STOP PLAYING SHEEP

Have you ever heard of killer sheep? I haven’t either. Sheep are passive, calm, timid animals which follow the shepherd from pasture to pasture grazing on the grass. Sheep have a pretty boring life wouldn’t you agree?

STOP PLAYING SHEEP!

Many of you that follow this blog have been in my office and have commented on my collection of RHINOs. I love rhinos because I am a RHINO not a sheep.

No sales rep can be a sheep and become successful. I will go a step further; no sales rep can be a sheep and even be mediocre. SHEEP ARE FAILURES! I own a book that I bought just because of the title, “TIMID SALESMEN HAVE SKINNY KIDS” written by Judge Ziglar (The brother of the famous motivational speaker and sales trainer Zig Ziglar). So once again sheep are timid therefore SHEEP ARE FAILURES!

The reason I have a collection of RHINOs is because about 25 years ago I adopted a book as my road map for life. The book is called, “RHINOCEROS SUCCESS” written by Scott Alexander. Rhinoceros Success equates being a success with having the traits of a RHINO. Rhinos charge with singleness of purpose, they have 2 inch thick skin, they are massive, and they are aggressive. Rhinos don’t worry about the small stuff; to a rhino just about everything is small stuff! Unlike the sheep, rhinos don’t go where they are told to go, they can’t be led places they don’t want to go.

There is a biblical saying; the meek will inherit the earth. A rhino will tell you that the meek will only inherit what the strong leave behind. The same goes for sales, sheep sales reps only get the sales rhino sales reps leave behind. Remember Judge Ziglars book? TIMID SALESMEN HAVE SKINNY KIDS, RHINO SALESMEN HAVE HEALTHY, PLUMP (I refuse to say the “F” word, FAT), HAPPY KIDS.

One word of caution, don’t just charge around aimlessly. Keep in mind that rhinos charge only at specific and worthwhile targets. You will never see a rhino charge a mouse! A rhino sales rep will have MASSIVE goals and charge after them every day.

Here is one of my core beliefs, I believe that anyone who makes the decision to become a sales rep has a rhino inside them. It may be a baby rhino at first (baby rhinos weigh about 120 pounds, not too shabby huh?) but as the reps skills grow, so does the rhino inside the rep until it is a full grown 4000 pound charging mass of muscle bound rhino that no one can stop from becoming a success.

So STOP PLAYING SHEEP and start LIVING AS A RHINOCEROS!

Lorin

THE SEA OF SAME

Somewhere not so far away, there is a place that all sales reps try to avoid. It is a grey place where there is only one color. It is a place where all words blend together and sound like a dull hum. It is a place where everyone has a smile on their face but no one is really happy. It is a place where everyone has the same ideas. This place is THE SEA OF SAME.

So many sales reps get caught in the undertow of the Sea of Same and are pulled away from the SHORE OF VALUE because they don’t do the little things that make them DIFFERENT from all the other reps out in the field.

We sometimes fool ourselves thinking that our product will make the difference. In today’s marketplace where every customer has the world market at their fingertips via the internet, very few, if any products can make save us from the Sea of Same.

We tell ourselves that our company will make the difference. Once again, there may actually be a small handful of companies that conduct their business in a way that is so different it can keep a rep out of the Sea of Same, but the odds are against you.

Price can only make a contribution to differentiating yourself from everyone else, but even price can only save you for so long. Are you thinking quality is going to be your lifeboat? Well like so many other factors, high quality will help only until competition catches up with you.

The SEA OF SAME is relentless and will do it’s best to draw you into its mediocre waters.

We need to find what will keep us safely on the SHORE OF VALUE. That something is YOUR PERSONAL STYLE! What is it that you do that no one else does for the customer? It can’t be something that everyone else does. It needs to be SPECIAL, it needs to be IMPORTANT, and it needs to have VALUE to the customer.

If your customers only see you doing what is expected then you are floating in the SEA OF SAME. However if you do something wonderfully unexpected, if you can save the customer time, money, aggravation or stress your customer will place you solidly on the SHORE OF VALUE and you will be the rep that the customer comes to depend on place the highest value on you.

Here is another very important part of doing the unexpected for your customer. TELL THE CUSTOMER WHAT YOU HAVE DONE! If you do something that adds value, let the customer know you did it. I have seen reps do some great things for a customer but it has no value because the customer never knows they did it. The customer might notice it was done, but they think that one of their employees did it. (Actually I really think some customers think that elves come during the night and do it) When you tell the customer what you did make sure they understand the importance. Also, don’t make it sound like you are doing them a favor, always remember, they are doing you the favor by placing an order with you.

The SEA OF SAME is not a place for success. It is a place for mediocrity and average. If you are reading this blog, YOU ARE BETTER THAN THAT!

Lorin

WHAT IS YOUR “SO THAT”

The first question most of you want to ask me is, what’s a SO THAT?

A SO THAT is something I learned tonight at a meeting. It is an idea that is extremely powerful and an idea that will give you motivation everyday no matter how good or how badly your day is going.

Each of us has a SO THAT, some of us have a few of them. Some people have the same SO THAT but most of us have different ones. My brother has a SO THAT and it is so different from mine that it is hard to believe we are brothers, and yet one of the people at tonight’s meeting had the exact same SO THAT as I did. I will bet that there are people who are absolute enemies that share the same SO THAT.

So what is a SO THAT? A SO THAT is what enables us to move past failure. A SO THAT helps us stay grounded after victories. A SO THAT is always important and once we realize what it is we can never leave it behind or forget it again.

A SO THAT can’t be given away. A SO THAT can’t be received as a gift. You can’t inherit a SO THAT or leave one in your will. Because you can never lose a SO THAT, you can never find one. A SO THAT can’t be won in a lottery, or lost in a game of chance. A SO THAT only has value to YOU so no one will steal it.

Have any of you figured out what a SO THAT is yet?

A SO THAT is the reason you do what you do. Wasn’t that simple? NO? OK, let me say it this way.

I DO THIS, “SO THAT”, I CAN DO THAT!

Now do you get it? A SO THAT is your reason for doing just about everything. Why do you work? Some of you say for money. NOPE! You work SO THAT you have money that allows you to buy things.

(I am sure most of you who follow my blog have seen this coming)

 Here is an exercise you can do. Think of the things you do every day and then think of the SO THAT which goes with them. Once you have identified the SO THAT’s you will look at what you do in a different light.

Some of the things you do that are no fun will all of a sudden have meaning and you will better be able to handle them. Some of the things that are a lot of fun will now have a much deeper meaning and you will do them even better and enjoy doing them even more.

This is such a simple idea, after I heard it tonight I was amazed at why I hadn’t seen it before.

Make your list of your SO THAT’s SO THAT you can become better at what you do every day.

Lorin

I USED TO DO THAT

Last night I got a phone call from a good friend of mine who has been selling clothing for decades. We talked about a million things until he finally got to the point of the call. He asked me, “What am I doing wrong”?

So here I am, over a thousand miles away, talking on the phone, never have worked with him in the sales field, and not knowing a lot about his type of selling trying to help him answer the question, “What am I doing wrong”. My first thought was to say, “Sorry Lorin no longer lives here” and hang up, but because we were already talking for over 20 minutes I didn’t think that was a very good option.

I started asking him questions trying my best to understand what it was he did in the sales field. He told me about his customers and how they decided what to buy and how many to buy. He told me about his designers and what type of clothes he sold. We talked about the sales call and what steps he used in the sales process. So what I am saying for over 90 minutes I became a little familiar with what he called the “RAG” business.  As I suspected it didn’t sound that much different than the diamond business, the pot and pan business or the chemical business I was used to. Not only that, but when he told me what he was doing it didn’t sound that different than what most reps do in the sales field.

Now the fun started. I began by asking what he did yesterday that he hasn’t done before. After several minutes he said that he couldn’t think of anything. I then simply switched the question around a little and asked him what he has done in the past that he didn’t do yesterday? This was a much easier question for him to answer. He told me that he went electronic. Instead of having actual samples he carried his laptop and swatches of fabric with him.

I asked him if this was a company requirement or not and was told no, it made his job EASIER! He went on to tell me how he used to carry 80 to 100 samples and it took him over an hour at each stop to load and unload his car. He told me how heavy everything was and how tired he was at the end of the day. He told me about how easy things have gotten since he went electronic.

I said nothing. I just listened. I let him talk for about 6 or 7 minutes about all this until he said, “Are you still there?” I said, “Yep just too stunned to speak”. He wanted to know what I was so stunned about. I asked him a very simple question, “Have you been listening to yourself?”

It was then that I felt I had really gotten under his skin. He said listening to what? I said what you are doing WRONG!

I hope that by now each of you see what I was talking about. He was successful and one of the top reps for the clothing lines until he got… are you ready for it?... LAZY! That is what I told him he was, LAZY. In an effort to be a little PC I won’t type his next sentence or two. Let’s leave it at; he wasn’t pleased with my assessment. I wasn’t sure our friendship of over 30 years was going to survive this phone call.

I had to do something so I reminded him that he called me and asked for help. I also reminded him that he called me because he knew I knew sales and may be able to offer some solutions. After a couple of seconds (which seemed like hours) he told me I was right and he knew that is what I was going to say. I really wanted to ask him why he called me then and didn’t just correct the problem himself, but figured that conversation could wait until another time.

We sometimes let ourselves stray away from the path to success, knowing fully that we are doing it. His excuse was technology. I LOVE TECHNOLOGY and would like to see everyone use it to its fullest, but not at the cost of success.

There are basic things that we need to do. Some are specific to our products and services and some are specific to our profession. None of these essential items should be taken out of our daily sales presentations, and if we do take one out and see that it is negatively affecting our business we need to be smart enough to bring it back.

To my friend who I hope still likes me, go get your samples and get back to work. To all my friend who are reading this blog, DON’T GET LAZY! Do what you know leads to success!

Lorin

I HAVE NEVER TOLD MYSELF A LIE THAT I DIDN’T BELIEVE

How well developed is your sixth sense? You know the one I am talking about, the ability to tell when someone is telling you a lie. I remember my Mom having the best developed sixth sense I have ever seen (but she also had eyes in the back of her head) anyway, we all have this talent that works so well with customers, friends and family so the question is why do we turn it off when we talk to ourselves?

We wake up and tell ourselves, “It’s too cold”, “It’s too hot”, “It’s too wet”, and some of you in the SW may tell yourself “It’s too dry”. I have been driving and saw a business and told myself “they don’t need anything”! How about, “They look too busy” or “They don’t look busy enough”. Too big, too small, on the wrong side of the street, No place to park. I once had a phone sales rep, now remember he was in an office, at a desk and told me, “This didn’t look like a phone number I wanted to call”. With all these examples, I am sure I hit on a few lies you have told yourself. The difference, these lies dictated how we acted. Our business success was affected by these lies.

A customer can pour their heart out to you telling you about the kids starving, they are about to lose their house, they have nothing to pay their employees with and you walk away saying to yourself, “what a bunch of bologna (Oscar Mayer Spelling). The customer can have tears in their eyes and the repo man might be hauling their car away while you watch, but you still don’t believe them. And you get in your car and pass the next business because you tell yourself, “Buildings with a brown roof never buy”.

The reason we believe ourselves is because the lies we tell ourselves are driven by how we feel that very moment. I have been with reps in the field that have spent the entire morning cold calling. We stopped at every business; nothing stopped us from going inside and getting to the decision maker. Then we stopped for lunch and after eating we got back into the car and for the next 45 minutes we drove around. When I asked the reps why we were driving so much she told me none of the businesses we passed “LOOKED GOOD” to her. I did my best to probe and find out what made one business look good and another one look bad. I am still waiting for an answer I can understand. All she said was, “I will know it when I see it”. When we finally stopped to make a call, I looked and I looked at the outside of the building and didn’t see anything that made me believe it was a “GOOD” place to stop.

If anyone reading this can tell me how to spot a good business to call on and a bad one, please either leave a comment or e mail me, I will pass it on to everyone here.

Now let’s get back to reality. There is only one way I know of to tell if a business needs your product or service. Get the heck out of your car, or pick up your phone if you’re in phone sales and start the sale!

We tell ourselves that it isn’t doing any harm, we convince ourselves that it is what’s BEST for us, we believe ourselves and never stop to question if what we are telling ourselves is true, is best, or if it just another excuse we use to keep from doing the things we don’t like to do.

We all need to do ourselves a favor. Let’s at least filter our lies through the same filters we use for our customers.

Lorin

TODAY IS A DAY TO SMILE

I OFFICALLY DECLARE TODAY A "SMILE DAY". Enjoy these little quips, I did.

A compromise is an agreement whereby both parties get what neither of them wanted.  ~Author Unknown

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.  ~Attributed to Arthur McBride Bloch

Don't worry about the world coming to an end today.  It is already tomorrow in Australia.  ~Charles Schulz

All generalizations are bad.  ~R.H. Grenier

All my life, I always wanted to be somebody.  Now I see that I should have been more specific.  ~Jane Wagner, The Search For Intelligent Life In The Universe, performed by Lily Tomlin

The large print giveth, but the small print taketh away.  ~Tom Waits, Small Change

Eagles may soar in the clouds, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.  ~Attributed to both Jason Hutchison and John Benfield

After all, what is your host's purpose in having a party?  Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.  ~P.J. O'Rourke

How come there's only one Monopolies Commission?  ~Nigel Rees

I have six locks on my door all in a row.  When I go out, I lock every other one.  I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three.  ~Elayne Boosler

Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry.  ~George Ade

Man was predestined to have free will.  ~Hal Lee Luyah

Maybe this world is another planet's hell.  ~Aldous Huxley

Murphy was an optimist.  ~O'Toole's Commentary


The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.  ~Robert Graves

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.  ~Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Today is the last day of some of your life.  ~Author Unknown

Without geography, you're nowhere.  ~Author Unknown

It's always darkest before the dawn.  So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.  ~Author Unknown

You can't have everything... where would you put it?  ~Steven Wright

I plan on living forever.  So far, so good.  ~Author Unknown

As to the Seven Deadly Sins, I deplore Pride, Wrath, Lust, Envy and Greed.  Gluttony and Sloth I pretty much plan my day around.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

I usually lump organized religion, organized labor, and organized crime together. The Mafia gets points for having the best restaurants.  ~Dave Beard

There's no such thing as fun for the whole family.  ~Jerry Seinfeld

And on the eighth day God said, "Okay, Murphy, you're in charge!"  ~Author Unknown

When somebody tells you nothing is impossible, ask him to dribble a football.  ~Author Unknown

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.  ~Author Unknown

A great name for a new country song:  If I'd Shot You Sooner, I'd Be Out of Jail by Now.  ~Author Unknown

Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.  ~Rita Mae Brown

Just remember, if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.  ~Author Unknown

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes.  That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.  ~Author Unknown

Duct tape is like the force.  It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.  ~Carl Zwanzig

Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.  ~Colin Sautar

Who says nothing is impossible.  I've been doing nothing for years.  ~Author Unknown

I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.  ~Author Unknown

If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?  ~Author Unknown

Lorin

SOMETHING TO BE EXCITED ABOUT

I am so excited! I just got my tickets for the GET MOTIVATED SEMINAR that will be in Atlanta on November 1^st.

ZIG ZIGLAR, my all time favorite motivator and sales mentor will be there along with 9 other great speakers. It is an all day program that I am sure will help motivate me to the MAX!

What are you excited about? Didn’t expect that question to come out of left field did you? When you opened your eyes this morning, what could you think about that motivated you and made you excited? Not so easy to pin point is it? That’s because so many of us have gotten ourselves to the point of auto-pilot. We get up, get dressed, do whatever morning set-up we have and then out the door for another day in the field or office. Not a lot to get excited about there is there? I know what you mean because I was there.

Doing things the same way everyday isn’t very exciting. As a matter of fact, stats show that what tends to happen to people who get into this trap is their quality of work goes down, the quantity of work goes down, and they will usually be in a new job someplace else in the near future.

Do I need to spell it out for you? This is what is called being in a RUT!

What needs to be done when you find yourself in a rut? DO SOMETHING EXCITING! It doesn’t necessarily need to be job related, although that is the best way to climb out of a rut. It can be something social, something personal; it can be as simple as finishing reading that book you started about 6 months ago. It doesn’t matter what it is just do something that will motivate you and make you excited when you are done with it.

Why is this so important that I am making an entire post on it? Easy, if you are bored, if you aren’t excited about what you are doing, your customers will see it in your face and hear it in your voice. Boredom and lack of enthusiasm show through even the best act! Customers are like your mothers, they can tell what you are thinking. This used to bewilder me so much, no matter what I was trying to hide, Mom always knew.

The worst part about being bored, unmotivated, not excited and less than enthusiastic is by the time you see it in yourself, your customers have been seeing it for hours! If you start to realize you are unmotivated at noon, every customer you have seen that day already knew it and saw it in your face and heard it in your voice.

How do you stop the doldrums? FIND YOUR HOT BUTTON! What is it that makes you yell WOO HOO when you are alone in the car? What is it that makes you smile and drift off into another world when you just think about it? I once had a young sales rep working for me and he kept a picture of a red Ferrari taped to the dashboard of his old Toyota pickup truck. That was his motivation, it was what he wanted so badly that just the sight of that beat-up picture made him smile and get past any problems for the day.

Do you have your own red Ferrari? Do you have that special thing that you are looking forward to so much that even the worst situation can be gotten past simply because you have your single most motivating thing on your mind? If you do GREAT! If you don’t you have some work to do because I am betting that you are in the rut already and don’t even know it.

Sit down tonight with a paper and pencil. Write out what it is that you love doing, write it out in such fine detail that when someone else reads it they will be able to feel it see it and imagine it exactly as you feel it, see it, and imagine it.

Once you have this motivator, you need to reinforce it in your mind. Every night the last thing you do before you close your eyes for bed is read it. When you wake up in the morning, before you do anything else (and I mean anything, you know what I mean) you read it. You take it with you in the field and every time your car stops you read it. You make sure that this is the real deal and that it IS the number one thing that excites you. If it isn’t go back and write out what needs to be changed, keep doing this until it is 100% on the money. NOW you have your motivator. Now you have your object of EXCITEMENT. Now you are ready to go and fight the battles we face every day as reps.

I have something to be EXCITED about, how about you?

Lorin

DID YOU SEE THAT?

If I were to ask you,”What is the most important step to a sale” what would your answer be? Would you answer the opening? Maybe the probing? I be some would say the CLOSE! Others would insist follow-up. Depending on the sales process you used the list could be from as few as 3 steps to as many as 15, and each would be considered “THE MOST IMPORTANT” by someone.

Now if you asked me that question, I would give you an entirely different answer then any of you would give. I would say that the most important step to a sale is a step that I have never seen listed in any sales process. It is a step that most sales reps never include as a step. I would say that OBSERVATION is by far the most important step to a sale.

What you see is a lot more dependable than what you hear. I was once working with a rep and we walked into a small business. It was a metal working shop with about 6 people working on the production floor. The rep walked right up to the manager and started to talk with him. After about 5 minutes the manager looked us both in the eye and told us how dead their business was. That is when I first started to have a problem. I was looking at 6 guys, all hard at work. I saw pallets of metal stock lined up the entire length of the building. As hard as they were working, everyone in the shop seemed to be in a great mood.

What I was hearing and what I was seeing didn’t match. Being my usual nosey self, I left the reps side and walked over to one of the guys working on a machine. I simply said, wow, you are all covered up, is it always like this? He replied that he has been there for the past 2 years and that they have been busy like this the entire time. When the rep and I walked out I asked him what he has been seeing since he has been selling them, his answer was not what I expected. He said, I never noticed.

After I picked myself off the ground, I had a very heated discussion with the rep and tried to explain to him the importance of observation. I told him that from simply observing a customer each and every time you walk in you can tell a lot about their business. You will see what their normal work load is; you will be able to tell when they are slammed with business or when they are slow. This is information that will make you are better business partner with the customer and help you develop a better consultative selling relationship. It is also the best way of knowing if and when a customer is telling you the truth.

Another priceless part of observation is being able to see changes when they are new enough and small enough that something can be done about them. If you see a competitor’s product in one of your accounts that you have not seen before RED FLAGS should be waving! You need to start asking about it or it may be the product that is replacing yours.

Observation is the number one thing that can give you the heads up you need to keep a customer, it is the number one thing you need to open a customer, and it is the number one thing you need to keep a customer happy. I can’t think of 3 better reasons to keep your eyes WIDE open when you are making sales calls can you?

Lorin

THERE IS NO CURE FOR DISAPPOINTMENT

It’s Friday, the end of another work week. You know what else it is? It is the end of the time when many customers told you they would get back with you about a sale. What are you going to do? Let’s face the facts; many of you were depending on those sales to make your week.

You felt confident that you made a good presentation, and you know the customer well, if he/she said they would call you by the end of the week you know they will. BUT!!! They didn’t, so now what? Should you follow up with a phone call? Maybe you should stop by and tell them, “I was in the neighborhood” that line always works, right?

This is a very common scenario for sales reps. What we sometimes forget is that “I will call you this week” in most cases means I don’t have the guts to tell you to go away!

Now don’t get me wrong, I love all customers big and small, however, I know that everyone except a small group of people will do all they can to avoid conflict and stress.

If the customer tells you no, what are you going to do? If you are any good at all you are going to start probing to find out why the customer said no and then make your case for placing the order now. This probing can be very stressful for both you and the customer.

How many reasons can you think of that would cause a customer to say no? I can think of about 25 off the top of my head and could add to the list if I really took some time to analyze the situation. The reasons range from “I really don’t need anything right now” to “I need a bunch of stuff right now but I don’t have the money to buy them”.

Some of the reasons would be easy for a customer to say to you but others would get caught in the customer’s throat if they tried to say them out loud.  Can you see a customer telling you “I can afford to buy things I need to run my business”?

So the easy way out is to tell you, “Let me call you back by Friday”. Nothing wrong with this method of avoiding stress and conflict as long as YOU DON’T DEPEND ON THE SALE! Let’s face it 9 out of 10 customers who say this to you are simply saying no in a nice way. If you know this fact then you will stop having the expectation that you will get a call. Also if you know this fact, you won’t make a fool out of yourself by “Just being in the neighborhood” and stopping in, or making that call. I love listening to reps make this call, I feel sorry for them, I try and talk them out of it, but if they call I do get a chuckle when they say, “Hi Mr./Ms Customer, I was just thinking about you and remembered you told me you were going to place an order today, what is it you need?” and 90% of the time the reply is, “I have been so busy I haven’t had a chance to look at what I needed, I will get with you NEXT WEEK.” Once again the customer is trying to avoid conflict and stress.

To quote a great Italian actor, when a customer says I will call you back, “FORGETABOUTIT” and go about your business as if it never happened.

Reps can handle conflict and stress really well. In most cases, conflict brings out the best in us and we become even better sales reps. DISAPPOINTMENT is another animal. Disappointment will knock you to your knees faster than a George Forman uppercut. Disappointment robs your confidence, makes you question your ability, and in your mind, reduces your value.

The best way to avoid the disappointment is to not set yourself up for disappointment. You need to understand the psychology of selling. You need to understand the mentality of your customers. You need to read between the lines and know the difference between all the meanings of I will call you by Friday. Was it a sincere message? Was it a blow off? You need to trust your gut and make the decision. Let me give you a hint, IT WAS A BLOW OFF! If you think anything else you are on your way to disappointment.

Over my years as a sales trainer I have helped reps build self confidence and helped them better handle most situations that sales puts you into. But I have never been able to teach a rep to ignore disappointment. All I can do is hope that I can teach a rep how to avoid it.

I hope this helps you avoid it.

Lorin

FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET

I remember when the saying FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET was the first line used to describe Superman on TV.

FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET

MORE POWERFUL THAN A LOCOMOTIVE

ABLE TO LEAP TALL BUILDINGS IN A SINGLE BOUND

LOOK, UP IN THE SKY, IT’S BIRD, IT’S A PLANE, IT’S SUPERMAN!

(Those were the good old days. I don’t want anyone sending me messages telling me how old I am. I KNOW HOW OLD I AM and you need to respect your elders!)

Today, FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET doesn’t take super powers. We all agree that in today’s businesses more and more is being done by fewer and fewer people. How does all the work get done? Simple, one word, FASTER. Technology is allowing businesses to be more productive.

Making businesses go faster started years ago when the fax machine replaced the Post Office as the fastest way to send documents. It was amazing, push the send button and in seconds instead of hours (overnight delivery) your document was received. Then came the cell phone. This idea was part of a comedy show named GET SMART only a decade before. The star, Maxwell Smart (a spy) had a shoe phone. I remember watching and laughing so hard every time his shoe rang and he answered it. (Same as above, respect your elders). Next we were all amazed that Batman had a wrist communicator that allowed him to see who he was talking with. (I never understood how Batman saw Commissioner Gordon; the Commissioner didn’t have a wrist communicator…hummm oh well that’s for another posting). Then came the mighty computer! Every SiFi movie made in the ‘70s usually had a scene in it where there was this massive computer that was the size of Hugh Hefner’s master bedroom.

As the great poet, singer, songwriter, Bob Dylan said “THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANG’IN”. Are you changing with them?

As I work with reps, I hear them tell me that they WON’T get a smart phone just because their company has a program that uses one. They WON’T buy a laptop so they can use the latest software provided by the company. I still see sales reps with... are you ready...? PAGERS! HELLO, pagers weren’t even in the comic books!

Stop looking at technology as punishment; it is the best thing that ever happened to business. Let’s back up and remember we all agreed that business is moving faster today than ever before. Your customer wants their order in less time than ever before. Because the customer is in such a rush they lose some of the loyalty they used to have to a vendor or a rep. It comes down to this, the first rep they can contact, the first company they can get the order placed with, will usually be the rep or company that gets the order.

A smart phone and a computer are nothing more than tools to help you run your business more efficiently. The more available you are, the easier the customer can contact you when they need something, the more orders you will get, the more money you will make!

It all starts with you embracing technology and learning how to make it work for you. A call phone isn’t just a cell phone anymore. I have told this story before in classes; my daughter needed a new cell phone so I took her to the store to get one. When we walked in I told the young man there that it was for my daughter and she would need to pick it out I was ONLY there to pay for it. The young salesman started showing my daughter all the phone models. He talked about texting, MMS messaging, web browsing, taking pictures, calendar, alarm clock, note pad and some other things that I still don’t understand. Being the FATHER I had to add my 2 cents, so I looked at the salesman and said, “Can she make a phone call with it also”? He looked at me like I was a nut! With total disgust in his voice he said, “Yes”. I then added, well you never talked about the phone calls.

Back on subject, the better your technology equipment, the better you will be able to run your business and the easier it will be for customers to do business with you.

It’s amazing how FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET, seems so slow today. Maybe Superman needs to update his image.

FASTER THAN A LASER BEAM

MORE POWERFUL THAN THE SPACE SHUTTLE

ABLE TO OBTAIN ORBIT IN A SINGLE BOUND

That’s more like it!

Lorin

A VALUE HAS A VALUE IF AND ONLY IF ITS VALUE IS VALUED

I am a member of many subject groups on the various networking sites. The title of this post is the title of a discussion on one of the groups.

I first read this title and thought to myself, whoever started this discussion had to be on drugs! But the more I read it, and the more I thought about it, the more it had VALUE. (Amazing how I worked that into the sentence isn’t it)

It doesn’t matter if you are selling a product, a service, or selling yourself during a sale or an interview what you perceive as VALUE is only going to have VALUE if the customer or future employer views it as VALUBLE!

Let’s start with a product; you start your sales presentation talking about the product being versatile. You tell the customer how many uses the product has and how your one product will do the work of 3 or 4 different products they use now. This sounds like a great reason to buy your product doesn’t it? Maybe not, what if one of the products that you are trying to replace is being supplied by the bosses’ son. OOPS! What if the company doesn’t do a lot of training (I can’t believe I said that) and they want one product to do one job to simplify things. What if the customer doesn’t even do most of the processes you are talking about and views your product as overkill for their business?

Let’s talk about a service. You think you are building added value by telling a customer everything that comes along with your service. Then you come to find out that the customer has no use for any of it but the very basics. The customer immediately thinks that they will be paying for a lot of things that they don’t need.

Finally, let’s address selling yourself. You tell a perspective employer about all the things you do in the community. You think this shows the employer how civic minded you are, in fact the employer starts to think you will put a higher priority on your civic duties than your professional duties.

All of these are examples of A VALUE having NO VALUE because its VALUE isn’t VALUED.

How can we avoid this mistake? Simple, ASK QUESTIONS! How would your sales presentation change if you had asked the customer, “do you prefer a product to be multifunctional or each product having its own application?” and the customer replied, I need each product to do just one job, I don’t do a lot of training (OMG I said it again) and things need to be kept simple. I am going to guess that you wouldn’t mention all the things your product does and just talk about the one main job it does best.

If you had listed out all the details about your service and then asked the customer, “Which of the items on the list are most important to you?” I bet you would have never mentioned the rest of the items would you.

Finally, what if you asked a perspective employer about the company’s policy on community action. If they said they don’t get involved in such things, you better not be telling them how many days a year you take off to help the needy and volunteer on community projects!

Before you assume what is VALUABLE to your customers, find out. Remember, added VALUE can be synonymous to added expense, if the customer doesn’t agree with your definition of VALUE.

Lorin

THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED!

Yesterday as I was out with my family and friends in the North Georgia Mountain’s I received some very sad news. The band director that both my girls learned from passed away. His name was Bill Pharris. Mr. P as he was known as was the most decorated and honored High School Band Directors in the country. The Sudler Flag of Honor is an award bestowed to identify, recognize and honor high school band programs internationally that have demonstrated particularly significant high standards of excellence in concert activities over a period of several years. The flag is awarded by the John Phillip Sousa Foundation. Mr. P won it twice!

Not only did he teach my daughters, but I have to admit that I also learned from this man. He taught the students PRIDE. He instilled CONFIDANCE in them. He gave them a great WORK ETHIC. He taught them what it was to be a SUCCESS. He made sure they also had HUMILITY to accept the success and not flaunt it. He taught the students RESPECT for teachers, and adults. He taught the students to LOVE MUSIC and love making music beautiful. He gave the students LOVE, something many of them didn’t see a lot of at home. He was a FATHER FIGURE, a MENTOR, a TEACHER, a COUNCELOR and a FRIEND to the students and Band Parents. I learned a lot from him.

In sales we sometimes forget what we learned in High School. We forget the teachers that helped shape us into what we are today. We sometimes lose sight of the goals that we set as young enthusiastic adults starting out in business.

This is a time for all of us to get back to the basics, and remind ourselves what it was that got us started, Who it was that set our path. Why it was we wanted it so badly.

I hope everyone reading this takes a little of their past and lets it help them on their roads of the future.

Mr. P loved sales reps. Mr. P was the best sales rep I have ever seen. He sold all of his traits to all of his students and has left a legacy of success and beautiful music.

Good bye Bill. You will be missed by all who knew you.

Lorin

NO POST TODAY

Today is a day off for the schools. I have 2 teachers in my family, so I am spending the day with them.

Have a Great Day!

Lorin

BOREDOM!

An interesting thing just happened to me. I was doing an online presentation about PowerPoint. It is a subject that I know very well and have mastered over the years. I was asked to give a 15 minute presentation, which anyone who knows me knows that I could talk 15 minutes to a busy signal.

So you would think that this would be an easy presentation for me to do, wouldn’t you? Well not so! This was one of the most difficult webinars I have ever been a part of. Why? Because I got bored!

I found myself starting to “drone” on with little excitement, my voice didn’t have any enthusiasm to it. I know the listeners got a lot of good information, but to put it bluntly, I was FLAT!

How about you? When I shut down the presentation, and after I kicked myself a few times, I started to think about reps making sales calls. I had an “AH HA” moment. I have seen the exact same behavior from sales reps, for the exact same reason, BOREDOM!

Reps know their products; they practice their presentations, call on the same type customers, do the same demos, hear the same objections, give the same answers, and write the same orders. WOW I am almost bored typing it much less doing it!

When there is this much repetition in what you do we sometimes go into “auto pilot” mode. We go through the motions without using our talents and personalities to help us get the sale. Any rep that has been in the field for a length of time sometimes finds themselves daydreaming as they do their sales pitch. HEY YOU, wake up… the customer sees this and knows that you have zoned out! This is BOREDOM!

So how can we stop boredom? (I wish I had written this post before my presentation) There are a few things you can do.

Change your presentation. Don’t change the skeleton of the presentation, meaning the main topics you discuss and the order you discuss them in. Change the words you use to describe your products, change the demo, change the industry you are calling on (this isn’t always possible depending on your product or service), try new things that rejuvenate your enthusiasm for your company, your product, and your career.

If any of you reading this blog have young children, (mine are thankfully grown and past this stage) I know that there are dozens of toys around your home. Why? OK, some of you are saying that they have a lot of toys because you are an easy touch and your children get anything they want from you, and some are blaming their spouse. The truth is you keep buying toys because your children get bored with the toys they have and need new ones to challenge them and rejuvenate their interests!

So maybe this is another solution to boredom. Go buy yourself a toy! NO, not at Toy’s r Us, maybe Best Buy, or your local leather shop. Your toy should be something that excites you. Buy yourself a new laptop or smart phone, a new brief case or portfolio, maybe a new suit or jacket. GO NUTS! This isn’t a toy you are buying just to have fun with; this is a toy for survival and success.

You don’t need to spend a lot of money either (ever notice that the box is a great toy for small children?) Spend as little or as much as you want. Keep in mind this is to give you something that makes you feel good not to show prosperity.

Bring out the kid in yourself and start having fun with your opportunity again.

BOREDOM is for losers, EXCITEMENT is for winners!

Lorin

FIRE A CUSTOMER FOR SUCCESS

If I told you that I would give you $50.00 to walk into businesses with red doors and only $5.00 to walk into businesses with blue doors what would you do? Silly question isn’t it? I am sure you would run from red door to red door as fast as you could.

So now I want you to think about your customers. How many of your customers give you more than $50.00 when you walk in and how many only give you $5.00? Now here is another question, why do you walk into the $5.00 customers?

Take a long hard look at your customers. Get the sales figures for each if you don’t already have them, and see who your red doors are and who your blue doors are.

There is nothing about this exercise that can be considered fun. YET! The next step after identifying your blue doors is to list them all out in order of revenue from most to least. Next make another list in order of profits from most to least. If a customer is in the bottom 50% of both lists you need to fire them! These customers are stealing from you every time you walk through their blue doors.

The time you spend with these blue door customers is the same time you could be spending with red door customers or prospecting for more red door customers. It makes no sense to keep wasting your value on these customers.

OH wait, I forgot one very important piece of this action. When you fire a customer you need to replace the revenue and profits either from increasing sales to an existing customer or opening a new account with the time you saved. Firing a customer without the commitment to use the added time to build your business someplace else is CRAZY! You are just shrinking your business. The plan is to help you succeed which means grow your business.

So let’s look at where we are now. We have identified the blue door customers by revenue and profits. We have made a list of any customers that fall into the bottom 50% of both lists and we are going to fire them. With the time we gained by not calling on these customers we are going to either open new accounts or penetrate existing accounts to replace the revenue and profits.

Sounds like a great plan, for now! You need to do this same exercise once a quarter. Every 90 days get your customer information, rank your customers to identify the blue doors, make the 2 lists one by revenue and one by profits and fire any customer below the 50% mark of both lists. DON’T compare the list you made 90 days ago with the new list. If you do what you should see is that the blue doors are now a little bigger account then they were. This is because as we keep dropping the bottom blue door customers the average revenue and profits of the remaining customers goes up. OK, remember I said there was nothing fun YET? Well this is the fun part. You are growing your business and adding more red doors along the way. Added to that is the fact that the red doors you are adding along with the red doors you are selling more to is making you more successful.

Now let’s talk about reality. The economy is slow right now and no one is going to walk away from business no matter how small it is. I have to admit, I understand that. (I have been known to pinch a penny so hard that Lincoln yells uncle) So what do we do with the darn blue doors now? Easy, don’t go there, just call them on the phone. Use your time behind the wheel of your car to make sales calls on these customers. This will add another level of revenue to your business and now you are making GREAT business decisions.

Think of it, you are showing up only at better accounts (some are blue doors but they weren’t in the bottom 50% of both lists so they made the cut) you are selling more to the customers you do call on, and the time that was wasted driving from place to place is now generating revenue.

YOU ARE NOW A MONEY MAKING MACHINE!

But it all starts with firing your customers. Can you do it? Do you have the self discipline to say you are not going back to those customers and stick to it? It sounds hard doesn’t it? Well the truth is it is even harder to do. However if you stick to this plan for one year and really do the assessments 4 times, you will see exponential growth in your business.

Lorin

NLLB (NO LEARNER LEFT BEHIND)

For those of you that have followed my blog, or those of you that know me, you know that my family is filled with educators. My wife is a Para-Professional in Special Education for Kindergarten, my youngest daughter is a first grade teacher, and I am a corporate trainer.

I often sit and listen to my wife and daughter discuss the good bad and ugly of NCLB, No Child Left Behind.  Whenever this happens I start to think about what NLLB (no learner left behind) would be like in business.

I have had the opportunity to stand in front of thousands of learners over the past 12 years. I am proud to say many of these people have gone on to become top producers in the company I worked and many others have moved to other companies around the world to find their success.

Along with the successes I have had, there unfortunately have been failures. Sales reps that have left the sales profession for other opportunities in positions that they could thrive and advance in. What separates the successes and the failures? I often think it is me. Maybe I didn’t do a good job training these reps. However, when I look at the other people in the class with them, many are doing a good job, so the training had merit.

After a lot of thought, and a lot of sleepless nights, I have come to the conclusion that the people that fail didn’t want success badly enough! Unlike the school system my family teaches in, corporate learning has to be something the learner wants to learn as much if not more then the company wants to have it taught.

A child knows that they are enrolled in school and until they reach a certain age they are required to be in class. (I understand that there are a lot of kids that skip school and drop out, but that is a small percent on average) Adult learners usually know that they are only in a class for a set amount of time (usually a half day to a few days) and then they will be back to the normal work they do. If the adult learner doesn’t want to be in the class all they need to do is show up and tune out.

The question then becomes, what should be done with these learners? If there was a NLLB rule, it would be the responsibility of the trainer to make sure the learner got the information. This means slowing down the class to either go back over the material, or slow the entire learning process down which would bore the rest of the class.

So here we are at a crossroads, what should a trainer do? I’ll tell you. A trainer shouldn’t do anything! The learners need to make the changes.

Put that rock down, hitting your monitor isn’t going to hurt me or make you feel any better!

What I am talking about is how training is viewed by adult learners. If a learner views a training session as a chore or in some cases companies use training as a punishment, then the learner will certainly approach the training with a BAD attitude. If on the other hand the learner views training as an opportunity for growth and advancement, they will view training as important and vital to their success.

There is a saying, “KNOWLEDGE IS POWER”, a training class gives you knowledge so it should be viewed as also giving you power.

Let’s go back to what I said a few paragraphs ago. “Along with the successes I have had, there unfortunately have been failures. Sales reps that have left the sales profession for other opportunities in positions that they could thrive and advance in”. In many cases the information that I gave the reps in the class helped them secure the new job that they were successful in. In other cases, the information showed the learners that sales weren’t for them. Once again the knowledge was instrumental in leading them to making a career decision. Either way, the Knowledge was the power that created the change.

There are no NLLB rules or requirements. You make the rules and set the requirements to fit your individual needs. Your company may frame training in a negative way and make it appear to be that chore you are going to hate. Keep in mind, Knowledge is Power, and any learning opportunity will give you more power. Be positive towards training opportunities, be enthusiastic about having the chance to get information that will help you advance in your job, be excited to learn, and then be ready for success!

Lorin

THE NETWORKING WEB OF SUCCESS

Grab your gear; we are going hunting for ELEPHANTS. Do you have all your sales tools? Most of us would be ready to go in an instant if asked to go in the field hunting for the ELEPHANT accounts. We would have all the usual tools that we use to make our sales, but remember we are going after ELEPHANTS today. The tools that we usually use may be a good start but we need more. What else do we need I hear you ask; our networking information.

We have all been in the situation where we made the call on a major account just to be stopped at the reception area by the rejectionist...I’m sorry, I meant to say receptionist.. Well no matter they are one in the same. We are standing there loaded for bear trying to hunt ELEPHANTS. There is definitely a problem.

What would be a great solution to our problem? A NAME! Anyone’s name... just a name to get us inside. Where can we get a name? We can make one up! No that’s no good; if we get caught we will never be able to call on the prospect again. We can stalk someone; we can follow them home from work and go through their mail to get a name. No if we get caught we could go to jail! So how can we get a name?

Wait, I have an idea! We can NETWORK. Why didn’t we think of this before? We can start to ask people we know if they know anyone who works for the ELEPHANT company we want to call on. Who should we ask? Come on, I already told you EVERYONE! People you work with, go to church with, are on the same bowling team with, in car clubs, chess club, band… OK I was starting to get carried away. You get the picture. There is a game that people play that are movie buffs. It’s called Six degrees of Kevin Bacon. The game is based on the concept of it’s a small world and that any actor or actress can be linked to Kevin Bacon in six or less steps. Well let’s take this same concept and use it here only it may take a lot more than six steps. So you start asking and sooner rather than later someone is going to be able to give you a name.

However I have even a better way of finding a name and possibly a lot more information along with the name. Register on www.linkedin.com this is a business networking website. Once you register you can start to search for other people you know who are on LinkedIn and add them to your connections. When you do that you start to build a network of people. It doesn’t take long to have thousands of people in your network. Each of these people also has thousands of people and so on. You can then search for people who work for companies. Not only will you get names, you will get titles, backgrounds, and in many cases e mails and sometimes phone numbers for these people.

Using the power of the network, you can use the name of your contact that was connected to them when you make your first introduction. This will absolutely make a cold call into a warm call instantly.

By continually adding people to your connections on LinkedIn you will eventually have a connection to just about any company you could think of right at your fingertips (literally).

Now linked in is not a site where you want to play games and post silly stuff like Face Book. It is a business site used by business people so keep it professional.

LinkedIn also has a ton of useful features that can help your personal business skill development. There are groups that you can join which cover every topic you can imagine. You can post your profile and have it available to millions of people a day. LinkedIn is one of the top sites recruiters use to find candidates for jobs.

If you start building your network now, if you ever are looking for a job you will be ready immediately.

OK back to our ELEPHANT hunt. Now we have a name, hopefully we contacted them either by using the LinkedIn e mail or outside e mail or by phone. Now remember, this person probably isn’t the buyer, but maybe they can give you the buyers name and will allow you to use their name in your introduction.

Networking doesn’t mean 100% success. But it will work 100% of the time and the rest is up to you.

Lorin

INTERESTING PEOPLE CAN KILL YOUR OPPORTUNITY!

We have all done it, walked away from a sales call saying to ourselves “He or she was so interesting”

Isn’t it amazing how many interesting people we meet everyday? We can meet them standing in line at the bank, in a grocery store, or they may be the decision maker at an account we have been trying to open. These are people who love to talk about “STUFF”, and can make a story about doing the dishes into an exciting experience that takes longer to tell then it took to do!

Usually when we meet these decision makers, we are so happy that we got the opportunity to meet them that we sometimes find it difficult to interrupt their “story” to get down to business.

What should we do?

-          Don’t become a BOBBLE HEAD listener - A bobble head listener is someone who will stand there nodding their and not add to the story or participate in the conversation in any way. Unfortunately we have all been caught as bobble heads.

NEVER TAKE A PASSIVE LISTENING ROLE. If you don’t know anything about the topic ASK a question. Simply by asking a question you can now start to take back control of the conversation. What you have done is broken up the train of thought which will give you the opening to direct the conversation back to business.

-          Don’t become enablers – If you enter the conversation as an interested party, you enable the speaker to keep speaking. I have seen this hundreds of times. A decision maker starts talking about a subject and it happens to be a subject the rep is interested in, before you know it they are just having a great time talking and 30 minutes later the decision maker says well I need to go. Off they go and we are standing there with no sale, no idea what happened and no opportunity.  We can participate in a conversation in many ways without becoming entrapped in the conversation. Interject an idea that will make the other person ask you a question. You have just taken over the conversation and can guide it back to business. This idea can be a question to the other person, “Have you ever…” or it can be a statement, “Once I…..” as long as it creates enough of a break to allow you to start talking yourself it worked.

-          Don’t be the INTERESTING PERSON TELLING THE STORY – Unless the story is leading to business or about business. Don’t be the one keeping us from doing business. Sometimes we get so excited about what we have done we want the world to know. It may be a trip, a kid’s football game or washing dishes. We are so excited that we meet the decision maker and take control of the conversation, in all the wrong ways. If you are this excited about something you have done, and passion is always a good thing so you should have these experiences, what you need to do is script a 30 second elevator speech about them. Just like the 30 second elevator speech about yourself that you have for an introduction, think of the high points of what you did and make a short story about it that you will use.

There is a fine line between interest and boredom, between listening and fixation, between talking and a filibuster, make sure you don’t cross the line and you can easily take control and keep control of the conversation and be able to always get back to business even when you are with an INTERSETING PERSON!

Lorin

QUESTIONS ARE THE KEY TO SALES SUCCESS

The question-answer game in sales is vital not only to find, qualify and close deals, but also to offer the best possible solutions to your prospects and customers. The key in asking the right questions is to keep them open-ended.

Statements that begin with "tell me about" or "please describe" work well in allowing the prospect to describe in detail his or her needs with respect to the solutions you provide. Try to limit questions that begin with "are you," "do you," "will you," "would you," "could you" or "should you," as they are close-ended in nature and encourage yes or no answers from your prospect.

You want your prospect to do most of the talking during your initial meeting. Asking open-ended questions will allow that to happen naturally. Questions you ask your prospect should begin with the words "who," "what," "why," "when" and "how." After the initial rapport-building portion of the meeting, ask some of the following open-ended questions. That way you'll learn as much as possible about the challenge your prospect is having, build rapport by engaging in conversation and, ultimately, understand the solution you can provide to best solve your prospect's problem.

1. Please describe the challenge you're having now.
2. Please tell me about what you're doing now in order to try to resolve the problem.
3. How does this challenge affect your overall business strategy?
4. Who is affected the most by the challenge you are experiencing? (Customers, internal employees or departments?)
5. How are they affected?
6. What will happen if you don't solve this problem?
7. Who else are you considering to provide a solution?
8. Why are you considering my company to provide a solution?
9. What criteria are you considering in order to make your final decision?
10. How will the vendor be chosen?
11. What is the process you will follow in order to determine the best provider of the solution needed?
12. Who in your company is involved in making the final decision for vendor selection?
13. How much budget have you allowed for the project regarding the solution to this problem?
14. When would you like to have the solution in place? (Or, what is the timeline for making your decision?)
15. What will a successful solution look like to you?
16. How will you know the solution provided is working?

The best way to start the conversation is to use the "tell me about" or "please describe" phrases since they are the most open of all the questions and statements provided above. Also, "What is it you're trying to accomplish?" is a great question to ask because it allows the prospect to get right to the heart of the matter and describe how the ideal solution you might provide will impact the bottom line. Sometimes, if you begin the conversation this way, you don't have to ask the rest of your questions.

By allowing your prospect to answer open-ended questions, you do three things. First, you ensure that the prospect tells you in his own words the challenge he is having, allowing him to focus on the key points that are important to him. Second, you will begin to understand the solution you need to provide. Third, you allow the rapport-building process to happen naturally by engaging the prospect in conversation.

Lorin