Our landlord has decided to go virtual with his company.

They are shutting down this office May 31.
Yup 31 days. So Rocket Builders are on the hunt for some space for one office.
The office is less important than a stable mail address, fax no and
access to some meeting rooms. Of course it would be a perk if there
was a place to store my books.

In your travels have you bumped into anyone with space?

All responses gratefully appreciated.

Thanks

Nurturing - Part II.  while reading Thomas Freese’ book, The New Era of Salesmanship,(See Review) he made a point about how prospects can lose interest quickly after that first very successful phone call./contact/trade show meet. We have all experienced it.  He goes on to emphasis  that the sales person needs to  constantly renew the pain solutions and implications to the client of not proceeding  and why thats important to him during the  of the sales process.  Folks are busy and have lots on their plate , so urgency will diminish.  You remember all that you have said to client, bu tits likely they have not.  Nurturing programs give the client a regular “shot” of reasons why they should consider your solution.  The message is a silent assistant to the salesman, helping to maintain the urgency. You are looking to take some of the client mindshare over time.

I am learning (??) Spanish and this has some bearing. I have found that to learn a word I have to concentrate and use it in context  over 16 times  (So I am told).  Now I want to learn and I am focussed, but its hard for this engineer. How much more difficult is it for your messsage to penetrate a target when they are likely initially less motivated to act on your product than I am  to learn a new language?.  In your Nurturing program, your message has to create curiosity ain the target and ensure that you are seen as something different from all the other noise in a prospects work life?  Its simple, but hard to do right.

The New era of Salesmanship. Bringing the art of selling into the 21st century. Thomas A. Freese. 2005. ISBN1891892207. www.qbsresearch.com.. One quote says it all.

“Teaching salespeople to sound the same as everyone else is the quickest way to commoditize your value proposition and forfeit your competitive advantage. In an increasingly competitive business marketplace, companies are looking for something different that will energize their sales teams, and significantly increase your return on invested sales effort.”

This is a very valuable book. This the third in a series . Secrets of  Question Based Selling  (QBS) , It Only Takes 1% and now this one where he explains how to implement QBS into a sales organization. Why this is so important is that Freese has stated “if your suspects are not curious about what you do” why would they ever:

open your emails?

return or take your call?

engage with your website?

respond to any of your material.?

This is why 99% of all sales materials/approaches/processes are useless. Because they talk about you and your company. But when is a prospect is interested in you?  He is interested in himself and his problems. To make him curious about you, you  need to talk about his problems and earn his curiosity and the right to learn more. want to tes it?  How many emails, voice mails and marketing messages make you curious?  1 in 90? None/  He is onto something

Every serious sales person who wants to earn the big bucks and make it all look so easy, nust read and use this book. Each chapter ends with action items that ar so pragmatic.

Questions for you,” So tell me what client problem(s) does your product solve? ”

Do you have a simple answer that a customer would really care about?

Why are the implications of this(ese) problem(s) ?

Can you find 20?

Why do these matter to the client?

What happens to the business if he does not act?

These questions are the start of Freese’ method. Read the book to find out just what a jewel the book and approach is. Give me a 1% fee on your increased commission and I will be a rich rich man.  Of course if you were content to be just good enough you would not be reading this blog.  As a friend said to me  this week, “What kind of man are you anyway? ” (with all  apologies to the distaff side).

Read Freese’s articles at http://www.qbsresearch.com/articles/index.cfm. I intend to read, and review all his books in short order.  It llooks like you will have to buy the book on his site www.qbsresearch.com.  Bummer, there goes my 20 cents!

And that’s 30

Masters of Sales. Secrets from top sales professionals that will transform you into a world class salesman. Ivan R. Misner & Don Morgan. 2007. ISBN 1599181290. This book needs to be on every sales persons shelf beside the phone. Its been quite a while since I have found so many great sales ideas form so many to notch sales people in one volume. There is knowledge here that will benefit newbies right through to old sales dogs. Of course if you are content to not be among the top 10 % of producers among sales people who also are the most voracious readers, then you lose nothing by ignoring this book. Your loss is your competitors gain. Buy it, read it, use the advice and read it again. Yes I liked this book. Its everything that Google library says it is below:

Sold! The magic word. The holy grail. Why are some salespeople remarkably successful, while others make call after call with no results? How do some turn any no into a yes, while others can’t even get their foot in the door? For the first time, more than 80 of the most successful salespeople in the world have come together to reveal their secrets to success. You’ll learn what makes these outstanding sellers true masters of their craft-and how you can adapt the masters’ tactics for your own. Learn Martha Stewart’s secrets to promoting yourself as an expert. Discover the 11 key questions to ask from Harvey McKay. Get Anthony Parinello’s advice on selling to CEOs. Be trained in guerrilla tactics for direct selling from Jay Conrad Levinson. Find out Brian Tracy’s secrets on the psychology of selling. Bursting with valuable advice from Jack Canfield, Anthony Robbins, Keith Ferrazzi, Tom Hopkins, Al Lautenslager and more than 70 other masters of the art of selling, this exclusive compilation of the best sales strategies ever known puts you on the fast track to sales success.

Starting Something. An entrepreneur’s tale of control, confrontation and corporate culture. Wayne McVicker. 2005. ISBN 9781932881028. Thanks to Victor Jones for passing this book along. If you wanted to read a definitive true story about pre dotcom, bubble and post bubble trials and tribulations, this is the one, sinc eat the end they built a solid profitable company. I chuckled at all the characters that McVickers met with the language that was used when reason left the industry to be totally replaced/driven by greed. . For those of us lucky enough to enjoy that whole wild ride, this book brings it all back. The start-up struggles and financing on debt. Placing bets on directions with your own well being/family. The people are all there, reluctant angels, greedy guys, lazy guys, arrogant amd humble types, disaster hires, reluctant hires wanting a big piece of the action, VCs, investment bankers, handlers, hold-up artists, PR pros, Barney deal makers, aggressive Competitive cos and their VCs, Take no prisoners sales guys/CEOs. This is all played out from the point of view of a fairly humble technical guy who just wanted to do something good. And the money stories, they all were happening. This is well written, easy to follow and a good pleasurable read. If you are in start-up and looking for something big, read this one!

The trouble with No and the Millenia Generation. Colin McWhinney of SalesXperts shared with me a story of a young sales rep they were trying to help. He seemed to be doing everything possible not to make the client sales phone call. More research , writing proof materials, looking for more information on the web. To all intents he was ready, but could not pull the trigger. Turns out that after his first few calls had been full on rebuffs, he was blaming the system in use and was trying to invent a new one.

Cam Marston tells us that the Millenia generation has had their life super organized for them. S0ccer practice, hockey clinics, power skating , summer science camps, if they expressed an interest, they had it. No time to think for themselves about what they need to do nor how to get to do it. Add a school system that protects them from any sort of failure or self-confidence hit and you have a perfect storm. They have never been told No.

They never had to fight through obstacles to get something they want. Imagine how crushing and unique it is to them that a prospect says no. If your life experience to date has not prepared you to rise above a no, it is all too easy to let it stop you. Funny how all the super great sales heros (e.g. Zig Ziglar, Robt Kawasaki, Tony Robbins) had to rise above their beginnings to become masters of their art.

If you are looking to add to your sales team (when it is hard to find anyone) you will need to look at having an infrastructure in place that really supports the sales folks much more than you are used to . This generation will not hang around if you use the school of hard knocks. Oh yes, Colin was able to coach that young sales guy to success.

Strategy and the Fat Smoker. Doing what’s obvious but not easy. David Maister. 2007. ISBN 9780979845703. This is a wonderfully useful book for anyone in a management role. The core thesis is like observing a fat smoking doctor. How could a professional who knows better get that way? From there David explores all the various aspects of knowing what needs doing but not doing it. This is so easily written, clear and articulate I defy you not to see yourself in these pages. I had th ebenefit of reading segments of this on David’s blog, and in small doses it was very powerful stuff. A case in point.. How many of you have commissioned a training program for yoor staff based on activities they seem to have trouble doing? Have you gone through a whole process of seeing if the company monitors, encourages and rewards the behavior? Do people want to do this? Do they know how to do this? Do they have the skills to implement and execute at this. Prior to the training do you know why they are not doing this? Here is the killer , ” Too often training is seena s an inexpensive way for a manager to look like they are doing something?

The chapter on hiring a leader is priceless. David suggests creating a list of either/or attributes and selecting those that the selection team wants. Eg Do you want/need a leader who is good with numbers versus good with people? Is a pragmatist vs a visionary? Is very self-confident vs is humble? Is primarily a hard head vs. primarily a soft heart? The list is extensive and his process really inspired. Buy it, read it , and get others in your management team a copy. So far its available for pre-order in the US.

Last post on this topic discussed lead generation as one of four marketing roles in the Precision Sales and Marketing program . Today I look at Sales Support, leaving Prospect Nurturing and the Customers for Lif for future posts.

In my early years of selling this is the only area I believed I needed marketing. I have a prospect ( more likely a suspect) who has evidenced some interest in what I am proposing ( again if they had a pulse I may have thought that equaled interest). So now marketing where is my magic closing tool, that implement of pure product speak that causes entire companies to open their treasury to me, the Brochure? Like a bandaid on a four year-olds owie, the brochure fits everything. The casual booth visitor at the trade show, the telephone prospect ( Send me your brochure)., the leave behind after a sales call (Check out our brochure for more information) , the passerby at the website ( Download our brochure!). Yes this piece of collateral is essential to ensure that I can, perhaps, will possibly be able to do exactly what?

Take off the rose coloured glasses, despite everyone having one, brochures are an example of waste, waste, waste.