Jill Konrath - Selling to Big Companies

Top Sales Resources - October 2008

Top Sales Experts Share Their Top Articles

This ebook, compiled by Jonathon Farrington of Top Sales Experts, is filled with excellent advice from the best in the business, including: Colleen Francis, Paul McCord, Mark Hunter, Leslie Buterin, Kelley Robertson, Keith Rose, Linda Richardson and me.

You'll find tons of good ideas in here that you can use immediately. Registration required.

Stunningly Awful Demos

If you need to demo your products to customers, you'll want to read this article by Peter Cohan, author of Great Demo!  He covers the "Top Ten List of What NOT To Do."

Discover if you're making these sales-deflating mistakes: download StunninglyAwfulDemos now.

Sales 2.0: Tap Into Social Media to Drive Enterprise Sales

Join me for this upcoming webinar
sponsored by InsideView.

• When: Thursday, Nov. 6th
• Time: 1 pm ET, 12 pm CT, 11 am MT & 10 am PT
• Cost: No charge, but registration required  
• Speaker: Me!

Not sure what the title of this webinar means? If so, you need to check it out. In this session, you'll learn about sales strategies & Sales 2.0 tools that can help you can crack into corporate accounts and speed up your sales cycle.

Additionally Tina Babbi, VP of Sales for Lucid Era will tell you about how her salespeople are using Sales 2.0 technologies to boost sales & increase the quality of their customer interactions.

Sign up now: http://www.insideview.com/sellbig/   

Busy at the scheduled time? Register anyway. We'll send you a link to listen in at a time that works for you. Plus, you'll get a copy of my ebook, Leveraging Trigger Events.

Outing a Plagiarizing Sales Expert

The sad case of Bob Beck: author of Mutual Respect, founder of the "Quid Pro Quo" sales training.

When my colleagues began posting last week about Bob Beck's plagiarism, I was stunned. I couldn't believe any professional would stoop that low.

But the proof was overwhelming. You can read about it here:

• Dave Stein: Hey! Stop Plagiarizing My Content!
• Charles Green: Plagiarism, Concealment or Coincidence
• Colleen Francis: Hey! That Sounds a Lot Like Me!!

So tonight I decided to investigate if Bob Beck had taken any of my content. Within moments, I discovered an article of Kelley Robertson's that had been co-opted and immediately notified him.

Then seconds later, I found the smoking gun!  His article called Low Hanging Fruit was a mirror image of my article on The Seduction of Low-Hanging Fruit.

Here are the first six paragraphs from my article:

I remember the first time it happened. It was on a Thursday, about 4 pm, and I was worn-out after a day of cold calling. I hadn't uncovered even one viable prospect. Enough was enough! Time to go back to the office and do some paperwork.

When the phone rang, I answered it tiredly. But by the time I hung up I was a new person. I had just talked to one hot prospect!

Her company was BUYING! Not just looking - BUYING! They needed several new systems to handle their growth. And they wanted to make a decision quickly.

"Can we come in for a demonstration," she asked.

How could I refuse! They came in the following Monday and we spent about two hours together. We discussed their needs and I showed them several possible options. Things seemed to go really well. In parting, they asked me to call back early the next week.

Tuesday morning I left a message. Wednesday and Friday too. My calls were never returned. It wasn't till a week later that I finally got my prospect on the phone. She thanked me for my hard work, fast service and excellent demonstration. Then, very apologetically, she told me they'd selected another vendor.

He writes (or should I say copies) this on his The CEO's Trusted Advisor (ha ha!) blog:
(Note: His blog is no longer on line, but is still viewable in Google's cache.) 

I remember the first time it happened. It was on a Thursday, about 5 pm, and I was worn-out after a day of cold calling. I hadn't uncovered even one viable prospect. Enough was enough!

When the phone rang, I answered it tiredly. But by the time I hung up I was a new person. I had just talked to a hot prospect!

Her company was BUYING! Not just looking - BUYING! They needed several new systems to handle their growth. And they wanted to make a decision quickly.

"Can we come in for a demonstration," she asked.

How could I refuse (not applying the Quid Pro Quo Sales approach)! They came in the following Monday and we spent about two hours together. We discussed their needs and I showed them several possible options. Things seemed to go really well. In parting, they asked me to call back early the next week.

Tuesday morning I left a message. Wednesday and Friday too. My calls were never returned. It wasn't till a week later that I finally got my prospect on the phone. She thanked me for my hard work, fast service and excellent demonstration. Then, very apologetically, she told me they'd selected another vendor.

The only difference? He inserted 6 words about his company. The rest of the article is virtually identical. He never identifies me as the author. In fact, he ends the article with:

You will find more stories and tips like this in the book Mutual Respect www.MutualRespect.net  To learn more about the Quid Pro Quo Sales Approach visit www.SalesBuilders.com

If it was a singular happening, I'd let it go with an admonition to add attribution. But it's not. It's a clear pattern of behavior. I suspect if I searched more, I'd find other articles that have been plagiarized. 

I'll be sending Bob Beck a note shortly. If necessary, I'll get my attorney involved. In the meantime, I don't want any of you to be fooled.

Here are all the links I could find for Bob Beck's sales training business:

• Sales Builders: http://www.salesbuilders.com
• Mutual Respect: http://www.mutualrespect.net
• Bob Beck International: http://www.bobbeckinternational.com
• Beck Products: http://www.beckproducts.com
• SalesBuilder at Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/bobbeck
• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/salesbuilders

Also, besides billing himself as a "sales trainer" of Quid Pro Quo selling, Bob Beck also calls himself an international keynote speaker, sales guru, best selling author and trusted advisor.

What makes this so sad is that Bob Beck is probably good at what he does. He didn't have to do use other people's words as his own. But he did - and it totally destroys his credibility.

----

Key words: Bob Beck, sales training, sales trainer, customized sales training, solution selling, executive selling, strategic selling, lead generation, sales prospecting, sales force training, sales training program.

Part II: 9 Ways to Quickly Gain Trust in the Sales Process

Guest Author: Charles Green

Consider these statements:  Haste makes waste .... or .... He who hesitates is lost.

Which is right?

Action without vision is a nightmare ... or ... Vision without action is a daydream.

Which is right?

In the same vein, consider "trust takes time," and "trust your gut." Which is right?

In all the above cases, it depends. Each of the apparently contradictory aphorism pairs makes perfect sense in a particular situation. The trick, of course, is to know which situation faces us. In the case of trust, 75% of the time, you can establish trust in no time at all, and you can do it in the sales process.

In Part I of this article, I covered the first four of nine ways you can rapidly create trust without compromising the validity or deservedness of that trust. Those ways include:

1. Give up spin control: Speak the truth -- simply, plainly, without embellishment.
2. Admit your limits: If you don't know something, say so.
3. Offer other approaches: If the only recommendation you ever have for a client is "me/us," then no client can ever trust your recommendation.
4. Take an emotional risk: If you're feeling something, say it.

Here now are the remaining five:

5. Address the other two agendas
State your own agenda for a meeting. But realize that's only one agenda. There is also the client's agenda. Ask for it. Finally, there is a third agenda - the agenda for the relationship itself.

Not every meeting needs a specific relationship agenda item, but the question ought to at least be raised-"do we have a chance in this meeting to improve our relationship?" Raising the other two agendas lowers your self-orientation, i.e., your tendency to focus more on yourself than others.

6. Give up control in the meeting
Of course you want the sale. Of course you can't give away work for free. And of course you should define objectives and agendas for each meeting.

But once in the meeting - let it go. Give up control. Simply help advance the best long-term interest of the client and the relationship. That demonstrates your willingness to collaborate, and your lowered sense of self-orientation.

7. Deliver on more promises
This one has to do with reliability. Reliability is the one factor that by definition takes time, but there are ways to shorten it. Make more promises; then keep them. Say you'll end the meeting at 11:00 - then end at 10:59. Say you'll deliver the package by tomorrow, then have it there at 9:00 a.m. Promise short-term follow-ups, and then deliver.

(And don't make a habit of over-delivering. That just undercuts your credibility. The occasional over-delivery helps since reliability is enhanced by a history of dependability, not by surprises.)

8. Always context transactions within relationships
Don't approach sales, or negotiations, or even meetings, as if they were stand-alone events. Link them to future sales, other negotiations, future meetings. Doing so demonstrates collaboration and a commitment to client focus-all of which helps raise credibility and lower self-orientation.

9. Trust your gut
Much research on the establishment of personal trust suggests it happens very rapidly - often instantaneously. Sometimes this can be dangerous for the one doing the trusting-that's why con artists make a living.

* * *
(This article was originally published in RainToday.com)

Charles H. Green is an author, speaker and executive educator. The author of Trust-based Selling and co-author of The Trusted Advisor, Charles focuses on the role of trusted relationships in selling to and managing relationships with complex organizations.  He is the founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates.

What does "Joe the Plumber" have to do with sales?

Joe the Plumber's 15 minutes of fame last week transformed the debate and post-debate discussions. And it's a lesson that we, as sellers, would be wise to pay attention to. 

The McCain camp had clearly identified their target market: uncommitted blue collar male voters who could still be swayed with the right message - big government taking their hard-earned money.

McCain's PR machine jumped on the "real Joe" after seeing him talk with Obama during a campaign stop. With a stroke of genius, Joe the Plumber became the new working-class poster boy.

And the conversation changed. Suddenly we were evaluating the candidate's proposals based on how they impacted Joe. McCain & Obama started talking to one person, not an amorphous group of nondescript citizens.

We need to do the same as marketers & sellers.

That's right. We need to create customer personas in order for us to fine-tune our messaging and ensure it's effective. Perhaps you sell to multiple decision makers. If so, then you need multiple personas.

Whenever I'm doing training for a sales organization, this is one area I cover almost every time. It makes that much difference. For example, if my client sells to Marketing, we may create personas on these positions:

• Chief Marketing Officer
• Vice President, Corporate Communications
• Product Marketing Manager
• Public Relations

If all these people are involved in the decision process, we need to know how they think in order to be effective. Specifically we need to know their:

• Roles & responsibilities
• Goals, objectives
• Strategic initiatives
• Impediments to success
• Reasons for considering a change.

Until & unless we really know Marnie the Marketer, we will struggle in our ability to ensure that our message hits home.

So that's why Joe the Plumber is important to us!

 

9 Ways to Quickly Gain Trust in the Sales Process: Part 1

Guest Author: Charles Green, author of Trust-based Selling

Those who sell professional services know the power of being trusted, and strive to be seen that way. I'm often asked, "How long does it take to become trusted?"

Is it the case that "trust takes time," that it is gained only with the passage of time? Or is it a "trust your gut" thing, something that comes in a flash, a moment of intuition or feeling?

Most people in business, if asked without reflection, will come down on the side of "trust takes time." And their approach to selling reflects this. They believe people buy only after they come to trust the seller; and that such trust is created through a history of promises kept.

While true, that's only 25% of the story. The rest of the story is that you can create trust in hardly any time at all and in a variety of ways. And, furthermore, the sales process, far from depending on pre-established trust, can itself be ground zero for the creation of trust.

The Trust Equation
The concept of "trust" is about as varied as any aspect of human relations. We use the term in many ways. The bulk of those ways are reflected in the four factors of the Trust Equation:

                Trustworthiness = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy)
                                                               Self-Orientation

Of these four factors - credibility, reliability, intimacy and self-orientation - only one of them necessarily requires the passage of time. That factor is reliability, because by definition it requires repeated experiences.

Paparazzi Capture Private NYC Breakfast, Expose Internet Relationships

When I was in NYC last week presenting for the Wharton Alumni Club, I got together with some of the top sales & marketing experts in the nation.

Over the past few years, I've met all these people online, talked a bit on the phone and read their books. But we'd never met in person. So the big question was, "What were they really like?"

In short, they're just the kind of people I want you all to know about because they're great resources So here they are:

• Nigel Edelshain, founder of Sales 2.0 lead generation firm, took me to lunch at a trendy NYC restaurant.
• eMarketing strategist Ruth Stevens, author of Trade Show & Event Marketing, invited me to spend the night at her home.
• Presentation expert Anne Miller, author of Metaphorically Selling showed me around Grand Central Station. (we'd met before)
• Razi Imam, CEO of Landslide, co-presented at the event and hosted a marvelous dinner after at a Turkish restaurant.

On Wednesday morning, I had a long breakfast with this cast of characters:

     (Right to left: Me, Charlie Green, Robin Fray Carey, Josh Gordon)

• Charlie Green, author of Trust-Based Selling and The Trusted Advisor.
• Social media maven, Robin Fray Carey, founder of The Customer Collective.
• Media sales expert Josh Gordon, author of 4 sales books including Presentations that Change Minds & Selling 2.0.
• Executive-level sales consultant & trainer Adrian Miller, author of The Blatant Truth.

Hard to believe I could meet so many cool people in one 24-hour period! If you have a few moments, check out their websites, sign up for their newsletters and learn, learn, learn.

 

Dealing with the "Close a Deal a Week" Manager

Alex works for a company that sells to smaller accounts. He's confident that their service would fit well for larger clients and has started to pursue them. While Alex knows it takes a while to land bigger deals, his "close a deal a week" sales manager isn't happy - especially since he isn't on the phone as much as others.

So Alex wants to know: How do I build a business case to convince my boss that it's worth going after these big companies?

Jill's Response

Alex, I have no doubt that your service will fit well with larger accounts. And, you're absolutely right about it taking more time to crack into corporate accounts and get their business.

However, I'm not sure you'll EVER get your deal-obsessed manager to value of the preliminary work you're doing to get your foot in the door.

People who think that sales is all about smiling & dialing literally have no comprehension of the new way of selling. For them, unless you're making calls you're not doing your job. They think research, analysis, and preparation time is all wasted time.

If you talk with your sales manager about your ideas, he may agree to let you give it a try. However, when the sales don't come in quickly, they start to panic. Then they start putting pressure on you to make more calls.

Before long, they want you to abandon your corporate account entry campaigns and go back to sure deals with little firms. Unless, of course, you happen to strike it rich with a  big company right away.

I suspect that's not what you want to hear. But that's what I see – over and over. Management is under intense pressure to deliver short-term results. If they don't, their own jobs are at risk. So fear prevents them from investing in the very strategies that could take their sales to the next level.

So where does that leave you? In my opinion, you have 3 choices:

1. Keep pursuing the smaller accounts. Do what you're expected to do.

2. Keep pursuing the smaller accounts, but target a few big companies to pursue in addition to your normal workload. Let your boss know what you're doing, but don't make a huge deal out of it. Be willing to invest personal time on research, etc. When you get the business, that's proof enough.

3. Leave the company. If you truly believe in the "Selling to Big Companies" approach to sales, you'll have a hard time working for a boss who thinks it's all about dialing for dollars. There are lots of companies out there who are desperately seeking a true consultative salesperson.

If any of you have ideas on how to convince the "close a deal a week" sales manager that pursuing  big companies is a good investment of time - even if it takes a while to get results - please share them ....

How to Use Social Media to Drive Sales Results

Check out this excellent white paper from InsideView. You'll learn how to use intelligence from your social network and company resources to:

• Increase your prospecting productivity, while decreasing time spent on research.
• Identify opportunities you didn't know existed
• Enhance the quality of your customer interactions.

In my opinion, InsideView has the best business intelligence tool available. I love what they're doing and recommend it every time I speak.

So get on it. Download their white paper now and learn what you're missing. I am not a techie type person, but this is simple & makes your life 100 times easier

Are You Making Your Prospects Feel Stupid?

Of course, you don't mean to do that! But the truth is that it often happens without you even thinking out it.

Case in point: You've just learned all about your new product or service offering. Tons of details. All its selling points. You're so excited & can't wait to share what you've learned with your prospects.

And when you finally get into a meeting, what comes out? 

"We've just introduced a new complete system (methodology/process) that's guaranteed to provide fully integrated communications for all your technology and non-technology needs as well as provide significant return on your investment with an ROI of only 9 months."

Blather! I know you're thinking you sound impressive, but from a prospect's perspective it's downright intimidating. Their eyes slowly glaze over and before long, you've lost them.

To be a successful communicator, you need to talk like a normal human being.

Here's an interesting tidbit that supports this premise: A language monitoring serviced analyzed the recent VP debate. Palin spoke at a 9.5 grade level, while Biden spoke at an 7.8 grade level. (Full article here.)

Both candidates are focused on connecting with voters, not impressing them. I have no doubt that they could have easily spoken at a much higher grade level - which would have meant bigger words, longer sentences and more complex sentence construction.

However, they chose not to do that. They wanted to relate to us.

If we're focused on impressing prospects with our vast knowledge, we'll lose them. They'll feel stupid. They won't open up. They won't ask questions.

And we won't get the business! 

Question for you: Have you ever caught yourself trying to impress customers? What happened? Were you able to recover?

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Save Bagdad Pup: A good cause & lesson in the power of the internet

My daughter, Katie Konrath, posted the article below on her getFreshMinds blog yesterday. It's a true story.

In the last 24 hours, it's gone viral: 6476 people "Digg This!" (meaning selected it as a high value content), thousands more have read it and 855 have commented on it.

While we still don't know the fate of the puppy, we do know that readers are mobilizing, calling congressmen and more.

As you read it, think about how you or your organization might leverage the power of the internet to sell your cause, product, service or solution. What story can you share that's so darn compelling that readers tell their friends, contact your firm or even ask for more info? Think about it!

                                * * * * * * * * * * * *

US Military rips away pet of deployed US Soldier shortly before Bagdad Pups can send puppy to safety in Minnesota

(This isn't my normal fare here, but I had to write about this because it is so tragic.  Please read.)

One of my good college friends is in Iraq right now.  A couple months ago, she told me about Baghdad Pups, a really amazing organization that provides medical care, clearance and transport for the animals U.S. soldiers have come to love during deployment in the Middle East.

There are some initiatives that everyone - regardless of their political views - can agree are fabulous. This is one of them.

Baghdad Pups gives our soldiers hope by helping them send their pets home to safety.  It's such a unique and touching idea.  I couldn't wait to write about it.

Except today, I wish I could be writing about anything else.  Because something so awful has happened that I'm writing this through tears.

My friend has been held in Iraq by the stop-loss policy for over 15 months longer than her original commitment to the military. It hasn't been easy for her--and the puppy she saved has been one of the few things that kept her going.  

Click here to read about the US Military siezing a US Soldier's puppy.

RainToday Webinar: Advanced Cold Calling

How to Leverage Triggering Events to Get Your Foot in the Door

When: Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008; 2-3:30 pm EDT
Investment: $99 per connection
Register now.

(Note: Can't make it at that time. No worry. You can listen in later at  your leisure.)

Top rainmakers are not promiscuous prospectors. You'll never find them randomly dialing for dollars hoping to stumble across an unhappy decision makers. They know that effective prospecting requires a focus on two very critical things:

• Fit: Identifying organizations that have needs, issues, and challenges that can be addressed by their firm's services.

• Urgency: Finding prospects have an immediate need for their service and will take action quickly once they've been contacted.

That's why they leverage triggering events – changes in the prospect's internal and external business environment – to set up meetings with targeted decision makers. This is a strategy that most sellers don't even know exists, yet top rainmakers use all the time.

Join me for this Advanced Cold Calling webinar sponsored by Rain today and you'll add a powerful technique to your cold calling arsenal.

Politics & Sales: Lessons from the Debates

What did people really think about the VP debates? Just moments ago, I listened to Dan Hill, CEO of Sensory Logic, being interviewed on CNN. He described a focus group in Minnesota whose facial responses were analyzed as they watched Palin & Biden on TV.

Why facial responses? According to Hill, author of the newly released Face Time (which focuses on the 2008 campaign), facial muscles are fast reactors because they're directly attached to the skin. Thus they quickly show how people really feel about a situation. The CIA & FBI have used facial coding for years.

Hill uses it as a market research tool to discover people's true reactions to the world's major brands - which he's documented in his excellent book on Emotionomics.

(It's a real interesting read. It gets you thinking about what you aren't seeing that's right in front of your face!)

Now he's moved into the political arena as a frequent commentator on the presidential race for CNN, Fox and MSNBC. Here is Hill's analysis:

• Palin's folksiness: Every time Palin used her "you betcha" & "Joe 6-pack" talk, 1/3 of the focus group reacted positively to it while the rest of the group winced.

• Biden's demeanor: Too senatorial at times which didn't warm people up to him.

• Level of cynicism: 1/3 of viewers were cynical of Biden, while 1/2 were cynical of Palin.

What's Hill's final summation? Despite both candidate's strong performance in the debates, they didn't turn viewers to their side. At the end, based on the viewer's facial reactions, 70% remained neutral.

What does all this have to do with sales? Seems to me we could be more effective if we knew what our prospects/customers really think.

What facial reactions (eyes, mouth, eyebrowns, forehead) have you discovered that indicate reactions such as interest level, agreement/disagreement, belief/disbelief or other emotions?

Please share your thoughts...