople have the most important job in the company and it’s incumbent that the annual sales kickoff be a resounding success—educating, enlightening, and energizing the team!

When Did We Lose The Deal?

You’ve may have seen the humiliating video clip of Lauren Caitlin Upton, Miss Teen South Carolina, lose the Miss Teen USA Pageant. It happened when she gave her response about why some Americans could not locate the United States on a world map…

“Personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so, because umm soma people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education such as that South Africa and the Iraq where like such as, I believe that they should our education over here in the US should help the US, I mean South Africa should help the Iraqi and Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our.”

   

Every deal has a critical moment or turning point that determines the winner and the losers. In some cases, the turning point is easy to spot. For example, a salesperson may be presenting his solution and encounters a deal-breaking objection that he is unable to overcome. Even though the customer remains cordial for the rest of the meeting, a turning point has occurred and the deal is lost.

   

Every salesperson competing for the same piece of business is trying to gain momentum. Momentum includes positive buying signs and other forms of customer favortism. While the winning salesperson is enjoying preferential treatment, the losers are unaware that they have experienced “buzz kill,” the moment during the sales cycle where the customer has eliminated them from contention.

   

Buzz kill represents the person, business reason, political issue, or technical obstacle that causes momentum to turn downward. Ninety-nine out of one hundred times you will not recover from buzz kill. Unfortunately, losers will continue to waste time and effort on the deal with the mistaken hope they can reseruct momentum. However, even though the customer may not make a public announcement about the winner for weeks or even months, the deal is lost.

A Legend Has Died: Meeting Bill Walsh

Bill Walsh, legendary former football coach of the San Francisco 49ers passed away last week. I thought I would share the interesting story of the one and only time I spoke with him. It happened about eight years ago at the airport in San Jose, California. He was sitting all alone and no one seemed to notice who he was. I had to look at him several times to reassure myself it was really him.  

   

At the time, I was the vice president of sales working for a Silicon Valley software company. A year earlier I had read his 550 page book titled “Finding the Winning Edge.” While the book is an exhaustive description of his football philosophy intended to be read by other coaches, I thought many of the concepts applied to sales management (understanding the role of the head coach, organizing the team, acquiring talent, etc.).

Now I am the type of person who will bother a stranger so it took some courage on my part to approach him. He seemed somewhat surprised when I introduced myself and told him that I really liked his book. He asked what I did for a living and why I liked it. I told him I was in sales and what made the book so interesting was how he drew upon history and integrated quotes from military leaders such as George Patton and Erwin Rommel within the book. As we shook hands I told him that I planned to write a book someday. He was very gracious, encouraging, and wished me well.    

I am sure Bill Walsh influenced the lives of many coaches and players. However, as I look at his book on my bookshelf today, I have no doubt that it help trigger my interest in the application of history and military strategy to the field of sales. This would later serve as the foundation for Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom. I also included a quote from him in my first book Heavy Hitter Selling:  “History is our collective memory. It is our accumulated experiences. It is constantly invoked by every person, every day, to help them make decisions based, to some extent, on what has gone on before their lives.” A legend has died; Bill Walsh.