6 Things Really Productive People Do

Have you noticed that some people just seem to accomplish tons and still appear happy and relaxed? Here are six tips for becoming more productive.

People often ask me, amazed, how I manage to do so many things. Aside from writing two columns every week, I speak regularly, travel, create videos, manage my business, write books, consult with five companies, network, socialize, cycle, run, read, cook, sleep six to seven hours a night and have dates with my wife. Oh yeah, I watch a lot of television while hanging out with my dog as well.

Okay, I know it sounds ridiculous. But accomplishing my preferred future requires this level of activity. I have the same 24 hours in a day that you do, but I have made specific choices that allow me to make the most of every day, and still feel happy and relaxed. Perhaps these tips will help you make the most of your time as well.

The Social Selling Iceberg

In B2B selling, Twitter and LinkedIn are valuable sources of leads, but to work on the "below water" steps of the sales process, companies need an enterprise social network.

When people talk about "social selling," they usually mean using the big public social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to find potential customers, and turn these into sales leads. These networks are an ideal place to do this, because they provide a massive ready-made audience. For very simple sales processes typical of business to consumer selling, this may be sufficient as a sole means of social selling.

But B2B selling has a far more complex sales cycle with a lot more people involved, and much more complex relationships between them. Finding leads is just the tip of the iceberg and, as everyone knows, 90 percent of an iceberg is below water. So in B2B selling Twitter and LinkedIn are valuable sources of leads, but they don't provide the right environment for collaboration throughout the sales cycle.

What You Need to Know About the Transition from Direct to Channel Sales

Selling through alternate distribution channels was not a subject addressed by many mainstream sales training companies as little as four years ago. Reseller channel sales was considered a specialty subject and it was addressed by a limited number of sales training companies. Many other training companies treated channel sales as though it was some flavor of direct sales. That isn’t the case at all.

Over the past 3 to 4 years, several significant events have occurred:

What, exactly, is a Relationship Manager?

There are almost as many definitions of Relationship Manager as there are for ‘social media‘ or ‘sales enablement.’  The term used might be ’customer relationship manager’ or ‘business relationship manager’. Some RMs work with deals, some generate income. Some bring in new customers, some cross sell to existing clients. Some manage ‘new client onboarding’ whatever that means. And then there are the group of sales folks who stopped calling themselves ‘Salespeople’ and began calling themselves Relationship Managers just cuz it sounds like they care.

The term gives the seller a good feeling about themselves. It offers the possibility – the hint –  of offering  the client better quality time, more consideration, more attention. But does it offer the buyer anything substantive? I am having a problem with the term, frankly.

4 Backwards Sales Principles

Some aspects of sales are natural and, while they may not be easy to master, they at least make sense from the start. The concept of closing a sale is a perfect example. If you don't require your prospect to make a decision on the spot, they likely won't – makes sense, right? But other concepts are not so easy to wrap your head around. Here are four of the most important ones along with some of the reasons why they work the way they do.

The Future of Sales Technology

Salespeople are always the early adopters. Here's where they (and you) are heading.

For the past two decades, salespeople have been the early adopters of technology that's later permeated the rest of the business world. Salespeople, for example, were the first to embrace smartphones and CRM was the first viable "cloud-based" application.

Therefore, if you want to know how the general business public will be using computers in the future, you'd best understand the trends that are already taking place within forward-looking sales teams.

To this end, I've been working with sales research pioneer Howard Stevens on a book about the future of selling. We have just completed the chapter on sales technology which (along with other chapters) is available for free on the Chally website (HERE).

Closing the Sale - A Realistic Perspective

There is not a salesperson in existence who hasn't repeatedly heard of the need to "close the sale." Every new sales manager must view the process of encouraging his/her sales force to "close the sale" as an initiation into the profession. If you're going to be a sales manager, you, therefore, must improve everyone's ability to "close." Doesn't it come with the job?

The sales training literature is awash with advice. Some of it tedious and trivial: "If he says this, you say that." Other advice is grandiose: "35 new sure-fire closing techniques." Still other is harmful. "Overcome that objection," as if selling in the B2B world was a contest between you and the customer, with one of you winning (overcoming) and the other losing (being overcome). That's an attitude that won't get you far.

All of this advice shares one common element. It's incredibly overdone. There is no one aspect of sales (at least in the B2B world) that undeservedly receives more disproportionate time and talk than the subject of "closing the sale."

Why You Should Give Prospects Homework

One of the most common benefits salespeople use to promote their products is the 'saves time' benefit, because everybody is really busy these days. So it might surprise you to learn that giving your prospects a homework assignment can actually improve your closing ratio.

Cognitive psychology teaches us that the more time and effort people invest in something, the more they value that thing once they actually get it. If you send your prospects a link to a ten-page document that contains information about your company and products and ask them to read it before your appointment, and they do so, now they've invested some time in you and in this purchase. They don't want to have wasted that time, so they're more inclined to think seriously about buying from you. It also takes the pressure off you to spend precious appointment time explaining product features – the prospect now knows all the basic details, and you can focus on asking qualifying questions and presenting the appropriate benefits.

If Price Really Matters

Sales people have always had a laundry list of excuses that keep them from being able to sell today. Yet, is there any excuse more infamous than the price one. "If we just lowered our price, I could sell a ton of this stuff." Oh really? People buy primarily-based on price? Well, if that's true consider this.

If price really matters…

• Everyone would buy generic drugs

• No one would have cable or satellite television

Compounding Your Sales Successes

One of the greatest things invented by the financial service industry was “Compound Interest". Save for the fact that no one is paying much interest on money these days, the reality of Compound Interest still holds and delivers added gain regardless of how low of high rates are. I was watching a teacher explain the concept to a grade 5 class, and he brought it down to "a little to start, a little from here, a little from there, and over time you end up with more than straight interest".

As you assess your plan for sales success in 2013, you can take advantage of "Compounding" to achieve greater success. Rather than resolving to do new things in new ways in 2013, why not resolve to improve a little here and a little there with things you already do or need to do; but do it in a way that ends up being greater than the individual gains on your efforts.

Top 10 Tips for E-Mail Success in Sales

Just one shift in the words you choose can cause a new connection with your potential buyer today through email conversation. If you believe that, then you should become a student of communication if you are an inside or outside sales professional. With the great success, re-tweeting, and re-posting of our Top 10 Tips for Voice Mail Success in Sales, we are now posting our top tips for E-Mail success.

E-mail is most successful when there is quick, perceived value on the part of the e-mail receiver. No matter how great you and your company are, you must focus on your buyer and what interests them.

2013 Top Sales Trends

Harvard Business Review is arguably the most prestigious publication for business leaders and management thinkers. Here’s one of my recent Harvard Business Review articles titled “TOP TEN SALES TRENDS FOR 2013.”

What are the top business-to-business sales trends for 2013? Here’s my list based upon my experience of working with some of the world’s best sales organizations this past year.

1. Sales Force Behavior “Modeling”
Models are verbal descriptions and visual representations of how systems work and processes flow. Models enable repeatable and predictable experiences. More organizations will study their top salespeople in 2013 to understand how they formulate their winning account strategies based upon customer politics, evaluator psychology, and the human nature of executive decision makers that are unique to winning every account.

Use Energy and Enthusiasm to Set Appointments

People can feel your energy and enthusiasm through the phone and through your email messages. If you are in sales, you need to become a student of communication and learn how to master sharing electrifying passion for your products and services. Was that a gasp I heard?

Yes, electrifying enthusiasm, interest in your buyer, and in the services and value you offer them.

There is a big problem today with sellers who are calling and leaving bland, boring, blah voice mail messages. They may be brief, but they make the potential buyer feel like they are “call number 42 of the day.”

Does Hard Selling Still Work?

Even though customers hate high pressure sales tactics, some companies still use them. How come?

I've been writing about sales for over a decade and I keep hearing from various sales gurus and experts that the hard sell doesn't work any more.  Nevertheless, I find myself running into examples where companies are employing it, apparently with enough success to justify its continued use.

For example, the New York Times recently published a couple of articles about hard selling inside the office supply store Staples. If the articles can be believed, Staples salespeople have been trained to push service contracts until they've heard "no" at least three times--a classic hard sell technique.

4 Bad Sale Warning Signs

Not every sale is a good sale. That may sound strange, especially if you're frantically trying to meet your quota and the deadline is looming, but it's nevertheless true. Every salesperson has a customer or two they hate – the one who peppers you with questions and requests, is never satisfied no matter what you do, and always demands the lowest possible price and then complains it's still too expensive. Wouldn't it be easier to never acquire such customers at all? If you focus instead on low-maintenance prospects, you'll find you have a lot more time to pursue sales activities instead of patiently soothing your difficult customers. Just keep an eye out for these warning signs and you'll know when it's time to walk away from a deal.

The Dangers of Hot Prospects

Every salesperson has experienced the energizing sensation of having a prospect call YOU and say they're ready to buy. These “low hanging fruit” prospects are exciting because they're a chance to make a sale without having to bother with the time-consuming early parts of the sales process. No combing lead lists, no cold call, no wooing a prospect into meeting, just straight into the sales presentation.

How to Add Value to Your Sales

Value-added selling has become one of the most popular sales approaches, as a sort of inevitable evolution of consultative selling. In value-added selling, the salesperson offers the product or service but then throws in something unique to make that product more valuable. Value-added selling not only helps differentiate your product from the competition, it also helps motivate buyers to come to you instead of doing their purchasing over the Internet.

Coping with an Angry Customer

As a salesperson, you are often the face of your company. You will find that customers will often call you if they have an issue, instead of calling the customer service or technical support departments. And that means you can find yourself facing more than your share of upset, angry customers. Often the problem they face has nothing to do with you, but because you are standing in as the company representative, you're the one who will face the brunt of the customer's wrath. When you find yourself in this kind of situation, remember the following eight tactics for defusing your customer's fury.

The Power of Pre-Appointment Planning

Like everybody else, salespeople often wish for more hours in the day. It seems like there are always things that don't get done and that drag on and on. The last thing most salespeople want to do is spend time preparing for a sales appointment. At the most, they draw up a list of standard questions for every appointment and just use that.

Yet preparing a plan for each appointment actually saves time later. If you've done your research and come up with all the questions you need to ask, you eliminate those follow-up calls and meetings that happen when you keep uncovering more questions for the prospect. Doing pre-appointment planning is also a powerful way to shorten your sales cycle, meaning you can get to the next prospect (and the next sale) much more quickly.

Social Selling – This Could Take a While

A few things happened to me this week that remind me how long It can take for new sales techniques to be adopted – and become a habit with sales people.

I was discussing a situation with one of my sales consultant friends where they are seeing a sales force where solution selling is still only a skill of the minority.

This sales force is largely made up of “product presenters” that don’t ask about the prospect’s business. These sales people show up to sales meetings and say things like “check out our new product. It’s great, right?” and “look at such-and-such a feature” rather than saying things like “what are your major business challenges? And how are you going about achieving those?”