NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER

The following article was published in today’s online newsletter, The New York Times, Business Day Small Business.

My Top 10 Sales Tips

By TOM SZAKY

My biggest sales lesson came from a good friend who is now our head of Canadian business development (a fancy term for sales), Robin Tator. Robin taught me that sales is not about what you are selling, but about making friends and about getting someone to see the world the way you do. If you do that, everything else will take care of itself.

Sales can be a melancholy job. On one hand, many people (especially nonsales people) feel that it’s sleazy and lowbrow. On the other hand, it can be the most important function of a business. Until there’s a sale, there is no business. Personally, I’ve gone from thinking the former to believing the latter and honing my skills over a decade to where today I am effectively the chief sales officer of TerraCycle. I don’t know exactly when this transition happened, but it took me a few years to embrace the power of sales the way I do today.

I recently wrote a friend who is starting a nonprofit and suggested that the role of a company leader is to become the chief convincing officer. In the end these two titles are synonymous, because selling is really the art of convincing someone to believe and buy into your concept, whether by buying your product or service or by investing in your company or by working for your company.

Here are my top 10 sales tips, all of which have served me and our staff — including Jo Opot, pictured above — for years:

1. You can sell only if you yourself are convinced: If you are not sold on the product or service, it will be an uphill battle to sell someone on else. Your lack of conviction will scream through.
2. Be clear and direct: When pitching do not use complicated diction. Pride yourself instead on being able to explain the concept as quickly, clearly and simply as possible. This is important because the biggest problem in sales is client confusion. Confusion does not lead to a Yes.
3. Pressure is an art: Creating FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) in your client’s mind can be a good thing because it will lead to serious consideration of your concept. In the TerraCycle world, we award brand exclusivity by country and by category. I often need to tell potential clients that their competition is also talking with us. The trick is to mention this once and to NOT rub it in, which is likely to anger them. No one who is angered into saying Yes.
4. Know your client: Make sure to research your potential clients, know their challenges and their needs. One size hardly ever fits all, and you look much stronger if you care about the business enough to invest in the research. I can’t tell you how many times I get cold calls from sales people who don’t even know what TerraCycle does.
5. It’s all about the presentation: Building an amazing deck is critical to the sales process. Practice it, memorize it and be prepared to shift your emphasis based on how the energy changes when you give the presentation. Internally, we always ask ourselves: “Is the flow of this deck right? Will it convince?”
6. Be passionate and exciting: Most presentations are BORING! So create a show and make it exciting. Excitement is contagious – just like a yawn.
7. If you don’t know the answer, do not guess: People will ask you tough questions, and you may not always know the answer. The person asking you may be testing you, knowing the answer full well. And if you fumble, it’s very hard to rebuild credibility. Do not guess.
8. Answer questions directly and clearly: If you are asked a question and you give a “politician’s answer” – in other words, if you don’t answer the question – your credibility will decline, and you will hurt your chances of making the sale.
9. Humor is a great lubricator: Funny stories always break the ice. Instead of using business cards, everyone in our company uses stamps (see right) to leave our contact info. It’s eco-friendly, it never runs out and it makes for a nice ice-breaker at the beginning of every meeting.
10. You can always be better: Sales is an art, not a science. Which means it’s never perfect and can always improve. TerraCycle has a standard sales deck most of our associates use. We’ve gone through 94 versions in the last three years and version 95 is around the corner.

Bottom line: sales is a critical function that is more art than science, so hone your art. And please share any of the sales tips you’ve learned.

Tom Szaky is the chief executive of TerraCycle, which is based in Trenton.

Nothing new, but that doesn’t in any way take importance.

Lorin

STEVE JOBS WOULD BE PROUD OF ME

It has been 2 weeks since we lost the greatest technology visionary that ever lived, Steve Jobs. Like many of you, his untimely death was a shock that saddened me more than just a celebrity death usually does. I felt like the “toy man” died. Steve Jobs delivered some of the greatest toys ever invented, iPod, iPhone, iPad along with his breakthroughs in computers.

However, with Steve gone it has left the door open for someone to step up and lead the charge in technology advancements. Being the kind of person that hates to see an opportunity pass, I will step up and replace Steve as the new wizard.

I have a few ideas that I started working on over the past few weeks anticipating this chance and I want to share some of these ideas with you here on the Training Buffet, Help Yourself.

Picture me in blue jeans, a black mock turtleneck and sneakers standing on a stage. You have the image in your head? OK here we go.

The first device I want to introduce is by far my most impressive invention. It takes the place of luck, chance and hard work. It’s called The “iWant”. (Applaud, ooo and ahhh, gasp) This will take all the work out of getting what you want. By using the internet you can search for what you want and with a simple click on the touch screen the iWant immediately delivers your want to the front door of your house.

So what do you want, a car, a boat, a house? Do you want to travel, the iWant will deliver any mode of transportation you want to any destination you want. Maybe you want to give your children all the things that you never had, just point and click and everything you want to give them is theirs immediately.

And don’t forget that all this comes without any hard work, without any savings, without doing without. The iWant delivers everything. Oh I almost forgot, the first thing I am going to use the iWant for is to give everyone their own iWant! (More applauds, more screaming, as pandemonium breaks out)

So everyone be looking for your iWant in your mailbox in the next week…

What do you think? I think Apple will definitely seal its place as the world’s greatest company when they beat a path to my door and make the iWant their next product launch.

Along with the iWant I am also working on the iCan. This device assures success of everything anyone attempts. The iCan makes all things possible and successful. Another device I have is the iWon’t, this makes it acceptable for anyone to NOT do things they don’t want to do.

The last new device I want to tell you about is the iShouldhave. This device eliminates guilt. The iShouldhave gives you all the reasons you need to convince people why you didn’t do something and it also gives you the peace of mind knowing that you were right not to do something even when you know you should have. (To date the only thing that the iShouldhave isn’t affective on is calling your mother)

There you have my line-up of products for Apple to move forward on. I think you have to agree, even Steve Jobs would be green with envy seeing these awesome products.

To tell the truth, I know you are going to be shocked, all these devices are jokes. (Awww’s of disappointment come from the crowd) There is nothing that can take the place of hard work, there is nothing that will give you what you want without first putting in the time and sweat to needed to accumulate the funds or credit to purchase it.

I do however have one new product that each of us already have, it is the iPlan! The iPlan is a sheet of paper that you use to write down your plan for success. You use the paper to set goals and keep track of your timelines to achieve these goals. The iPlan is the only sure way to get the things the iWant would give you. The iPlan will give you the success of the iCan, it will remove the guilt the iShouldhave eliminates by giving you nothing that you “should have” done, replacing it with all the things that YOU HAVE DONE!

Steve, you are still our “toy” hero. You will be missed but you knew years ago that there is no iWant. Rest in peace and I hope heaven is ready for the iFly.

Lorin

MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE

I was having a discussion with a sales rep today that was having trouble with one of her accounts. As we talked she kept telling me about how ever since the new manager came in she has been the referee between the new manager and her old contact.

I asked her what has been happening and she told me about times when the new manager was telling her about stuff her contact was doing and then she would tell me about her contact telling her about what the new guy was doing. She felt as if each one was trying to get her “on their side”.

She went so far as to tell me that her sales manager would let her she would walk away from the account all together because she didn’t need the aggravation.

All I could do was to listen and nod my head every now and again to let her know I was still awake. After about what seems like hours, but was more like 30 minutes, I asked her what she was going to do about it. She looked at me as if I were nuts! She was obviously waiting for me to offer up a suggestion as to how to handle this like I usually do.

I had some ideas, but I felt this was a time that in order for any idea to work, it had to be HER IDEA. I guess she got over the shock of me not telling her a solution quickly because she started asking me if this idea was good or should she do something else. She asked and asked and I stood my ground. (I did chuckle to myself a few times)

Then she asked me if I thought it were possible that the two guys were working together to see if she could be trusted and to see if she would talk badly about one to the other. I hadn’t thought of that. So I got back into the conversation asking her about what kind of things they were saying about one another. It didn’t take long for me to realize that her suggestion was a very viable one.

We talked for a few more minutes about this and then she told me what she was going to do, she said she was going to keep listening to both of them and NOT talking sides or offering anything one said to the other. I thought that was a great idea but I had to ask if she thought she could do it for an extended time. She was confident she could.

At this point I told her how proud I was of her because she solved her own problem and only needed a sounding board. I told her that her solution was good as long as she could keep it up, but warned her of the pitfalls of taking sides in any way.

This wasn’t the first time I had heard about a sales rep being caught in a game of Monkey In The Middle between two people in a customer’s business. It is the first time I have heard of the game going on as long as this one seems to have been going on with no sign of ending.

My best advice to you as it finally was to her is to be careful of games that you play with customers, especially when you don’t know all the rules and what it takes to win the game.

Just like playing monkey in the middle as a kid, the game usually doesn’t end without someone getting hurt. If you are caught in the middle do what you can to remove yourself from the game. You may need to be rather blunt with the customers and let them know (one at a time of course) that you are uncomfortable and you understand their frustration but you are not in the position to do more than just listen. If they are looking for you to take sides, this will sometimes let them know in a non-confrontational way, that you are not willing to do so.

Remember, we aren’t talking about your baseball cap now, we are talking about your living. You can’t afford to play games when it comes to your livelihood.

Lorin

HEADS I WIN, TAILS YOU LOSE

As sales reps we have all lost sales. When we lose a sale we always view it as a loss for US. But isn’t it just as big a loss for the prospect?

I have sold a lot of things in my career, and I believe that when a customer bought my product they were improving the way they did business or in some way the quality of their lives. It didn’t matter if I was selling diamonds, pots and pans, or cleaners I knew that by buying my product the customer was getting their money’s worth.

But what about the customer that didn’t buy from me? I’m not talking about the customer that I cold called on and immediately said no, or get out. I am talking about the customer that was really interested and for some reason decided not to buy. If I believe that buying my product would help them than not buying my product had to hurt them.

Now we have a lose lose situation, no sale for me and no help for the customer.

I have written in my blog many times that a great sales rep is always interested in helping their customer, so if the fact that you didn’t make the sale bothers you more than the fact that you didn’t help the customer you are destined to only be a mediocre sales rep.

Yep, I said it and I mean it! I know there will be a lot of you that disagree, you will tell yourself that, “I had no control”, or “It wasn’t my fault”. And in most cases you will be right, but how you view missing the sale is entirely up to you.

Personally I have always tried to think of my customer first. There have been many times that I have told a customer I didn’t care who they bought the product from, just as long as they bought the product because it was the right thing for them or their business. This caring has paid off over the years many times over. A customer wants a sales rep that has their best interest in mind. The customer doesn’t want a rep with COMMISSION BREATH! (This is a term I heard from a speaker a few weeks ago and fell in love with) If the customer feels that your main motivation is receiving your commission check and NOT helping them solve a problem then I can assure you NO SALE WILL BE MADE!

I never want you or any rep to lose a sale, period! But if it happens, and it will, I want you as the sales rep to understand that there was no winner. I want you to realize that your customer lost more than you did. You need to know these things even though your customer probably never will.

Heads I win, Tails You Lose is an old comedy routine that made people laugh for many years when they heard it, in our world of sales there is nothing funny about it.

Lorin

A SALESMAN SALESMAN

Have you ever heard of someone being called “A Salesman Salesman”? This title is usually reserved for a sales rep who always brings their “A” game with them. I want to tell you about someone I know that goes even a step beyond being a Salesman Salesman.

His name is Sam, he is my Brother-In-Laws father and may be the best salesman I have ever had the pleasure to know. Sam is 94 years old and I have never seen him not in the sales mode.

Sam started his sales career before most of us were born in NYC selling of all things diamonds. (This is one of many connections he and I have, I also sold diamonds early in my sales career) Over a long and very successful period Sam became very well known in the NY Diamond district and was sought after by many of the largest most successful diamond houses in NY.

Sam has long since retired from the diamond business and now lives here in the south close to his son and grandchildren. All of his adult life Sam has been an artist working in pencil, water colors, and charcoal. He has sketched everything from flowers to baseball players, politicians to Rabbis, and just about anything else he sees.

Over the past 6 or 8 years Sam has been carrying his work in the trunk of his car and never misses the opportunity to “pop” the trunk, show his work, and break into a sales pitch to anyone in ear shot.

Let’s fast forward to today, Sam’s wife of over 60 years is in the hospital having some tests done. While Sam is waiting he got a little bored so being the salesman salesman he is Sam started looking for people to talk to about his favorite thing to talk about, his pictures. A doctor comes into the room to see his wife, while he is examining her Sam starts his discovery probing. First he asks the doctor if he is married, when the doctor said yes he asked if the doctor had any children, again the doctor said yes. You could almost see the gleam in Sam’s eye as he asked do you have any hand drawn art work of your “beautiful” children. The doctor looked away from Sam’s wife and smiled at Sam and answered no I don’t. Sam started telling the doctor about that a hand drawn professional drawing is the most beautiful way to show off any family. He continued with all the differences between a custom drawing and a photograph, and finally added that professionally drawn pictures are also a great investment.

The doctor kept working and glanced at Sam ever now and then to show he was still listening and that he was interested. Sam then did something that I couldn’t believe, he said to the doctor, this is a quote, “I am not sure if you can afford me, but I would love to be the artist that draws your family”.

The doctor looked at him sitting in the chair in the hospital room and said, “Let’s talk about this further when I am done, I have never thought about it but I think I want to have it done”.

Now please think back, do you remember how old I told you Sam is? Don’t peek, try and remember… OK if you guessed 94 you are right. At 94 he still has all his sales skills honed to a fine edge. After selling for more years that most of us have been alive he still LOVES selling and the challenge of walking a prospect through the sales process. At 94 Sam SELLS!

I do a sales meeting reading the Dr Seuss book, Green Eggs and Ham, and at the end of the meeting I tell the reps my hope for each of them is to be a lot like Sam in the book. I know the real Sam now, and my hope hasn’t changed. I hope that we can all be more like SAM and after a half century or more of selling we can still love the challenges that sales puts in front of us, love the excitement of matching wits with a prospect, love the feeling of creating interest where there was none,  and enjoy feeling that making the sale gives us.

Lorin

A BOOK BY ANY OTHER NAME

We are all familiar with the series of books called “The Idiot’s Guide To….” Well I was given a copy of the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cold Calling by Keith Rosen.

The book discusses every aspect of cold calling from preparation to mental attitude.

The book is available in paperback on Amazon.com as well as your local book stores.

Click on the link below to see the inside of the book

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Cold-Calling/dp/1592572278/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318474707&sr=8-1#_

Lorin

TWICE IS ONCE TOO MANY

Have you ever filled out forms for a company and a few days, weeks, or months later had the same company ask you for the same forms and the same information a second time? It happened to me today.

I went into one of my signature rants about how unprofessional, unorganized, and downright stupid this was and my wife calmly looked at me and said, “I can remember you complaining that your company did the same things to its customers”! OUCH… That hurt.

Here I was ranting about something that I (as in the company I worked for) was doing. It made me realize how our customers felt. I then went back into my files and started looking at other times that I had filled out documents and had the same information requested several times, and what do you know, I found 3 examples over the past 5 years. (This being the fourth)

Now this may not sound like a sales problem or something a sales trainer should be talking about, however it is directly related to customer facing and as far as I am concerned, ANYTHING THAT AFFECTS MY CUSTOMERS AFFECTS ME! So this is definitely something for me to cover.

Let’s first start by looking at the type of information that I have been asked to duplicate, in 3 of the 4 times it included financial information. How do you think a customer feels about turning over financial information the first time, much less being asked for the same information twice. And what do you think the customer is asking themselves? I am sure the same question I asked, what happened to the information the FIRST time I sent it? Did it get lost, picked up by someone else, left on a park bench... the possibilities are endless and none are positive.

Other types of information were personal information. These bits of information have me really concerned as to their whereabouts. Imagine someone having your SS#, address and some financial information of yours! This is what identity theft is made of.

Now I am not saying that your company or my company lost, misplaced, or left the information behind on a park bench, but I am saying these are the things that ran through my mind and I am sure they are the kinds of things that run through your customers minds.

So what can a sales rep do to head this kind of information duplication? First, if you can know who the information is going to in your company. Follow-up with the person that the information got to them and that it was complete. Second, make sure your customer understands that the information needs to be as complete as possible to keep duplicate requests from being sent. Third, be able to explain what the information is for, what will be done with it, and who will be viewing it. (I know in larger companies this may be impossible)

If you can do these 3 simple steps most of the duplicate requests will be eliminated and the anger and frustration of your customers will be minimized.

Lorin

SALES IMPOSSIBLE

I traveled from PA to FL today and I am sitting in my hotel room watching Restaurant Impossible. If you haven’t seen the show before Chef Robert Irvine travels to failing restaurants and in only 2 days and spending $10,000.00 Chef Irvine does a complete makeover and turns the restaurant around.

I am a regular watcher of the show and have seen dozens of dives turned into fantastic looking places with awesome food. (I can’t taste the food but everyone on the show says it is great). As I was watching tonight I started thinking about the reps I have worked with over the years and how many of them were the sales equivalent of dives and with a few dollars and a little time have turned into super stars.

On the show Chef Irvine checks back with the restaurants a few months after he works his magic, most of the restaurants are still doing better, but in some cases the restaurants are skyrocketing and being super successful.

I had to wonder what made the difference. The more I thought the more obvious the answer became, one word, COMMITMENT! The more committed the restaurant owner was the more successful the restaurant became. The more committed a sales rep is the more successful they become.

It doesn’t take years to see significant change, it simply takes a focused few days and the commitment to not change for a day or two, but to change forever!

The number one thing that causes one of Chef Irvine’s restaurants to fail is the owner’s willingness to backslide and go back to doing things “LIKE THEY USED TO DO IT”. The same goes for sales reps, the main cause of a rep backsliding after they have changed is they go back to doing things “LIKE THEY USED TO DO IT”.

Now I am not saying that if you are having trouble you need to go out and spend $10,000.00 on sales training and change everything you do. I am saying if you want to improve you need to do a few things, first; seek help. It doesn’t need to cost you a penny, the internet has millions of pages of training and help that are FREE! I am sure that you have friends, mentors, managers, and trainers that will also help you for FREE! It doesn’t take years, the biggest bump will happen in the first week. It will be the degree of commitment that will carry the progress forward.

Lorin

IT NEVER HAPPENS TO ME

“Over the last few weeks Mr. Customer, I have heard that businesses like this have been having a problem with _______, and a lot of these businesses have been looking for a solution, is this the case here with your business?”

I am sure that many of you have asked a question similar to this to one of your customers over the past several days. I am just as sure that many of you heard, “no, I really don’t have that problem” as a response.

So why is it that problems which are so wide spread NEVER happen to your customers? It is really easy to figure out, instead of asking questions and revealing the problem, you tried to take a shortcut and PLACE the problem in your customers business.

Think about it for a second, If you were standing on a corner and a stranger walked up and introduced themselves as a Psychologist, and then said to you, “Many of the people I have talked to recently have told me they were under a lot of stress and needed medication to cope with all their problems, is this how you feel and do you take meds to help you cope?”

What would you say? If I was talking a handful of pills every hour and felt depressed to the point of going insane, I would tell the person, “Nope, I am fine. Little things like that don’t bother me!” No one wants to discuss their problems with strangers, much less a stranger that TELLS them their problems.

If sales reps would conduct a proper discovery meeting and instead of telling the customer what problems they have would uncover the customer’s problems and concerns by asking good probing questions, the customer would be more open to listening to how the sales reps product or service may be the solution.

The difference between a good sales rep and a great sales rep is how effectively the rep can discover the customer’s pain, have the customer agree that the pain needs to be taken care of and presents their product as the best solution.

Lorin

DON’T JUST STOP BY

Today I was in the field with a rep and we were making cold calls. During the day I kept hearing him say the same phrase over and over, “I Just Stopped By”.

The first time he said it I let it go thinking he wouldn’t say it again, the second time I pointed it out to him, by the fourth time I was going crazy!

When you tell a customer I JUST STOPPED BY you make it sound like the sales call is an afterthought. There is nothing special about just stopping by. I am pointing this out in my day today but this is something I have heard from reps for years, not just new reps but seasoned reps as well.

I just stopped in fits so easily into a sales presentation, it almost has become a standard line for many reps. But allow me to give you an alternative saying that will convey the same message but make the customer feel very special. Instead of just stopping in try using, “I MADE IT A POINT TO STOP BY YOUR SHOP TODAY”. By making it a point, the customer feels like you went out of your way to bring what you have to them. Now they feel special.

Does it really matter? Well rather than me telling you the answer, ask yourself how you would feel hearing the two phrases said to you. Do you want to be just another stop or would you feel better being a special stop?

Sometimes the difference between getting the appointment or making the sale isn’t dependant on your product or price, it may be how the customer feels about buying from you.

Tomorrow try making every stop special by MAKING IT A POINT TO STOP.

Lorin