Willy: I don't know why - I can't stop myself - I talk too much. A man oughta come in with a few words. Charlie's a man of few words, and they respect him. Linda: You don't talk too much, you're just lively. Arthur Miller - Death of a Salesman We all have sympathy for poor Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. He knew he talked too much, but he couldn't figure out why. And he couldn't stop talking too much even though he wanted to be like Charlie, a man of few words, who was respected by all. Let’s face it. Salespeople talk too much. And when sales people talk too much, they generate too few customers. So why do those of us trying to grow our pipelines constantly find ourselves in this position? Perhaps because, we do not understand why we talk too much. Let's start there. Why Do You Talk Too Much? I need to pitch my product or service: Of course you do. How else will the prospect know if you and your products are any good? However, prospects at first want to know whether you are a good fit for working with them as much as evaluating your level of technical competence. Remember, "no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care."      

We haven’t said much about the launch of our new book on this blog, and it’s certainly not for a lack of excitement about it. In fact, we’ve been incredibly busy since the beginning of this year preparing for the launch of the book, which will be next Tuesday, April 19, and in the midst of all the activity, we haven’t even mentioned it yet here on the blog. The book just hit bookstores! Thus you can buy a copy now. But if you wait until next week, you will have the opportunity to access a ton of special bonus gifts we’re putting together for you from ourselves along with authors and experts including Jill Konrath, Jeffrey Gitomer, Dave Kahle, Art Sobczak, Tim Wackel, and many, many more.      

Our new book is finally here: Rainmaking Conversations: Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation. After close to a decade of research, training tens of thousands of people, and a year in the writing process, we’re thrilled with how it came out. If you want a guide to leading masterful sales conversations this is it. We cover everything from generating initial discussions to uncovering needs to overcoming objections to winning the sale. We wanted to bring sales conversation to life, so each chapter is peppered liberally with examples, stories, and tips.      

Look in the mirror, and ask yourself these 6 questions. Imagine for a minute you’re a master carpenter. You’ve been building houses your whole life, trying your best to hone your craft and deliver the highest quality work every day that you possibly could. Then one day, you’re presented with the opportunity to teach your craft - a craft you’ve been honing for 30 years - to someone else. Let’s say for argument’s sake that this person has positively average talent! They have no better raw abilities than anyone else you might run into that barely knows the difference between a router and a miter saw. But they’ve told themselves that they’re going to be the best carpenter that’s ever walked the face of the planet. They’re going to prove to themself, and in the process everybody else, that they will become a master craftsman, a craftsman with the skills that rival the best carpenters in the land. Now imagine for a minute that they really mean it...      

Earlier this week we announced the launch of our new book, Rainmaking Conversations and we’ve been absolutely thrilled with the response so far. The book has reached the #1 bestseller spot on Amazon in a number of categories...      

Are you giving yourself a chance of a bullseye? "Like a poor marksman you keep…missing…the target. Kaaahhhnnn!!!" - Admiral James T. Kirk There was this one sales person I know that worked very hard, but he always seemed to be middle of the pack when it came to results. He had good skills. He was a good guy. But the results just weren’t there. One day I got a chance to watch him in action. Early in the day I asked him what his plan was for the day, and he said, "Sell, of course." There wasn’t much rhyme or reason to it as he plowed forward. At the end of the day, I asked him if he met his goals for the day, and if he felt like he was on the right track to hit his sales and personal income target. He didn’t have much to say on either point...      

Confused why your value prop doesn't work? You shouldn't be. "We build brands…" Back in the late 90s when I was a running a marketing firm, this was the beginning of our value proposition. We thought it was brilliant… until we started using it. This was how we were going to engage prospects. The only problem:  nobody found it all that engaging. You can’t sell what you can’t describe, and in prospecting situations, where you may have just seconds to make an impression, if you’re not engaging and easily understood, you’re toast. I now know we were expecting too much from one simple statement...      

I write to you today, seller, because I want you to succeed. Dear Seller, Sorry it didn’t work out this time, but I have to say "no." I tried to buy from you, but too many things got in the way. You made too many sales mistakes that ended up losing you the sale. This has happened to me more times than I’d like to admit in the last few months. If you’re trying to sell to me, and you’re willing to change a few things in your sales process, we have a good shot at making it happen next time.  Reading this letter is a great start. If you want the next time to turn out differently, here are a few things you can do to tip the scales in your favor:      

I really wanted a new basketball for my 6th birthday - so big sis went to the sidewalk to talk influence strategy... When I was 6 I wanted a basketball for my birthday. I didn’t ask my dad for it myself. I sent in the big gun: my sister Allyson. I gave her the 411 on what I wanted and why, and we proceeded with a white board session where we mapped out all of the possible ways to get the decision makers to rule in our favor. (OK, as talented an 8 year old as Allyson was, maybe no white board. But we did talk about it, and she was a mean sidewalk chalk girl.) Shortly thereafter, we green lighted operation Cedric Maxwell. A few hours later, the qualified decision maker (a.k.a. Dad) came to see me. As he tells me the story, he asked me why I sent my sister in to lobby for me. My answer, "She’s the better convincer."      

How would you like to get sales advice from some of the top sales experts in the world for $5.00? You can by attending the online presentation of your choice during the 2011 Sales & Marketing Success Conference beginning Monday, May 9th through Friday, May 13th. Organized by Jonathan Farrington, over 35 sales experts are each giving 30-minute presentations on critical sales topics. What’s even better than the price is that, all the proceeds go to the recovery efforts of the recent Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident in Japan by way of the Red Cross Japan Disaster Funds. Help yourself while you’re helping others! Check out the full schedule now.      

Our friend John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing is doing a fun giveaway each day this week to celebrate Small Business Week. We at RAIN Group are happy to be a part of that today. Our very own Mike Schultz is featured today on the Duct Tape Marketing Blog, and you could win an iPad 2 by just giving his post a read. Thing is, you may not know which post is his. Let me explain.      

Why - a powerful word in uncovering need. "It’s not that they can’t see the solution, it’s that they can’t see the problem." - G.K. Chesterton One day the production line stopped suddenly, and the whole plant shut down. It was horrible! The company lost tens of thousands of dollars an hour by not turning out widgets as the staff stood idly by and waited. The problem was in the ViperAssembly machine. No matter what they tried, they just couldn’t fix it for good. They replaced the McGurnkney nut and it worked for about a day. Then it stopped again. Then they tried realigning the Johnson rod, and that fix only lasted 3 hours.      

Even when people know their value, many find it difficult to describe it. Let’s say someone asks you the simple question, "What do you do?" How do you answer? Of course, you need to get your value across, but as we note here, when communicating your value proposition, you don’t want to deliver the same canned speech for everyone. What you need to do is first craft, then learn to deliver specific nuggets of information you can use to get your value across. Put all these nuggets together, and you have what we call a value proposition positioning statement.       

It's important to build rapport from the initial handshake. Take a look at these 7 tips for building genuine rapport with new prospects. Consider this: a CBS News / New York Times poll asked, "What percent of people in general are trustworthy?" The answer: 30%. Pretty skeptical we all are, right? Not necessarily. At the same time, the CBS News / New York Times poll asked a similar group the same question, but with a slight difference. "What percent of people that you know are trustworthy?" The answer: 70%. That’s a huge difference. Goes to show you: when people get to know you and people get to like you, people begin to trust you. Of course, there’s a lot more to building trust than making a good initial connection with someone, but it’s sure a good start. And making a connection with someone makes them more comfortable sharing with you their aspirations and their afflictions, two things you need to know if you want to succeed in sales. When you build rapport in sales, keep in mind you want to make a sincere connection. All too often chit-chat before a sales call seems contrived…because it is. Assuming you want to build solid and real relationships with people, consider the following...      

A. Green eggs and ham.   John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing asked me and several other sales industry veterans the following question: "I hate selling, so now how do I convert leads?" His readers could then guess which sales author answered the question which way. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I thought I’d share how I answered the question.      

There's money to be made in social media if you sell the right way. There’s this age-old problem with selling: If we could only get more people to pay attention to us, we could build relationships that lead to sales. Fortunately, social media offers an amazing source of business opportunities. If you approach it the right way, you can build many relationships that could be crucial to your business growth and success. This article is about successfully selling (not marketing) with social media. And by selling, I mean the "two people getting to know each other and starting up a conversation that might go somewhere" kind of selling. Here are 8 ways to strike up social media conversations with people you want to meet...      

Is there a silver bullet key to sales success? Wouldn’t it be great if there were a silver bullet that would make you more successful in your sales efforts? One thing you could do to really boost your sales success? I hate to disappoint, but the reality is, there is no silver bullet. Sales success takes hard work and commitment along with skill and savvy. While there is no one thing that will work for you, there are a number of things you can do to help boost your overall success. You can start by following these 10 sales tips...      

Master the 4 types of sales objections, and you'll be on the road to much greater sales success. An objection is not a rejection; it is simply a request for more information. - Bo Bennett Are you the type of person who quickly deals with sales objections, providing answers immediately, trying to overcome them as quickly as possible and move towards the close? If so, you are probably not: Taking the time to fully understand the objection and what’s behind it by asking clarifying questions Dealing with the issue thoroughly enough and to the level of satisfaction the prospect desires Presenting a compelling enough argument to overcome the objection and ultimately win the business Imagine you have a $450,000 deal on the line. You are at the altar. Six months have gone into this deal and uncountable hours. You can see the finish line… you just have to overcome the last few objections. All too many sales fall apart late in the game because sellers are so anxious to rush through this crucial phase in the sales process. I have consistently seen objections mishandled because sellers simply do not understand the basis for the actual objection.      

Only focusing on a prospect's pain? You're missing half the story. Most sales advice suggests that to sell products and services as solutions to needs you must uncover your prospect’s pain. The reasons are simple: If the prospect communicates his business afflictions to you, then it is likely that he will want them to go away if it’s possible, and if it makes sense to invest the time, money, and brainpower to get rid of them. Each affliction you uncover gives you the chance to explore it fully to discover its true business impact.   Uncovering and discussing one affliction can lead to other afflictions, which the prospect may not have been thinking about in the first place. Uncovering your prospect’s afflictions is a crucial step in the business development process. But focusing only on afflictions can do you a disservice because problems and pain are only half the story.      

Use these 3 techniques, and you'll warm up cold prospects and fill your pipeline. Cold prospecting - reaching out to targets you don’t know to generate an initial meeting - is one of the hardest parts of sales. Partly, it’s a numbers game. With decision makers more insulated than ever, it’s getting harder and harder to get past gatekeepers and beyond voicemail.   But what happens when you do get a cold prospect to pay attention - whether it’s because they picked up the phone, or responded to an email or a direct mail piece? Do you feel like you nail it every time? Much prospecting success is determined in this first interaction. Many opportunities die here before you have a chance to engage. What can you do to get cold prospects to shift from "go away" to "sounds good, let’s talk?"      

Some executives think one quick training will produce big results. Imagine that. I love the movie Groundhog Day. If you haven’t seen it, please do. If you have, then you will remember that Bill Murray, the lead, masters the piano, develops incredible medical diagnostic skills, becomes fluent in French, and learns to change tires in minutes. All the while covering the breaking news of the emergence of Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog signaling a longer winter - hence the movie title). And Murray does all this in one day. I want to do that. The fact that he has to live the same day over and over and over again until he gets his life right is…well, just a minor detail. Sometimes when I speak with CEOs and VPs of Sales, I think they must be living in Punxsutawney, PA with Bill Murray. Sales are down, the sales team isn’t making quota, and management is not sure who is capable of improving. But they truly believe they can fix whatever ails and build their team’s sales skills with a two-day sales skill training session…or a one day refresher course…or even better, a one-hour rousing, inspirational speech (just after the golf and before the cocktails).      

What beneath-the-surface weaknesses could be holding your salespeople back? There are thousands of ways to kill a sale. Some are obvious like not showing up to a meeting prepared, not following up, not listening, not establishing trust, going to proposal too early, not speaking to decision makers... the list goes on. These are all pretty easy to see and with some work and practice can be overcome. Then there are the killers that hide beneath the surface that many sellers and sales managers do not even know exist. They are the sales weaknesses that are a part of an individual salesperson’s makeup that act like weights pulling them down. Sales researcher, Dave Kurlan, best-selling author and sales development expert, has conducted extensive research into what holds salespeople back and has classified these as the five major hidden weaknesses. These hidden weaknesses often get in the way of your salespeople, killing the sale without you or they even knowing what hit them. The first step to overcome these sales weaknesses is to know what they are and then to determine who on your sales team has them so you can fix them.      

Is your sales team fluent in their knowledge of your products and services? This summer, I finally decided I was ready to go from the junior varsity batting cages (65 mph) to the high school varsity cages (80 mph). Boy was that a mistake. I did foul one off, but the experience was mostly entertainment for my sons and their college friends. Later that day, I checked to see just how fast my reaction time had to be to square up on an 80 mph pitch. My findings: less than ½ second. I had no chance. I can’t imagine facing Justin Verlander and his 100 mph pitches. Fast forward (no pun intended) to yesterday. I was in Chicago speaking to a client about his sales team. In his view, they have the skills to sell, the desire to sell, and the motivation to sell. But something is missing. He knows they can be doing so much more. As we dug deeper, it became clear that they can’t catch up to the fastball. First of all, the products and services they sell are complex and require a great deal of sales knowledge to understand. My client does provide extensive "product" training and when quizzed some of his salespeople will get most of it right…and most will get some of it right. Good, but not good enough. Buyers are picky, looking for guidance, and want to buy from experts. Knowing some of it only sometimes…strike one!      

If you’ve downloaded our Why Sales Training Fails report within the last few weeks, you’ve been getting my tips on how to make your sales training initiatives better. This is a great start for you, but it is just a start. My partner Mike Schultz and I have been getting so much great feedback on the report, and more questions than we can address by email and by phone. So, we’ve gathered up a lot of the questions and put together a webinar all about how to run successful sales training initiatives that really lead to long-term results. And we’re offering this webinar free...