Our Blog has a New Home

The Simple Sales Tracking Blog has moved to:

http://blog.simplesalestracking.com/

Come check out all the latest at the new address.

Thanks for reading,
The Simple Sales Tracking Team.

Are You A Show & Tell Salesperson

In my last article we looked at the opening of the sale and the need to set the agenda for the meeting. This sets the scene.

To recap –

An agenda might look something like this:

• A brief statement about the purpose of the meeting and the likely outcome
• A value statement about our company and service/product (25 words or less – less is more!)
• Then onto asking them your prepared questions

This accomplishes several key objectives. Firstly it conveys to your prospect the purpose of the visit and that you are prepared and will not waste their time.

Secondly it gains permission to ask the prospect questions to gain an understanding of their situation as it relates to your products/services/solutions

I am often asked how long the introductions and agenda setting process should take. My recommendation is 2-3 minutes absolute max – remember its not about us its about them and their needs.

There is an old saying in sales –

“You can listen a buyer into a sale faster than you can talk them into one”

So we have set the agenda, delivered our value statement, asked permission to ask questions, this takes care of the opening, what are your questions?

Well these need to be very carefully planned as questions focus our thinking. Therefore you should never ask a question that could cause the prospect to think about an issue that could adversely affect the sale moving forward.

For example, I will ask you a question shortly and whatever you do don’t think of the answer, remember read the question but don’t think of the answer!

When is your birthday?

If you are like most people you would have thought of your birthday.

One such question most salespeople ask or some variation of is:

“Who is your current provider?”

This focuses their thinking on the person doing the job and if they have a great relationship with them regardless of what sort of job they do you are defeated before you ever get going.

Many salespeople ask a few perfunctory questions which the prospect view as self-serving. Then they dive into “show and tell”. That is they begin showing the prospects samples, brochures, technical data or telling them about the solutions they offer or all about themselves, their company, who they have done work with - you get the idea!

Buyers sometimes refer to them as “Show up and Throw up Artists”.

So it’s a matter of developing a list of questions to help build trust and uncover a number of needs. These in turn will then help you establish the opportunity gap which in turn will show the return on investment.

Next time we will look at the various types of buyer needs that are generic to every business.

Quote of the Week:

A mediocre salesman tells
A good salesman explains
A superior salesman demonstrates
Great salesmen inspire buyers to see the benefits as their own

Carolyn Shamis

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group Ltd

API Documentation & Samples

Following up on our email to you last week, we've now released the latest version of our API (Application Programming Interface), along with Documentation & Code Samples.

The Simple Sales Tracking API provides you with the ability to connect and sync Simple Sales Tracking with your website and applications.

What can you do with the API?

View and Modify your data in Simple Sales Tracking, from another website or application.

There are a lot of possibilities. Here are a few ideas:

• Synchronize Contacts with another Contact List
• Build your own Custom Reports
• Add Notes, Tasks and Appointments Remotely
• Create a seamless link between your own applications and website with the data, features and capability of Simple Sales Tracking.

Find out more and Get Started

3rd Party Tools & Integration

If you program your software product to integrate with Simple Sales Tracking, or any another 3rd party piece of software, let us know!

If it's a fit, we'll post it here with link-backs to your website and kudos.

We're also working on 3rd party integration from our end and will announce them as they become available.

Partner Program Now Open

If you're not already part of our partner progam, you can find out more about it here.

It's a great way to earn additional income from an ongoing 20% commisssion.

Follow Us on Twitter
@simplesales

Posted by Simple Sales Tracking

Filed under: new features, api, web api, documentation

New Features Galore!

Today, we're excited to announce the release of some much anticipated new features and capability within Simple Sales Tracking.

In Summary, here's what's been added:

• 5 New User Definable (Custom) Fields for Sales
  
• Lead Source Field for Sales is Now Editable
  
• 5 New Reports & Existing Ones Enhanced. Html tags in Reports, Now Cleaned Out. Page Numbering and Total Record Counts Shown on Every Report. Mailing Label Report.
  
• Mobile Friendly Buttons for One-Click Phone Calls and Emails to Contacts
  
• Faster Page Loading Time, using Better Page Compression.
  
• No More Account Activation Email when Adding New Users to your Existing Company.
  
  

---

5 New User Definable (Custom) Fields for Sales

 
Define up to 5 of your own fields in your Admin page.
Available Only on Full (Paid) Accounts.


Each of those fields will then be available in the details of every Account, Opportunity and Lead. They're also available in reports.

Lead Source Field for Sales is Now Editable

You're no longer confined to using pre-populated options for Lead Source from a drop down list. Now, you can choose your own.

5 New Reports & Existing Ones Enhanced

New Reports Include:

• Detailed Sales Accounts, with more fields included. Also includes User Defined fields.
  
• Notes, Tasks and Appointments Report on Individual Account, Opportunity or Lead.
  
• Detailed Contacts Report, with Addresses
  
• Contacts Mailing Lable Report, for Printing.
  

In addition to the new reports, each report now includes:

• Total Record Count
• Page Numbers
• No more messy html tags

Mobile Friendly Buttons for One-Click Phone Calls and Emails to Contacts

From your mobile device, tap the phone or email icons to instantly connect with the contact.

API & Re-Release of Outlook 2007 Plugin

In a follow up newsletter to come shortly, we'll be announcing the availability of our API documentatation. We'll also provide the latest version of the Outlook 2007 Plugin.

The API and Outlook 2007 plugin have been used so far only by a select group. Now they're both ready for the main stream.

Along with the release will be sample code to show how easy it is to build your own software that can connect with, and leverage your data from within Simple Sales Tracking.

Partner Program Now Open

If you're not already part of our partner progam, you can find out more about it here.

It's a great way to earn additional income from an ongoing 20% commisssion.

Follow Us on Twitter

@simplesales

Last Day!

Quick reminder that Friday is the last day to take advantage of two free months of Simple Sales Tracking!



If you're already on a Full Account, add additional users and the same discount applies.

Why sign up for a Full Account? Compare Limited and Full Accounts.

Twitter

Recently we started using Twitter to keep in touch, help you get organized and ultimately close more sales!

Since only a handful signed up. The other thousands of you are either not using Twitter (or not interested).

In case you're not yet using Twitter for your business, it's not difficult and can be a powerful tool!

• Here's a short article about the benefits of Twitter for business, written by Rod Drury over at xero.com
  
  
• Here's a longer pdf on bhe benefits of Twitter for business, written by John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing.

10 Day New Year's Resolution Promotion - Get Organized. Close More Sales!

Hello 2010!

The start of a new year is a time where most of us ask the big picture questions of where we've been and where we're headed. To look to the year ahead and often make resolutions.

If you're in sales, one of those resolutions will probably be to increase your sales in 2010.

If that resonates with you, we'd like to help you get going.

For the next 10 days, we're running the Get Organized. Close More Sales! - New Year's Resolution Promotion.



It's easy. All you need to do is:

1. Sign up or Upgrade to a Full Account
2. Pay for Month 1
3. Get Months 2 & 3 Free

There are no gimmicks, or contact. Just sign up normally and the promotion will be automatically applied. If at month 4 you decide you want to go back to a Limited Account, no problem - just flick us an email to let us know.

If you're already on a Full Account, add additional users and the same discount applies.

Why sign up for a Full Account? Compare Limited and Full Accounts.

Happy New Year!

Do you set the Sales Meeting Agenda or does the Prospect?

Today we will look at how we bridge the gap between introduction and uncovering the buyer’s need, which of course is the primary aim of the sales interview. If we are to be able to add any value through our solutions a way to do this is to set an agenda.

By setting an agenda at the start it helps the prospect to understand what will happen and what the outcomes of the meeting will be. It will also show them that you have structure, particularly important when dealing with analytical buyers.

Sales meeting agendas are either set by you or you let the prospect set them. The trouble with letting the prospect set them is their agenda is to deal with you as quickly as possible as their time is generally very limited.

Studies have shown that most senior managers have at least 56 hours of work in front of them. The more direct type of prospects will come straight to the point and might ask questions such as:

What do you offer?
What can you do for me?
How much will it cost?

The trap for many of us is we mistake these questions for buying signals and launch right into our sales presentation. This is what I refer to as "premature presentation". This has killed many sales before they ever got off the ground.

If we can define the steps in our sales process which consistently lead to sales we can follow these methodically and therefore achieve predictable results.

An agenda might look something like this:

• A brief statement about the purpose of the meeting and the likely outcome
• A value statement about our company and service/product (25 words or less – less is more!)
• Then onto asking them your prepared questions

This is an interview the purpose of which is to uncover a specific need you can help this prospect with. It is not a sales pitch. A sales pitch is basically a "show and tell" where the seller ends up doing most of the talking after asking some routine questions and establishing a few of what I term “surface needs”. The flaw in this type of presentation is it is very difficult to show a return on investment for the buyer.

Business owners need to see a clear return on investment as there is generally a large amount of risk in their mind when considering changing to another provider. Therefore we need to minimize the risk or eliminate it entirely to changing to our solution.

Imagine if I offered you a rock for $10,000, your initial reaction might be "how ridiculous", however if I then provided a certified jewelers valuation identifying it as a 9 carat uncut diamond then the risk of the purchase would have been eliminated and the real value established – making it easier for you to make the buying decision.

So coming back to the opening – this is the most critical part of your sales process as this is where the sale is made and the stage is set for closing the sale.

We will continue with this subject in my next article.

Key Action –

Write a value statement in 25 words or less about what you do.

Quote of the Week -

"A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it"

Henry Ford

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group.

Simple Sales Tracking is on Twitter!

We'd like to hear from you!  Ask us questions and give us feedback.  We'll annouce latest updates, articles and promotions.  Helping you Get Organized and Close More Sales! http://twitter.com/simplesales

 

What Is Your Sales Impression?

As has been discussed in earlier articles, sales teams need to have a process to follow when presenting to new prospects to ensure more consistent closing ratios.

In my experience very few companies I have seen have taken the time to identify the most effective process for selling their products or services which brings me to a sales principle which states:

“For every product category and market segment there is a best practice sales process which ensures optimum sales”

The key is to identify what creates sales and what doesn’t and develop the process into a standard operating procedure.  This will only come about through measurement.

Unfortunately without a process salespeople are left to their own resources and do the best they can.  These same salespeople are given sales targets to meet and budgets to achieve without the sales formula/process to follow and spend most of their time “flying by the seat of their pants”.

So if we agree we need to have a formulated approach to our sales the process could look something like this –

-Introductions and pleasantries
-Agenda set
-Discover needs through prepared questions
-Discussing solutions
-Ask for commitment

Let’s look at introductions and pleasantries.  This is the most critical phase of the whole sales process as the decision to buy from you will be made in the first few minutes of meeting you. The fact that we make decisions about people so quickly is just part of human nature.

Research done with 267 Human Resource Managers from the Fortune 500 companies in America showed that on average they decided that a candidate would get the position being applied for within 40 seconds of meeting them.  They then went on to conduct exhaustive tests and interviews to prove they had made the right choice. 

Think of your own attitudes – have you ever had the experience where you have met someone for the first time and taken an instant dislike to them?   The fact is we don’t buy from people we don’t like!

The keys to this phase are to be on time or 5 minutes early, be professionally presented, have professional tools e.g. high quality compendium, a good quality pen, professional looking business cards, rate cards etc.   There is nothing worse than asking someone for their business card and they pull a dog-eared looking card out of their wallet and hand it over!   Your dress and stationary need to be appropriate to the type of clients you are presenting to.     I was meeting with a senior executive recently and suggesting the company invest in some very good quality leather compendiums for their sales team.   He very graciously pointed out that the majority of their clients were intent on preserving nature – we agreed a recyclable/hessian type compendium would be the order of the day!

You look good, you are on time – now what do you say?

The old school sales trainers would suggest you identify something the buyer may be interested in through observation e.g. they may have a marlin mounted on their office wall – most salespeople would begin by commenting on the fish.  I believe there is a factory in China producing these fish to sell to buyers as an accessory to catch newby salespeople who are trying to build rapport!

My recommendation if you are serious about helping the prospect is to thank them for their time, mention your referral source and then get down to business.

Most prospects are short of time and have answered the same fish questions hundreds of times before– respect their time.

We will look at how to set the agenda of your sales meeting in my next article.

Quote of the Week:

Most people think “selling” is the same as “talking”.   But the most effective salespeople
know that listening is the most important part of their job.

                                                                                          Roy Bartell 

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group.

Check out our new features!

We have been listening to your requests and now - some great new features and enhancements are ready and waiting for you.

Enjoy!

• Import Leads

  In your Start Page, you'll notice a new Import Leads from a file option. Download the template provided to make things even easier.
  
  
  
  

• ICal Support

  Easily grab individual appointments or all of them together from your Calendar in the industry standard ICal format. Open and save the file into your favorite email program.
  
  
  
  

• Calendar Enhancements

  Larger working area and integrated date picker. Loads fast and looks great.
  
  
  
  

• Text Editor Enhancements

  Now resizable, Printable and Super fast loading.
  
  
  
  

• Tab Ordering

  We've improved the tab ordering on the Contact detail form.

Expect some new features

Lately we've been receiving lots of feedback and suggestions. Thanks for that.

Shortly we'll be releasing the latest set of feature upgrades and additions.  Some of which include:

• Lead Importing (in addition to Contacts Importing)
• Better tab sequences on some forms
• ical support with Calendar.

 

What Is Your Sales Confidence Level?

Confidence is a huge issue for many salespeople.

Following on from my last article regarding order takers and their comfort zones, my focus today is around the issue of confidence. This is something that always comes up when discussing prospecting for new business.

The truth is not many salespeople feel absolutely comfortable in approaching new prospects with the sole purpose of selling them their product or service.

Confidence comes from knowledge. With salespeople there are two types of knowledge that they must have. The first is they must have a thorough understanding of the products and services they offer and just as importantly the application of these. The next type of knowledge is based around a complete understanding of sales planning, prospecting, and presentation processes.

Firstly let’s look at the sales presentation, or as I like to call them sales interviews as in today’s selling environment our goal at the first meeting is not to present but rather to interview the prospect to uncover explicit needs that we can possibly help with. So if we agree that it is a sales interview then we need to have a list of prepared questions to ask the prospect.

Some interesting statistics I uncovered from a US Survey on sales presentations found that 86% of salespeople ask the wrong questions.

The plan then is to develop questions that lead to uncovering needs and implications and formulate these into a process.

So its all about preparation, remember this leads to confidence. The National Cash Register Co (NCR) was the pioneer in developing a “canned” sales presentation. The canned approach they used which most of us have heard about is known as “AIDA”- Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.

NCR trained every one of their salespeople in this sales process.

While the sequence worked the process failed as it was too wordy and the salespeople were expected to deliver it verbatim and spoke parrot wise and that’s of course how it came across. This was in the 1920’s, interesting some companies are still using verbatim scripts today – these are what most people recognize as “canned” presentations.

What I suggest is a planned approach to your sales interview as opposed to the canned version.

We need to have an agenda or sequence that we follow when interviewing new prospects. This achieves a number of call objectives –

1. It makes the best use of your time and just as importantly your prospects
2. It provides a logical flow to the conversation
3. It uncovers the need if one exists
4. It highlights buying signals for you and the prospect
5. It leads you to asking for the business.

By developing a process that we follow in each presentation we become more confident as we have a track to run on leading to our destination – more sales!

Just to illustrate the power of good questioning and how it invokes thought and focuses our thinking, here is a question to ponder –

If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one ability or quality, what would it be?

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group.

What's the difference between Leads, Opportunities and Accounts

From time to time we'll get a question about the differences between Leads, Opportunities and Accounts.  Here's a quick blog post to help clear it up.

Lead -> Opportunity -> Accounts represents a progression in the sales pipeline.

So, in many cases a sale starts as a lead, becomes an opportunity and then an account in that order.

For example:

1. A lead usually represents someone who you think might want to buy something from you, but they’ve not actually said that they do yet. (you may not have even spoken with them yet.)
2. An opportunity could then be the next stage, where you’ve spoken with someone and they’ve indicated that they are in fact interested in what you’re selling.
3. An account would be finally that they’ve made the decision to buy from you and they’re now you’re customer.

Each of the forms in Simple Sales Tracking for these look very similar on purpose – to provide a smooth transition for that pipeline.

Are You An Order Taker or Order Maker?

Today I would like to drive home the importance of having a sales process for maximizing your sales results and increasing sales revenue.

This is the first part, having a process; however the most important step is training the salespeople in this process.

Many companies when looking at their sales teams subscribe to the old syndrome “if it aint broke don’t fix it!”. The sales team are meeting targets, they are maintaining market share – why should we spend money on training?

Well that is a fair question when times are buoyant and customers are spending. The challenge for many salespeople however is they have fallen into the trap of becoming order takers so when things become a bit tighter and the pressure comes on to develop new business there is no process in place for them to follow such as prospecting systems, contacting systems, presentation and follow up systems.

A friend of mind who is what I would consider the consummate sales professional was telling me about a sales manager he once worked for who stated if all he needed from his salespeople was someone to go around the customers and “pick up orders” he would employ Labrador dogs as they were far cheaper and a whole lot cuter!!

Let’s look at contacting systems for a start.

The majority of salespeople suffer from call reluctance because they don’t have a process for getting the appointment.

There are 5 basic objections you will encounter when phoning for a first appointment –

• Too busy
• Already have someone
• Send me some information
• Tell me about it now
• What do you want to see me for

Not knowing what to answer to any of the above prevents salespeople from making the calls and of course they are far too busy calling on existing clients they know and like to follow up new leads anyway.

So the first step in your contacting system is to develop a customized phone script with the answers to the above already worked out.

Next you need to develop a system for gathering the key information about the person/company you are calling. This might include contact details, position, company history, key markets etc.

Next you will need to have a contact management system for managing your appointments. This can be a simple as 3 x 5 cards in a prospect box or as complex as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This will depend on the size of your business and your database.

Then of course you will have a diary system either hard copy or more common now some sort of PDA.

Quote of the Week –

When I prepare for a sales presentation, I try to think like my client and like my competitor. I try to pinpoint every objection that either of them could make to my presentation. I write these objections down, and then I figure out a way to respond to each one in three lines or less. I’ve given these “scripts” to sales reps, who then used them in their presentations. It’s staggering how even the most boring sales rep can become a great salesperson simply by learning to convey a few simple points. If you can move a customer so that he or she can’t argue against your point, then you’ve won.

Mark Jarvis

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group Limited

How Is Your Sales Process Working?

As we discussed in the last article, having a sales process for you and your team to follow has the biggest impact on the profitability of your business.

I was having a coffee with a very successful business coach recently and he commented that the greatest threat to the many businesses he had coached over the years was the lack of sales systems which resulted in inconsistent sales.

Rather than investing in developing salespeople to convert more of the inquiries coming into the business or even better giving them systems to proactively develop new leads and convert, many business owners throw more money into advertising and marketing in an attempt to generate more enquiries rather than convert more of the opportunities they are already getting.

I’m not suggesting you stop your marketing and advertising – what I am leading to is you need to maximize the enquiries you are currently getting by systemizing your sales process into a standard operating procedure (SOP)

Sales are like baking a cake – if you put the right ingredients/activities in in the right amounts and follow the recipe/sales process, you will end up in both cases with a great result.

Sales success like baking can be repeated once you have found the ingredients/processes that work.

For many salespeople flying by the seat of their pants and reinventing the recipe each time has become a way of life.

Studies have proven that the most successful salespeople in any field have set activities and processes that they do religiously. At a business forum I spoke at last week one of the other speakers spoke about “patterns of success” which Brian Tracey the famous Sales Guru calles “modeling” and in earlier days Napoleon Hill called “success steps”. What all three of them were talking about is that for every thing we wish to achieve in life somebody else has already achieved and found the best way to do it. Therefore for you to achieve your goal in the shortest time it is only a matter of following the processes that they have already found to be the best.

The first place to start in sales is with the numbers i.e. What is my sales target for the year?

If we know this we can work all our sales activities back from this.

The equation is:

Sales Target ÷ Average Sale = No. of sales for year
No of sales needed ÷ Conversion Ratio = No. of presentations
No. of presentations ÷ Referral Conversion Ratio = No. of referrals
No. of referrals ÷ 48 weeks = No. of referrals needed per week

e.g. 100,000 ÷ 1000 = 100 sales needed for year
100 ÷ 50% conversion = 200 presentations
200 ÷ 80% referral conversion = 250 referrals needed
250 ÷ 48 weeks = 5.2 referrals per week

Now we know how many referrals needed we can work out our prospecting activities.

Time to work out your numbers.

We will look at the next step in my next article.

Quote of the Week:

Chinese Proverb –

Man stand for long time with mouth open before roast duck fly in.

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group Limited.