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“You’ve Got to Learn to Hold Your Mouth Right”

Years ago I enjoyed many days and afternoons fishing with my Grandfather.  He was a Scotch Irishman, who, up into his 70’s was a master carpenter, real estate salesman, business owner, ... well you get the picture - an entrepreneur.  And, he loved to fish - especially with me. 

I remember a particular day that we loved to spend ... starting early in the morning and fishing long stretches of bank while walking from Cherokee Dam to the State Park.  We would finish up there each carrying a croker sack full of bluegill and bass; and, many times, only eating a peanut butter sandwich along the way. 

I remember watching his hands and trying to do everything exactly like him.  If he reeled once, I reeled once.  If he twitched his rod tip, I twitched my rod tip.  I loved him and respected him and he taught me a lot about fishing and life.

Once after fishing the route between the dam and the park, we neared our usual finishing point.  I noticed people fishing from the bank with nice large radio boxes blaring, food, and a lot of loud talking.  I also noticed that they had not caught any fish.  So, I turned to my grandfather, and at age 10 asked, “How come they don’t have any fish?” Whereupon he said, with a serious twinkle in his eye,

“They don’t know how to hold their mouth right.”

Sadly, there are a lot of salespeople just like them.  They’re not really serious about their goals.  They’re not trying to learn.  They’re not trying to get better.  They work with a lot of noise around them and a lot of talking.  They end of being takers and not givers.

But, you’re different.  Goals are serious. Why?  You’ve got to keep bread on the table.  You’ve got to pay bills.  You need a new car or you need to fix your house or you need to provide for your family.

You really know “how to hold your mouth right.” You know that you can be better.  You give your best and you strive to improve.  People respect you.  And, now people count on you.  You’re alive.  You walk with a purpose.  You’re the best salesperson you can be for the benefit of other people. Lance. (By the way, this is a picture of Ryan, my youngest of three sons - and the beat goes on.  L)

A Leap in Sales Performance

Do you want to make a quantum leap in sales performance?  Of course you do.  However, many people use words like ‘quantum leap’ as a cliché - as an empty promise.  And, there are lots of clichés.  Let’s go to the next level!  ... to the next generation! 

How do you increase performance beyond the past?  Are you ready?  Do you want the answer? 

It’s simple.  Increase face-to-face sales time.  Yes! - that’s it.  Just increase face-to-face sales time - the amount of time spent face-to-face “with the right prospects” each week.

In one Fortune 500 corporation’s study, salespeople spent 8% of their time each week in front of prospective new customers, or 3 to 4 hours.

What a staggering discovery!  The rest of the week this sales force worked to complete administrative tasks, customer service tasks, and lead generation tasks.  They handled customer problems, returned calls from previous buyers, finished and distributed paperwork (paper or Internet), and networked to uncover new leads.  And, Murphy’s Law applied - “Work expanded to fill the time available,” and sales performance decreased.

Count them.  How many hours a week do you spend face-to-face with prospective customers?  2, 6, 10, 20??? In high activity selling, as the number increases from 10 to 20 hours+ per week, the quantum leap takes place and sales performance radically improves.

What would have to change for you to spend more time in front of the right prospective customers?  Answer the question and then go and make things better.  Lance.

Standards build Traditions - Traditions build Legacies

Legacies are the impact of traditions on today’s world ... left behind by people who struggled to meet standards for the benefit of others.

Sometimes people lower their standards without a fight ... and, they build new traditions that leave a poor legacy for those who follow.

Leaders often set the standards for future traditons before the future fight makes them a reality.  They decide NOW what they will stand for in the days to come. 

So, let’s stand for those things that help our country, company, associates, customers, and families - great things, excellent things.  Let’s teach our children to build a wonderful legacy for future generations.  Lance.

(Note:  What are YOUR sales team standards.  What are YOUR minimum standards, average standards, GREATness standards?)

What are YOUR STANDARDS?

Great coaches and teams of people put their very best into what they do.  Standards, performance norms or accepted levels of behaviors emerge out of their fight for greatness. The emerging standards, produced from great thought and toil, define the limits of minimal and great performance.  For sales teams, these standards include:

Where to Set Standards - Minimum, Average, Great
• Appointments and quotes by person and period
• Closed sales per every ten (10) quotes
• Sales results by a sales person, team, or area
• Income levels per salesperson

Do not confuse standards with goals.  Standards are accepted and measurable levels of belief about what’s right.  For example, think about your favorite college football team - one that has a great tradition.  At a certain number of wins each season, the fans feel either terrible, OK, or great.  And, somewhere between terrible and great, they fire a coach.  That’s because they believe their team ought to win ‘x’ amount of games every season, win the conference once every so many years, and occasionally compete for a national championship.  It’s just apart of the standards in their tradition.

So, what are the minimum expected standards for your sales team?  For a salesperson?  What’s average?  What’s GREAT?  What will you tell new salespeople?  What do you stand for?  What will you not stand for?  When will you feel terrible, OK, or great? 

Knowing these things is vitally important.  Otherwise, what’s the point?  Go and make things better.  Lance

I’m Looking for Consistency - A Pattern

I’m a field rep and I love the idea of independence and an income opportunity without a ceiling.  I do see the possibilities, but I also feel a challenge to its accomplishment. 

What challenge? 

It’s not really time management.  No.  I think it’s self-management.

In the beginning, I’m completing new employee paperwork, learning product information, making a prospect list, and beginning to set and hold appointments.  Things start well.  I’m even making a few sales with and without the help of my sales manager. 

Then, I find that I’m missing something.  I’m still in survival.  Each month I feel the pressure to produce, and I want to produce, but something’s missing.  I’m looking for a pattern - a model - a successful process, that when I repeat the steps (1, 2, 3, etc.), I am fully confident in reaching a certain level of performance.

Words like accountability just do not quite define it.  Focus gets a little closer.  I want to know where I am in a process that, if followed, ensures my success. I want something simple - something easy that helps me stay on track.

Different activities share time with sales activities.  The activities I necessarily do range from paperwork, eating, sleeping, family needs, physical fitness, networking, phoning, returning calls, holding appointments, preparing presentations and quotes, sending out mail, product training, sales meetings, etc.

Some of these activities do not directly produce income.  They are important but not critical to making sales.

I believe what I need is self-management, but I’m thinking there’s a better set of words, and they are ... Activity Management.  Lance.

Social Confidence in GREAT Salespeople

Social Confidence is trait #3 of four personality traits that affect the achievement drive of great salespeople.  People endowed with this trait can naturally and without stress interact with people.  This helps them gain power throughout the sales cycle. 

In simplistic terms, salespeople need to ...
1.  Find prospects
2.  Set appointments, and
3.  Close sales
And, in sales cycles of ninety days or less, they need to do these activities over and over again.

Prospecting requires a great salesperson to network, ask about others, and to leave a memorable impression on the phone and at events.  Sometimes they must answer questions with tact, poise, and a frank demeanor.  So ... great salespeople not only ask questions well themselves, but they also respond well to the questions of others.  People with low levels of social confidence appear weaker and less memorable in face-to-face encounters.

And, then the real fun begins - setting appointments.  For many salespeople, this is a most difficult task.  And, it is made all the more difficult if someone would rather not assert themselves.  Great salespeople make appointment sales every month.  They sell someone on the need to meet.  While stressful to many people, it is greatly stressful to someone with low social confidence.

That brings us to the sales process - developing rapport, asking questions, listening, presenting, negotiating, and getting agreements completed.  Many people with low social confidence have trouble gaining rapport with dynamos - people with abrupt and demanding personalities.  They do better in less pushy sales situations with less pushy people.  While a person whom is not socially confident may ask questions very well, they sometimes do not probe well into sensitive areas and into the financial or emotional impact of a person’s needs. 

When it is time to present, this same lack of confidence may produce weakness in obtaining commitments, responding to objections, and handling rejection.

Salespeople, by the nature of their profession, need to tell people to do things from time to time.  While it is very important to ask questions and uncover needs, it is also important for a salesperson to tell a person what to do next - what’s important and what’s not important.  And, they need to do this with confidence.

Social confidence in a salesperson’s personality combined with goal-orientation, social drive, and a need to control naturally creates better genetics for finding prospects, setting appointments, and closing sales.  High-activity salespeople whom lead their teams have healthy doses of these traits.  Personality profiles created to help managers in the recruitment process must contain social confidence as one of their targeted traits. (see craftprofiles) (Other important traits include goal-orientation, social drive, and a need-to-control.  (By the way, some people interview well, and have great social confidence, but are process-oriented - not goal-oriented.  They do not focus on achieving end results, the sales and the money, within a given time frame.  But, they sure interview well.)

I’m thinking of someone right now whom I hired with all of these traits.  He had never worked as a professional salesperson.  His learning curve was sharp and his sales went above anything previously accomplished in his company.  It takes awhile to find people with these traits, but it’s always worth the effort.  In your screening, profiling, and interviews look for social confidence.  It’s a key performance trait in high-performing salespeople.  Now, be GREAT.  Lance.

How Do Salespeople Remain Relevant?

Salespeople remain relevant to a buyer depending upon how well they practice the consultative sales process.  In theory, a sales conversation “can be” 100% relevant if the steps below are practiced perfectly.

But, tada!  That’s why we practice in sports and in sales ... to keep striving for greatness. 



First, how does a salesperson remain relevant? By ... 

Adaptation 

1. Adapting to a person’s buying style ... socialite, dynamo, or thinker. 



Listening

2. Asking great questions to understand a person’s situation: their needs and problems relevant to our product or service. 
3. Paraphrasing understanding, taking notes, and summarizing as we “sincerely” listen. 
4. Getting the customer to describe the impact of needs and problems - financially and/or emotionally. 



Presenting 

5. Showing only those products or services that fulfill customer described wants or needs. 
6. Showing only those features and benefits that fulfill customer described wants or needs. 
7. Explaining how the negative impact will be replaced by a positive impact: the new emotions or better financial numbers. 

8. Checking for feedback as we advise - answering questions, or providing solutions to fears or concerns about our advice. 



Finishing and Following Up

9. Helping them make a decision and “opening up a long term customer relationship.” 

10. Following up to make sure that the new customer is satisfied or to help with the use of the product(s) or service(s). 



These steps and others help the salesperson remain relevant during and after the sale.

The sales teams, that great managers coach, fight to get better at making the buying process comfortable for the buyer.

It’s a guess, but I would say that less than 1/2 of most sales experiences are relevant to the buyer in today’s marketplace.  The buyer fights to be adapted to, listened to, and cared about during and after the sale. 

But, you’re different.  You want to learn, use, and even coach sales skills and attitudes that make things better.  You want to build lasting relationships and repeat business.  So, go do it.  Make a difference.  You can.  Many of you are.  Lance.