Sales Tips From Jonathan London

If you haven’t started already, now is a good time to start planning for 2014. Here are some of the ways to do it and questions to ask yourself:

 

1. Do I know where my success came from last year? What did I do to make things happen and be a successful salesperson?
2. Do I know where I want to put my efforts into this year? Are they the same as last year or different?  Have I created smart goals for myself?
3. Which of my offerings has real advantages that I should take advantage of?
4. Are there particular vertical markets or segments that I want to focus on?
5. What people, sales technology and resources will I surround myself with so I can get help when I need it?
6. What will I:
   • Continue doing or do more of that is working
   • Stop doing that is in the way of my success
   • Start doing that is needed because of market conditions or opportunities
7. Who, at work or home do I need to help me stay disciplined enough to the things that are most important?
8. What have I been putting off that needs to be done?
9. Have I targeted the accounts I want to sell?
10. Do I know the one or two that would really put me over the top?
11. Am I using social media, LinkedIn, blogs, etc. to keep me in touch with the people and events that are critical to my success?
12. Am I using free services like Google Alerts to do the same?
13. What support mechanisms do I have to keep balanced?
14. What is my quick start program so I have a great quarter and make the rest of the year a “little” easier?
15. Are my manager and I on the same page so he/she supports me vs. interferes?
16. Can you tell yourself what you are or are not willing to do so you are happy and successful?
17. Can you identify what motivates you, or like most about your job so you can spend as much time and do it as often as possible?
18. If your compensation plan is here, do you know how you will make the most money from it?
19. Do you know your offering inside and out so you can present it in more ways, with more effect than your competition or co-workers?
20. Can you be more organized and/or effective by being more focused and wasting less time in a day?
21. Can you identify the 3 or 4 most important priorities for your success?
22. Can you create an image for yourself of what short and long term success looks and feels like to keep yourself motivated, positive?
23. What technology will I learn to help me sell more?

 

Please let me know if you would like to talk or I can help in any way. I wish you the best, healthiest, most fulfilling 2014.

 

In developing a sales process for a customer we were dong the normal stuff you should be measuring:

decision process, decision criteria, budget, competition, compelling event, etc.

But when we looked at the deals they were winning, we found a whole other set of measurements that weren't being looked at and were much more important.

1. do we get along
2. does the customer give me access
3. are they giving me feedback to make the proposal better
4. are they coaching me a little
5. am I making an impression on them with my knowledge, insights and candor
6. can I see that they want to do business with me or buy from me
7. are they allowing me to be honest and direct
8. are they giving me access and positive exposure to important people
9. do they respond to my emails and invites
10. do they accept my Linkedin invite

 We realized that these indicators are as if not more important than the price or quality of your offer, because if they are not responding as described above, it also tells you there is a problem you have to attend to.

So what is the moral to this story? Doing the things that can be empirically measured can be less important than doing the things above. What else do you look at?

 

 

It is the second week of the year, (really the first full week) and it may be your first week back.

Let me go a little bit more in depth with some of the points from last weeks blog, Salespeople, 22 Tips for 2013 -- Another New Year! to help get you started:

Tip #1:

Do I know where my success came from last year?

What did I do to make things happen and be a successful salesperson?

-      did you prospect more

-      were you more disciplined in your approach

-      did you get any sales training that you used well

-      did you work with your partners (if you have any) more effectively

-      did you learn your product so well that you could play it like a violin

-      did you get one big real client and can you do that again this year

-      did you use your resources better than others

-      did you just work harder

Tip #20:

Can you be more organized and/or effective by being more focused and wasting less time in a day?

-      If you can give yourself one more hour a day to sell by being more organized, after holidays, etc. you have 5-6 more weeks of selling time. You just gave yourself an extra month or more to make your quota. Not bad.

-      Here are some questions to ask yourself about wasting time:

• Do I handle emails well or am I reacting and wasting time
• Do I qualify requests from customers, prospects and internally regarding when they need something vs. just jumping at the request?
• Do I delegate and follow up many tasks vs. doing them all myself?
• Do I have ONE system where I keep notes, to dos, etc?
• Do I browse the web, Face Book, etc. on unrelated work items during work hours
• Do I gossip, Twitter, IM too much?
• Do I qualify appointments as to whether I can do them on the phone vs. in person?
• Do I use my selling hours to sell and do non-sales tasks at the appropriate time?

Please let me know if you would like to talk or I can help in any way. I wish you the best, healthiest, most fulfilling 2013.

 

Sales Mastery Interview Host Barbara Giamanco is the co-author of The New Handshake: Sales Meets Social Media and a published author in the Harvard Business Review. An experienced sales and social media advisor, speaker and coach, Barb was recognized again in 2012 by InsideView as one of the Top 25 Influential Leaders in Sales.

Click Here for the Podcast

As I interview sales professionals like Jonathan, it is all with the goal of helping you and your sales team radically increase your sales, improve the profitability of those sales and close those sales far more quickly than you are today, I want you to learn from the best in sales and social media, because selling today requires an entirely different approach and new skills are required!

And no set of skills may be more important than salespeople and organizations being able to leverage technology in ways that drive sales results. I’m a big fan of using technology as part of your sales process BUT technology is not a quick fix nor does it close the deal for you! In my conversation with Jonathan, we talk about how to use technology in the right way at various points in the sales cycle. It’s a good listen!

When you listen to the interview, you’ll learn:

• Why Jonathan wrote his book - Using Technology to Sell.
• What the biggest challenges people and organizations face in addressing the use of technology to sell.
• How technology can enable or disable the productivity of salespeople.
• How social media fits.
• Why organizations need to change their approach in response to the amount of information and technology that is available.
• The biggest mistakes sales organizations make when it comes to technology.

And more…

Enjoy the interview!        Click Here for the Podcast

I want to offer you a beta preview of Phinkit, a social media site geared to salespeople and small businesses. I have included a comparison of features for your review, but the best thing to do is join and experience it yourself at phinkit.com. Please note I was involved in helping create Phinkit and would appreciate your thoughts and input.

For inquires, comments, suggestions please do not hesitate to reach out to me.

I think for the next Summer Olympics we should consider a sales decathlon instead of ballroom dancing. It can be an individual and team sport. Here is how I envision it:

You could create a decathlon that extends for weeks, where the skills people (individually or in a relay) would compete for in the following categories:
1.    Time Management

• How quickly can salesthletes manage the decathlon while handling 200 emails a day, blogging, tweeting and creating proposals.  They will also have to do many of these while running a 10K  and pole-vaulting.

2.    Territory  and Opportunity Management

• Which team knows where their sweetspot is and can navigate a territory and its detours, which could be online or actual traffic detours. You would also have to throw a javelin or use a bow and arrow to hit the center of your target.  Participants will need to strategize by entering black holes where all light and information is removed from an opportunity (kind of like a customer not calling back) and navigate their way out of the black hole and back on track.

3.  Business Acumen

• Salespeople will run along a similar path as runners or bikers and at different stages will be given questions to answer by different business people.  If they get it correct, they run to the next station and hand off the next question to be answered.  If they drop the question or get it wrong, they have to wait X seconds to get it right or ask another teammate.  This will be a series of 100 meter dashes.

4.    DiSC and Getting Along with Prospects

• Each team will be stopped by an official who represents a different DiSC style. They will have to engage in a physical event with them (lifting, pulling or throwing something) and determine which DiSC style they are by how the official interacts with them.

5.    Prospecting and Gaining Access to Power

• While running, they will have to text, email or call a prospect and get a meeting using relevant, compelling messaging and social media. They can use an “official Olympic” tablet or smartphone.  Sponsors will go crazy for this event.

6.    Qualifying and S.PRI.N.G. Dialogue

• A dexterity and strength test will be given where they have to punch a wall mounted device that will reveal if they have asked the right question in the right way in the right order.  Asking or punching things incorrectly brings a penalty, where doing so correctly, makes the physical task of punching easier. They can also use different size discus instead of punching.

7.    Presenting Your Solution

• While juggling several things (pins, balls, oranges) they have to relate their solution to a specific circumstance. They will also have to long jump to engage the judges. To test their dexterity, judges will also be able to throw objects at them which they have to dodge while presenting. The best team will advance to the next round.

8.    Objection Handling

• If the object thrown hits the salesthlete, they have to address the objection in a way that the judge puts down other items they are preparing to throw at the participant. Or they have to jump over specific hurdles after they address the objection.

9.    Closing

• A salesthlete needs to turn or lift a very heavy object to close the deal. This could be a lifting weights or a steel shutter to show their strength.

10.    Negotiations

• The lead salesthlete needs to work with his or her other teammates to persuade the judges that the offer/terms they have made will be accepted. This will be done via a Greco-Roman wrestling match.

The winning relay team would finish the events in the least amount of time and get a Gold medal, but since they are salesthletes, they would also get some kind of spiff like a 3 day 2 night vacation with their partner or spouse to some exotic location.

I am accepting applications for the Sales Olympics. Let me know what event you wish to be in and your credentials.  Any ideas for improving the event are also welcome.

I am on a panel at Selling Power 2.0 on Monday, July 23rd and the conversation is all about social media and selling. It is common knowledge at this point that people are going online to help with their purchasing decisions, BUT, I don't think salespeople have made the transition to truly understand how their prospects are doing so.

I think our questions regarding a prospect’s decision process and criteria needs to start including social media questions:
1.    Do you use social media to help in your decision process (if they look at you like a deer in the headlights you don't need to ask any of the following questions)?
2.    How did you use social media, LinkedIn, forums or the internet up to this point in your decision?
3.    How will you be using it from this point till your final decision?
4.    How much weight do you give to the information online?
5.    Where do you go?
6.    Is there anyone or any site in particular you really respect and influences you?
7.    Have you read…? (plant seed)
8.    Have you been to our or my blog or site?
9.    Is there anybody in the decision process who is enamored with or believes this is a critical part of the process?
10.    How does this compare with actual references that I will give you?

Once you have the answer to these questions, and if the deal is large enough, you or your marketing organization can start monitoring or contributing to these sites, blogs, forums, etc. This would be particularly important when you are working a large deal that takes a longer time and has large lags between key events of steps in a process.  Email Me, OR:

 

Every profession goes through transitions and technological improvements. The equipment that Tiger Woods uses today (no pun intended) is better than Jack Nicklaus'. The tennis racquets that Roger Federer uses is far superior to John McEnroe. Baseballs and gloves are far more sophisticated today than in the days of The Original Bronx Bombers of Ruth and Gehrig (that's for all my Red Sox fans). And I am glad my dentist uses the equipment she does and I don’t have to be in pain when she works on me.

Sales technology has also made quantum leaps. There is amazing technology for every stage of the sales process (be on the lookout in July for my newest book "Technology and Selling") but salespeople or sales organizations don't take as much advantage as they should. I think most organizations pick and choose one or two technologies to help salespeople. CRM is a favorite although most salespeople would beg to differ. E-mail doesn’t count any more.  It is plumbing. Maybe some companies are using some conferencing technology or great slide share technology, the next generation of PowerPoint, but little else.

There are amazing technologies for every stage of the sales process beginning with prospecting through the negotiation stage.

Imagine if you had technology that:
• made your prospecting more effective to get more appointments
• guided, tutored and supported you during your initial meeting
• allowed you to create the sexiest proposals, presentations and demonstrations
• build better teams and strategies to win bigger deals
• show you how to have a better negotiation and advantage so you didn’t give away so much and negotiated better
• gave you back one or two more hours a day to work or live.

Well they are all available, many don't cost much or anything at all and can standalone or integrate with your CRM.

So why don't sales people take advantage of this?  Several potential reasons:
1. they don't know about them
2. they are too dependent on having things done for them
3. they don't want to be bothered
4. they are doing well without

And why don't companies take advantage:
1. they don’t know about them
2. they don’t want to spend the money
3. it takes people to choose and support and that costs money which they don’t want to spend
4. they can’t get people to use what they have already invested in, like CRM or web conferencing

Tell me what you think? And if you want a free chapter of my new book.

 

 

 

 

In interviewing myself on April 9th, Jonathan explored his current state of mind, work habits and time wasters(☞ = question ☝ = answer).

☞ Jon, what is the biggest time waster for you?

☝ The biggest way I waste time is not knowing what I want to get done when I don't have a formal appointment or training class. I have many things that are important and I am constantly aware of:
• including finishing my book
• refocusing my business on the NE region and over video
• getting better at social media
• working on working out 
• my finances and more...
 
But when I don't have it in my calendar then I wander and I don't feel good wandering. I just read an article in the Sunday Times Sports Section about the goalie for the NY Rangers who follows the same routine so he feels prepared. I need to get back to my routine.

☞ What prevents you from being more organized and having things in your calendar? What prevents you from having and staying with a routine?

☝ Good question to yourself Jon. I have never been good with structure unless I am super motivated. It stems from my childhood but that is for another blog. Perhaps it is having too much to do, or it is not wanting to do what is needed. Maybe I am bored and need a good kick in the pants.  Sometimes, I am better when I have somebody I am accountable to because I am often more responsible to others than I am to myself. Not sure but it doesn't really matter why. What matters is to become the goalie for the NY Rangers : )

☞ So what should you be doing now vs. what you are doing?

☝ I have to write a blog so I am hoping this will become the blog. I am trying to use my own experience as the best way to teach people. I understand that I might be revealing a bit too much about myself but I hope people like that. After this, I have appointments but I think the book is next. BTW, I sent out a LinkedIn request for people to share their best experiences with technology in selling and didn't get the response I wanted. Very disappointing!

☞ What is the one part about you that you most wish to fix?

☝ I am extremely hard on myself and self-critical. If I am wasting one second, it kicks in. So the things I am talking about in this blog probably aren’t as bad as they sound but to me they are.

☞So what are you doing today after you write this blog?

☝ I have a 9AM appointment to discuss some 1:1 coaching and then I see my accountant, go to my dentist and then have a 4PM and 6PM with a prospect and potential partner. I think I will also try and buy a new iPad but I am not sure.

☞ Jonathan, thanks for your time and candor!  

☝ Any time 

Click below to get a S.M.A.R.T. Goal Form that will help you stay focused!

 

I admit it. I got lost in the Internet Sea.  I was thrashing around trying to get my bearings, looking for information, and comparing myself to others. Wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything, keep my competition at bay, making sure I was the best.

So much anxiety and time wasted! It is a big sea to get lost in. It is never ending. One thing leads to another thing, and another, and when you realize you are lost it is too late with too many open windows to close.

So now I see the horizon and it isn't a mirage. It is terra firma, I am staking my IPG flag in the ground and building my sales community.

Town Hall and Community Center is of course R.E.A.L. Selling - this is where the foundation is and all the major work is done. The cornerstones (it is a big building with a lot of cornerstones) of the building are:
 
 1. Goal Setting, time and territory management
 2. Gaining Access to Power
 3. S.PRI.N.G. Dialogues - what, did this S.PRI.N.G. on you baby!
 4. Presenting my Unique Solution
 5. Objection Handling and Closing
 6. www.ipgtraining.com
 7. My network - Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter (maybe Pinterest) - only 30 minutes a day
 8. My family, business partners, friends and co-workers - more than 30 minutes/day

My outposts and security guards (for now) will be:

 1. Jill Konrath

 2. Sales Benchmark Index

 3. SF.com and all its ApExchange Partners

 4.  Harvard Business Review (HBR.com)

 5. Phinkit.com (coming soon)

My search, expand and explore members are:

 1. Google search and Google Alerts

 2. CSO Insights and ESResearch

 3. My 3-5 biggest and more respected competitors for all the research they do

Here is what is not on my plan:
 1. EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING ELSE EXCEPT THE NY KNICKS AND NY YANKEES!