Anxious to Sell Something

Ok,somewhere on my web site, I wrote words to the effect that I would not only share my success stories with you, but I would also share a few failures. Well, this isn't exactly a failure, but the month of January has come and gone and I haven't close a deal of any significant size. Not only that, but I really don't have any big hot deals in the hopper. Normally, I don't worry about these things, because cycles in selling are a very normal part of the business. The only problem is that I am putting a lot of pressure on myself because I just started with my new company in January, and and I am anxious to get off to a good start. Well, the end of the month is upon us and I am still on the snide. Oh, I've got a few maintanence projects going on, so it's not like I haven't sold anything at all. I've also recently met with some of my largest accounts from my old job and I'm confident that they will be giving me all of their business as soon as they have something to give. And it's not that I'm getting any pressure from my boss, because they know that the the bigger the project, the longer the gestation cycle. So in time, the large contracts will come. But still, when you are hired as a heavy hitter, and you get a nice compensation package, you want to come out of the gates running. The real problem is that the last quarter of 2006 I was looking for an exit strategy from my old job. There were some issues that I was hoping to resolve with my business partner, but if I couldn't resolve them by the end of the year, I had decided to leave. But since I had no way of knowing if I was going to be there after 2006 I decided to hedge my bets and not do any prospecting on projects unless I could close them by the end of the year. Anything that was supposed to close in 2007 was off the board. That way I would kill two birds with one stone. I would still be doing my job trying to book new contracts but I wouldn't leave any more business on the books than I had to if I did end up leaving. I had such a great 3rd quarter in 2006 anyway, I was way over quota and was already going to be leaving way too much money on the table as it was if I did end up leaving. One of the reasons I settled on this strategy was because I had to make sure that I wasn't ruining my chances for my sales for 2007 if I ended up leaving to go to a new company. I mean, how much credibility would I have with a new prospect if I called on him in the last quarter of 06 and told them what a great company Convergence Cabling was, only to call them back in the first quarter of 07 tell them that now I am with Cable Com, Inc. and that we are really the best company for their needs. Anyway, my point is that I wasn't filling my sales funnel for the next quarter like I typically would to do, and I ended up leaving my old job afterall and now I am starting a new job with what amounts to an empty funnel. Remember my old post about selling being like farming? Well, basically, I am starting a new field that needs to be plowed and planted before I can harvest a crop.
The good news is that the economy is in full bloom in Austin and I am confident that I will be on the trail of some hot new prospects really soon. I have a couple of elephants that I am tracking, and hopefully, if I can just get their attention, I'm sure that I can put the old Hector magic on them and get them to stand still long enough for me to get them in my sight. Bam! I'll get back to you with more details.

Golf as a Business Tool

Two of my passions in life are sales and golf, so why not mix business with pleasure? Those of you who are golf fanatics and business men (and women), and you know who you are, probably already know and understand the subtle nuances that the game of golf has in common with the sales process.
The first obvious advantage of taking business associates, customers and prospects on a golf outing is that you can have a captive audience for the 4-5 hours, not including downing a few cold ones in the club house after the round. There is no more acceptable excuse in the business world for spending that amount of time together with your customers than a round of golf. More and more business people are taking up the game and as the average age of this generation of baby boomers continues age, golf is becoming more and more popular. If you haven't taken up the game yet, you might consider investing in a few lessons just in case. One of the worse things you can do is invite a big customer or a potential prospect who is a serious golfer on an outing, only to hack it around the course for the next five hours. Slow play is a killer on the golf course and there is no better way to try your partners nerves and the nerves of the group of golfers behind you than to take too much time because you can't keep the ball on the course.
One of the best things about golf is that it can tell you a lot of things about yourself and your partners. It's easy to mind your P's and Q's at a business luncheon or in a office setting, but in the heat of battle, when your focus is diffused and your guard is down and your competitive juices get flowing, then how do you behave? Add that to the fact that golf can a very confounding game. It looks like it should be so easy, especially is you watch the professionals on television, but in reality, golf is probably the most frustrating activity that you can endeavor. For one thing, the pros that you see on TV probably hit between 500-1000 golf balls a day, everyday! And that's just practicing. No wonder they make it look so easy. The average businessman/golfer is lucky if they get to hit 500 golf balls in a year. So the most common golf/business etiquette faux paux is the display of excessive anger. Irregardless of your level of skill of play, you have to keep in mind that you are not a professional golfer, you are a professional businessman. Throwing clubs, cursing, yelling and other forms of excessive anger ruins it for everybody else in your group and sends a signal to that you cannot keep your cool under pressure. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you are here to entertain your customer and make sure that he has a good time. After all, you're trying to build a relationship and don't need to come off as an ogre.
Golf is also a game of respect, courtesy, fairness and consideration, in addition to being a competitive forum. The rules of golf involve a lot of informal intricacies that can signal where you fall in the rating scale of all of these aforementioned qualities. For example, one of the common unwritten rules of golf is that once you are on the green getting ready to put, you are not supposed to walk between the hole and the other balls on the green. The ideas is that because the greens are so soft, and putting is so critical to the game, walking on the putting "line" could possibly alter the path of the ball as it travels toward the hole. Even when you know the rules, this is a common mistake that you can make if you are solely focused on your own game. Observing this rule throughout the round tells your golf partners that you are not only focused on your self, but also considerate of others.
Golf is also a game of honor and trust because in most cases, you keep your own score. I say in most cases, because if you are an above average golfer, it's easy for everyone to keep up with your score because if your ball is always on the fairway, it's pretty easy for your partners to keep track of you. But if you're like most of us, occasionally hit the ball in the rough, or out of everyone's sight. This gives you an opportunity to "shave" a stroke or two off of your score from time to time, since no one is watching. So if you happen to whiff one while you are in the rough, what difference does it make, right? Well, maybe. After all, it's only a game. But if you get in the habit of shaving a few strokes from time to time, eventually someone will notice and even thought they might not say anything to your directly, you just told them a lot about how you might treat them in a business deal. I mean, if you will cheat when there is little or no money on the line, how can they trust you to treat them fairly on a business deal?
These are just a few examples of the way that golf that can provide you an opportunities for you to either bond or repel your business clients and associates. There are so many things that golf can tell you about yourself and about your associates that they are too numerous to name here. But that is what makes golf such a valuable business tool. So if you haven't already done so, my advice is to take up the game, take enough lessons so that you don't slow things up, read the rules and more importantly, have fun. Now you only have to worry about whether or not is more advantageous to beat your boss or your customer. Either way, golf is a great game and great way to do business, to network and to make it all fun. I gotta run, I have a tee-time in an hour.

Selling is alot like Farming

It was a time in my life when I was just changing gears in my sales career. Although I had been in sales for a few years, I was going into a completely new industry. I had no product knowledge and was apprehensive about my future success. It was a small company, with three other salemen and they offered very little training. It was basically sink or swim. One of my most vivid memories was that everyday I would hear the sales manager ask the salesmen what they had sold that day. The sales process for product that we sold had an average gestation period of about two months, so typically the reply from the saleman would invariably be that they hadn't sold anything that day. As the salesmanager, he knew whether or not we had sold anything. He didn't have to ask us. But the reason that he like to ask us out loud was because he liked to hear us confess in front of the entire office, that we hadn't sold anything that day. It wasn't that he was mean or anything like that, but I just think he thought it was funny. Anyway, for the first month or so, I was given a reprieve and was never confronted in such a manner. I guess I was given temporary immunity to allow time for me to ramp up. Nevertheless, I remember coming home and thinking about how I would reply to my boss when the time came for him to ask me that question. It was inevitable, and I knew that the day would soon arrive. Being prideful as I was, I was determined to come up with a good answer so that I wouldn't be shown up in front of everybody. But up till that point, I still hadn't sold anything, so I wasn't sure what I'd say so I gave it alot of thought.
Sure enough, it wasn't too long after that that I was passing him in the hall one day and he shot out "Hector, what did you sell today?" I garnered all of my courage, I set myself steady, I looked him in the eye and I said, "Well boss, the way that I see it, selling is a lot like farming..." and then I paused for dramatic effect. Now remember, he liked to ask this question as he just happened to be passing you in the hallway and he seldom slowed down to even hear your reply, since typically the replay was always the same, "nothing." But this time, I saw him stop in his tracks and I knew I had his attention. He looked at me and asked me "What do you mean selling is a lot like farming?" So I continued, "Well, first you have to plow the land, then you have to plant the seeds. Then, with a little bit of luck, if it rains at just the right time, and a little patience, you should have a nice bumper crop. He stood there looking at me for a moment, not saying nothing. I could tell that I had streched his imagination. He was sort of slack-jawed and then he said, "you know, I never thought of it like that before." "You're right". And then he walked off. And believe it or not, I never again heard him ask that question of anyone ever again.
Selling is alot like farming. The poor farmer works hard and busts his rump in the fall. He plows and he plants. He knows that if he doesn't get the seeds in the ground in the spring, that there won't be any produce in the summer. And even if he does everything right, there are still some things that he can't control, like rain and pests, ect.
The same with sales. You have to plan now in order to have a bountiful harvest six months from now. You too have to plant lots of seeds. You plow the land by networking and finding qualified leads. Every sales call and every e-mail and every meeting that you engage a customer or a prospect is a new seed planted. It's all hard work with no immediate pay-off. And no matter how well you do your job, there is still some element of luck involved, just like the farmer if mother nature doesn't cooperate. But sometimes, if you've put in the hard work, everything falls into place and the results are a bountiful harvest. But as soon as you get the crop in and turn it into cash at the market, it's time to plan for the next crop and start plowing and planting again.

How to Close a Million Dollar Deal

Every salesman wants to know how to close million dollar deals. I know the secret and I am prepared to share it with you. Do I have your attention? I thought so. What are the secrets? Well, the secret is that there are no secrets. I mean, it’s not as if the million dollar sales club has a private membership that you just have to know the secret handshake to get into. The “secrets” are all over the place. People are shouting at your from the rooftops! There are volumes of written materials that are yours just for the asking. Books, magazines, web sites. A salesperson just has to have a desire to learn and better themselves. Like anything else, there are no shortcuts. In his book, the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Stephen Covey talks about the “natural laws”. Natural laws are applied when only time can produce a particular desired result. The example that Dr. Covey uses is that of the farmer and his crops. If you want to harvest a field of crops, you have to start in the spring and plant your seeds. No matter how bad you may want to reap a bountiful crop in the fall, and no matter how hard you work in the fall, if you didn’t put in the work in the spring, you won’t get a crop. My personal favorite medaphor is about getting in shape. If you decide one day that you want to do 500 pushups a day, and up to that point, you haven’t done any pushups on a regular basis, You can’t just drop down one day out of the blue and do 500 push ups. You have to start small. You might start off with five or ten push-ups. After a few days or maybe a week or so, you can increase your count to fifteen or twenty. Depending on various other factors, as long as you are disciplined and continue working out on a daily basis, you should be able to increase the number of push ups regularly until you finally reach your objective of 500 push ups in a day. And once you get to where you are doing 500 push ups a day, it’ll show. Your arms and your shoulders will look and feel like rock. You’ll look great in those tight shirts and you’ll certainly feel better about yourself. Your self confidence will have improved tremedously because you know that you can accomplish just about anything that you set your mind to. But it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of determination and a lot of persistence. But mainly it takes the intitial step of setting a long term goal. That’s how it starts. You can’t finish something that you don’t start. And you won’t start working hard on any goal unless you focus on the long-term results. So if you want to close a million dollar deal, you need to start now, on all of your smaller deals, and work your way up. Start putting in the hard work and the discipline neccessary to become the best in your industry. Train, sweat, work-out, read, research, network, and educate yourself. You can’t fake these things because they are governed by natural laws. If you tell someone that you can do 500 push ups, you better be prepared to drop down on your hands and show them. The truth of the matter is that we all know what we need to do to get in shape, but not everyone is prepared to put in the hard work neccessary to do it. So one thing to keep in mind is that if you aren't willing to put in the hard work, there is always someone out there that will. Hopefully he won't be your competitor on your next million dollar prospect. You can cross your fingers, or you can start working hard. It's your choice.

Losing Early

Nobody likes to lose a bid. Unfortunately, it comes with the territory. Like a great hitter in baseball, even the best saleman only close about 20% to 33% of all the deals that they pursue. Having said that, I thought about two strategies that might help you focus on the most promising deals and at least learn something from your lost deals.
In the book “Hope is Not a Strategy”, Rick Page states the the worst case scenario is to commit significant resources to a potential deal, only to finish second. If you are going to lose a deal, it’s best that you “lose early”. That’s because the less time and energy that you invest in a lost cause, the more time and energy you have to spend on more promising deals. So if you can develop some methods to help you identify the most promising deals and the least promising deals, you can start “losing early” more often instead of finishing second in a deal that you never really had a chance on. One of the ways to help you identify the more promising prospects is to review your most successful transactions and analyze them. If you can start to detect any kind of similar patterns that might emerge from your analysis, you might be able to determine some similarities. Once these similarities are determined, you can start to look for prospects that fit that profile. For instance, I sell telecommunications cabling to commercials businesses. Most businesses tend to want to commoditize their telecommunications cabling. In other words, they believe, or at least they want you to believe that the quality of the installation is irrelevant and all that they are concerned with is price. The exception to this are High Tech firms. High Tech companies have a higher than normal dependency on their telecommunications compared to say a doctor’s office or an insurance company. Therefore, since I try to position our firm’s products and services as one of quality, I find my message is more well received by companies in the high tech sector. Therefore, I target this sector. In the rare case where I might find myself pitching to an organization that isn’t in the high tech sector, I watch closely for signs that I am not in a winning position and take appropriate actions. I minimize the time and effort that I continue to invest and will gracefully bow out of the bidding as early as possible.
On deals that you end up staying in til the end, even though you lose the bidding, try to salvage something for your efforts. When I lose a bid, I try to find out why I lost it. Was it price or something else? Sometimes the buyer might not be forthcoming with his reasons, but if you approach him in a professional manner and explain that you invested a lot of time and effort to bid his project, you should be able to get an answer. I think it’s an important learning tool to find out which of your competitors won the bid and what was the decision based on. I tell the buyer that I know that I can’t win them all and obviously I’m dissapointed that I won’t be able to work with them on this project, but if they can help me by sharing this information with me, at least it won’t be a total loss. All bids have a built in investment of time and effort. If you don’t find out why you lost a bid, all of the effort that you put into the sales process was a total waste. If you can find out why you lost and who you lost the deal to, it might help you make some adjustments to help you win more deals in the future. I like to say that sometimes we learn more from the deals that we lose that from the deals that we win.

Spotty Resume

A recent post on a job board asked the question: "How do I explain to interviewers the fact that I've had five different jobs in the past seven years. The writer explains that each job change was due to either self-interest or money.

The first question to ask yourself is do you really enjoy working in the current field that your are in? If you do enjoy it, then stay in that field. Loving what you do is the single most important criteria for a happy and successful career. If you love your work, success is almost a given. Then ask yourself what are your career goals? You stated that everytime you left a job you were looking out for your own best interest and more money. That's understandable to a point, but from your customers point of view, you could be sending the wrong message. If you change jobs every four or five years, your customers certainly understand and they might even be able to relate. No one can blame you for trying to make a better life for yourself and your family. But if you change sales jobs ever year or two, then you might be leaving your customers behind. When I recently changed jobs, I was leaving a company that I was with for seven years (see hectorcadena.com/blog). The first thing that I did was contact all of my accounts and let them know where I was. They were very supportive and made it clear that they would still be giving me their business irreguarless of where I worked. That's because over the last ten years, I have taken good care of them. They know when they do business with me, the service will be great, the products will be top-notched and there will be no ugly surprises. Nobody likes surprises when it comes to large purchases, because suprises usually mean budget busters. But if a problem were to crop up, from past experience, my customers know that they can count on me to resolved the situation to their ultimate satisfaction. And problems will pop up, but that's where a salesperson earns his commisions. How you resolve problems is the way you differentiate yourself from you competition. My point is that your customers will move with you as long as your don't make them to it too often. It can sometimes be a pain for them to set up your new company up as an approved vendor, but if you have proven yourself as a worthy partner, then they are more than happy to move their account to your new company. Provided that you don't make them do it too often. In order to succeed in sales, your outlook has to be on a long-term strategy. That means that everytime you change jobs, you better be able to bring your best accounts with you. Otherwise, all of the hard work that you did at your last job goes out the window. A successful sales career is built over the long haul. There are only two main ways to get a sale; lowest price offering or relationship selling. I'll let you guess which one is the best strategy for long term success in a sales career. If your customers are not sure that you will be around after they have signed a contract, then closing that sale will be much harder. By the way, if an interested employer is convinced that you will bring your large accounts with you, your negotiating leverage is substantialy increased. Looking for a new job is just like trying to make a sale. Employers want to know that you will be around after they have made a commitment to you. If your resume scares employers, you can always opt for a heavy "back-loaded" compensation package. Any potential employers worried about your long-term reliability, might be more willing to take a chance on you if you take a lower base salary. If you are confident about your ability to produce, then you should still be able to make a good paycheck from the commisions that you generate. After the first year or so, if you are really productive, you have a little bit more leverage to re-negotiate your salary. Just make sure that if you don't get the higher salary, you don't change jobs again.

Common Misconceptions About Sales

One of the most common misconceptions about sales is that a lot of people assume that because they have great interperonal skills, that alone will make them a good salesperson. Nothing could be further from the truth. That’s like thinking that just because you’re a good driver that you could be a great professional race car driver. Interpersonal skills are just one area of many, many areas neccessary for a successful sales career. Sales can be a very rewarding and lucrative career but it can also be a long, arduous journey. Being successful in sales is never as easy as it might seem to the uninitiated. There are so many skills that are required in selling that time is the only real test. Do you like to read? I would venture to say that the most successful sales people are also the ones that read the most. Do you like being on the phone? Sales requires lots of phone time. Do you have lots of friends with whom you can network? If not, get ready to start. Are you considerate of others and always willing to go out of your way to help people. These are just some of the other skills that will be required of you. If you can answer “yes” to all of these questions, then along with your great interpersonal skills, you have the basics requirements for an average career in sales. If you are patient, are willing to work hard, maybe even starve for a year or two, then you are off to a good start. If you can start in an industry that you are familiar with, then you at least have some basic product knowledge. The best way to begin a sales career is to pick out the most successful saleman in your organization and do everything that he does. Another common misconception about sales is that you have to be a good talker. Quite the opposite is true. You have to be a great listener. And take my word for it, even though most of us think we are great listeners, only a very small percentage of people come by this skill naturally. It really takes a lot of training and discipline to be a great listener. Most average salespeople want to “sell” by telling instead of listening. Our tendency is to try to impress the clients with how much we know, instead of listening to their pains. This is the MOST common mistake made by all salespeople, but technical people are especially masters at it. If you can learn to shut up and listen so that your prospects can tell you how to sell them, then you have the beginnings of a great career in the professional world of selling.

Contact Record Management

Do you use a contact record manager? You'd better. I don't care how great a salesman you might think that you are, you can always be better. And one of the fastest ways to improve your productivity almost overnight without making any major changes in your selling style is by utilizing a contact record management software program to track your current customers and potential prospects. I don't care what anybody says, there is no way that you can track your accounts as effectively without a CRM program as you can with one. I don't care which one you use. I happen to like ACT. I've been using it for over 10 years and I've seen a noticeable increase in my sales productivity ever year. Utilizing a CRM program has so many advantages that I'm not sure I can even begin to list all of them. But I don't think that it would be an exaggeration to say that just about every faucet of selling is improved by a good CRM. Tracking existing customers. Tracking prospects. Tracking customer interaction, including sales calls, e-mails and meetings. I use ACT to schedule my appointments, both personal and professional. My current database file is over 1 Gig, and has over 1700 contacts, with notes that go back over ten years. Any information that I have on my customers and prospects typically makes its way into my database. If someone happens to mention in passing a birthday or an anniversary, I record it in my database for later use. Spouses and children's names, school affiliation, sports affiliations, hometown, etc. You get the point. Any information that could help me bond with them will become part of my permanent notes. In Harvey McKay's book "How to Swim with Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive", he covers the "McKay 66", a list of 66 questions that you should be able to answer about your customers. Personally, I think that some of the information is a little bit overkill, but the point of the exercise is to get you to know your customer better than you know him now and more importantly to make sure that you know your customer better than your competitor know him. Sending your customer a card on his birthday or on his anniversary will give him something more to think about besides price when the time comes for him to award the next contract.

Carpe Diem!

Carpe Diem. Seize the day! There is no better time than the beginning of the new year to re-create yourself. I heard once that the American Indians believed that every morning was like being reborn. I think the notion of not being weighed down by our past habits and our old beliefs is remarkably liberating. One of my favorite books that I read last year at the recommendation of a friend was "The Power of Focus" by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen (the Chicken Soup guys) and Les Hewitt. Just like the Chicken Soup series of books, the message is simple and straight forward. The simplicity is part of the book's genius. The very first passage of the book opens with a quote by J.Paul Getty. "The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might of the force of habit--and must understand that practices are what create habits. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him--and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires". In a nutshell, your practices create your habits. So if you want to have better, healthier habits, replace your bad habits with better healthier practices until they become ingrained as good habits. The book claims that 90% of our normal behavior is based on habits. Although this sounds like an overestimate, the point is still well taken that much of what we do is just routine and we are capable of reprogramming ourselves at anytime. Think of your mind as a wild meadow, with bad habits being the weeds and good habits being flowers. Without any work, only the weeds will flourish. If you want a meadow full of flowers, it will take a little bit of work. First you will need to pull out all of the weeds by their roots. Then you will have to plant the meadow with seeds of whatever type of flowers and plants that you want to sow. After that, you will still have to water the plants on a regular basis and you will have to continue to week out any unwanted plants on a regular basis.
Your brain in much the same. Because we live in a world of average people and we are very much influenced by mass advertising and mass consciousness, if left unattended and unmanaged, our thoughts will tend to be mostly negative (weeds). If you want to sow more positive thoughts (flowers), you need to pull out all those negative thoughts that have been subconsciously planted in your brain and then supplant them with the more positive thoughts of ideas and visions that you want to sow. Plants are most susceptible to harm in the very beginning and thoughts are no different. You have to tend to your thoughts daily by fertilizing and watering the seeds of your positive thoughts and weeding out the negatives thoughts that tend to creep back in, as they inevitably will. Eventually, after a while, your positive thoughts will grown big and strong with deep roots and they will require a little less attention. So as you decide to make more cold calls or wake up an hour earlier each day in order to get the jump on the day, the early stages of your new habits will present the biggest challenge. Your negative thoughts will be hard to shed. That little voice in your head will tell you you can't do it. It'll tell you that you will not succeed. Rip that voice out by the roots. Plant the new seeds of positive optimism by telling yourself that you can do it. With proper care and tending, you will soon find yourself past the point of inertia and the new habits will become easier and easier with each passing day. Using this method, you can do anything that you set your mind to do. And there is no better time to start than today. Carpe diem!