Jill Konrath | Selling to Big Companies

Never Call Someone's Baby Ugly

What does an ugly baby have to do with selling?  As a sales expert & mother, I can assure you they're more related than you might imagine.

Recently I got an email from an astute seller who wanted to know how to handle an opportunity he'd uncovered.

A local firm had sent him an e-newsletter with a huge graphic in it directing readers to their website. When he clicked through, he landed on a poorly designed, visually unattractive page. He then examined the rest of the site - and it only got worse.

He was thrilled!  You see, his company develops websites and it was obvious that this firm desperately needed his help.

He was all set to call up the president and tell him just how bad that website was. His list of what was wrong with it was a mile long. Fortunately, he contacted me before he embarked on this potentially sales-derailing endeavor. 

Why do I say that? Because he has no idea how the company's president felt about the website.

Perhaps he'd designed it himself. Perhaps he'd recently invested thousands of dollars with another web company to bring it "up" to this level. Perhaps he just loved it.

Should any of these have been true, the company president could have been grossly offended by the seller's approach. From his perspective, the seller called his baby ugly and that's unacceptable.

He'll either shut down entirely, ending any chance of doing business with him. Or, he's going to make a verbal comeback that will be hard to recover from. Imagine how you might feel and react if he'd said, "My wife's company created it for us."

So how do you handle things when you discover that a company is doing something that is clearly (at least in your opinion) substandard?

First of all, be very judicious. Don't make blatant comments about the poor quality of their products, services or processes.   

Focus on ideas to help them achieve their business objectives. Share stories about how you're helping other customers solve issues and challenges. Be specific in terms of the outcomes you've helped them realize. Educate them on what's possible.

When you approach them from this frame of mind, these corporate parents won't feel compelled to defend their ugly baby. Instead, you pique their interest and they want to meet with you. That's what works - and mother truly does know best!

Announcing the Ugly Baby Contest

Ever called a (prospective) client's baby ugly? If so, what happened and how did you handle your clients response? Were you able to recover?  Don't forget to share your stories on this blog to be entered in my "Ugly Baby" contest.

This contest starts now and ends on Sunday, June 10th.

Help! My To Do List is Overflowing

Some days I wonder if I'll ever get it all done. Like today. I got to the office early so I could get my emails done before I dove into this big project I'm working on. Several ezines I subscribe to contained interesting links, so before I knew it I was clicking through. Then, since my browser was open, I decided to take quick peek at my blog list. Of course, I indulged myself by reading the most recent posts.

After that, my coffee was getting warm so I went to refill it. When I came back to the office, my phone was ringing. I spent 45 minutes talking with a potential business partner. During our conversation, I referred him to another person. So when I hung up, I thought I better write her an email to tell her to expect a call.

That's when I noticed 8 more emails had arrived - which all needed immediate reading. One was from a non-profit I'm involved with. I ended up writing two detailed emails to the leadership team regarding next steps.

At that point, I realized that I'd failed to respond to some people who'd written me a couple days ago. So I tackled that next. One was from Dan Markovitz, a personal efficiency expert, announcing his new TimeBack Management blog. I quickly clicked through to take a look, but before I knew it was hooked.

He writes about how you can put more time back in your day. Clearly this is a universal problem and I needed to share his insights with others. So I decided to write a blog post about it.

Two hours have now flown by.  I haven't started my project yet. Nor have I checked anything off my To Do list.

But I did learn something from Dan. I'm signing off now.  No more interruptions for the next two  hours. I have work to do.

Most Sales Speak is Gobbledygook!

Nobody wants to buy your product, service or solution. Nor do they even want to hear about it - unless they're desperately in need of a solution.

So what do most sellers do to remedy this situation? They try to convince prospective customers just how wonderful their offering is. As I repeatedly mention in Selling to Big Companies, this self-serving pablum actually turns customers off.

Six months ago, David Meerman Scott, in partnership with Factiva, wrote The Gobbledygook Manifesto. This blog post analyzes business terms used in over 388,000 press releases sent in 2006. Like me, David  has a real aversion to  companies who describe their offering as flexible, robust and world class.

When you use these types of terms, you may think you stand out from the crowd. Instead you sound just like everyone else - including all your competitors. You'll be shocked when you take a detailed look at his Gobbledygook Volume Analysis.

If you want to be successful in sales, use value propositions. Focus on the tangible business results your product or service offers. For more info on this topic, check out:

•  Making a Difference
•  Stop Sounding Like a Self-Serving Salesperson
•  Developing Strong Value Propositions

You might want to also check out David's follow-up article to his initial gobbledygook post on "Online viral thought leadership works - here is the proof."

Beware! Your True Intentions are Showing

When I opened the email, the first sentence jumped out me: "I've just been to your website and your company is a perfect fit for our services!" Clearly the seller was really excited about his discovery.

On the other hand, I was backpedaling as fast as I could go. I wanted nothing to do with him. If he'd caught me on the phone, my instincts would have immediately erected barricades. If we were meeting in person, objections would be spewing from my mouth.

Why? Because he was seemed too excited about selling me. Without even realizing it, his approach screamed "self-serving" and I recoiled from it. My reaction isn't unusual. In fact, it's the norm. You do the same thing. We all hate being sold!

Yet invariably, I see sellers engaging in self-sabotaging behavior that can only lead to failure. For example:

• When their company introduces a new product or service, most sellers rush to convert their hottest prospects. Filled with passion, they unwittingly create insurmountable obstacles that actually derail their sales efforts or delay them indefinitely.

Keeping in Touch Strategies

How do you keep in touch without being a pain in the neck?  That's what Bill wanted to know when he contacted me. He'd submitted an RFQ (Request for Quote) four weeks ago to a prospect who was looking to change suppliers. The company told him they weren't making the decision for another 3 weeks.

So what can sellers to do in the meantime besides twiddling their thumbs and counting days on the calendar? Here are a few ideas I shared with Bill:

Bringing In the Customers

Today I was featured in Selling Power's Meetings Newsletter:

Bringing customers to the factory for a meeting can be as anxiety producing as asking your significant other home to meet the parents. While no blockbuster movies have been made to document the trials and tribulations of these events it’s probably just a matter of time before Hollywood senses the comedy and disaster potential. Before you become fodder for a Glengarry Glen Ross-Meet the Parents flick, follow these tips from Jill Konrath, author of the soon-to-be-released Selling to Big Companies (Dearborn, 2005) and chief sales officer of Minnesota-based Selling to Big Companies.

Read the full article at Selling Power
(you have to register 1st)

Finding the Fun in Serious Sales Blunders

One of my favorite ezines is written by Dan Seidman. He collects sales horror stories and then does a post mortem on them. You can find a whole collection of them on his Sales Autopsy website.  I thought you might get a kick out of one this morning.

FLAT SALES: Gary's Manager Pumps Up Sales
I'm a poor rep for Pitney Bowes. I'm poor because I'm new at selling and today it really shows. I can't afford a classy briefcase so I have one of those really cheap vinyl ones. I mean really cheap, too. The wood frame was, like, balsa wood - the stuff kite frames are constructed with.

It was one of those days when you have to travel with your sales manager. He either doesn't trust you or he's training you or he's in my car, hiding from his boss.  So I'm poor and cheaply outfitted and nervous as well.

Competing Against the Big Companies

The October issue of Sales & Marketing Management focused on strategies that smaller firms could do to compete against the corporate giants. They asked me to contribute three tips. If you're interested in what they are, check them out at: Are You a Small Fish in a Big Pond?

Sales Tip: Differentiate With Questions

If you're busy perfecting your pitch and polishing your sales presentation, you may be focusing on the wrong thing. Many sellers think they can differentiate their product by touting it's impressive features or capabilities. If they sell services, they're convinced that customers will be swayed by their well thought out methodology, full range of services or remarkable client list.

The truth is, corporate decision makers don't believe that stuff anymore. They expect you to say it.

Sales Tip #4 From the Political SPIN Meisters

Hindsight is wonderful. All the pundits are busy pontificating why Bush won and Kerry lost. It's time for me to add my two cents again today, so here it is.

Tip #4: Create and mobilize evangelists.

Evangelist extol your virtues when you're not around. They passionately believe in your mission and work on converting others to their beliefs. They even forgive you when you do something dumb or sound stupid. One evangelist can deliver lots of votes.

The Bush's campaign proved far superior to Kerry's in this aspect. They targeted Evangelical Christians as a market segment, aligned their "message" with what this demographic needed to hear and actively pursued relationships with key leaders in these communities. As a result, these religious leaders became avid spokespeople for the Bush campaign. From their pulpits, they preached the Bush message to their flock and delivered the vote.

What can sellers and marketers learn from this? Look for evangelists in your midsts. Support them like crazy and help them build the buzz. An excellent book on this topic is called "Creating Customer Evangelists" by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba. It's an excellent read.

Sales Tip #3 From the Political SPIN Meisters

With the election finally over, we can finally look at the strategies implemented by the "winning" sales meisters. Here's one technique the Bush people used to their advantage from the beginning of the campaign.

Tip #3: Define your competition before they define themselves.

Bush's spin meisters were all over John Kerry before he had a chance to define himself with the American public. In painstaking detail, they reviewed his government record looking for anything that could be used against him. What did they notice? As a Senator, he voted for some bills and against others - on the same issue.

From their perspective, why he did it was entirely irrelevant. The spin meisters needed a quick and easy way to convey this to the American public. After experimenting with various terms, "flip-flop" emerged as the clear winner. From that moment on, John Kerry was on the defensive. It didn't matter why he'd changed his mind. He was a "flip-flopper."

How can sellers use this same strategy without losing their soul?

Sales Tip #2 From the Political SPIN Meisters

With only one more day before the election, here's another valuable tip you can learn from those ever-present spin artists working on the campaigns:

Tip #2: Use sound bites.

Unfortunately, the majority of today's voters don't study the issues at all. They hear a few sentences of the candidate's message on television or scan the headlines in their newspapers.

As a result, they only hear the snippets of a politician's speech that have been pulled out by the media to stress an important point. The entire context of the quote is missing and it's left to be interpreted as a stand-alone phrase. The media loves these catchy, well-written sound bites. They play them over and over, hammering the message home to our lazy populace.

How does this apply to sales? Many of your buyers are very similar to voters. They don't have time to think because they're so busy putting out fires. In order to catch their attention, you need a great sound bite that they can't ignore. It has to scream, "Listen to this." And it has to be easily repeatable.

The best sound bite in today's marketplace is a strong value proposition. Think about how you can succinctly state the outcomes a client gets from using your product or service. If it takes you forever to spit out of your mouth, it won't work. Stress the business results in a catchy, but bare-bones manner for the highest impact.

For more info on this topic, check out this article on my website called "Is Your Value Proposition Strong Enough?" http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com/free-sales-stuff/articles/valuepropstrength.php . Or take a look at my CD on the same topic at: http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com/sales-tools/audio/index.php .

Sales Tip #1 from the Political Spin Meisters

While I detest the political spin meisters who fill the television airwaves these days, they do offer salespeople some valuable lessons.

Tip #1 - Clearly define your target market.

It's figuratively possible that anyone in the U.S. could vote for either Kerry or Bush, but the truth of the matter is that they each appeal to certain demographics. The campaigns know who's likely to vote for their candidate. They're investing significant time, energy and resources to ensure their base gets out to vote. Kerry invests no time with the right wing Christian Coalition. Bush avoids African Americans. The only common group they're pursuing as the campaign comes to a close is the undecided voter - of which there are few.

How does this apply to salespeople? It's imperative to know who is most likely to buy from you. Way too many sellers erroneously believe that "everyone" can benefit from their services. While that may be true, their offering is much more likely to be valued by a small subset of the whole. By clearly defining and pursuing this demographic, they'll be light years ahead.

Quick example: I know sales and could help just about everyone improve their selling skills. But I only work in the business-to-business sales arena where it's a complex sale involving multiple decision makers. And I really prefer working with professional services and technology-driving firms. By being so clear on my "fit", I significantly increase my sales success. And I spend no money or time on peripheral areas such as retail sales, consumer goods, insurance, etc.

Yes, we can learn from the political spin meisters.

Sales Training Tip: Naked Sales Calls Pay Off

My daughter goes to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. They're famous for two things: an excellent music program and ... (drum roll) ... Coed Naked Soccer. Every year some students manage to sneak a game in despite the administration's warning of dire consequences if they're caught.

What does that have to do with sales? This past week, I talked with two sellers who are having extraordinary success right now. Their business is skyrocketing. Pricing is virtually a non-issue. And all this happened once they started going into sales calls totally, stark-raving naked.

Reframing Rejection

No one likes to be rejected.  It's a lousy feeling and it can literally paralyze your sales efforts.  Fear of rejection prevents sellers from prospecting for new customers or even following up with existing opportunities. 

But what if you reframed "rejection" and gave it a new meaning.  What if, instead of feeling devastated when people wouldn't meet with you, you viewed their behavior as simply market research, no more and no less. 

With a "market research" perspective in your mind, you're then free to explore other options because it's not about you.  It's simply about how they reacted in a given set of circumstances which can easily be changed.

Viewing their behavior as data, enables you to test a variety of approaches.  For example, you might want to test:

- A different value proposition.
- The time of day you called.
- The flow and structure of your phone call.
- Various responses to "We already have a supplier."

A market research perspective on rejection gives you the freedom to experiment with multiple sales strategies.  It enables you to be creative and have fun exploring.  And, the prospect's reaction isn't even one little bit personal.  It's just data you can analyze to help you get better.

I sure like that feeling a whole lot more than being rejected.

Great Networking Questions

Some people just seem to be right at home when they're at a networking function. They chat effortlessly with strangers and create new relationships with ease. Not me. Much as I'd like to see myself as suave and debonair, I'm really a bit of an introvert. I've had to learn these social graces.

Over the years, I discovered that asking questions is the key to success in these people-filled situations. That's right. A good question opens up even the quietest person. You learn so much about who they are, what they do and what's important to them. Plus all the pressure you feel to "perform" or sound "intelligent" totally dissipates since the other person is doing all the talking.

Recently Bob Burg, author of "Endless Referrals," sent me a list of questions you can use to establish great rapport with someone you've just met. He's graciously given me permission to publish them here:

10 "Feel-Good" Questions

1. How did you get your start in this business?
2. What do you enjoy most about what you do?
3. What separates your company from your competition?
4. What advice would you give someone just getting started in your business?
5. What one thing would you do with your business if you knew you couldn't fail?
6. Over the years, what significant changes have you seen take place in your profession?
7. What do you see as the coming trends in your business?
8. Describe the strangest (or funniest) incident you've ever experienced in your business.
9. What ways have you found to be most effective for promoting your business?
10. What one sentence would you like people to use in describing the way you do business?

And, according to Bob Burg, the one key question that sets you apart from everyone else is, "How can I know if someone I'm talking to would be a good prospect for you?" (Ask this one ONLY after you've been talking for awhile and established some rapport.)

Great questions, if you ask me! While they keep the focus on business, they also give you an opportunity to learn so much. Next time you head off to a networking event, review these questions ahead of time so you won't forget them. Bob says you'll never have enough time to ask all ten questions - that two or maybe three of them should be enough to get a good conversation started.

Believe it or not, I used to write down the questions I wanted to ask before I went to the event. I was that nervous. And, I can assure you that being prepared takes the worry away. People respond to you differently. They feel so "comfortable" around you; they like you. It makes a huge difference in how you feel and the success of your networking.

Now go get 'em!

(For more info on Bob Burg, check out his website at: http://www.burg.com )

The Invisible Sales Coach

Today my friend told me she’s found a new way to handle the challenging personal issues she’s facing in her life. When I asked her what it was, she said, “I just ask myself, ‘What would Jill do in this situation?’ And I use that as my guide.”

I was, to say the least, rather surprised but when we talked further, I remembered using that very same strategy myself when I first started selling.

I didn’t have a clue what it took to be successful. For my first few months in the business, I trained under Jim Farrell. He was a top-notch sales rep, masterful in his dealings with people and so very savvy. I was in awe.

When I finally got my own territory, I was scared – really scared. Now I had to do it on my own and I was no Jim Farrell. I didn’t have a clue how to handle the variety of situations I’d soon be encountering. And I certainly couldn’t sell.

I remember sitting in my car one day, trying to get up the gumption to make some cold calls. My mind was creating all sorts of tough sales scenarios: “What if the customer asked me about the new system and I didn’t know the answer? What if they said they weren’t interested? What if, what if, what if….”

Then it hit me. I may not know how to respond, but Jim Farrell did. By thinking about how he’d react and using that as my guide, I could figure out what to do – even when I was meeting with customers. Amazingly enough, it worked until I developed the self-confidence and skills to handle these situations on my own.

Many years later, I read that Hilary Clinton used the very same process when she became First Lady. She had no idea how to handle her new role, so she used Eleanor Roosevelt as her touchstone.

So if you’re ever stumped in your sales efforts, consider finding yourself an invisible sales coaching mentor. You’ll be amazed at what a difference it can make.