To learn more about what he offers, check this out http://www.sandler-au.com/content/show/13262

This is the third time I have heard Phil Lee speak. Now, more than ever before do I see the need for his style of sales training.

Here’s some common issues with the sales process:
-    Salespeople often discount to get business (and say it is the only way)
-    The sales cycle is too long
-    Lack of differentiation
-    Too much unpaid consulting (giving advice for free)
-    Not being viewed as a trusted advisor
-    Getting shopped around
-    Not feeling in control of the process
-    Not getting in front of the real decision makers
-    Getting told by your buyer that it is out of their hands

I know that in my industry (Promotional Products), all these things happen. And I don’t mean that happen occasionally. It is multiple times per day.

The reason for this is that there are two systems in place: A Buyer’s System, and a Seller’s System.

Here is the Buyer’s System

(it may seem cynical…keep an open mind… we all do these things)

1.    Mislead

Not necessarily intentionally… sometimes it is a self protection mechanism because people don’t like being “sold to”. A shopkeeper approaches and says “Can I help you?”. Your response – “No thanks…I’m just looking”. Really? Of course they can help you. You just don’t want to engage them and get “involved” so you mislead to protect yourself. This is called a negative mislead. A positive mislead is when you state you are interested, and engage in a discussion when in fact you are not that interested. You may do this to be nice to the salesperson (it is easier to ask for  brochure than say “get lost”).

Why do people engage in these behaviours?
To get advice.
To get the best deal.
Avoid conversations.
Lack of trust.
Resistance to being ‘closed’

I thought the “positive mislead” was interesting – and we get this all the time. People feign a general interest and ask you to contact them or send them info. It seems like an opportunity but in reality there was no need driving the request, and it is a red herring.

2.    Cough up information
At this point is seems a buyer is interested and asks lots of questions. These lead you to believe you are getting closer to a sale.

Buyers do this to learn and compare… it is a research stage.

Often buyer’s will get as much as they can from each supplier they deal with – in the process getting smarter and smarter – and incrementally asking better questions. They are getting a free education at the expense of the buyer.

They’ll get the best price from each supplier, and use it to beat the other suppliers up… eventually getting the combination of lowest price (vendor A), fastest lead time (vendor B), best terms (vendor C) and take this to vendor D, who gets the deal.

3.    Continue to mislead

When pushed for a response, or progress, buyers will give encouraging remarks such as “looking good. It is with the boss”, “Just waiting for approval” or even small delays “we’ve rolled it over to the next quarter, leave it with me”.

4.    Hide

V M I A M N A

Voice mail
In a meeting
Not available

They went with someone else and they are too embarrassed to tell you. If you do get through you’ll be told some way in which you were lacking – you were too expensive or where just not creative enough.

Once you start leaving voicemails without callbacks, you know it is all over.

It all sounds terrible doesn’t it?

Why would someone put up with this? Two reasons:
1.    It works sometimes
2.    Salespeople enable buyers – they support them – by using a traditional Selling System.

Traditional Selling System

1.    Bonding and Rapport
Gee, that sure is some fine fish you caught. You still fish much? Me too.
You want to be liked.
You want to be buddies.
If the buyer likes you (how can he resist?) then he’ll buy from you.
(so the conventional thinking goes…)

2.    Presentation
You spill the beans on features and benefits, and how they can implement, and why you are so much better than the competition.

3.    Trial Close
So, does this seem like something that’d suit you?
Is there any reason you’d not want to go ahead?
Etc… Do you want delivery on Tuesday or Thursday?
You answer objections.
You concede.
You haggle.
You discount.
Buyers know that the longer they can keep people at this stage the better deal they’ll get, as it just becomes too painful for a seller to pull the plug when it seems so close.

4.    Follow Up
You keep chasing, like a dog after cars.

These two systems intersect quite well as you might have noticed.

The sections of one dovetail with the sections of the others. And, it works often enough that sellers have enough encouragement to persist.

When it fails, they take responsibility for their own failings within this system – I didn’t present well enough – our price was too high etc. They don’t look at the system as failing.

So, what is the answer?

The Sandler Selling System

Use another system to get different results.

1.    Pattern Interrupt.
If you don’t want to be treated like every other sales person, stop acting like one.
Don’t say or do the normal things. Forget the long introductions… and the “pitch”.
This goes against your human nature, and is the reason why you need training (and more training, and more training)

2.    Upfront contracts
State intended outcomes. These need to be a Yes or No, or a clear decision path. Don’t’ accept any “IWTTIO”. Challenge people to opt out.

3.    Pain / Gain
This is in replacement of the presentation, or features / benefits song and dance.
Pain and gain is layers and layers deeper than the surface benefits. Often people won’t openly share it.
More often, people don’t even know their true reasons.
By uncovering them (together) you become a trusted advisor, and the only solution.

4.    Budget / commitment
Prove that your solution solves a problem. Even if no formal budget exists, that it saves more than it costs. This goes back to uncovering pain.

5.    Decision

6.    Fulfilment
The actual action steps that will be taken, and a timeline.

7.    Post Sell

Some key distinctions

The most important step in the Sandler Systems are:

1.    Pattern Interrupt – change the way you are viewed by asking particular questions up front, and making statements
2.    Getting up front agreements about how the relationship will be, and how the decision making process will occur

The point at which you break away from the traditional system  – and take control of the process – is HARD. You are basically breaking your built in “sales person” scripts and saying “STOP, I don’t do it that way”.  This intersection is called WIMP JUNCTION.

You have control over 3 areas (imagine a triangle…).
-    Attitudes / core beliefs
-    Behaviours
-    Techniques
These form the success triangle.

Benefits of the SSS
-    you stop being an unpaid consultant
-    you don’t speak time on those “vaguely interested” (positive misleads)
-    you know the path of the sales process
-    you have a clear yes / no

The SSS would work when you have more prospects than you have time to deal with everyone. So, getting a “no” is not a big deal. You want the no so you can talk to the next person and keep moving. As David Blaise says, the aim of prospecting is to sort the gold from the dirt. Once you’ve found dirt, don’t go back through it… you won’t turn it into gold. Prospecting should be a matter of sifting, “dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt…gold!”.

Ongoing training with this system is needed because it is counter intuitive and goes against all your previous training.

Resistance from customers is because they are losing control (“but I want my free information and presentation from you!”).

The process starts from the first sentence of the first call, “You’re probably not interested in saving money on….” – you are challenging them to say “Yes I do” – an opt in which then drives the conversation forward. So rather than “pitching” to them – you go for the No and if they give you a YES, then you have truly begun.

Recommended reading

http://www.amazon.com/Cant-Teach-Ride-Bike-Seminar/dp/0967179904/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233200826&sr=8-4

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Minutes-VITO-David-Mattson/dp/097860783X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233200876&sr=1-1

Sandler v. Other training

I believe that the Sandler system is completely different to almost all traditional sales training (Brian Tracy, Gitomer etc) which is a Prospect – Present – Close – Follow Up model.

These traditional systems will work, but with more inefficiencies built in.

In fact, I think that the very reason people don’t like cold calling is because of the resistance they encounter from prospects. The Sandler selling system takes a lot of that away because the goal of a call is to get a NO.

One of the failings of people (myself included) is that they believe  – much like Mulder from the Ex Files – that “The Truth Is Out There”. It is a never ending quest.

And in the process they ignore what they already know in search of new information.

They ignore the customers they have in search of new customers.

They ignore the business they have in search of new ideas and businesses.

They ignore their own wisdom in search of someone who can tell them what to do or know.

The secret to success must be just around the corner. And if not there, then around the next corner after that…

While we search we miss what is at our feet.

Acres of Diamonds is a brilliant story about that very condition, and teaches us that the riches we need are right with us.

And as Jeffery Gitomer says… when you want to lean or read something really cutting edge, just go back a hundred years.

Click Here to download the Acres of Diamonds PDF by by Russell H. Conwell

Good is the enemy of great, so they say.

The logic is that by accepting “good is close enough” then you will never obtain greatness…that you will forever be destined for mediocrity.

However, I think that great is the enemy of good because the need to be perfect stops people even trying.

Brian Tracy: everyone that is good at something once was bad at it. He says this somewhat proudly of himself. Now he is a world famous sales trainer, but admits freely to be awful when he started (did you know you can actually get fired from commission-only sales jobs?!) and it was only because of asking questions and then modelling winners that he succeeded. The lesson: acknowledge you’ll probably suck when you start things – be it selling, or learning Spanish, or playing Stairway to Heaven.

I read a story years ago about Andres Segovia, world famous classical guitarist. He’d get stage fright before concerts, and before one performance – when he came out on stage and sat down he just whacked the strings, making an awful noise on his guitar. He laughed, people wondered what he was up to! He said “it’ll get better now..” and started to play. Apparently the fear of making that type of noise paralysed him with fear, so by making it, it was over at the start. He could move on. The lesson – imagine what worst thing that can happen – and decide if you can live with that.  You probably can.

Sometimes “the worst” is not all bad. I did an email once to a “bought list” that I hadn’t checked properly… I was just too excited about getting my message out to this group of people (72000 email addresses). When I did the email, then I looked at the list and realised it had the details of all kinds of people I didn’t want to email – various suppliers and competitors – for a product I was keeping “secret”. I nearly had a heart attack! Then I thought to myself “well, that was the worst that could have happened. It just happened. It wasn’t so bad.” Then I told a few people and had a laugh about it. The worst was over, and nothing bad happened.

So, while there is another lesson in here (check your lists!) on the balance of things  – action still beats inaction.

Lack of action is often shown in two different ways.

One is perfectionism. The other is procrastination.

They are related. In fact, people who are perfectionists wear it as a badge of honour, yet I think it masks a fear of action. Or a fear of being judged. The perfectionist would have you believe that they will do X when it is all ready to roll out. For now on they are working on it. The flaw in this is that 90% of the things being worked on never see the light of day. So, perfection causes everything to just stall. How many really good books (or songs, or business plans, or proposals…) are left 90% done, and never see the light of day?

I knew someone once (no, not me…) that went on a 7 day holiday by the beach and never went for a swim, because for them a swim had to be planned, kids looked after, the right time of day etc… and this just slipped by day after day. Time to pack up and leave, and no swim.

Procrastination is more obvious, but I think the root causes are the same: Fear of an action with an imperfect result.

I think beginning is the hardest thing. When I used to run I had a deal with myself. If I didn’t feel like running I’d just put my shoes on, take a step outside, and see what happened. The hardest part of getting the mental energy together to lace up your shoes. After that a 10km run just happened. (OK, now I don’t run…or swim, or cycle – you’d guess if we met).

As I am writing this I am thinking… there are things I am guilty of procrastinating about right now because I can’t do them perfectly. It is often easier to to spot these traits in other people (like I did with our friend at the beach) but a great question to ask is “where do I do this?”. This is a great universal lesson actually. When you see someone be rude at a waiter, or rude in a shop… ask yourself “when do I do this?”. It is illuminating.

I don’t know who said it, but a great quote is “The person who doesn’t read is no better than the person who can’t”.

What are you not doing because you’re not great at it?

In your business, this could be finally doing the direct mail letter you know you should do… even if your letter is imperfect. Are the flaws in your letter keeping it from ever seeing the light of day. And to twist the quote above, the person who doesn’t write is no better than the person who can’t.

Phone some customers…even if you don’t have a script prepared.

What can you start and allow yourself to be bad at, so that you can progress through average then excellent…without letting the elusiveness of excellence hold you back. Write. Learn a language. Play the guitar. Put your shoes on.

And don’t allow ‘great’ stop you from being ‘good’.

Stuart

PS Could I have written this entry better? Sure. Could I have researched some more stories? Sure. Could it have just have stayed on my laptop until it was perfect? Sure. Maybe forever. Dan Kennedy says “I’d rather be prolific than perfect”, so I went with that.

Here are some tips to help you understand the pro’s and con’s of being a specialist or a generalist:

For being a specialist

• At a specialist (eg a deli) as a customer you get the best of everything – therefore attracting those clients who are after the best.
• At a specialist seller you pay (and can charge) more.
• Car dealerships specialise in a brand, and they are magnetic. a dealer that sells Nissans AND Mercedes would suck (incongruency)
• As a customer, you assume better skills from a specialist
• You need to choose and stake a piece of turf – by product, channel, needs… lots of ways to choose.
• If the area is narrow enough you can be a leader.
• You attract passionate customers.
• You attract passionate staff.
• Examples – car dealers, lawyers with specialist skills, web SEO specialists.
• By broadcasting what you offer passionately, you’ll attract clients like a magnet.
• As customers get smarter and can find exactly what they need, they seek out specialists. Microscopic differences between models become important.
• As the reach of marketing extends, and the reach of customers’ buying extends, you can serve anyone anywhere.
• Your skill becomes better than advertising.
• What makes you good can cover up things you aren’t good at (think of the iphone’s following, and its low tech specs, or the fanatical following of Harley Davidson for a bike that is technically inferior).
• Reduces the need to “sell”.

Against being a specialist

• People will tell you they can’t find what they want.
• People will tell you your range is limited.
• People will tell you you are expensive.
• In short, you’ll alienate and polarise people. (So… you get a thick skin and help those you want to help)
• You give up some easy business, which hurts.

For being a generalist

• Wide choice = convenience – like a supermarket. As a customer you find “most stuff”.
• No really decisions need to be made as a supplier.
• You don’t alienate anyone by turning them away – you probably have what they need.
• Easy.
• Everyone will kind of like you.

Against being a generalist

• You’ll trail your market.
• You’ll never lead any market.
• People find you for convenience but move on when they get educated about what they want
• You can’t tell a generalist apart – coles v. woolies or kmart v target v big w? they end up competing on price.
• People will move on and find specialists as they learn more.
• You’ll compete on price (if you WANT to compete on price – then great. As long as you’ve actively decided).
• More than one message, and your message will get lost.

My advice

Generalise if you need bucks straight away, but realise it is a short term proposal (months, years maybe…)

Work out quickly your direction, who you want to keep and who you want to not keep as customers.

If you have customers you want to keep but like your current offering, work out how you can keep them.

Work out where you need to get better, and how you can stick out.

Work out what differentiations matter to clients, and which they’ll pay for (keeping in mind that asking people is fraught with danger – people are bad at predicting their future behaviour or correctly attributing reason to their behaviours).

It’s easy to pick the wrong thing to focus on (service is a bad idea, price is a bad idea)

Think of it musically – as a generalist you are a covers band playing whatever people want. This might work for a busker, but if you want to fill a venue you need to polarise you audience – love or hate.

GE was brave enough to exit any market it wasn’t in the top three…investing efforts in those it lead. It grew exponentially.

Look for a niche that is an inch wide but a mile deep (ie drill down) rather than an inch deep and a mile wide (top soil, which appears like an easy choice but there is no gold in it).

If you are not passionate, find something else.

If you could do it for the love of it, what would you do?

It’s easy to slip back to generalisation as opportunities present themselves. Set boundaries.

Unreasonableness is rewarded, eventually.

Why I care

I fight this mental battle daily between what is easy and what I know is sustainable long term.

Further Research Recommended

Seth Godin – Purple Cow
Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin – Differentiate or Die
Markus Buckingham  – Go Put Your Strengths to Work