How’s Your Selling Energy?   With new goals and results just beginning to post for 2014, it is worth reflecting on what you are doing differently today to generate better outcomes tomorrow.  The topic I’d like to focus on today is more fundamental than the selling process and skills you leverage to create an effective sales meeting.  It is your Selling Energy — or how the energy you carry into and through a meeting impacts how successfully you close. Take this quick True-or-False quiz to determine your Selling Energy: I need coffee to get going in the morning. I often zone in and out of client meetings. I crave carbs and snacks to keep me going through the day. I tend to feel sluggish mid-afternoon. I get headaches and don’t go anywhere without a bottle of aspirin or pain relievers. I feel tired but wired at the end of the day and average fewer than eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. How many Trues did you score?  Because you are a high-achieving sales professional, I may need to point out that on this quiz, the fewer Trues you counted, the better. In a previous blog post, Presence: 80% of Success -The Role Presence Plays in "Showing Up" to an Effective Sales Meeting, I addressed the topic of how presence impacts your ability to conduct an effective sales meeting, and you will note some similar themes here.  Client-facing professionals enjoy adrenaline and action and tend not to be known for heaping amounts of patience.  And so it follows that we tend to be large consumers of coffee or other caffeinated energy drinks, fast food, and energy snacks high in sugar or carbs.  If this is true for you some or all of the time, let’s look at how this translates into the energy level you bring into a sales meeting or client call. Reflect on some recent client meetings.  How often did your Selling Energy include some or all of the following:  tired, foggy, irritable, impatient, and anxious?  Consider the ways in which this may have surfaced during that meeting and how quickly and easily it was felt by the client.  Consider how this detracted from your efforts at building trust, credibility, and commitment. If we take a set of feelings opposite to those above — energetic, focused, positive, patient, and steady — can you see how this Selling Energy changes the tone and sets the stage for an effective sales meeting?  With some awareness and self-reflection, you can connect your Selling Energy to what you eat, drink, or do before, during, or after an effective sales meeting. With thanks to my nutrition coach (and wife, Sandy Dalis, www.cravenutrition.net), here are six proven ways to boost your Selling Energy in 2014: Sleep more:  Research shows that our bodies need at least eight hours to regenerate. Hydrate:  Americans are chronically dehydrated.  Many of us respond to this feeling by reaching for a cup of coffee or some other form of caffeine which, ironically, is dehydrating.  Hydration experts, including Dr. Fereydoon Batamanghelidj, suggest setting a daily goal of drinking ½ your weight in water ounces.  (For example, someone weighing 150 lbs. should target 75 oz. water daily.  Water-like drinks, including carbonated or flavored, don’t count.) Eat better:  You won’t be surprised to learn that food and beverage companies spend a fortune engineering their products and advertising to appeal to your taste buds and psyche.  Eating nutritionally deficient food promotes illness and provides inadequate fuel to keep you going.  When we feel tired, studies show that we eat on average 25% more with particular cravings for sugar, caffeine, and carbs … all of which make it tougher to sleep the following night.  Plan your meals, including and especially those where you know you will be in transit without a dependable place to eat, with a focus on real versus processed food. Breathe more:  Especially with colder temps this time of year, how often do you find yourself going from hotel room to car to office to plane?  The human body requires and thrives on oxygen intake, yet it is amazing how little non-processed air we breathe during the winter.  Take time to step outside for some nice, deep breaths. Exercise:  Squeezing exercise into your day is tough, especially with increased calling and revenue goals and making more time for sleep.  When you find yourself with the time and energy, consider taking the stairs, walking to appointments, or even a light run, swim, or workout at the start or end of your day. Schedule better:  When results lag, many overcompensate by making more calls to show effort.  Increasing the number of your appointments will reduce the time you have to properly prepare for each — both the filler calls and the ones that matter.  Find ways, seeking support from a manager, coach, mentor, or peer, to become a more effective and efficient salesperson by better qualifying opportunities, leveraging your selling strengths, and shoring up any weaknesses. When you make the connection between how you live and how you feel, you are on your way to harnessing the power of your Selling Energy in conducting an effective sales meeting.  So, challenge yourself to pick and commit to one or more of the things above as your Q1’2014 focus.  Some of these changes will feel uncomfortable at first.  Start implementing these changes during a light week, and be aware of how this is impacting 1) how you feel throughout the day, 2) how clients are reacting, and 3) the ground you are able to gain in your meetings.  Small steps lead to big changes, and the outcomes at stake here — your health, happiness, relationships, and success — are significant.  Please share your thoughts and experiences here about how you are boosting your Selling Energy and how this is changing your outlook, meetings, and results.  Stay healthy! Industry Specific Sales Training Interested in learning more about Richardson’s industry specific sales training solutions? Click here to take a look at our February featured industry, Financial Services.       The post How’s Your Selling Energy? appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Richardson’s Six Critical Skills are invaluable at all levels of the sales organization, as they provide a consistent methodology for sales reps. The Six Critical Skills represent the heart of the Richardson sales framework and are the foundation of a client-focused sales process. They allow users to create the building blocks for engaging dialogue, understanding client needs, closing business, and building long-term relationships. The Six Critical Skills are: Questioning - determine client needs and obtaining in-depth information. Checking - keep the content interactive, and getting client feedback and input. Listening - understand client issues, and incorporating client ideas and priorities into your story. Presence - project confidence and creating a level of comfort with the client. Relating - establish rapport and building relationships. Positioning - tell your story from the client’s point of view, not yours. In this video blog post, Andrea Grodnitzky, Senior Vice President, Global Performance Solutions, discusses the idea that the Six Critical Skills are more relevant than ever for the incoming generation of sales people. If you can not see this video, please click here Industry Specific Sales Training Interested in learning more about Richardson’s industry specific sales training solutions? Click here to take a look at our February featured industry, Financial Services. The post The Six Critical Skills of Selling: Are They Relevant Today? appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Strategies for Sustaining the Impact of Sales Training: Overview and Key Findings When you invest in something, you expect a return. Otherwise, such an investment is known as a donation (or more cynically, throwing your money away). Before making a substantial investment, you are likely to give it careful consideration. "What am I paying for? What will I get for that investment? Could that money be put to better use elsewhere?" These are necessary and often tough questions to answer when investing in sales training. Sales leaders can’t expect to get by on false assumption that conducting training is a de facto cost of doing business. Effective, But Not Sustained? A recent Training Industry, Inc. study revealed that sales training programs are generally considered effective, with approximately 81% of respondents indicating that their organization’s sales training programs are somewhat or very effective. However, they may be less effective at sustaining the impact of such training and development programs over time. I would argue that a sales training program cannot be considered effective if its impact fails to be sustained. Otherwise, the training program is in fact an "event" that is perhaps good as a pep rally for sales reps but with no intention or plan for lasting change. My colleagues and I have written in previous posts of the need to view training not as an event with a defined start and finish but as a series of events that occur before, during, and long after a classroom training or similar activity. The goal is to change behaviors and improve skills, not get through a two-day session to in order to check a box on the training curriculum. With estimates of the global sales training market exceeding $2 billion annually, the importance of sustaining the impact of sales training investment cannot be overstated. The current study addresses this important goal by investigating approaches that organizations use in sustaining the impact of sales training and highlights recommended strategies for maximizing the impact of sales training over time. Key Findings There are several findings of interest from the study. As you read through them, I encourage you to consider what I mentioned above — that is, training as a engagement, not a singular event. Only 32% of respondents rate their organization effective or very effective at sustaining the impact of their sales training program. Put another way, two out of every three companies are guilty of treating training as an event. Over half of respondents report that their organizations sustain the impact of sales training for greater than three months following training. This could be questioned given the results in the previous finding. Organizations rated as effective,  invest less in the delivery of sales training and more in the planning, evaluation, and sustainment of that training. This is a step in the right direction. When planning and budgeting, don’t neglect the before and after. In our study, effective companies sustained the impact of training 63% longer than ineffective companies. The most frequently used pre-training strategies for sustainment involve communicating the importance of and expectations for training. Also consider pre-training assessments to benchmark where your sales reps are now versus where you want them to be. And don’t forget to ask for their input, which gives them a voice and greater ownership over the process and outcomes. Effective organizations utilize more pre-training strategies for sustaining training, including establishing post-training development plans and optimizing the sales management process before training begins. In-person and virtual instructor-led training are the most frequently used modalities for delivering training. Effective organizations are more likely to utilize gamification and competition both during and following training. This is becoming an ever-increasing tactic that can yield great results if done properly. Read more about gamification in previous posts. While tracking performance metrics was the most frequently used evaluation technique across all learning leaders, effective organizations consistently use more evaluation techniques to assess the impact of training.  See #5 above. This will also help you know where the greatest needs are for your training efforts. Providing refresher training and using curated learning portals were the most frequently used post-training techniques for sustaining sales training.  Provide helpful triggers to help keep what was taught top of mind and reinforced as soon as possible after the training event. Effective organizations use mobile/tablet reinforcement solutions post-training more frequently than ineffective organizations. Make it convenient so that sales reps can keep up while standing in line at Starbucks rather than force them to log in when they return to the office or their hotel room. Keep it short, simple, and accessible to keep them engaged. Five Strategies for Sustaining the Impact of Sales Training Based on the key findings above, here are five strategies for you to follow in order to sustaining the impact of sales training solutions over a longer period, thus increasing your effectiveness and training ROI. Invest in sustainment. Don’t invest in training events. Yes, classroom activities will likely be part of your training program, but it shouldn’t take up all or even most of your budget and efforts. Invest in communication, assessments, evaluations, training aids, and gamification. Establish post-training developmental plans before training begins. Have a vision for what you want your sales reps to be doing immediately following the training and then three, six, and 12 months later. How will you help them remember what they’ve learned and apply it in place of old behaviors? Utilize gamification during and after training. Have it ready to demonstrate during the training so that sales reps can leave and hit the ground running with it after. Use friendly competition and leader boards to encourage usage. Try to make it fun and not a chore, which means getting the timing and relevance right. Use mobile and tablet reinforcement solutions. Bring it to them to make it easy to access. Break free of the desktop-only apps in order to appear fresh and timely. Perhaps showing that you’ve invested your time and energy into a working gamification tool will further encourage them to take advantage of it. Evaluate and provide individual feedback on training. You can’t "set it and forget it" as Ron Popeil used to say. Don’t assume that a successful training event will translate into the desired behaviors and actions you set out to achieve. Find out what’s working and what’s not catching on to know who to help and how through one-on-one coaching, mentoring, or more training. Does your organization view training as an event or a longer-term program with specific sustainment activities? How would your organization compare to the stats listed in the key findings above? How can you most effectively move the needle to improve your efforts and impact? COMPLIMENTARY RESEARCH REPORT Organizations invest substantially in sales training and development. This complimentary report from Training Industry and Richardson summarizes data and provides recommended strategies for maximizing the impact of sales training over time. Click here or on the image below to download this report. The post Strategies for Sustaining the Impact of Sales Training: Overview and Key Findings appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Time to Trash Event-based Sales Training! In my last post, Strategies for Sustaining the Impact of Sales Training: Overview and Key Findings,  I shared with you the key findings from a recent study from TrainingIndustry.com. This is such an important topic that I wanted to follow that up with a post focused specifically on the major takeaways from that research. You might guess where this is going once you see the section headings below. The major findings are neatly grouped into pre-, during, and post-training. We can’t underscore enough the need to focus beyond the training event and place considerable emphasis on how you prepare your sales reps before the sales training and especially how well you follow through afterward in order to get the most bang for your buck. Pre-training Respondents overwhelmingly indicated that pre-training activities have a major impact on sales training sustainment. Effective organizations invested more in planning and were significantly more likely to use pre-training strategies to set learner expectations and support training. Among these strategies, establishing post-training developmental plans and optimizing the sales management process resulted in the greatest levels of sales training sustainment. Few companies and leaders possess the patience and discipline to truly plan for something with the necessary time and effort. There’s almost always a rush to finish, with the feeling that the paint is still wet on the surface. "Is this the color we really wanted?" Too late to change now. Give your team plenty of time — with wiggle room — to properly plan your activities and prepare your sales reps before the training. The flip side to that can be equally maddening: you’ve allowed enough time in the schedule for planning, testing, modeling, and the like and are so very proud of it that you unleash it early! "It’s so good we can’t wait to put it out there!" That impatience can disrupt the sense of flow in favor of a series of stops and starts. If you do your pre-training three months before an event, it quickly turns into a game of hurry-up-and-wait, which frustrates those who are to be trained and loses momentum. Be disciplined enough to build and stick to the optimum schedule. During Training Results point to a much smaller role for activities completed during training. Indeed, organizations that invest more in training delivery experience significantly lower sales training sustainment. Still, some activities completed during training were important for training sustainment; organizations that utilized gamification in the classroom and provided individual feedback on learning assessments were significantly more effective at sustaining the impact of sales training. These findings are particularly interesting in light of the relatively small frequency of organizations actually using gamification during training. A key element during training is to keep it practical. Don’t waste time on activities that won’t help your sales reps get where you want them to be. Take advantage of the time you have with your people to demonstrate exactly what you expect them to be doing once the training has ended. Make it as real for them as possible so that they can easily hit the ground running and directly apply what they’ve been taught on the job. That level of focus on the end result should help you make the best impact and set you up for sustainment. Post-training Unsurprisingly, respondents stressed the importance of evaluating training. Effective organizations utilized every evaluation technique more frequently than organizations that were considered ineffective at sustaining sales training. Furthermore, a sizable 25% of respondents reported being unsure of how long their organizations’ sales training participants exhibit trained behaviors. These results point to a need for continuous evaluation in order to better inform organizational sales training decisions and increase the length of time that training impacts the performance of sales reps. The results indicate that a number of post-training activities also result in longer and more effective training sustainment. Organizations that use mobile reinforcement and client spotlights were rated more effective at sustaining sales training. Mirroring the findings on effective strategies for sustainment during training, results suggest that providing feedback on assessments and using gamification lead to greater sales training sustainment effectiveness. It is surprising that post-training gamification led to greater sustainment, as only 24% of respondents indicated that it is important for post-training activities. Thus, while gamification is less frequently used and rated less important, its use results in more effective and longer-lasting sales training impact. Another critical aspect of post-training success lies with sales managers: their ability to coach their sales reps. Ensure that your sales managers are ready to guide their sales reps following the training to assure them and help them stay on target. Sales managers should know what the expectations are before the training begins and be prepared to talk about it immediately upon their sales reps returning to the office. Get them ready to answer difficult and easy questions. The more your new normal can be baked into everyday conversations and interactions, the longer it will stay top of mind for sales reps — and the more likely that they’ll be able to follow through. Sustaining Sales Training: A Vision of Success Many training programs fail to sustain results beyond the training event itself due to a lack of vision. What does the end result look like? What should my sales reps be doing differently in order to achieve our targets? How do we get them to let go of "the way we do things" in favor of embracing the new? If you allow your people to think of the training in project terms, then you might find it difficult to break free of the end-date mindset. Silly as it may sound, perhaps the best way forward is to start with an illustration. In order to fulfill a mission or task, it’s common to draw a pie chart that defines the various stages of an activity from start to finish. It can be useful to see how evenly or unevenly the various components are or when the stages begin and end (as if you’re looking at a clock face.) However, the notion that there’s a beginning and end essentially squashes your hopes of sustaining the impact of the training. (If you’ve come full circle, then you’ve gone nowhere.) I’d challenge you to think instead of a line graph that isn’t necessarily bound to defined beginnings and ends. You can more easily show where you’ve been, where you are, and where you want to be. Set both short- and long-term post-training milestones, and measure your progress toward them. Hold yourself, your sales managers, and your sales reps accountable for working toward those common goals. It’s often said that effective leaders possess a clear vision for where they’re going. Take heed, and apply that logic to your training efforts so that you move the needle and keep it moving forward rather than ending up right back where you started. COMPLIMENTARY RESEARCH REPORT Organizations invest substantially in sales training and development. This complimentary report from Training Industry and Richardson summarizes data and provides recommended strategies for maximizing the impact of sales training over time. Click here or on the image below to download this report. The post Time to Trash Event-based Sales Training! appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Sales Dialogues - Provoking Needs, Can you do this? When engaging in a sales dialogue with a prospect or client, it is important to acknowledge their current needs before approaching them with new needs. To provoke a need, sales reps can establish credibility by sharing insights and asking questions to better understand the client. In this video blog post, Andrea Grodnitzky, Senior Vice President, Global Performance Solutions, explains how sales reps can avoid acting arrogant towards clients, and offers some sound advice for how to balance needs and insights. If you are unable to see the video, please click here COMPLIMENTARY RESEARCH REPORT Organizations invest substantially in sales training and development. This complimentary report from Training Industry and Richardson summarizes data and provides recommended strategies for maximizing the impact of sales training over time. Click here or on the image below to download this report. The post Sales Dialogues - Provoking Needs, Can you do this? appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Richardson Named to TrainingIndustry.com’s Top 20 Sales Training Companies for the 6th Consecutive Year Philadelphia, PA — March 3, 2014 — Richardson, a leading global sales training and performance improvement company, today announced that they have been named to the list of TrainingIndustry.com’s Top 20 Sales Training Companies. This top 20 list is part of TrainingIndustry.com’s mission to continually monitor the training marketplace and impartially identify the best providers of training services and technologies. Recognition on the 2014 list marks the sixth straight year of inclusion for Richardson, having been named every year since its introduction. Top 20 companies are recognized for their outstanding service, a proven track record for delivering superior training, innovation, and the overall impact they have on client sales organizations. Criteria for the Top 20 Sales Training Companies list are based on a number of interrelated items, including: Industry recognition Innovation in the sales training market Company size Growth potential Breadth and depth of service offerings Strength of clients served Geographic reach "Being named to the Top 20 Sales Training Companies list for the sixth consecutive year is a great tribute to the entire Richardson team, as well as to all of our clients and their salespeople. Simply put, this is an honor that never gets old," said David DiStefano, Richardson President and CEO. "This achievement confirms the value and influence that Richardson continues to demonstrate in the sales training industry. Our commitment to innovation and bringing robust solutions to our clients remains core values." "Continued strength in this segment reflects both the level of innovation and the introduction of new delivery and media types into the offerings of the top companies. We continue to believe that sales training is the segment leading the way in the areas of gamification and sustainability of the learning," said Ken Taylor, Chief Operating Officer, Training Industry, Inc. About Richardson Richardson (http://www.richardson.com) is a global sales training and performance improvement company that helps leading organizations drive sales results. We do this in three ways: we analyze the structure and talent of your sales force, we train and develop your sales team, and we continue that development through coaching and reinforcement. We equip your sales leaders and sales force with the skills and strategies they need to win in today’s complex selling environment. What is unique about Richardson is how we create truly customized sales training solutions that change behavior and provide measurable results. COMPLIMENTARY RESEARCH REPORT Organizations invest substantially in sales training and development. This complimentary report from Training Industry and Richardson summarizes data and provides recommended strategies for maximizing the impact of sales training over time. Click here or on the image below to download this report. The post Richardson Named to TrainingIndustry.com’s Top 20 Sales Training Companies for the 6th Consecutive Year appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Big Data: How should a sales rep approach a customer with potentially sensitive data? The availability of information provides many opportunities for sales and marketing to analyze prospects and create needs that they might not even know they have. However, sales reps must approach the conversation in a way that does not make the customer feel exposed or exploited. Join David DiStefano, President and CEO of Richardson, as he offers advice to sales reps about how to take valuable, but sensitive "big data" and present it to a client in a way that addresses their business challenges. ——————————————————————————————————————— March Industry Focus: Technology  Like fingerprints, no two organizations are the same. Each faces different cultural, managerial, operational, and industry challenges and opportunities. That’s why we customize our approach at Richardson, working with each client to develop specially tailored sales training and performance improvement solutions. This month, we are featuring our work in the technology sector. We invite you to please take a look by  clicking here to learn more or contact us directly at info@richardson.com The post Big Data: How should a sales rep approach a customer with potentially sensitive data? appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

9 Common Traps of Selling with Insights and How to Avoid Them Selling with insights successfully should markedly separate you from your competition. This more sophisticated sales tactic goes well beyond the transactional approach (or lack of approach) of "We sell widgets; how many can I put you down for?" to one that is more meaningful and substantive to both the buyer and seller. Demonstrating thoughtful knowledge of your client’s business and industry by highlighting a concern or opportunity that they may be unaware of (or lack an appreciation for its magnitude) takes time and effort that will hopefully be rewarded. As is true with most things, there are risks to avoid when selling with insights. If you fail to heed these traps, you might not only risk the sale but also your reputation and relationship with the client. What shouldn’t you do when selling with insights? We’ve identified 9 common traps of selling with insights and will present the first 5 here with the remainder to come in my next post. 1. Preparation Trap What it is: Neglecting to put in the time to fully personalize your insight to your client. Insights that are personalized will be more relevant, more compelling, and more effective. You don’t want to be seen as an imposter, or someone who simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about. It’s okay that you’re not an expert in your client’s business - after all, it’s their business, not yours - but you need to demonstrate a mastery of the insight as it pertains to their business, industry, and competition and be able to show how it impacts their bottom line. Ways to avoid it: Not taking the time to prepare for complex selling situations is a known reason for failure. Take the time when identifying an insight to research your client, their industry, and their top competitors. Include industry and trade magazines as sources for trends and data. If you don’t find much about your chosen insight, perhaps you should switch topics because third-party sources are necessary to validate your claims. 2. Paralysis-by-Analysis Trap What it is: This is the opposite of the Preparation Trap. If selling with insights is new to you, you may have an urge to be perfect or over-prepared. Do not use this as an excuse to stall. Perfection is not required. As mentioned above, you don’t need to become an expert in your client’s business. But, you need to be knowledgeable about the issues and the magnitude of the insight and be able to connect those dots to your client’s needs or opportunity and how you can help. You need to know enough to tee up a sales meeting, not lead a PhD-level course on the matter. Ways to avoid it: Review and understand your insight. Research the client to personalize your insight message to the situation and to the needs of the individual you are speaking with. Succinctly articulate the challenges or opportunities with impacts and needs in plain English. Share how you can help, and show the value they can gain. If you do that with a personalized message and deliver it with sincerity, you will already be much more effective than most salespeople. But, don’t get so bogged down in detail, research, or striving for perfection to the point that you stall or avoid the opportunity to deliver your insight message. 3. Credibility Trap What it is: Being unable to answer specific questions from the client related to the insight. This is related to the Preparation Trap, but it specifically refers to knowledge about the insights that you are using. It especially applies to research and data, but it could also apply to an internal case study. If you cannot answer basic questions about the research, article, case study, or insight source, you can lose credibility quickly. For the insight, don’t presume to apply a catchy headline you saw to raise an issue that you’ve done no research on. Likewise, you might identify a really good insight that’s perfectly relevant to your client - but which you’re underqualified to resolve. Make sure you set yourself up to be included in the solution! Ways to avoid it: Know your insight. Whether it is an article, research study, case study, or something else, read all the source information. Unless you are in the science or research sector, you will not often be asked for research study protocols, for example, but be able to discuss the source information beyond just quoting an abstract piece of data. 4. Arrogance Trap What it is: You can come off as arrogant when leading with ideas too strongly without proper positioning and dialogue skills. Respectfully providing information to shed new light on a topic amid the course of a conversation is one thing, but "challenging" someone’s thinking is quite another. Relationship and people skills, as well as people’s feelings, still matter greatly. Ways to avoid it: Check that chip on your shoulder at the door. If you find that you’re not being understood or getting your point across, pause to come up with an alternate way to make your point without being argumentative. There are critical selling and dialogue skills to be applied along with simple courtesy, respect, and manners. You do not need to agree with everyone or everything, and you can provide new information or differing points of view. But, it is often best done through dialogue with finesse. Preparation and practice will help you do that. 5. Dialogue Trap What it is: This trap focuses on how you share the insight, specifically on delivering insights outside of a dialogue model. You should use an insight to capture attention, lead a dialogue, and create or shape opportunities. Helping someone see things in a new light is a guided discovery process, not a hammer in search of a nail. Richardson’s Insight Message Model fits into other dialogues and provides context, as well as a platform through which to tell a story, make a connection, engage your client, and create a meaningful conversation. Don’t throw away a valuable opportunity by just tossing out data or information. At that point, your attempt to shock or impress is no longer worthy of being called an "insight." Ways to avoid it: The same tactics described above that will reduce the chance of being perceived as arrogant or bullying will help here. Don’t deliver a diatribe or presentation - rather, foster dialogue. There will be times when your client needs or wants you to "spit it out," but even then, you will want to prepare and follow the prescribed path forward. You must realize that sometimes the best way from start to finish isn’t the most direct route, which has you speeding past points of interest that are critical to helping you build your case. Be patient, and tell the story that fully lays out the issue, what’s at stake for your client, and how you can help through a dialogue. Preparing and delivering an insight is both an art and a science, which demands the right touch and approach to resonate with your client. My next post will complete the list of 9 Common Traps of Selling with Insights. ———————————————————————————————————- Learn more About Richardson’s Selling with Insights® Sales Training Solutions  Richardson’s Selling with Insights® sales training program teaches your sales reps advanced preparation techniques and dialogue skills to effectively present insights, challenge the customer’s thinking, add more value, differentiate your solution, and build credibility as a trusted business partner. If you would like to learn more about Richardson’s Selling with Insights workshops and full seminars, please email Jim Brodo at jim.brodo@richardson.com or click here to read more.   The post 9 Common Traps of Selling with Insights and How to Avoid Them appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

9 Common Traps of Selling with Insights and How to Avoid Them - Part II In part I of 9 Common Traps of Selling with Insights and How to Avoid Them, I introduced the first 5 traps to avoid when selling with insights. To review, they were: Preparation Trap - Don’t be cavalier; thoroughly research the insight and target client to be ready. Paralysis-by-Analysis Trap - Research is critical, but don’t undertake PhD-level examination on the topic; once you have enough to get the dialogue going with confidence, act on it. Credibility Trap - Make sure that the insight is legitimate and that you are capable of resolving the issue or taking advantage of the opportunity. Arrogance Trap - Especially when introducing an "unknown" insight, be sure not to come across as superior and condescending; if you want the client to trust and hire you, then you need to be someone they feel comfortable with. Dialogue Trap - Following the previous point, be sure that you don’t show up to lecture the client; structure your insight in such a way that it raises points and promotes healthy discussion. Each of the above traps may seem obvious, but following through - or more specifically, avoiding them - is often easier said than done. Here are the remaining common traps and suggestions for avoiding them. 6. Insight Objection Trap What it is: Being unprepared to respond to and resolve objections regarding your insight. Since the insight is the critical connector between the client’s challenge and your capabilities, it makes sense to prepare for any specific objections you can anticipate. If you do not have success with your insight or cannot resolve concerns about the information, you could lose credibility and will certainly need to resort to another insight (if one is relevant) or switch your approach. Ways to avoid it: As you develop the insight, think about possible objections that can be raised along the way. They could be obvious or seemingly unrelated, but you should prepare to respond honestly and avoid being dismissive. Show that you’ve already thought of that concern and have a viable resolution.  This shows that you’re thorough, prepared, and that you understand their business. If an unforeseen objection is raised, then respond as best as possible with the notion that you might need to get back to them to provide the best answer. You may not always have a perfect answer, but how you respond to objections can raise your profile or knock you down. 7. Relevance Trap What it is: Trying to position an insight that is not relevant to the client’s specific business situation. It can be difficult to recover from this trap once you succumb to it. Ways to avoid it: Avoid this by examining the challenges and opportunities you’ve identified to ensure they sync with the situation you believe your client is facing. This links directly to the first trap of being sufficiently prepared. When preparing the insight, look for recent headlines from and about your target client to ensure that they haven’t already dealt with the issue or somehow announced a change of focus that might alter the impact and relevance of your insight. Therefore, you should review the potential impacts and possible needs in light of each client. The closer the connection between the generic information and your client’s situation, the better the chance that your insight will be relevant and resonate with them. 8. Connection Trap What it is: Another trap can arise when a relevant insight is positioned to the client, but it does not coherently link the client’s challenging issue or opportunity to how you can help them (your capabilities). It is important to think about the connection from both a personal and organizational level for your client. While an insight may be relevant for the client organization overall, your contact’s focus may be on a different area (e.g., an insight about stock prices may not be effective on a manufacturing-based contact). This is similar to the Relevance Trap, but that trap is primarily about the insight. In this trap, your client is unable to see a clear connection, which is why personalization and word choice is important. Put another way, an insight focused on the importance of a marketing automation system could be perfect for the company, but pitched very differently to the heads of marketing vs. IT. Ways to avoid it: In crafting your personalized insight message, ensure that there is a clear link between the issue or challenge (which you check at the beginning of the conversation), your insight (which you connect to the issue), and your proposed action and value (which should solve the issue). The stronger this "dotted-line connection" or "breadcrumb trail," the more compelling and effective your insight will be. 9. Product Trap What it is: Engaging in a feature or product dump. While it is important to connect the issue or opportunity to your capabilities and differentiators, they must be positioned carefully to avoid sounding like a product dump. This dialogue is about them, not about you. Ways to avoid it: There is a difference between discussing a specific capability or the value you have delivered to others who were in a similar situation and talking about specific features and benefits. It’s certainly okay to briefly mention a product or service name in how you describe your action and value (your capability), but it is the action and the outcome that will be compelling, not facts and figures about your products. Avoid a product or feature dump, where you rattle off multiple features and benefits. Focus your conversation on the issue at hand, the relevant insight, and the corresponding capability that will address their issue. Conclusion There is no shortage of concerns to be aware of when selling with insights. But as was mentioned in the previous post, the rewards can be worth the risk. By embracing selling with insights and doing it well, you open yourself up to more substantial rewards through more sophisticated sales while elevating yourself from vendor or supplier to trusted partner in the eyes of your clients. If successful, perhaps your greatest challenge could be to avoid the dreaded "sophomore slump." That is, when your next sales opportunity arises with an insight client, you can’t retreat back to widget sales tactics. Rather, you must be keen to look for more insights and present them in a meaningful and compelling way that builds on your earlier project and experience. Win a Nike Fuel Band! Do you have a story to share about any of these traps or others when providing an insight during your selling process? Please share them with us and if we use them in our blog, you can become eligible to win a complimentary Nike Fuel Band. Just click here to tell us your stories.   ———————————————————————————————————- Learn more About Richardson’s Selling with Insights® Sales Training Solutions  Richardson’s Selling with Insights® sales training program teaches your sales reps advanced preparation techniques and dialogue skills to effectively present insights, challenge the customer’s thinking, add more value, differentiate your solution, and build credibility as a trusted business partner. If you would like to learn more about Richardson’s Selling with Insights workshops and full seminars, please email Jim Brodo at jim.brodo@richardson.com or click here to read more. The post 9 Common Traps of Selling with Insights and How to Avoid Them - Part II appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Avoid the Content Marketing Scrap Heap through Personalizing Insights for Prospects The business world is being over-run by content marketing. Prospects are being overloaded with information, and e-mail response rates are in the tank. If you succeed in getting the attention of your prospect, your next challenge is to grab them with something that will keep them on the phone and engaged long enough to warrant a deeper conversation. Upon picking up the phone, inevitably, your contact’s guard is up while giving you only a portion of their attention as they wait for you to give them an opening to say, "No thanks, I’m not interested." Thinking from your prospect’s perspective requires you to consider why they would ever want to invest their precious time to meet with you. You need to offer them something of value that makes it worthwhile. Providing an "insight" is one of the best ways you can add value. This is especially true if you work across a number of organizations and can bring some outside perspective to an issue that is a priority for your target. Or, maybe you can enlighten your prospect on a growing trend that will impact them and provide more depth based on your experience. Adding value through your ideas and experiences is sharing insight. While delivering insights has grown as a sales and marketing buzzword, few really grasp the concept. Make no mistake — an insight is only an insight if it is insightful to your prospect. This is similar to when salespeople or consultants refer to themselves as "trusted advisors." I’m sorry, but that title must be earned. You’ll know that you’ve earned their trust when your client starts behaving differently. Their defenses will start to lower, they’ll reveal more about their business and situation more freely, and they’ll probe not just with challenging questions, but in a more collaborative tone that hints that they could envision working with you. Research reports and pitch books are not insights. Nor are product dumps of marketing materials and internally focused sell sheets. These can substantiate your claims to helping to solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity, but you cannot lead with them with preparing an insight. Provocative content and ideas typically break down into one of the following categories: Research reports, white papers, or articles licensed from a research company Research reports, white papers, blog articles, surveys, ebooks, or infographics published by other credible sources that you find online Marketing content, blog articles, surveys, white papers, ebooks, infographics, or research reports from your company Wisdom, experience, and stories — either your own or others’ in your organization Diagnostics or benchmarking studies customized for your prospect You’ll know when you’ve delivered insight when your prospect reaches an enlightened state, opens up to your new way of thinking, and begins to seek you out. Getting them there is not easy! While these are good starting points, the challenge lies in really understanding your prospect, forming a hypothesis of need, identifying the best points from your content or ideas, tailoring the content or ideas to the prospect, and engaging in dialog that leads to enlightenment. The graphic below helps to illustrate this process. The Insight Blueprint An insight bridges a prospect’s needs with your ability to help them. Creating insight requires you to determine the challenges or opportunities your prospects face related to what you sell and then identify your unique differentiators. Then, find marketing content, surveys, research, articles, studies, wisdom, experiences, and stories or diagnostics that will pique your prospect’s interest, which ultimately leads to the "aha moment." The ensuing discussion should help them to better understand and heighten the sense of urgency around an issue or get them to think differently about an issue and the best solution for it (yours). This process will help you to create a series of "generalized" insights that you will personalize to the specific needs of your prospect. This generalization will help you scale your efforts more effectively because they cover most current issues that many of your prospects will likely face. However, I cannot stress enough the importance of preparing and delivering a personalized insight. You cannot expect to further a relationship through impersonalized, bland content and messages that indicate they’re just one of many fish in the sea to you. We all want to feel special, like we’re being spoken to directly, even if we intuitively know that you are casting out several lines hoping that someone will bite. At work and at home, we’re being content-marketed to death. Information overload is ever-present, which has dulled our senses and raised our defenses against any and all unwanted solicitations. How can you break through? You need to literally personalize it by first understanding their unique situation and positioning the relevance of the insight for each prospect. Otherwise, you’ll end up in the growing scrap heap of content marketing and sales pitches that fail to land. ———————————————————————————————————- Learn more About Richardson’s Selling with Insights® Sales Training Solutions  Richardson’s Selling with Insights® sales training program teaches your sales reps advanced preparation techniques and dialogue skills to effectively present insights, challenge the customer’s thinking, add more value, differentiate your solution, and build credibility as a trusted business partner. If you would like to learn more about Richardson’s Selling with Insights workshops and full seminars, please email Jim Brodo at jim.brodo@richardson.com or click here to read more. The post Avoid the Content Marketing Scrap Heap through Personalizing Insights for Prospects appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Social Selling? Make Sure to Ask for Referrals Using LinkedIn is a great opportunity to network and potentially receive referrals for new prospects or expanding relationships within existing accounts, but not before you get involved. Referrals are about "give to get" and this video blog post, Jim Brodo, Senior Vice President, Marketing, shares some quick steps to take before asking a LinkedIn contact for a referral, including giving recommendations for skills and competencies. Need some more tips? Contact Jim directly at james.brodo@richardson.com ———————————————————————————————————- Learn more About Richardson’s Selling with Insights® Sales Training Solutions  Richardson’s Selling with Insights® sales training program teaches your sales reps advanced preparation techniques and dialogue skills to effectively present insights, challenge the customer’s thinking, add more value, differentiate your solution, and build credibility as a trusted business partner. If you would like to learn more about Richardson’s Selling with Insights workshops and full seminars, please email Jim Brodo at jim.brodo@richardson.com or click here to read more. The post Social Selling? Make sure to Ask for Referrals appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

The Importance of a "Heads Up" Approach to Planning and Leading Successful Leadership Isn’t as Easy as Riding a Bike Now that the weather is warming up, I’ve been seeing more bicyclists on the road. I was talking to a cycling friend recently who told me something surprising. He said that on long rides of 30 or more miles that require pedaling multiple hours at a time, it’s often not your legs that hurt, but rather your neck and shoulders. This stems from maintaining a fixed posture for a long period. How do riders prevent that discomfort? By forcing yourself to look up, turning your head from side to side, rolling your shoulders, and changing the position of your hands on the grips. I instantly saw a connection between the cyclist and business leaders and managers — especially those responsible for sales. Too often, we work like the cyclist — with our head down and legs propelling us forward. But what if we’re going in the wrong direction? Are we going too fast or too slow? Are things happening around us that we’re missing? Like the cyclist, you need to lift your head to flex those muscles to stay fresh and confirm that you’re on the right path. My favorite part of this analogy is how very illustrative this very basic scenario is for organizations: the legs, which represent the workforce of the organization, keep moving you forward toward pre-established goals. (Sometimes, they’re struggling uphill or coasting down, which mimics the pace of your business cycles.) It’s up to the organization’s leaders, represented by the head and shoulders, to remember to look up, change direction, or be confident in staying the course. Common Triggers/Times to Look Up and Look Around This begs the question: as a leader, how often do you look up, roll your muscles, stretch, and reestablish your direction? There are a few predetermined occasions when all businesses do this, such as: Annual planning and budgeting — What are our goals, who will accomplish them, and how much are we willing to spend to reach them? How much do we need to reinvest in the business? Annual performance reviews — Is your talent meeting or achieving the goals you’ve set for them? Are they developing as expected? Are your managers and leaders effective? Do you have a need to hire more people to fill a void or take advantage of an opportunity? Quarterly and monthly reports — What do the numbers show? Where is performance on track, behind, or ahead? How can you get lagging units and people on track? Can related business units keep up with those that are outperforming their targets? These are each quite necessary steps within the business process and cycle. They are so routine that they’ve likely been scripted and planned to the point where a formula is followed for the sake of efficiency (which is fine — I’m not suggesting that it’s better to reinvent the wheel). Yes, it’s important to have structure and schedules, but with each of those triggers, you’re looking at specific things. Meanwhile, there are many other variables that go unchecked. Scanning for Unscripted Threats and Opportunities Going back to the cycling analogy, those planned, automatic triggers listed are the equivalent of a deliberate pit stop or catching a breather while waiting at a traffic light. Remember that problems arise when you’re moving without a break and need to prevent your muscles and joints from locking up. Beyond the data you collect from those annual, quarterly, and monthly rituals, you need to find a way to take a heads-up approach in order to remain healthy and competitive. What else should you look for? Here are some suggestions: Competition — What are your peers doing? Are you still meeting them head-to-head in sales pitches, or have they shifted their focus elsewhere? Are they targeting a niche or aiming higher up the food chain? Social Media — This is a no-brainer, but companies still fail to successfully use social media in their business. What a powerful way to get real-time feedback and interact with people who care about your brand. Yes, you risk spam and unruly loudmouths, but for each one of those is someone willing to tell you what they like or dislike, which you should listen and react to. Innovations — Are there new technologies that influence the way you can do business or which have changed the way your buyers think about your products or services? Is there something you can leverage? Are there new threats? Trends in related industries — Look outside your common peer group for ideas and inspiration. What might you be able to take advantage of? If you share buyers, how might a change in their habits be good or bad for you? Successfully adopting a heads-up approach could lead to growth for your business or help you to introduce a new product or service. It might also give you an early warning of the demise of something no longer valued or needed. With the glut of information overload, you might consider assigning specific leaders or groups within your business to be responsible for following these unscripted triggers and trends. Have them gather their intel and share it among the group in such a way that it is helpful and not merely an added task to their already overburdened schedules. The trick is to avoid having this become yet another routine. Conclusion A key message in this post is to be proactive, not just reactive. I’m not suggesting that you respond and react to every data point with knee-jerk decisions. You should of course be prudent and disciplined to not change on a whim. But you must be aware and informed beyond what you expect to hear from your regular reports. Don’t get caught with your head down while your competitors are looking up. You don’t want to miss the opportunity to take advantage of an issue or situation or be caught off guard when a downward spiral threatens. As you finish one quarter and begin the next, force yourself and your team to look up, look around, and see what’s happening that you didn’t anticipate. ——————————————————————————————————————— March Madness - Industry Focus: Technology  Like fingerprints, no two organizations are the same. Each faces different cultural, managerial, operational, and industry challenges and opportunities. That’s why we customize our approach at Richardson, working with each client to develop specially tailored sales training and performance improvement solutions. This month, we are featuring our work in the technology sector. We invite you to please take a look by  clicking here to learn more or contact us directly at info@richardson.com The post The Importance of a "Heads Up" Approach to Planning and Leading appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

A Quick Guide for Structuring Win-Win Negotiations Consultative negotiations, seeking win-win outcomes, following a certain structure — not a precise ritual or Kabuki theater-style performance, but a series of phases that usually occur in a certain order. Below is a quick guide to help you structure this process by understanding what to do at each phase of the win-win negotiations. Pre-negotiation Phase This is the "selling phase," in the sense that this is where both sides decide to pursue a business relationship. This is the preparation phase, where each side learns what it can about the other. The buyer will have done "due diligence" and determined that the seller is worth a meeting and further investigation. The buyer will have decided whether just to meet with one company, to meet with many possible vendors and choose the best offer, or to meet with companies only until they can come to an agreement with someone. The seller will either contact the buyer or be contacted by the buyer to determine interest. In both cases, the seller will determine whether the buyer is just that — a buyer. The seller will determine how to appeal to the buyer. While the buyer is finding out if the seller is likely to be able to meet the buyer’s needs, the seller is trying to determine the buyer’s real needs as opposed to desires. Food is a good example to show the difference between need and desire. People need to eat. They desire, but do not need, to eat steak. The Opening The next phase of the negotiation is presenting a proposal. This can occur either at the meeting or beforehand in writing or by telephone. If a written proposal is sent before the meeting, the seller should spend much less time going over the details. The seller should consider having a draft written proposal at the meeting, even if that is the first contact. Edit as appropriate, and send to the client as conformation as soon as possible after the meeting ends. In all cases, be as friendly as possible, aiming to build mutual trust and confidence. Start with the basics — arrive on time and turn your cell phone off. Present the details if no proposal was sent earlier. Or, ask if the client was able to read your proposal, and then, summarize. A proposal will basically describe the product or service, the schedule for delivery, the cost, and the schedule for payment. Stress the advantages to the client. Our baseball bats cost $100 each in batches of 500. This is a better price than our competitors can offer. Our bats measure up to MLB quality controls. We can deliver batches of 500 in mid-February, early July, and mid-September (hopefully, the client is thinking post-season play). We can fill orders for more, if needed, with one week’s notice. Payments can be spread over the season. Either side can open discussions, but the one who makes the first move in presenting ideas and details sets the agenda for discussion. This side has the advantage in discussions. Counter-opening The potential client responds to the proposal. The seller should just listen, maybe asking a few clarifying questions. If the potential client has made a more detailed than normal presentation or request for proposal, the substantive discussion starts here. Converting Demands to Needs Ask appropriate questions to separate demands and wants from actual needs. One way to do this, in a process which starts before the meeting, is to find out what the customer wants to accomplish, not just what products or services they want. Find out what they really want as early as possible in the negotiations. A customer seeking consultant services to improve a supply chain wants more than just that. He or she wants a way to increase production at minimal, if any, additional cost. How can this be done? Try to determine the personal agenda of the client contact and of anyone else who has to approve. The best way to do this might be to just ask. Value Justification and Trading Use trade-offs when you differ in terms. If the client wants to stretch out payments, for example, trade this for a higher price. Summarize each point of agreement when reached. Be creative and flexible, but avoid concessions as much as possible. Be prepared, as a last resort, to symbolically walk out of the meeting if a point cannot be settled. Don’t storm out. Adjourn the meeting to a future date. Closing the Meeting End the meeting. Be the one to summarize what was decided — first verbally and then in writing and in more detail. This lets you continue to set the agenda. It is easier to just make a change than to ask someone else to change something. Agree to the next steps and their timing. Follow-up Carry out the next steps. Consider sending a thank-you e-mail to the client as soon as you return to your office. Then, send a more detailed response in a few days. Even if you are the decision maker, as a courtesy, clear it with anyone whose cooperation you need at your office. March Madness - Industry Focus: Technology  Like fingerprints, no two organizations are the same. Each faces different cultural, managerial, operational, and industry challenges and opportunities. That’s why we customize our approach at Richardson, working with each client to develop specially tailored sales training and performance improvement solutions. This month, we are featuring our work in the technology sector. We invite you to please take a look by  clicking here to learn more or contact us directly at info@richardson.com The post A Quick Guide for Structuring Win-Win Negotiations appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Dave Stein 2.0 Dave Stein has shut the doors of ES Research Group.  He notified the world on March 15 by posting the announcement on his blog. While he promises to "continue to be active in the sales performance improvement community," his transition is a milestone worth marking. Dave, never David, is an icon in the industry. He was a sales consultant,  trainer, and author. In 2005, he founded ES Research Group and became its CEO. ES Research quickly rose in visibility, credibility, and impact. With Dave’s leadership, the company moved the sales performance industry toward greater accountability for outcomes. He championed the latest learning technologies, and led by example in the use of social media to engage audiences and assume a thought-leadership position. Personally, I had the pleasure of working with Dave for nearly a decade. He is easily one of the most knowledgeable experts about sales training and performance improvement in the industry. Dave was the keynote speaker at our annual Client Forum a few years back, and he proved to be one of the highlights of the event.  With his regular sales training column in Sales and Marketing Management magazine, he provided insightful commentaries and perspectives about selling and sales training that were truly visionary. Through the years, Dave was not only a great resource and valued advisor for Richardson, but for the entire industry. Whenever we released a new product or even updated the Richardson website, we would joke,  "Did you check with what Dave thinks?" We valued Dave’s guidance as an authentic and frequent sounding board - and he wasn’t shy about telling us when we were headed in the wrong direction. On behalf of Richardson, I thank Dave for his contributions and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors. We expect next-generation Dave - Dave 2.0 - to have quite a few interesting industry-related projects up his sleeve. And we hope he’ll take at least some time to enjoy the transition, whether it’s playing more trumpet or just playing with his two dogs out on Martha’s Vineyard. Either way, the break will certainly fuel new thoughts and ideas for the industry. At least we hope so. ———————————————————————————- March Madness - Industry Focus: Technology  Like fingerprints, no two organizations are the same. Each faces different cultural, managerial, operational, and industry challenges and opportunities. That’s why we customize our approach at Richardson, working with each client to develop specially tailored sales training and performance improvement solutions. This month, we are featuring our work in the technology sector. We invite you to please take a look by  clicking here to learn more or contact us directly at info@richardson.com The post Dave Stein 2.0 appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

What You Can Learn From the Rolling Stones about Win-Win Negotiations Mick Jagger got it right when he wrote "You can’t always get what you want." You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need. Win-win negotiations are where both parties to the negotiation walk away satisfied. They have each gotten something they can live with. They can go back to their bosses, their boards of directors, their stockholders, their union membership, their government, their constituents, and all other stakeholders and report "we were successful." Win-win negotiations leave each side with a good taste in their mouths and with good opinions of the process and the result. Each side will want to deal with the other party in the future. Though this article focuses on selling, negotiations can run all the way up to meetings to end or prevent a war. Other terms for win-win negotiations are "consultative negotiations" (because the sides are, or should be, consulting with each other) and "mutual accommodation" (because each side’s needs are accommodated). For negotiations to work and not create more problems, each side has to get something. Otherwise, the "losing" side feels cheated and will likely be out for revenge. Winning too much is not necessarily winning when the winner makes an enemy. When the Western Allies forced the defeated Germans to accept the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I (which began 100 years ago this July), they not only did not get the lasting peace they so desperately needed, they got a Germany out for revenge. With the German effort at revenge, World War II, the 1945 surrender and the 1951 peace settlement formally ended the war and gave at least the western part of Germany protection from the Soviet Union and put it on the road to becoming a strong industrial democracy. The Germans got something. Negotiations are best defined as two parties getting together to reach their goals. In the overall sales process, they are when the potential seller and the potential buyer get together to come up with terms for the sale. To a great extent, the sale has already been made by the time negotiations begin. The buyer has already checked out the seller.  The buyer knows, or feels strongly, that the seller will provide a satisfactory product and service for the product. What remains for the buyer is to get a satisfactory price, satisfactory payment terms, and a satisfactory schedule for delivery of the product or service. The seller already has determined that the buyer is a good market for the product or service. The seller wants to ensure, bluntly, that they are not losing money on the deal — through bad pricing, bad payment terms, or bad delivery schedules. Both sides want something. The first thing they want is mutual confidence. If this is not the first deal between the buyer and the seller, the confidence likely already exists. If not, the negotiations are probably not even taking place. The best way to build confidence, to try and start off on win-win footing, is to show a reasonable approach to the process from the start. You both want something and want the deal to work. You are there to determine how to make it work. If you detect that your counterpart is what we call an "adversarial" negotiator — out for victory at all costs — than you should consider calling off the negotiations, at least for a while. (More in a future column on how to handle this type of negotiator.) Negotiators should not leave money on the table, but you won’t want to take current money at the expense of future money. As a win-win negotiator, you want to do all you can to avoiding having your counterpart walk away feeling cheated. This is especially important if you might want to do future business with the other person and want to preserve a reputation for fairness — another good way to stand out from the competition. You do this by understanding what the other guy wants and what he or she brings to the table. You walk a mile in the other man’s, or woman’s, shoes. —————————- April Feature: Insurance Industry Specific Sales Training - Click here to learn more. The post What You Can Learn From the Rolling Stones about Win-Win Negotiations appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Optimizing Your Time for Less Painful Prospecting Activities Prospecting is one of those activities that you either love or hate. For most people in sales, it’s unavoidable. Those who hate it generally suffer from "prospecting procrastination," which is when a person will seek out any kind of busy work in an effort to put off and avoid the dreaded task. Perhaps it is loathed because it rarely (if ever) yields immediate gratification. Others can’t handle the hang-ups and rejection. Whatever the reason, sales reps must realize the importance of prospecting to building and sustaining a pipeline that will pay off down the road — depending on your sales cycle length. Whether you’re gung-ho or reluctant, when you dedicate time to prospecting, you want to choose prospecting activities that will give you the greatest payoff. The best way to start is to view the world from your prospect’s perspective. Put yourself in their shoes to see just how likely you would be to respond to your own inquiry. Making Quota: What’s Your Number? There are few if any sales reps that don’t have some target to achieve. If you’re going to make your quota, then you need to critically and objectively examine your pipeline from start to finish to determine how many prospecting calls eventually lead to sales. Consider these broad steps: w number of calls generates x number of leads which leads to y number of opportunities and z number of sales Of course, some have the benefit of marketing teams to help generate leads and opportunities. Whether you’re dialing yourself or receiving leads, you need to know how much pipeline you need to generate yourself in order to hit your number. Get Your Timing Right The next factor to consider is timing. You could have the best pitch for the best product at a perfect price. If your timing is off, your prospect might not only turn a deaf ear, but you could turn them off completely. When is your prospect most likely to respond to you? Getting the timing of your calls right by better aligning your prospecting activities with your target’s likelihood to take your calls will help improve your efficiency and productivity. The nuances of timing can be examined by the hour of the day, the day of the month, or the month of the year. As an example, imagine your prospect is a CFO. Most CFOs have intense time pressures to close the books at the end of each month, quarter, and fiscal year. They also have tax season to contend with (which is pretty predictable), as well as audits. During these times, they probably won’t be very responsive to you — they’re just too busy. However, they do have planning and budgeting seasons when they are more likely to be thinking about the investments they need to make and plan for the following year. You want to be planting the seeds leading up to those periods so that you have sufficient time to make your pitch, hopefully sell your product or service, and have it purchased and in place — ready to use when their cycle calls for it. The bottom line is to realize that this is about them, not you, so choose your time wisely, and balance your message to fit their business cycle. Modes of Prospecting Once you have your timing down, you next must think about how your prospects prefer to communicate. There is no shortage of ways to reach someone these days, which makes it more challenging than ever since each person is different. Here are common ways to consider connecting with your prospects: E-mail/Desktop — A more formal approach that lends itself to long and detailed messages; many people want a paper trail and thus everything in writing. E-mail/Mobile — If your prospects are always on the go, they likely skim their e-mails on their phone, which isn’t a great medium for lengthy messages. Your e-mail might be scanned quickly, in which case, the prospect could overlook a key point. It is also likely to generate quick, terse responses. Phone — If you’re a charmer, then this is the best way to get your charm across. Once on the line, you have less than 90 seconds to make your mark, so be prepared. Administrative Assistant — Some prospects require that you pass through these staunch gatekeepers, which can again be a target of your charm. (But remember, this isn’t Mad Men!) Will you sound like someone their boss wants to do business with or just another cold caller to ignore? Voice Mail — Some prospects never answer their phone, so practice the art of leaving a poignant, not rambling, voice mail, and promise to follow up by email if possible. Make it as easy as possible for them. LinkedIn — If you’re active in LinkedIn groups and discussions, connecting with a prospect that way or through common connections can be fruitful; it’s always best to have an introduction whenever possible. Social Media — This can be tricky, but it isn’t unheard of. Like LinkedIn above, having someone else help broker the connection is better than reaching out cold, which is likely to be ignored (or viewed as creepy). Live Events — Pressing the flesh is still a great way to stay connected and look for prospects. There are plenty of networking opportunities, happy hours, conferences, alumni gatherings, and other events at which to meet people to find out first-hand what’s on their minds. You could try some or all of these tactics. What’s most important is that you once again walk in your prospect’s shoes (like the CFO we talked about earlier). How do they prefer to communicate? Is there a combination approach that you should try, such as an e-mail followed by a phone call (or vice versa)? The big takeaway is that you need to align your time and prospecting activities with your prospect’s behavior. This often takes trial and error to refine and optimize. I encourage you to initiate a process, test and track your results, and then revise your process based on what you’ve learned. Prospecting Skills and Personalization With prospecting, time and brevity rule. You need to communicate a crisp, clearly spoken value proposition in less than 90 seconds. Similarly, any prospecting e-mail that you write needs to be easily understood and answered with a simple "yes" or "no." Many sales reps fail to personalize the value proposition for each prospect, but it’s a critical step that can either get the conversation you seek or send you scurrying back to your prospect list. This is especially true for e-mail. We’re all so inundated with e-mail that I call it "Death by content marketing." I can see right through a bulk message - I have no interest in it whatsoever. The same can be said of cold callers who are clearly in over their heads and haven’t spent even three minutes researching me or my company. It doesn’t take much to engage them for a moment just to point out how hopelessly unprepared they are. Your value proposition must demonstrate clear and compelling value for me to meet with you. As with most things in life that are worthwhile, building these skills requires you to test, practice, and revise in order to perfect them. Prospecting is vital to the sales process. There are lazy spray-and-pray approaches that can make you look busy, but the best outcomes are most often the result of careful preparation and execution on the part of the sales rep — even ones who start the prospecting process reluctantly. The post Optimizing Your Time for Less Painful Prospecting Activities appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Consultative Negotiations: Why Not Just Split Things Down the Middle? Compromise is a much-heard term these days, particularly with what is going on in the world these days. Politics is said to be the art of the possible. We get the two sides with positions seemingly set in stone. They should compromise; they should split the difference. This forgets that effective policy is frequently not splitting the difference but is rather taking ideas from both sides and mixing them into a better whole. Compromise is creating a third position, not split things down the middle. Both sides seem unhappy at first but will eventually realize that all have benefited. Sometimes, compromise is just not possible. You have to stand pat. You have to realize that you might be facing a situation where half a loaf is not better than no loaf at all. In the business world, as in the political world, sometimes, things can be split down the middle or at least compromised. Often, this means splitting the whole package, not just the cost. Any business purchase includes price, but it also includes delivery time, payment terms, and scope of offering. These may be easier areas in which to make concessions. During the negotiations process, your counterpart’s position on various issues (demands is the best way to put it) may be asking for things greater than he or she really needs, either as a negotiating ploy or because he or she does not really know what they want. If you immediately consider seeking a quick agreement by splitting things down the middle, you may end up quite unhappy with the result, perhaps bitter enough to make it hard to work together again with this customer. This is also assuming you have not offered set positions yourself, which are negotiating ploys rather than what you are prepared to accept. This is adversarial negotiation, not the more effective consultative negotiation. For most people, this is playing the other person’s game, letting him or her choose the battlefield. So, find out what the other person really needs. Use your preliminary "due diligence" research and questions during negotiations to cut through your counterpart’s apparent position to find the core of real need. Unless you can uncover needs, you risk having your negotiation deteriorate into haggling. The key to a successful win-win negotiation is to find out what the other party really needs: that is, what is motivating his or her demand. If you negotiate demands, you will often find yourself "splitting the difference" while not splitting the real difference. Suppose you work for a bank. Suppose that you and your customer disagree on rate. If your real needs are risk reduction and spread, and your customer’s real need is managing cash flow to meet a pay schedule, you probably can reach an agreement much more easily by looking at alternatives to satisfy those needs rather than by arguing percentage points. For example, you may consider trade-off items such as liquid collateral, marketable securities, guarantees, or add-on business — all of which can help you achieve your yield and give the other party what he or she needs. Unless you identify needs, you may find that splitting the difference will be a knee-jerk reaction. You may also find that you left money on the table because you didn’t take all of the elements of the deal into consideration. Avoid becoming glued to positions and blind to opportunities. Ask ,"Why?" and think, "What if?" before and during the negotiation. In the short story "Gift of the Magi," by O. Henry, the wife cuts her hair to sell to buy her husband a watch fob, and her husband sells his watch to buy her a comb. Their failure to communicate led to unnecessary sacrifice on both sides. If this happens to you, you won’t even have the consolation of a story of real love and sacrifice. —————————————————————— To learn more about Richardson’s comprehensive and award winning negotiation training solutions, please click here. You can also download a brochure by clicking here .    The post Consultative Negotiations: Why Not Just Split Things Down the Middle? appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

"Just Say No!" Do Your Job, Not Someone Else’s You have a job to do. Most people are (or complain about being) overworked to some degree and are not looking for more to do. Yet, we often let ourselves get dragged into situations that distract from our primary responsibilities and fill up our calendars needlessly. What might seem like a harmless request ("Hey, Joe, do you have a minute?") can quickly turn out to be a horrible drain on your time, energy, and productivity. The situation is often a conundrum: If you say no, you’re being a selfish jerk who’s not a team player. But, if you say yes, then you can become an abused door mat. The trick is to avoid those situations in the first place. In sales, a prime area where you’re at great risk of getting sucked in occurs with customer service issues. There are typically customer service reps whose job it is to answer questions and concerns. But once you get involved, it can be difficult to extricate yourself without a mess. Your kind offer to help could snowball into clients sidestepping customer service reps and calling you directly as their personal go-to person. The longer that persists, the more difficult it can be to say, "That’s not my job." It’s pretty much like walking in quicksand. Sales managers in particular must be diligent to manage the team and not take on special cases. There is often an urge to be a "super rep" as opposed to a manager or coach, which doesn’t work well. Sales managers should resist the temptation to take over and should position sales reps to lead. If you attend a sales meeting with clients or prospects, be very clear about why you’re there and that your sales reps will take the lead going forward. Otherwise, once they see you, they’ll expect you to remain involved and see the project through to completion. Being one of those über helpful people who can’t say no can limit your career. Your core job can suffer if you succumb to too many distractions. Good intentions don’t count — people will notice when your job doesn’t get done. Some people thrive on chaos and having lots on the go. Like empty nesters, they don’t know what to do with themselves when the distractions are gone. How about focusing on your core job? No one will feel bad for a workplace martyr who takes on too much or likes to get involved. Are there exceptions? Yes, such as requests to help with internal development projects, which might legitimately require your expertise to contribute to something strategic for the team or organization. But in these cases, you should have the approval of your boss and know when a conflict for your time comes up and which project takes priority. Five Questions to Consider before You Say Yes to Non-core Work You need to use good judgment when deciding (or reluctantly agreeing) to venture outside your core responsibilities. Here are five questions to consider when faced with helping someone else or saying "no." 1. Are you better off coaching? Yes, it’s often easier to do something yourself rather than take the time to teach or coach someone else. But in doing so, you’re enabling them and holding them back while allowing yourself to be distracted. Such simple requests can lead to a Groundhog Day scenario that can be difficult to escape from. Look for opportunities to coach and develop others rather than doing things yourself. 2. Will your primary accountabilities suffer? Before you say yes to someone else, consider whether or not your own assignments, commitments, and goals can still get done on time and with the same attention to detail. You’ll not likely get forgiveness if you fail to achieve your targets, so be wary of nonessential tasks and requests that can hurt your performance, productivity, reputation, and rewards. 3. How will this affect your impact on the business? In addition to the previous question, there’s a larger aspect to ponder: Where is your time best spent? There may come a time when someone needs your help on something that contributes to the greater good of the team or company than you currently provide. And, the help you provide could be a stepping stone toward a promotion or broader responsibilities. If you think there’s a case to be made for saying yes, then talk about it with your manager to make it official. 4. Do you have an exit strategy? The famous quote from Al Pacino in The Godfather: Part III comes to mind: "Just when I thought that I was out, they pull me back in!" Before saying yes, be very clear about how much you are willing to do or for how long. "I’ll listen in on the call or attend the meeting so I can give you my honest assessment of the situation, but don’t expect to staff me on the project or attend future meetings." 5. Will you get credit, recognition, or a reward for this extracurricular work? Suppose you do have time, can help, and are successful in balancing your own work and that which you’ve been asked to pitch in on. A one-time favor is one thing, but when it becomes a habit, you’ll regret not being rewarded or recognized for your efforts. If it’s something you truly want to do, then work out a change with your manager wherein you take on the additional responsibilities and are paid for them. If you don’t, you’ll likely feel abused and undervalued, which hurts your attitude and performance. —————————- April Feature: Sales Training for the Insurance Industry - Click here to learn more. The post "Just Say No!" Do Your Job, Not Someone Else’s appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Communicating and Selling Value: Why a Strong Offense is the Best Defense Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have begun a Cloud Price War. How will you respond? I recently wrote about the need for a "heads up" approach to managing and leading. Fortunately for me (but unfortunately for many), recent headlines about a shakeup in the technology space provide a great example of why it’s so important to look up and look around. Game-changing Situations There are some Cinderella stories about smaller startups being bought by Facebook or Google for a bazillion dollars, making a few people instant millionaires. For example, Facebook recently acquired WhatsApp, a company with estimated 2013 revenue of only $20 million and 55 employees, for an astonishing $19 billion! Party time! The other scenario that’s far more threatening is when one of these behemoth companies decides to disrupt the market by altering the scope of their services or price. What happens to the other companies (most of them smaller) operating comfortably in the same space? That’s what’s happening in the cloud computing and storage space: Google Announces Massive Price Drops For Its Cloud Computing Services And Storage, Introduces Sustained-Use Discounts (TechCrunch.com, March 25, 2014) Microsoft Joins Amazon and Google in Cloud Price War (Recode.net, March 31, 2014) Cloud computing has blossomed in recent years and will likely continue to do so. But can the many companies that have been providing this service survive this sudden game-changing price move by the heavyweights? The tale is familiar for some. Remember West Coast Video and Blockbuster? They had cushy businesses until VHS tapes gave way to DVDs, which merely forced those companies to change their products. But Netflix changed the business model and looked like a champ for a while until they almost got caught napping with competing streaming services. (I’d say they picked their heads up just in time to notice the threat and react.) The story isn’t finished here and continues to force companies in the space to stay one step ahead of the others to avoid falling behind and becoming old and obsolete. Contracts Won’t Save You Sooner or later, cloud computing clients will begin to question why they should stay with their current provider instead of taking advantage of cheaper offerings by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. And why shouldn’t they ask? Even happy customers need to reevaluate their service providers to keep them honest and attentive. It never hurts to shop the competition’s offering to either feel better about your current situation or make a change. If your business runs on contractual agreements with your clients, you may be initially immune to big swings in your sector. But once those contracts begin to expire, you’ll be hard pressed to justify charging more (or the same if your peers are charging less). The key is to get out in front of a big story like this before your clients come knocking and expecting not only an explanation, but a discounted rate. Being proactive will give you a fighting chance, but what should you say? Articulating Your Value: A Strong Offense is the Only Defense Few businesses can rely on price as a successful long-term go-to-market strategy. Yes, there’s always an expensive option sold at a premium that’s counterbalanced by a bargain basement-priced discounted offering. But anyone who believes that you get what you pay for will likely look higher up the food chain. Before you fall victim to a cloud war discount scenario for your business, you must realize that there’s more to value than the price of your product or service. Especially if you’re smaller than your larger competitors or leading brands, you need to articulate the value you provide, not just, "we’re cheaper!" How are you communicating and selling value? What value do you provide? Here are a few suggestions: 1. Measuring value delivered to the customer. You must be prepared to quantify the value you are delivering to your customer. This requires you to develop a simple but meaningful measurement approach and adopt the discipline to measure your impact on the customer’s business. This requires you to understand what’s important to the customer, how they define and measure success, and when necessary, educating them on how to measure success. But measuring value is not enough. You need to communicate that value to the customer on a regular basis to ensure that they appreciate and buy into the value you are adding. This discipline gives you the opportunity to determine if your solution is working as expected, and if it’s not, it then gives you insight into how to correct course. 2. Capabilities and differentiators. Take a dispassionate view of your business’ capabilities and differentiators. What makes your offering different than everyone else’s, and why is this important to the customer? Examine your product lifecycle from concept through delivery to identify capabilities to highlight. Examples include ingredients, manufacturing, processes, warranty, customer service, performance, security, organic, locally sourced and manufactured, imported, talent, size, and scope (broad or narrow). The list can become quite lengthy. It is important to know what makes the most difference to why buyers will select you and how they’ll benefit from your offering. 3. What do others say about you? There is considerable insight to be gained by talking to others about what makes your company. Even if your assumptions are accurate, most people will still appreciate that you’ve asked for their opinions. Long-term customers, satisfied customers. It’s amazing how few companies take time to talk to their clients. Find out what they like about your product or service. What keeps them coming back? What do they see as the key benefits? Your assumptions could be wrong, which makes it worth asking. New clients from recent wins. When you’ve closed a deal for which you had to compete, it can be quite enlightening to know the reason you were chosen. It might be obvious, but there may be some surprises for you to further explore and leverage. Interview employees who used to work for your competitors. These people have a unique perspective that could help you to differentiate you from your peers. Without breaching any confidentiality or non-compete agreements, there is likely much to learn about the value you provide. Glowing reviews and case studies. If someone is willing to provide good feedback about their experience working with you, don’t keep it a secret!  Use it. 4. Claims. What can you say about your capabilities that will help you stand apart and tell your story, and why are these important to the customer? "We were first." "We took their idea a step further and improved upon it." "This has been our core business for decades." "We have a more efficient process and can therefore deliver the same (or better) product sooner/cheaper with a faster up time." It should go without saying, but be sure that you can substantiate any claims you make. Nothing is worse than undercutting your own credibility by making false claims. These statements should help you tell your story — one that is factual, not fiction. 5. Educate your salesforce. The final step is to ensure that your sales reps know the story to tell and can represent your business in a manner that highlights the true value you provide. Hone the messages and sharpen the delivery, but also, train your sales reps to listen for feedback that could impact perceived values (either positively or negatively). —————————- April Feature: Sales Training for the Insurance Industry - Click here to learn more. The post Communicating and Selling Value: Why a Strong Offense is the Best Defense appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Richardson Partners with SAVO to Maximize Sales Training Investments Richardson is very excited to formally announce a partnership with SAVO, the market leader in sales enablement. Together, the two companies have developed SAVO Sales Process Pro Richardson Edition™, an application that allows sales and marketing leaders to reinforce training and execute best practices through coaching at each stage of the sales cycle. Integrating seamlessly with CRM solutions, the application helps to improve productivity and sales forecasts and ensure overall deal quality. Sales Process Pro Richardson Edition gives companies an edge by systematically reinforcing Richardson’s methodology and training solutions. By automating and aggregating sales pursuit activities, such as opportunity planning and account mapping, the application enables sellers and holds them accountable for verifiable outcomes at each stage of an opportunity. Through integration with CRM and robust analytics, Sales Process Pro Richardson Edition also provides sales leaders with better forecast accuracy and real-time visibility into seller behavior and deal quality. Specifically, the solution will: Guide best practice adherence and consistent sales execution — Coach sales reps and prescribe activities by deal stage to reinforce best practice sales methodologies and processes. Improve seller productivity and efficiency — Automate and aggregate sales pursuit activities, such as opportunity planning, account mapping, social intelligence and collaboration, on any device. Drive forecast accuracy and deal quality — Hold sellers accountable for satisfying verifiable outcomes at each deal stage tracked in the application and CRM system to give sales leaders visibility into deal progress and overall quality. "We are extremely excited about working with a leading sales enablement company like SAVO to optimize and sustain Richardson’s sales training solutions," said Dario Priolo, Chief Strategy Officer for Richardson. "Today, companies are spending millions on sales methodologies, processes and skills training yet the average sales rep forgets 87 percent of what they learned in training just three months ago without continuous reinforcement. Sales Process Pro Richardson Edition is designed to help our clients drive consistency in sales execution through reinforcement with technology and coaching — at the right time and in the right context for sales reps." "The combination of SAVO’s market-leading sales enablement solutions and Richardson’s award-winning sales process, methodology, and skills training offerings is a game changer," said Daniel West, Executive Vice President of Strategy & Corporate Development for SAVO.  "Transforming and sustaining change in sales behavior to improve business results requires regular reinforcement of best practices and processes. With this partnership, we can deliver both to the market in a single solution." To learn more about Sales Process Pro Richardson Edition, please contact Jim Brodo at jim.brodo@richardson.com, or visit us by clicking here . About Richardson Richardson is a global sales training and sales force effectiveness company that helps leading organizations drive sales results. We do this in three ways: we analyze the structure and talent of your sales force, we train and develop your sales team, and we continue that development through coaching and reinforcement. We equip your sales leaders and sales force with the skills and strategies they need to win in today’s complex selling environment. What is unique about Richardson is how we create truly customized solutions that change behavior and provide measurable results. The post Richardson Partners with SAVO to Maximize Sales Training Investments appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

How to Spot an Adversarial Negotiator Asymmetric warfare is what military and defense experts call it when an adversary seeks to attack where you are weakest. An enemy weaker than you will often use this method as part of the idea of choosing the battlefield. In military affairs, this is a smart idea. The military’s goal is to defeat resistance. The win-win, the mutual accommodations, of effective negotiations only then can come. Effective negotiations are win-win, where everybody gains and, equally importantly, appears to gain. But an effective negotiator will learn from the idea of choosing the battlefield and do his or her best to bring the negotiations back to win-win. Even if you can defeat an adversarial negotiator at their own game, this is not effective in the long run. These people don’t take defeat well; they do not respect an opponent. They will be out for revenge, out to "get you back" — which will not be to your benefit. So how do you deal with an adversarial negotiator? You start with another lesson from the military — know your enemy. You will have done your due diligence before you set foot in the negotiation room. But you do this for all buying influences. You have an ultimate goal in mind for the negotiations. You have a strategy mapped out coupled with a flexible state of mind to change when necessary. You have a general idea of conditions under which you will walk out and end discussions — for good or until later. But your research has convinced you that this is not likely. No "red flags" appear to make you think that the potential client might be a problem that you cannot handle. Unfortunately, the problem is that the only real way to spot an adversarial negotiator is dealing with them in negotiations. Again, the way to deal with them is not to try to beat them at their own game but to turn the tide to play your own game. You start with recognizing that you are dealing with an adversarial negotiator. He or she will not have a name tag listing their title as "adversarial negotiator." You can spot them, and you can deal with them, by recognizing certain behavioral characteristics. An adversarial negotiator deals through manipulation. They use a range of pressure tactics to defeat you and get what they want. Their tactics are easy to spot if you know what to look for or if you just sense that your counterpart, on the other side of the table, has crossed the line from hard bargaining to underhanded and more overt pressure tactics. Whether the pressure tactic is silence, which is designed to get you to drop your price without them uttering one word — just to fill an uncomfortable gap — or making a ridiculous offer to get you to lower your expectations and your objectives, the aim is to coerce you into caving in. Once you recognize adversarial pressure tactics as such, the tactics lose their power. There is nothing wrong with tactics in themselves. They are ways of carrying out strategy and reaching goals. Consultative negotiators also use tactics, but they use them as a part of a give and take trading process. You can distinguish adversarial from consultative negotiators by observing adversarial patterns and behaviors, including a disproportionate or total lack of give and take. An adversarial negotiator uses pressure tactics because they work. However, they only work if you let them. When you find yourself negotiating with someone you think is likely to be an adversarial, you should look for typical adversarial signals, such as the extreme demand, no authority, no concessions, and threats. You should already be prepared — knowing your objective and having a good idea of how you want to get to your objective. Be prepared to use silence as a tool for you, responding only when you are reading to response. Ask hard questions when this is appropriate. Let your adversarial counterpart save face by winning a few minor points, but unless the point is really minor, get something back. Do not take things personally. Stay calm, and show confidence. Be prepared to end the meeting, if necessary. Remember, though, that there is one time when you usually should end the meeting, perhaps for good. Be very reluctant to tolerate deceit. An optimistic view is that most negotiation misunderstandings are just communication errors. The old saying is, don’t attribute to malevolence what can be explained by stupidity. But sometimes, questionable actions may be an intent to deceive. Now is the time to weed out clients or prospects that might cross the line from hard negotiations to unethical, or even illegal, tactics. If you catch this during negotiations, this is the time to stop and consult with your sales manager or legal counsel. It may be time to just end discussions. ————————————————————————————————— Richardson and SAVO have partnered together to bring you  SAVO Sales Process Pro Richardson Edition™, an CRM-enabled application that allows sales and marketing leaders to reinforce training and execute best practices through coaching at each stage of the sales cycle. To learn more, click on the link above or the image below. The post How to Spot an Adversarial Negotiator appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Six Critical Skills for Successful Sales Conversations Fundamental communication and persuasion skills that flex as needed during a sales conversation There are numerous factors and variables that go into a sale or selling situation. Many of those are beyond the sales rep’s control or influence, but the one aspect that is absolutely in the rep’s control and can make or break the sale is the conversation. Richardson has identified Six Critical Skills to be used in dialogue with buyers needed for sales excellence. They are critical because you cannot be highly effective in sales without mastering all of them. These skills provide the flexibility to be client-focused. If you are weak in any one of the areas, it will reduce your overall effectiveness. Your objective in using these skills is to maintain a 50/50 client-to-salesperson dialogue. 1) Presence. Projecting interest, conviction, energy, professional appearance, and confidence. What image do you portray as you stand before your potential clients? Too boyish (and therefore unseasoned) to understand the complexities of business? Too old (and therefore too seasoned) to connect with the way things work today? Do you come off as smug and overconfident or too humble and possibly desperate? To be effective, you need the right combination of each of these traits that will cause your prospect to want to work with you. 2) Relating. Connecting with the client includes three levels of relating: rapport, acknowledgment, and empathy. One you’ve established the right presence with your audience, you then need to show that you can relate to your client and their needs and interests. Rapport: You don’t need to become best friends, but you also have little chance of a successful relationship if you rub each other the wrong way. Building rapport takes feeding off of their verbal and nonverbal cues to know how best to communicate with your prospects on an interpersonal level. Finding things in common to bond over helps, but it isn’t absolutely critical as long as comfort and trust are enabled. Acknowledgment: It’s not about you — it’s about your client and their needs or wants. It’s also about their personal stake in a successful outcome of what you’re selling them to make their company better. Share with them your sincere understanding of why you’re there and of the client’s situation. You could also share what you hope to achieve, but this is in very broad terms at this point — don’t launch off into a presentation, but rather, set expectations for the discussion. Empathy: Further to acknowledgment, you need to demonstrate that you not only understand the issue but that you realize the impact it has on their business and the importance of rectifying it. A key factor in conveying empathy is to effectively restrain and hide any critical opinions or judgments beyond stating the obvious. 3) Questioning. Probing to understand the prospect’s needs or wants. This can be tricky and might take longer than you’d like, so be patient. You know where you want to lead your prospect, but how you get there can vary depending upon the prospect’s degree of understanding and acceptance of the issue and solution. The best outcome is for the buyer to feel as though they had an equal part in leading the way or that it was their idea all along. Imagine getting directions to a destination. As the seller of the solution, you can see the clearest, shortest path from point A to point B. However, if you rush to get there without the consent or understanding of the buyer, you could lose them (literally). Realize that in questioning, you might be better off taking a more circuitous route that satisfies their concerns and expectations before arriving at the destination. Of course, you also need to collect any relevant information that explains how they got where they are and where they want to go, key stakeholders, timing, etc. 4) Listening. Listening in an effective way vs. efficient listening is one of the most critical skills to master in sales. You have your own agenda for the conversation, but don’t forget that so does your prospect. You can’t half listen if you’re going to really engage your audience and respond to what they’re saying or asking instead of simply preparing to barrel forward with what you want to say. This brings to mind one of my favorite movie quotes: "… You can listen to Jimi [Hendrix], but you can’t hear him. There’s a difference man. Just because you’re listening to him doesn’t mean you’re hearing him." — from the movie White Men Can’t Jump (1992). If you’re not actively listening, then several things could happen (none of which are good). You could miss an important piece of information that, while you can inquire about later, makes you look distracted and inattentive for not hearing it the first time around. You could miss an opportunity to cross- or upsell your prospect. Or, you could be seen as what you are: someone with their own agenda regardless of what is of interest to the client. 5) Positioning. Being persuasive vs. only exchanging information. While it’s important to maintain focus on what the buyer wants and says during the conversation, don’t lose sight of why you’re there, too. You want to be actively engaged, but don’t be too passive either. The buyer may already be sold on you and your services, which should make your job easier. But when you’re up against competitors, are facing an uncertain buyer, or if the buyer has objections, you’ll need to be able to respond accordingly and persuasively. There is an art to doing this effectively without coming off as arrogant or defensive. 6) Checking. Remember that this is a conversation, not a presentation. As such, you must get into the habit of asking for feedback on what you have said. This is important because it lets you know how the client is reacting and lets you adjust your presentation. It also keeps the client involved. Checking is a key aspect of Questioning, which was covered above. You want to confirm that everyone’s tracking on the same page before you find yourselves in drastically different places. Of course, you don’t want to stop after every sentence, which gets tedious and annoying very quickly. Rather, think in terms of bits and chunks of information to discuss and validate before moving on to the next point. These Six Critical Skills will allow you to create a dialogue; understand client needs, priorities, and perspective; and close profitable business. To reiterate what was said at the beginning of this post, being weak in any of the skills will reduce your overall effectiveness. Your objective in using these skills is to maintain a 50/50 client-to-salesperson dialogue. You can also use the Six Critical Skills as shorthand to prepare for and critique your calls and give yourself and your teammates feedback. ————————————— Richardson and SAVO have partnered together to bring you  SAVO Sales Process Pro Richardson Edition™, an CRM-enabled application that allows sales and marketing leaders to reinforce training and execute best practices through coaching at each stage of the sales cycle. To learn more, click on the link above or the image below.   The post Six Critical Skills for Successful Sales Conversations appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

For Experts that Sell, A Surprising Key to an Effective Sales Meeting Experts, circa 2014, sell.  Are you a portfolio manager, consultant, lawyer, investment banker, engineer, architect, or estate planner?  As an expert, you are highly educated and credentialed and have deep industry and subject matter knowledge.  Though not in a typical sales role, you may be asked at times to participate on a sales call or pitch.  The request may be driven by clients who increasingly want to meet and gain comfort with the person who will be creating their portfolio, solution, deal structure, strategy, or design.  Or, the request may be driven by your firm, which has decided that your participation is essential to win the work.  Regardless of how you feel about selling, the comments below are designed to help you contribute to a winning sales effort when asked. Among the highly accomplished experts I coach, one common misconception is that the purpose of a sales meeting is to prove your expertise.  There is no question buyers want to confirm what they learned about you from referral partners and their own research.  As an authority, it is easy to fall into the trap of doing most of the talking, focusing on yourself rather than the client, missing the opportunity to gain feedback, and — despite your intent or the reality — coming across as arrogant. So, how do you avoid this?  To transform the discussion into an effective sales meeting, I have found that making one small adjustment in your mindset can lead to a significant impact on the meeting’s outcome.  That adjustment is humility. That does not mean that clients expect you to be humble about your accomplishments or to dumb things down.  Humility, in the context of an effective sales meeting, is about recognizing not just what you know as a subject matter expert but also what you might not know about the client.  There is growing appreciation for humility as a leadership quality.  Look no further than Pope Francis — someone we could confidently call an expert —- and how quickly he has gained influence not just within the Catholic Church but as a world leader. Consider how humility might change the way you prepare for and conduct an effective sales meeting: So, for that next sales meeting, consider sidestepping the common mistake experts make when selling, focusing only on your qualifications, your approach, and your ideas.  If you want to stand apart from the other experts waiting in the hallway, surprise the client with some humility to create an effective sales meeting.  How will you incorporate humility into your preparation and comments in order to walk away with the win? ————————————— Introducing Sales Process Pro Richardson and SAVO have partnered together to bring you  SAVO Sales Process Pro Richardson Edition™, an CRM-enabled application that allows sales and marketing leaders to reinforce training and execute best practices through coaching at each stage of the sales cycle. To learn more, click on the link above or the image below.   The post For Experts that Sell, A Surprising Key to an Effective Sales Meeting appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

The Why and How of Preparation for Sales Negotiations There are probably situations where an initial sales contact seems to occur without preparation; a "meeting engagement," as the military says. But even here, such as with a causal conversation waiting for an elevator, sales people may already have some idea of the needs of the firm whose representative they meet. They certainly should have some idea of what their company offers.  What happens here is simple - you get the person’s business card, ask what they might be seeking, offer some insight, promise to get back to them soon, make note of the conversation, and get back to them . . . soon.This is taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity, showing the flexibility one needs in business. Other people may seem like natural negotiators, able to make deals, with no advance preparation. But you will be surprised at how much advanced preparation this requires. According to McKinsey, a 1% increase price discount leads to a 9% decrease in operating margin. That’s a big hit to the bottom line! For the rest of us humans the best way to avoid a bad deal is to prepare before you formally seek the deal.  Use the lower pressure lead time before negotiations to create a foundation on which you can build with power and influence, time, information, and skill to reach the best deal possible. Ideally, you and a cooperative potential client can set the stage for negotiations that are just pro forma, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s for a deal already set.  In the real world preparation for sales negotiations is the time to: Build a foundation of trust that can sustain progress during the heat of negotiations. Define the issues and potential barriers to reaching a deal. Identify and understand what the customer needs and what you need. Determine what is at stake in the negotiations. Gather facts and data to control the negotiation, reduce pressure, and open what otherwise would have been a "closed book" of valuable information during the negotiation. Go on the web to research the client. Establish a pattern of trading and fair dealing on the part of both negotiating partners. Marshall support within the potential client company; develop relationships with influencers and decision makers in the company. Marshal support within your own company.  If possible, get stakeholders within your company to sign off on your negotiating range and details. Determine the customer’s real degree of interest in doing the deal. Strive for equilibrium in strategy and tactics (not being too easy or too hard). Establish the relationship and two-way communication patterns between you and the client that will be carried into the negotiation phase. Set realistic expectations. Develop your negotiation objectives Develop your proposal - the written proposal and the verbal summary to present during formal negotiations. Prepare information and materials needed to open negotiations. Determine opening cost and scheduling figures. Build flexibility into your proposal (if the negotiation cannot bend, it will break!). Develop alternatives (think "what if… "); consider options you might bring into the negotiation. Analyze your customer’s strengths and weaknesses.  Find out their buying process and who is involved. During lead time it is often advantageous to meet with customers and influencers (both inside and outside the company) such as lawyers, accountants, and so on, so that you are sure all interests are being considered. A good customer will appreciate this as a way for you to better meet their needs. One final word- Remember always that while you are checking the potential customer and preparing for negotiations, the customer is checking you and preparing to meet and negotiate with you. For a related blog column on sales calls and specifics on how to research companies, please  see: Sales Call Preparation: The Ultimate Checklist to Cover your Bases ————————————— Richardson and SAVO have partnered together to bring you  SAVO Sales Process Pro Richardson Edition™, an CRM-enabled application that allows sales and marketing leaders to reinforce training and execute best practices through coaching at each stage of the sales cycle. To learn more, click on the link above or the image below.   The post The Why and How of Preparation for Sales Negotiations appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.