Be uber at sales. Absolute “do’s” and “don’ts.”
All of that is built on a bedrock concept. NOTHING HAPPENS UNTIL YOU SELL SOMETHING. That is my take on something Henry Ford said a lot of decades ago.
Allow me a couple minutes to be my reputed raconteur self. With a purpose, I assure you.
Children all over the world dream of becoming fire-fighters, astronauts, teachers, doctors … tennis pros. I was destined to be a – humbly – top, world-class pro. There a number of top 100 in the world tennis pros of my generation that will, some gladly and some begrudgingly attest to that.
As for most of us – you know the famous Robert Burns admonition: “The best laid plans of mice and men.” Actually, my favorite – certainly if there were a sectarian version of it – would be: “You make plans and God laughs.” Woody Allen, an equally righteous and false prophet took credit for that. Don’t think so. I recall my uncle Alex saying that when I was a kid. Hey Woody: you owe my family some royalties.
In plain language, whatever plans you make, to a 100% certainty life, circumstances, and maturity will interfere.
My worst and best job ever was in my mid-teens. I had to supplement money I made hustling some showbiz people on tennis courts in Los Angeles; I was cleaning rat cages at the research labs at the biggest hospital in the city.
Worst—for obvious reasons. Best, for a number of propitiously good reasons: paid 24 cents an hour more than anything else I could get—cool for a recent penniless refugee in the US—was great for weight control. It is hard to eat when keeping anything down is a challenge), and taught me all about the concept of honest work. As also in a previous talk – MY PILLARS OF SUCCESS, it focused me on ultimately one of my pillars: in matters of work say YES when most will say NO.
Not that many people wanted that awful job. Yet, I had to sell and sell and sell, myself, to the management at the labs. Good God: I lied and embellished and lied some more about my age and education. Although I did skip nearly two years of high school, I asserted having graduated.
So there. A Manning-ism. Nothing happens until YOU sell something. That means anything. Because, whether you focus on that or not, you are selling something to somebody including yourself all day and most nights! How about convincing yourself to get up and out of bed most mornings. You are selling. And doing so with very specific needs and goals.
And what are you – do you have to -sell. I hope you all read my u book, The Business Of Life. I devoted a chapter to much about what I have sold, titled You Can And Should Sell Horse Manure.
Much about the many things and other stuff I sold. Some of the stuff i sold makes me think of that great lyric made famous by ray, Ray, Goodman & Brown. — Even more famous years later by the BeeGees: how can love so right be so wrong. Seems i turned that upside down often: how can love so wrong turn out to be so right!
Fundamentally, that is all about selling: not the stuff. About the all-important PROCESS!
I will not regale you in this talk with all the, well, not entirely ordinary stuff I sold. Suffice it to say, from Russian spy satellites, to brain food, to Toyotas and much in-between. You have to read my upcoming book to learn how we became the horse-manure kings of South America.
That is how you generate billions of dollars’ worth of commerce. You sell, pitch, market, trade, compel and more.
I related the above to you for two reasons. One of those entirely relevant to the topic. More coming. The other to entertain, while still by and large on the topic. You see, I theorize that most listeners to my talks, are bored out of their undergarments reading and listening to all that unoriginal pablum served up by so many prolific purveyors of word salads.
Now to the meat of this…
The absolute first bedrock structure to selling is homework. Those of you who read my writing and watch and listen to me talk, know that you will be beaten senseless about doing homework. No matter if it is business. And certainly, in all matters of living. Yes: back to MY PILLARS OF SUCCESS. Yes, again: please give that talk a listen.
If you listen to me, best you do – sorry, I could not help that – you will do exhaustive homework before attempting to sell anything to anyone. If you listen to me, you will become a shameless researcher, before attempting to sell anything to anyone.
Let us start with what I hope you no longer think is a platitude. Everybody is selling something to somebody, all the time.
Everything we do in life is intended to provoke a desired outcome.
Imagine the quintessential salesperson, briefcase in hand, knocking on doors. And pitching his/her stuff, over and over and over. Rain and shine. The literal door-to-door salesman. [Do not interpret the gender specificity to anything other than it is easier to write…]
Have you been there, done that? If not, we have a disconnect. Period.
I have major successful clients and relationships who I made do that: sell door-to-door. How best to know the impact of the pitch? In my marketing life in the mass marketing world, around the world, I always perceived “selling” and designed the pitch as a one-to-one message, delivered many millions of times. Actually, aggregating the direct mail pieces, broadcast, and all manner of digital messages including email and display, that is hundreds of billions. Hundreds of billions just some years alone.
The messaging is absolutely the same messaging as walking the streets, with briefcase in hand, peddling to single store owners. Conceptually, there is no difference between that one-on-one event and what we all do today, taking advantage of all the new, improved (?), and massive marketing vehicles. Those that we all use to peddle into, all services and merchandising verticals.
I preach that entirely. It is, it must be, a still one-on-one, dedicated pitch. To be clear: one prospect at the time, perhaps millions of times.
Again, it is how you get to sell many billions of dollars of consumer goods and services.
Perhaps to establish some more creds, sorry to appear conceited about this, regrettably, I have too often been solicited by would-be-clients on the basis of their silly perception that I can sell ice to the Eskimo in the dead of winter. Right… Likely they got that from friends. More likely from non-friends?
Cannot sell ice like that. Perhaps holiday-specific, colored ice…
Now, perhaps the most important concept in relation to selling.
You know what the most dangerous thing is about a car?
Is it hundreds of horses, hurling thousands of mindless pounds of metal in your direction? At speed? The possibility of failing brakes or steering or tires? Doing all that in rain, snow, fog? Bad roads? Deer crossing in its path?
None of those, of course. It is the nut behind the wheel!
If you want to sell or pitch or whatever you are doing to cause a desired outcome, and “do that well”, as I humbly assert I know a bit about, best understand a lot about the nut behind the wheel.
Study him or her or them, should you have the displeasure to pitch a committee. Dispensing with all the gender specific balderdash, understand what he is driving, why, how AND his destination. Get focused on his basic needs, wants, fears. And his need to belong.
Then, address those! You will not be able to satisfy them. But address them you must!
Talk to your prospect. About him to him; never at him and seldom about yourself.
And, oh yes, best you know about what you are pitching. Your prospect does not much care about you. In fact, touting a benefit to him while a benefit to yourself (your product and even more so, you) is a downer. Not to say to ever apologize for the great thing making a sale would be and doing that with him and for his benefit! And a tad for yours …
Rather not carry on about my specific creds. Suffice is to say, once you “sold” stuff to post-cold war Russian generals, corrupt heads of state… Once you convince surgeons to give a shot at major surgery on a friend, without any likelihood of success… Once you convince the most storied freight carrier in history to land a 727 to pick up your freight … Well, you get it.
Some nuts and bolts…
Who needs to sell anything in the era of YOU-ARE-TWO-TAPS- ON YOUR KEYBOARD FROM ACQUIRING ANYTHING. Somebody once told me about spent uranium fuel from Chechnya… You get it….
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! If you want to be successful and that requires you compelling other to pay for your services, products or wisdom.
Some listeners of this will recall the – well, not the good old days but the much easier good old days – when you and I, because of some genuine competency, would decide to make something or provide a service. Really good stuff. Let’s say, we made the best and most ergonomically awesome chair. So. Here is our chair. Now: you all come and buy it! And many did.
It is reminiscent of one of the most spectacular business failures ever. US railroads. You see, those were once among the biggest real estate owners in the US. And they also had railroad cars. Regrettably, they did not think of themselves as being in the transportation business! Rather, in the real estate business!
How do I know this? Clearly had they thought so, they would own the airlines. Rather than be perennially bankrupt, often surviving on account of government largesse.
To further illustrate the point that I know is coming – there is what I call “The Kevin Costner Model: If you build it, they will come.” That from his movie, A FIELD OF DREAMS.
No, no, no. They seldom if ever come. Not unless you sell them on it!
Back to — Who needs to sell anything in the era of you-are-two-taps-from-getting-anything. You do! Having to sell is darned near existential. The big thing is how to do that!
Go to college and learn to sell. Really?
This is not begging for my thesis on the woefully inadequate state of education in the US. Particularly tenure infected college/university level education. I have been there, done that, lectured at some. As well as in Europe.
There was a time when so-called French intellectuals were valued. Specifically, people who LEARNED and KNEW some about a lot of things. Not much depth in anything. Very interesting dinner guests. And genuine pseudo-intellectuals.
What we have created in the US, specifically, as far as this topic, is kinda like pea-soup. You know it is at boil because, well, it appears to be because of the infrequent little bubbling on top. To be clear, it may be awesome pea-soup. But: that is all it is. Hardly a meal.
The vertiginously degrading upper education paradigm in the US has and continues to turn out the best at what I term HAUTE.EDU.
The “arcane” disciplines referenced in this question, e.g. doctors, engineers, lawyers, are all pea-soup. By and large, entirely boring on any topic other than their professed competency.
To be fair, all those haute professionals do have some affinity in the finance world, specifically in investing their money.
Of course, we now have all manner of college and university study courses that range from incomprehensible to insipid to infuriating to groundwork for social upheaval. Those graduates might find jobs with major businesses who are entirely abandoning meritocracy for the benefit of political correctness. Otherwise, retail clerical is in their future. Stop that! Nothing disparaging about retail clerical! Trust that some years, I really yearned for one of those fine jobs.
As to Political correctness, that is a cancer of the intellect. That has done more harm to the fabric of society than any despot could have done.
So: why teach any fundamentals? Damned be the talking-heads who confuse advertising and marketing with sales. Such an archaic idea: teach people how to sell!
Regrettably, so much of “selling.edu”, you will learn on your own. There is no substitute for wisdom on the firing line! In the trenches! How true. But… do you want to be on the firing line or in the trenches without the proper tools? Lest you want to remain entombed there!
I pushed an online start-up client to be the second biggest industry leader in their vertical. The CEO and I walked all of Manhattan, for a couple days, from end to end, every storefront that made any sense at all, and tried to sell them our uber-tech thing. Painful. And then we wrote “the book” on how to do that in all other sophisticated media. Raised a bunch of money.
And when he exited with a cargo-ship full of money, he devalued my options to lunch-money.
Some, well, pretty much all who have talked with me about selling and marketing, asked – with real concern: how to be great at selling without being salesy. As if being salesy is an entirely bad thing.
Many of us assert to be immune to sales pitches. To being sold. Nonsense. Many of us are simply immune to bad pitches. Even angered.
I really feel for most telemarketers who call me. I am upset with the people who stick them with astoundingly bad scripts. I talk to [too many] callers, hoping to impart three minutes on how they might pitch the next guy like me. Really. Just a woman or guy working very hard to make a living, in a very frequently thankless environment.
If you are a relevant business with a robust telemarketing effort, glad to chat. You would be among some successful ones.
When you pitch, being judiciously “pushy” is necessary. A “vanilla” pitch does not even get you lost in the noise.
Let’s be clear. When you are pitching or selling, you ARE pushing your wares. That is not a big surprise for the prospects. 100% of the prospects understand that the woman/man pitching is working their butts off making a living. THEY DO HAVE A CLEAR RECOGNITION OF THAT. If not some empathy as well!
Trust that many prospects – even senior corporate executives – consider that but for the grace of God (or biological happenstance), they would be pitching you for lunch money! I certainly do. I know and remember very clearly working for my lunch money. One good-sized business or personal faux pas, perhaps would have to do that again.
Also understand that prospects are conditioned and prefer to say NO. So much easier and with less perceived liabilities than YES.
So: push away! However, and please make note of this in BIG RED BLOCK LETTERS: the moment you make me feel that you know what is better for me that I do, you are toast.
I am told, by very prolific talking heads, that there are seven stages of a sales cycle: Prospecting, Preparation, Approach, Presentation, handling objections, Closing, and Follow-up. Ahhhh. This would not be an “expert” talk if I did not dispense with some important dos and don’ts… Here you go…
First, the bedrock of selling is preparation.
Please read MY PILLARS OF SUCCESS. One of my Pillars is: HOMEWORK, HOMEWORK, EXHAUSTIVE HOMEWORK. THEN, MORE HOMEWORK. BECOME A SHAMELESS RESEARCHER.
Without preparation, what you have is swiss cheese without the cheese.
There is much that goes into proper preparation to sell or pitch anything. Without a doubt, I proffer, there are two things that are important beyond anything else. I posit these to you in the form of questions. No need to take notes. I am 100% certain you will retain these, particularly that I am also 100% certain that you already know them. Perhaps not entirely focused on them. Yet. Thus, I must hammer these home…
- Do you know your product/service, intimately? How intimately? So that you have answers to 95% of the likely questions you would be asked? Be able to address 95% of the issues your prospect might raise? Only 95% you say? First, you cannot anticipate what some uber-brainiac may ask. Nor something an arrogant ass of a client might. More in a minute…
- Do you know your desired audience? Then,
- Do you know your desired audience?
- Do you know your desired audience?
- Do you know your desired audience?
Got it?
Let me be clear. A spectacular offer – of goods or services – with an excellent presentation, positioned exceptionally well in the marketplace, priced advantageously, pitched to the wrong audience will be a miserable failure.
Conversely, an OK offer, average presentation, barely adequate position in the marketplace, reasonably priced, pitched to the right audience can be a resounding success!
About presentation.
- Again, do you know everything (as much as possible) about your prospect? If not, DO NOT BOTHER selling there.
- Do you know everything (as much as possible) about your prospect’s business:
– his products/services
– his competitors?
Everybody wants to hear about what the competitors are doing and having success with. You be the one to enlighten.
Work on your presentation. When you have that really sharp, test-pitch the people who like you and some who really don’t like you. Your mother-in-law is a wonderful editor. Have them do their best to eviscerate your best pitch.
Ask them to raise all the objections they can think of, including “the dog ate their checkbook.”
Trust that they will be sufficiently critical – some really happy – to hold you and your pitch to the fire.
Then hone that pitch some more.
When I was selling media, humbly, more than most less than few, I spent 75% of the time talking to my prospect client about them. 20% about their competition. 5% – reluctantly – about us. Making my product essential to my prospect.
In re. overcoming objections, closing and follow-up
Those aspects of selling make most people sweat the most. Yet, those are the easiest components of the process. A couple things….
- Know that it is hard to overcome objections on stuff that is entirely out of your control.
It is so when you are selling apples to a buyer of oranges.
Big ouch when you find that out while really prepared and pitch your heart out, the prospect lets you know that you are not only praying in the wrong pew. In fact, in the wrong house of worship. Yes. Know your prospect.
That Manning solution? Reach into your well stocked bag of tricks and offer suggestion on where and or from whom that prospect may buy oranges! That makes you relevant! And, remember this Manning-ism: there is always a tomorrow.
- On closing, here is some obvious stuff that so many just do not consider. And when hit in the face with it, do not know what to do…
As soon as you walk in the room, you must figure out if you talking to THE decision-maker, or some jerk who loves to hear himself talk, and feels taller and better-looking putting a salesperson through hell. If do not, well, you just got taken.
Time for a cold drink, scalding hot shower, a change of clothes … And go pitch another good prospect. Forget that jerk. Just a matter of time before he does that to the wrong person. Better you be around for round two. His replacement, the new prospect, may feel some obligation to right some of his predecessors’ wrongs.
That is an absolute fact.
Now, some more on overcoming objections… How frustrating when the prospect has an endless string of objections, from relevant to insipid … and you run out of wisdom beyond what you can do with your children: because I said so. Do not advise that.
However.
Always have more benefits to offer in reserve. Never ever a desperate price concession. That devalues your product, service. And you!
Remember another Manning-ism: It is the process not the end that satisfies your prospect. Offering just a price concession is as clear as a pimple on your forehead that you were playing a game.
Arriving to a clear benefit for your prospect, reframing the paradigm for him, with you doing more for him, is the winner.
- Sometimes, for reasons none other than bolstering the relevance of your prospect, real or perceived, show up with muscle. Your boss’ boss’ boss works best. She or he can offer stuff you cannot AND AS A MATTER OF STRATEGY, should not. Up to the senior in the room to allow the company to genuflect to the client. Ahhh. Ms. Or Mr. client, you must be THAT important to us.
And then, no matter, you canget to: “Life is too short for this.” Figure out how to say that once you have overcome all reasonable objections. Reasonable.
It is important to know the wisdom of Kenny Rogers, the superstar country singer from the US: “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.”
However: know when to walk away with a door wide open behind you.
There is always a tomorrow. Shocking how often the prospect comes back to you once you walk.
On rejection
That is a big deal for everybody, except for some who should be institutionalized.
Dealing with rejection, at any level, by anybody, is difficult for everybody with a heart and soul, absent untreatable mental disorders. Heck, many cower when somebody on the road flips them off for a bad lane-change.
Rejection is gut-wrenching. Particularly when the person “rejected” draws a relationship between being rejected and paying rent.
That is debilitating. It is entirely defeating. You have all read about the old adage: “you can smell fear”. So can your prospect. On the other hand, the most arrogant jerk with a checkbook likes the association with success. Particularly when he feels empowered to make you successful.
On closing
The most successful salesman I ever dealt with, never had a briefcase, borrowed pen and paper to take my order, never asked for it. He never had a purchase order, was eager to get business concluded to take us out to lunch. In his really expensive car, befitting his $5,000 Brioni suits.
We spent millions with him every year. He was “just” a print salesman.
Oh. He always under promised just with this behavior and much of what he said. And always over-delivered.
Just when you think that is “secret sauce” stuff, well, the second most successful salesperson I ever dealt with was a really nice lady. She darned near apologized for asking for business. Every time.
I “got her number” after a year or two or three. The humility… And then the remarkable yet modest body language. I once thought to express my appreciation for the subtleness of that. She demurely thanked me, offered that it took her years to perfect it, and asked me for more business.
Oh. She promised little and always over-delivered.
You see, both honed their pitches to as good as they were capable to deliver, using their very personalities and competencies. As can you, if … here it comes again: do your homework. How much homework? Not enough!
On Follow up
You have my limited wisdom on being pushy herein above.
So many times, in my business life, I made proposals and evaluated proposals by others to us. Many that seemed well positioned, yet just did not jell.
The natural inclination to either push harder—right until you ride that horse off a cliff—or to give up.
One of my business friends of decades, Michael, now a partner in our mobile applications business, pitched me every six months on becoming my media data processing and manipulation provider. We were among the biggest buyers of those services in the US. For 20 years! Likely pitched me 40 times. My provider for all those years was happily captive to us.
Michael’s pitch was always the same:
– you know what we can do
– you know how good we are at that
– you know we are competitive
– Anytime you want to or need to make a change, just make a two-minute call. You will be the priority for my entire organization and me.
For various reasons, none having to do with Michael or his company, that did not come to pass. We certainly got pitched by everybody in that industry who had sufficient horsepower to handle our business.
Michael was the first person I called when looking for a resource I needed for the mobile business. Which, along with a chunk of his change, he readily made available, as a partner no less!
How do you follow up?
Your would-be client will tell you!
Either volunteer it or you can derive that from lunch-banter or – put your seatbelt on – if you ask!!
Then you have to find that one sentence or two to get over the: “You don’t have to follow up. We will let you know if and when we are ready or interested.”
Right. You’ve been blown-off before. However, you figure out what to say to that – that gives you the green light to – follow up! And with what to follow up and when.
Inundating a prospect with all your good stuff, yields you an increasingly inattentive, inundated prospect. Figure out the “punch-line” info. to share, with eagerness to go to the moon and back to present it.
By any means you think your prospect will appreciate or be absolutely amused by. Sometimes really annoyed by. Yup…. I know how motivating negative attention can be.
There are a hundred very creative ways to “get” to somebody. Sky writing and the guy in the gorilla suit with the balloons are so “been done already”. Not so with the farmer with the cow inside the lobby of …. OK. That now encroaches in my “secret sauce” zone.
Finally, I would be remiss to not admonish that there is no such thing as a slam-dunk in sales. Even pitches/prospects that are obvious naturals. Even those that are: “how the hell can they say NO to this??” So much easier and safer to say NO. Your job is to compel your prospect to say YES.
Always remember the nutcase behind the wheel!