communication

Sales Success Requires Listening

February 15, 2019 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this interview, I talked with Dana Dupuis – the founder of ECHO Listening Intelligence. Dana is also the co-creator of a proprietary listening assessment called the ECHO Listening Profile (ECHO = Effective Communication for Healthy Organizations), which has been instrumental in reshaping communication with sales teams, executives and across full company cultures.

The old adage about having 2 ears and 1 mouth makes a lot of sense, especially when it comes to selling. Since our job as sellers is to solve problems for our prospects and customers, listening is a key component of being successful in selling. Unfortunately, too often salespeople talk more than listen. That can happen either because salespeople are new, nervous or not properly trained. The great art of listening is not the same as hear and how listening works is largely misunderstood.

Dana will be joining me for a webinar about listening on March 5. Get details and REGISTER HERE for this complimentary session!

Okay, on to the podcast interview. Dana and I talked about:

Why is listening such an important component in sales.

What makes it difficult for salespeople to practice listening.

Dana’s background in building sales teams, why she left sales to study listening, and how that journey led her to bring back what she learned about listening and selling. Listen to the interview the MOST important thing you need to know about listening and sales.

How listening works. It may not be what you think! I know I was surprised.

Dana also talks about how all of us listen “to” and “for” different information, as well as the many different ways we listen.

Finally, I asked Dana why it is that you can been in a meeting with multiple people, yet everyone there may leave having heard something different. Dana told me why what we say is often misunderstood, misinterpreted or changed depending on the listener.

By the way, Dana made this SPECIAL OFFER Until April 2019: Dana offered my podcast listeners the opportunity to take the ECHO Learning assessment with her compliments.
Send her email to: dana@echolistening.com In the subject line include: Women in Sales Podcast with Barb FREE Assessment Link

As always, another insightful interview! Listen and enjoy!

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About Dana

With over 20 years of experience in sales and management consulting, leadership development and building healthy corporate cultures, Dana Dupuis knows the importance of good communication.

Dana is the founder of ECHO Listening Intelligence and the co-creator of a proprietary listening assessment called the ECHO Listening Profile (ECHO = Effective Communication for Healthy Organizations), which has been instrumental in reshaping communication with sales teams, executives and across full company cultures. By understanding that each individual listens “to” and “for” different kinds of information, companies can greatly enhance their ability to communicate and collaborate effectively. It is upon this concept that Dana’s work is based.

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What’s the Purpose?

October 11, 2016 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

A simple question, I thought. I was wrong.

A few years back, without thinking more carefully, I created a situation that resulted in an experience with me that was anything but wow. That was a bummer because I’m a firm believer in the importance of creating great experiences with anyone who will interact with you and your employees regardless of their role. And in this case, I was the one who blew it.

Mistakes happen. As human beings, that is an inevitable fact of life. How you handle the gaffe, I believe, is what makes the difference between turning an honest mistake into a positive outcome. I think of my early days as a customer service representative. It was amazing to me how I could quickly diffuse an angry customer situation simply by listening, acknowledging their pain and apologizing for the problem that occurred.

But on this day… I wasn’t paying attention. Here’s the story.

I use a scheduling tool called TimeTrade. Hours of wasted time and hassle when scheduling meetings are mostly a thing of the past. When I agree to meet with someone, I simply send them a link to my calendar. They find an opening that works for them and book the time. My calendar is automatically updated and all is right with the world. That is until it isn’t.

As a general rule, I don’t post my calendar link publicly. I know that many of my colleagues do post a public link as a way of creating a CTA (call to action), but my biggest concern was that instead of potential clients booking time with me, I’d be inundated with calls from salespeople trying to sell me. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to give it a try. I included my calendar link at the bottom of a newsletter with a few sentences that said if you’d like to have a conversation about our social selling services you can use the calendar link to book a meeting. What ensued was some temporary chaos. What I thought might happen, did. More than one sales person used that as an opportunity to book time on my calendar. Their objective wasn’t to learn about our services, though. Their goal was to try and sell me on theirs. The lack of integrity among many salespeople still surprises me.

I learned a lesson, and honestly, it had been months since it happened. I had forgotten all about it.

Which leads me to my mistake.

Looking at my calendar one particular morning, I noticed that I was scheduled to have a meeting with someone I didn’t recognize. Not a personal contact, we are not connected on LinkedIn, and I do not recall ever meeting the individual. I think the problem is that I felt burned by the earlier experience which definitely caused an error in my judgment. And the message in the schedule confirmation seemed suspicious. Perhaps this was a classic example of seeing what you expect to see?

What to do?

I didn’t want to be a jerk, but I wasn’t about to waste my time either. Been there, done that. I sent a message to the person and asked them to clarify for me the purpose of the call. Without thinking, I went on to say that I typically know the people that I am meeting with and was curious to know how they booked time on my calendar.

I offended.

In the moment, asking for clarity about the call’s purpose made sense. After all, the message did not say that the meeting was to discuss our sales services. But that is irrelevant. Forgetting that we were the ones who made the link public was certainly my first mistake. I compounded my mistake when I assumed that this individual’s intentions were less than honorable. As a result, I did not think more carefully about the words I used in my email, nor did I consider what the question would feel like to the person reading my message. As it turns out, this was a legitimate buyer, who, judging by their response to me was offended by my question. I don’t blame them.

What’s the lesson?

Everyone makes mistakes, and I made a big one that day. What harm would it have done to take the call? If it was simply another salesperson, I could have ended the call right away. Or, if I’d stopped and thought more carefully before sending my email asking for clarification about the meeting, I wouldn’t have offended the individual who booked time with me.

That situation was a reminder to me that we should always stop and think before we act. Realizing my mistake, I offered a sincere apology. Though I never heard from that person again, I know I did the right thing by acknowledging my mistake and saying I was sorry. Sometimes, that’s all you can do.

Does Your Sales Message Scream Value?

November 30, 2015 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

According to an eBook on Expert Prospecting Tips from Witty Parrot, one in every two B2B salespeople are left to their own devices to generate leads, which creates a bit of a problem since buyers easily block their prospecting efforts. It is time for salespeople to look in the mirror and accept that there is a reason why this is happening.

“According to sales management, the salesperson’s ability or inability to communicate value messages is the biggest inhibitor keeping salespeople from achieving quota.”–SiriusDecisions

Can you really blame buyer’s resistance to dealing with salespeople? Their experience is, more often than not, a waste of their precious time. The inability to create a value message is at the heart of this problem. Feature dumps don’t cut it, and simply making more phone calls, sending more spam emails, or broadcasting your pitch to more people on social channels aren’t helping you. Your sales messaging has to change.

Today’s traditional sales approach is to broadcast communication that is nothing more than vendor centric sales pitches. That broadcast could be via the phone, email, social networks or during the sales call. Rather than breaking through the competitive noise and generating a return on effort, poorly crafted sales messages earn salespeople a place in the delete pile. Worse, they are doing harm to their professional brand and that of their company. You have one shot at making a good first impression throughout every stage of the sales process. Why wouldn’t you want to make it count?

Don’t do this!

Here is an example of an email I received recently that illustrates my point. It completely misses the mark, and frankly, I can’t imagine any decision maker agreeing to a sales meeting after reading it. Let’s see what you think.

“Good Day!

XYZ Services is a technology services company which provides “CEO’s, CFO’s, Operations, Sales, and Training Managers” the ability to share content by educating, energizing, mobilizing, motivating, and training their consumers, prospects, and employees. Our new product called Whatever and Whatever are tools that will transform your business into focused energy! The link above is a “Manager” who conducted a Webinar Training on XYZ’s Educational Services. It was extremely successful for her and her business/company. I would greatly appreciate 15 minutes of your time to learn more about your company and how you currently communicate within your organization and if you’re experiencing the “White Water Mentality.” My goal is to help you get more Psyched up and in Sync! Do you need increased productivity, a wider audience, and more business sales? Let’s invest some time and see where WE can GROW together. Change is inevitable. Vision means rallying the troops! I look forward to collaborating with you soon!”

There are so many problems with this email.

For starters, I have no idea what this company actually does. Do you? Something about a content sharing platform that lets you educate, energize, mobilize, motivate and train people. Their service is supposedly for five different types of company leaders, but the message is not customized for any one of them. This email should really be five different emails with a message that is focused on what each leader would actually care about.

This dandy new tool will transform your business into focused energy, which sounds ridiculous and means nothing. The seller does attempt to include a success story, but there are no specifics about the actual success the manager supposedly had. Did she bring in new leads? How many? Did she secure meetings with 15 decision makers on her target list? What percentage of new business did she close? Specific metrics grab attention. By the way, most people will not click on links when the email comes from a stranger. Communicate value in the message assuming people won’t go and visit your website.

This salesperson wants a phone call to learn more about my company, which he could easily do by reading my LinkedIn profile. If you are going to get 15 minutes with your target buyer, you want to make that time count. Don’t waste it asking the buyer to educate you about their business. Do your homework and figure it out. Use your meeting time to progress the opportunity not halt you in your tracks.

This seller also wants to know how I communicate within my company and if I’m experiencing “white water mentality”. What does that mean? Finally, he ends his email with “change is inevitable” and “vision means rallying the troops”. Hum. Should I be insulted that he thinks I’m stuck in my ways and have no vision?

Stop with the nonsense.

This nonsensical email is filled with jargon, buzz words and lacks any clarity as to the value this seller can bring to my business. I have a picture in my mind of what a sales meeting with him would look like and it’s not pretty.

When crafting sales messaging, keep these tips in mind:

Know your audience.
Make the message personalized, focused and relevant.
Skip the jargon and buzz words.
Include metrics to support success stories.
Get another perspective before sending the email or presenting your story.

If your aim is to source new sales opportunities, change your message. Focus on quality not quantity. It takes work to get the message right, and I believe this is one area where sellers can create true competitive advantage for themselves. So, will you?

Hey, while you are here, don’t forget to download your FREE copy of my Message Matters e-book from the home page. Learn tips for transforming those messages into something that works.

Is Your Message Targeted?

September 26, 2014 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

The power of the internet and social networks continues to change how business is conducted and gives buyers an infinite aray of choices. The competitive pressure to provide value at low cost is proof that a flattened world has changed how the transfer of goods is transacted.

On a recent webinar, I heard the Sales VP say that he saw it as the “consumerization of B2B”. That’s when he knew his team needed to start leveraging social as part of their sales activities. If your business strategy doesn’t reflect an attunement with this changed world, and subsequent alignment to it, you will find your salespeople locked out of opportunities.

When is the last time you closely evaluated what prompts your prospects to purchase a product or service? It could be from you or from another provider. I can say with absolute certainly that they don’t buy the features. As the sales leader, are you sure your team members really understand what drives the close (or the loss) of a sale? Experience (and research to back me up) tells me that it is very likely that they don’t. Consider this:

Over half of all salespeople close at less than 40%
Only 52% can access the key players in decision making roles
40% do not understand the buyer’s pain

Though disappointing, these statistics don’t surprise me at all. Salespeople aren’t being trained how to be consultative sales advisors. They are taught to pitch features, but that doesn’t close deals. Little real scrutiny goes into understanding why some deals close and others never get off the ground.

The buying process has changed.

How products and services are purchased today has fundamentally changed. Until a few years ago, the producers of the products and services held the cards. Buyers were at the mercy of salespeople educating them about options. Obviously, a sellers perspective was biased. These days, it is the vendor who is “last in the chain” according to Axel Schultze, CEO at of social media software provider Appearoo.

Buyers educate themselves in the early stages of determining what products/services might fix what ails them. They gather information from a variety of sources, which includes your own company website. Sellers who simply regurgitate the feature story look like what they are – amateurs. If you expect to win, you need to bring to the table something the buyer doesn’t already know – information that adds value to their business.

Message matters. What does yours say about you and your company?

To make the sales challenge even harder, according to an eBook on WittyParrot_eBook_Expert_Prospecting_Tips_2014, one in every two B2B salespeople are left to their own devices to generate leads. Buyers, unfortunately, easily block their prospecting efforts. As result, salespeople now turn to social networks in an effort to reach prospective customers. Known as social selling, you might think that what you knew about selling was no longer relevant. However, social selling is simply the tactical activity used to network, prospect, cultivate referrals, generate leads and conduct pre-sales call research using online tools.

Using social networks is NOT a shortcut to immediate sales. Integrating social media into a repeatable sales process takes thought, discipline and consistent effort. In other words, it takes work. But sales success relies on much more – the basics of good selling. Using online tactics may help secure the sales meeting, but a sellers ability to communicate relevance and value through their message and presentation is where the opportunity progresses, or stalls out.

“The greatest inhibitor to sales effectiveness is the inability to communicate a value message.” – SiriusDecisions, 2013

Scripts and canned speeches about features and benefits fall on deaf ears. Ditch the pitch in favor of selling the problem. If you don’t know what business problem you solve for the industries that you serve, well, to pardon the pun…you have a problem. It is not what your widget does, it is the problem it solves for a buyers business that makes the difference. That means you need to roll up your sleeves and learn about the prospect’s business. You have to know how what you sell can help them.

How you communicate your message to each prospect you try to engage is also extremely important today. Boiler plate emails and phone calls earn an automatic delete. This isn’t solely my opinion. The Corporate Executive Board (CEB) surveyed 5,000 executives and decision makers that interact with salespeople and discovered that 86% of these executives said that the salesperson’s message had NO commercial impact on them whatsoever. So while sellers pat themselves on the back for cranking out 1,000 emails each week – 86% of them did nothing to further a sales result!

Stop doing the same things over and over again expecting different results.

I’m not saying stop sending emails or making phone calls. Quite the contrary. Those are important sales tools. What I am saying is change WHAT you say and HOW you approach prospective customers. Selling is extremely rewarding – and for top sellers, high profitable – but it does take work. If it were easy, everyone would make it their chosen profession. If you want to stand out, you have to change what you believe works in selling today. Until you adapt how you do things, you will struggle, become frustrated and burn out. What’s the point of that?

No, Sales is Not All About Listening

February 14, 2014 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Guest post from Rob Ferrucci today. I met Rob in a LinkedIn sales group and started following his posts. I’m delighted to share his thoughts about listening and its role in selling. Enjoy!

Being a sales presentation coach I am focused on helping sales people be more effective when they are doing the talking. As a result, I am often reminded by other sales people that sales is “all about listening” that it’s “all about asking questions” that I have “two ears and one mouth and I should use them in that proportion.”

Now, I agree that listening is a critical tool in sales, but I sometimes feel that there is such an emphasis in sales today on listening that we don’t sufficiently appreciate the importance of skillful speaking.

For a sale to occur the prospect and the sales person have to take turns speaking and listening. In the early stages of the process the sales person should do most of the listening but at various points it becomes our turn to educate the prospect about how we can help them. In her book “Perfect Selling” Linda Richardson writes “Dialogue is the tool of your trade. Dialogue is what your customers do to let you into their world. Dialogue is how you shape the customers’ perception of you and the value you bring.”

Effective communication is a two way street. It is about reciprocity and sharing. According to research “Communicators continually affect and are affected by each other in a system of reciprocal influence” (Adler 2006). So of course we want to ask questions and listen in order to understand the prospects’ core competencies, their issues and their goals. But keep in mind that they also want to understand our core competencies and our solutions and they want to hear how our product or service can address their issues and goals.

Strong presentation skills (whether used in formal presentation or conversation) are the most effective way to communicate our value to our prospects. In his book “The Boxcar Millionaire” sales expert Tom Black says “The best tool you have is your words. What comes out of your mouth determines your success or failure. If this weren’t true everyone could send out brochures and power point presentations and make six figures.”

At some point in the sales process you will have to start doing more talking than listening because the prospect wants to know how you can help them. They need to understand your solution to their struggles or your plan to help them achieve their goals.

I’ll refer again to Richardson who, in “Perfect Selling” has a chapter called “Leverage” dedicated to the concept that once we understand the prospects’ situation it is now our turn to deliver the solution. Richardson writes “Once you have prepared, asked questions and listened the task remains to use that knowledge to tailor what you say.”

In other words, asking smart questions and doing lots of listening gives us a competitive advantage only if we then combine what we’ve learned with persuasive presentation skills and communicate a solution that the prospect decides will improve their situation.

Therefore, we must be able to communicate these things to the prospect in an effective and organized way. First because they expect that from us and second because it is impossible to close a sale without providing the prospect with logical and persuasive reasons why they should buy from us.

Sales trainer Patrick Hansen has written that “This stage (presentation) most influences the success or failure of the sale.” This is because it is when we are presenting or speaking that we prove to the prospect that we understand their situation, this is the payoff to the prospect for answering all our questions. But more than that, we must then prove to them that we have the right solution to improve that situation. Without providing back to the prospect a solution that addresses their specific needs what exactly is the purpose of asking all those questions?

Sales trainer and best-selling author Terri Sjodin identifies three characteristics of the top sales producers 1) the belief that they can be a top producer 2) great listening skills 3) excellent presentation skills. For Sjodin listening and presentation or speaking skills cannot be separated but are both essential for sales success. This is because without effective questions and listening skills a persuasive presentation cannot be developed and without a persuasive presentation value cannot be communicated.

So by all means ask questions, gather information and look for problems that you can solve. But when you’re done asking questions and listening make sure you know how to lay out a persuasive case for your solution…and start talking.

Rob Ferrucci coaches sales professionals on how to design and deliver persuasive sales presentations. Using seminars, workshops and personalized consulting Rob guides sales teams through his 9 step process for designing and delivering a presentation that will not only inform but also persuade the prospect and position the sales person to close the deal. Rob focuses on effective presentation structure, persuasive techniques and the effective use of power point. A life-long sales representative Rob is also an award winning public speaker and presentation coach. Website: robertferrucci.com Email: rob@robertferrucci.com Phone: 203 482 4777

It’s All in the Details

February 12, 2014 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

As a new member of a non-profit board, the chair recently asked all of us to complete the Everything DiSC Work of Leaders assessment. Having completed a number of assessments through the years – Myers Briggs, DiSC, Hermann Brain Dominance, Strengths Finder, Emotional Intelligence 2.0 – the results were no big surprise. As Popeye would say, I am what I am. Still, I always find the data helpful in reminding me where I might have blind spots or where certain situations and people may challenge me.

Understanding personality and behavioral styles is a good thing. In business we deal with people. For sellers who understand style differences and how that plays out in sales meetings and communication, it can give them a real leg up when selling. When they adapt their style to give their buyers what they need, deals are won more often than lost. Sell the same way to everyone and the probability of missed opportunities increases.

Let’s say that your style is more high level thinker, optimistic and good at verbal communication but you tend to gloss over the details. If your buyer happens to have a style that requires details to make an informed decision, you need to be prepared to go there. If you try to reassure them through promises that you’ll do whatever it takes, that just will not be enough.

So assessments and understanding human behavior can be helpful in selling and in all interactions with other people.

Where assessments – and they are assessments not tests – become problematic is if other people try to box you in based on your style designation. This assumes that an assessment score is the sum total of who you are as an individual. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Assessments provide big clues as to a person’s dominant way of thinking, behaving or decision making, but even two people with the same style designation are not exactly the same. And, in the case of DiSC, which is based on four quadrants, you may be most dominant in two of them but that doesn’t mean you have no strength in the other areas.

If you don’t know DiSC, let me briefly break down the four quadrants.

D=Dominance. Priorities include Results, Action, Competency. Avoid the small talk and focus on demonstrating quick, confident action.
i= Influence. Priorities include Enthusiasm, Action, Relationships. Upbeat, outgoing, openness is important. Negativity, too many details or detached people are bothersome.
S=Steadiness. Priorities include Sincerity, Relationships, Dependability. Casual and low key, these folks like predictable, harmonious environments.
C=Conscientiousness. Priorities include Quality, Competency, Dependability. Quality and high standards is of utmost importance. Be prepared to present logical reasons for decisions.

Curious about my style?

My style is a balanced Di. These are my natural tendencies. Core priorities that shape my leader traits are:

Being Pioneering – strategic, big picture thinker, I often see trends ahead of others. Always willing to risk trying something new and untested.
Being Commanding – that’s the D in me. I will drive for results. Meeting after meeting but accomplishing very little or nothing at all… makes me nuts.
Being Energizing – positive, glass half full gal is who I am. I believe the best in others until they prove me wrong. I tend to focus on what we CAN DO not what someone thinks we can’t.
Being Affirming – seeking to include others comes naturally. Collaborative in nature, I like to share and acknowledge the good work of others.

And while these four descriptions are accurate, they are not the total picture of Barb. Though details can sometimes bore me, my style does not mean that I am not a detail oriented person. It means that you wouldn’t want to place me in a role that required detailed work 100% of the time. It drains my energy, and I’m the first to tell you that looking at detailed spreadsheets can make my head spin. But I’m pretty darn detailed when I need to be. If it is important, I do it. To assume otherwise strictly based on my personality type is incorrect and unfair.

What got me thinking about how people make assumptions about each other, especially when you complete assessments and share results among team members, is a comment made at recent meeting. The conversation related to a particular project that I am responsible for and jokingly someone said, its good that so & so is on your team because you aren’t much for details. It was a stupid thing to say. It is untrue and disrespectful. As a practitioner in the field of people development, that individual should know better.

Human beings have so much more depth than any assessment, regardless how detailed or scientifically validated it is, can ever fully describe. In team building, coaching or hiring, use assessments to provide insight about the styles of others, but never assume you know all there is to know about them.

Telling Isn’t Selling

January 13, 2014 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

At lunch with a colleague last week, we chatted about how the sales people at his client account operate. Not surprisingly, it is standard practice during a sales meeting to walk prospects through 44-slides of yada, yada, yada that begins with extensive detail about the long, successful history of the company. Mind you, this is a company that is well known. The history lesson is unnecessary! Even when it becomes obvious during a presentation that the decision maker is bored out of their mind, the sales rep will simply keep plugging along. After all, they have been trained to “tell” not sell.

Let me tell you about our history.
Let me tell you about the awards we’ve won.
Let me tell you about the features of our products.
Let me tell you how we can solve your problem.
Let me tell you about our pricing model.
Let me tell you why other customers love us.
Let me tell you how we are better than the competition.

It isn’t that these things are unimportant. Well, maybe the awards and history, but the fact is that this information is no doubt already listed on the corporate website. Prospects don’t need sales people to tell them what they already know.

What kills me is that even in companies that have trained their sales people in a solution selling program, their sales people still show up in buyer’s offices and tell. Sure, they may ask a few questions about the prospects business but then they roll right into the pitch they’ve been taught to deliver. Seems strange, right? Even those sales people trained to sell solutions still talk AT prospects not WITH them. Why?

Because…

More time is invested in training sales people about the features of products.
An investment in training great sales skills is viewed as a one time event and not a process that is continually reinforced.
It is easier than learning about the prospects business, industry and challenges.

Instead of using meeting time to tell, imagine your roles are reversed and YOU are the customer. As the customer, what is important to you? What business initiatives are you expected to execute upon? What will happen if you don’t? Are you struggling to out pace the competition? What is happening in your industry that will impact your business today and tomorrow? The point is that unless you think like your prospect, you’ve done some digging or ask the right questions, it is going to be tough to know what is really important to them.

Here is a story to illustrate what I’m getting at. About 20 years ago, I was in the market for a new car. I’d first visited the local Nissan dealership and the conversation with the sales person was a disaster. Right up front, I detailed exactly what I wanted. In classic form, he didn’t listen. He took me over to a specific model and started “telling” me why this would be a great car for me. As if he knew, right? Immediately, I say that I’m not interested. Undeterred, he keeps pushing all the features he believes to be awesome. Again, I say, I don’t like the car and there is NO WAY that I would drive it. To which he replies, “What’s not to like, my wife drives this same car.” I couldn’t run away fast enough.

Contrast that with the experience I had at the Infinity dealership right next door. The sales person was courteous, professional and asked about me. He asked about my work, what I was most interested in, any features important to me in a car… you get the picture. Learning that I was a sales rep who supported accounts in Tucson, he knew the drive between Phoenix and Tucson was a 2-hour long stretch of highway with practically nothing out there. He also learned that I’m a music lover. Rather than talking about the vanity mirror, he focused on safety and security by highlighting the roadside assistance program that came included with a car purchase. He had me try out the awesome stereo system. I already loved the car – a G20 – because it was sporty, looked upscale and was a dream to drive. And because this sales person had learned about Barb, he tailored his message to focus on what I cared about. Guess what – car sold. Most pleasant car purchase experience ever!!!!

The irony is that Nissan owns Infinity. What gives? Why a horrible experience with the Nissan rep but a stellar one with the Infinity rep? I asked my Infinity rep and he told me that the company invested many hours of training for Infinity reps and constantly stressed (and reinforced) the importance of selling a solution based on the needs of the car buyer. Listening and asking good questions was a huge part of their training programs. Evidently they didn’t invest in similar training for the Nissan side of the house.

Stop telling your prospects (and customers) what YOU think they want to know, ought to know or should know and begin with the end in mind. If your goal is to win business, then begin by getting into the head and heart of your prospect. Buyers want to you care about them and when you don’t… they simply look elsewhere.

What’s the Purpose?

October 1, 2013 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

A simple question, I thought. I was wrong. I made a mistake. I apologized.

Mistakes happen. It is inevitable. How you handle the gaffe, I believe, is what makes the difference between winners and losers.

Passionately believing in doing right by others, I’m pained to know that someone had a business experience with me today that was anything but wow. And the unfortunate irony is that I had just finished an article for the October issue of Top Sales World. The topic focused on customer experience and the importance of considering what the experience is like for people who will interact with you and your employees – sales, marketing, service, finance, HR, operations – on behalf of your company brand.

Here’s how I screwed up.

I use a scheduling tool called TimeTrade. Hours of wasted time and hassle when scheduling meetings are mostly a thing of the past. When I agree to meet with someone, I simply send them a link to my calendar. They find an opening that works for us both and book the time. My calendar is automatically updated and all is right with the world. That is until it isn’t.

As a general rule, I do not share the calendar link publicly. A few months back though, the link was included at the bottom of a newsletter with a little blurb that said if you’d like to have a conversation about our social selling services you can use the link to book a meeting. What ensued was some temporary chaos. More than one sales person used that as an opportunity to book time on my calendar. Their objective wasn’t to learn about our services however. Their goal was to try and sell me on theirs. The lack of integrity some sales people display still surprises me.

I learned from that lesson, and honestly, it has been about 5 months since it happened. I had forgotten all about it.

Which leads me to my goof…

Looking at my calendar this morning, I notice that I am scheduled to have a meeting with someone I do not recognize at all. Not a personal contact, we are not connected on LinkedIn, and I do not recall ever meeting the individual. Then again, I meet thousands of people each year and there are thousands more in our database and my social networks. I see so many examples of what sellers should not do that I think my judgment was clouded. And the message in the schedule confirmation seemed suspicious. Perhaps a classic example of seeing what you expect to see.

What to do?

I didn’t want to be a jerk, but I didn’t want to waste my time either. Been there, done that. I sent a message to the person and asked them to clarify for me the purpose of the call. Without thinking, I went on to say that I typically know the people that I am meeting with.

I offended.

In the moment, asking for clarity about the call’s purpose made sense. After all, it did not say that the meeting was to discuss social selling services. But that is irrelevant. Forgetting that we were the ones who sent the public link in the first place was certainly my first mistake. I compounded my mistake when I assumed that this individual’s intentions were less than honorable. As a result, I did not think more carefully about the words I used, nor did I consider what the question would feel like to the person reading my message.

When you screw up, offer a sincere apology. And, offer to make it right. I did both. We will see what happens.

Don’t School Me

September 27, 2013 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

After 29 years as a sales professional, I believe that there are some things that just do not change if you expect to be successful selling.

You need to follow a repeatable sales process consistently.
You need excellent consultative selling and communication skills.
You need to care more about your buyers needs than your own.

When it comes to developing new business, today’s sales process includes the use of technology to network, cultivate referrals, prospect, track opportunities, prepare for sales calls, educate, present solutions and communicate with prospects. And these same steps apply when you mine for new business with existing accounts.

Communication Matters

“If you are a B2B marketer, you’re no stranger to content marketing. It’s quickly risen to the top of every marketer’s to-do list. But it’s the way that you are performing content marketing that can be the difference between gaining and losing a customer.” –Nancy Pekala

Nancy’s observation is equally applicable to sellers. The message matters!

Don’t School Me

Here is an example of a marketing message that someone needed to think about a little more carefully. As a subscriber of a popular magazine, I evidently let my subscription lapse. The magazine is one I’ve long enjoyed reading, so I have no problem with being reminded to renew. However, the way the message was phrased speaks directly to my point about messaging. The email I received began with…

“Dear BARBARA GIAMANCO:

Your subscription to XYZ magazine has expired. We have sent several letters reminding you to renew but have not received a response.

We want to continue encouraging your success. To demonstrate our commitment, by renewing your XYZ subscription today, this is our gift to you…”

I take exception to the first line and first paragraph of the message.

First, don’t scream at me by putting my name in all caps. This is basic email etiquette.

Two, don’t chastise me for not responding to your reminder letters. So what? I’m busy; you are not owed a response! What they just told me, in a not so subtle way, is that they only care about the money.

A better approach would have been to simply start with something along the lines of the second paragraph. Why not say, “We value you as a past subscriber and to welcome you back, we want to give you…”

Sales People Are Doing This Too

Marketing isn’t the only culprit here. The smart use of content to engage prospects and create credibility in advance of sales opportunities is central to a social selling strategy.

How and what you communicate is vital to selling, whether it is email, phone, face-to-face, sales presentations, social networks, texting or webinars; it needs to be done well. Nothing is sold without communicating with others. Sales people need A+ verbal skill, and in a wired, socially connected world, they better have good writing skills and understand the nuances of communicating in social networks too. Though I hesitate to make a sweeping generalization, I’m going out on a limb and suggesting that an extremely high percentage of sales people need a lot of work in these areas.

Stop Broadcasting, Target Your Message

Typical sales and marketing messages of the written kind, whether it is email or via social networks, are one way communication and nothing more than broadcast pitches. A lot of phone calls are that way too. At the end of the day, you may think that all that activity is netting you a return, but I can say with certainty that a one-size-fits-all approach does absolutely nothing to create any true sales impact.

For example, I’m a small business owner with less than 10 employees. Your message to me should look much different than the messaging you might use when communicating with a large enterprise. My needs and theirs are very different. And unless your product or service supports a small business, why are you even sending me email or cold calling me in the first place? Someone is being paid for that activity, and it is a complete waste of time, which translates into a complete waste of money. Yet, it happens every day.

What’s the Problem?

In my opinion, management is measuring the wrong things. Activity is being measured…number of phone calls made, events attended, webinar registrations, white paper downloads, connections made or emails sent. But the quality of the activity is what you should be measuring. How can it not be obvious that 50 calls made to the wrong people, people not qualified to buy from you, is a big fat waste of resources?

Simply measuring tactical activity is a throwback from the “good ole days” of selling when coffee was for closers. If more attention isn’t paid to quality versus quantity, you won’t have anything to close, except perhaps your doors!

Want the meeting? Fix your message.

June 3, 2013 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Today’s sales people have a variety of communication channels available to help them reach prospects. Unfortunately, some sellers haven’t gotten the memo that we are long past the days of simply broadcasting a generic pitch.

Technology has given rise to laziness. Sending 100 emails to the wrong people with the wrong message is not an effective prospecting strategy. Leaving random phone messages isn’t either.

A few tips for sellers in how to engage their prospects more effectively to secure meetings:

Target the message to the right buyer and focus on what they care about, not what you want to sell.
Check your facts. I don’t run an entertainment company, as one sales email suggested and the sales rep should know that.
Check the grammar and spelling. Starting the first sentence of the email with “anyways” is not the way to make a positive impression.
Don’t use jargon that only people in your company understand.
Get the person’s name right.
Stop asking people to visit your website to learn more and “get back to me if I can answer any questions”. Lazy and presumes your prospect has the time to do your sales job.
Make sure the customer examples used are relevant. One sales pitch to me mentioned that “there is a reason why McKesson and Bain Capital” use our product. Well, that may be, but I run a small business. Using McKesson as a customer example isn’t relevant, so I conclude you know nothing about my business, and that I can’t afford what you sell anyway.

Here’s what a Sales Manager at one of our clients just told me… “I have to say that since you instructed us not to send out generic messages and invites (without personalizing), my meeting acceptance rates and speed has drastically improved.”

Remember…

Poorly written emails and inarticulate voicemail messages are killing your sales opportunities, and you probably don’t even know it. Put these tips into action and see your meeting acceptance rates increase.

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