My Point Exactly!

I’ve read about all sorts of characteristics that sales people need to possess in order to be successful. One that doesn’t often make the list is imagination. Yet one could argue that this characteristic is essential—you need to be able to imagine how your customer can use your product. In addition, the good sales reps know how to imagine what it is in the mind of their customers (mindset). Imagination also applies to crafting your sales language. You need to be able to imagine how the words you choose will be interpreted by your prospects and customers.

In his blog “Mark Twain was Right—Numbers Lie”, Paul McCord talks about how all the numbers and statistics don’t necessarily mean anything when applied to humans. He described how the NFL tries to quantify the potential draftees by assigning numbers to them that reflect their skills, physical abilities, intelligence—all used to provide guidance as to their predicted success as future football players. And of course, the numbers lie. Those that you expect to be great—based on all of those qualities that were defined and captured often are not. And those unknowns—well, they surprise you.

As I was flying home from Philadelphia last week, I got into an interesting conversation while waiting for my plane. Joe, a business manager, was talking about a quote he read recently that 70% of business managers are incompetent! And the experts who derived this statistic were industrial psychologists— the group of psychologists that specializes in business. We got into a great discussion about managers we knew who were competent and those who weren’t.
It made me think of how knowing what to do (and to make things better) and applying that knowledge is not enough.

People tend to do business with people they like and trust. So how do you sell your product if it competes with one represented by a sales person who has established a great relationship with your customer? That’s the value of creating an unassailable position.

I recently read that today’s typical college graduate will have, on average, 12 different jobs during their lifetime. No one can predict what those future jobs might be—unforeseen technological advances alone make that level of prediction impossible. (Just within the last 10 years, we have witnessed the launch of the iPods, iPads Wii, the Kindle and Facebook, iPhones, Droids, and the list goes on and on.) But I’m willing to bet that no matter how technology changes or how the economy grows or how the political tides flow most will get their jobs through some type of networking.

Pharmaceutical companies direct lots of resources at getting samples to patients. Not only does it help patients save money and give physicians the chance to see how a particular medicine works but samples also increase sales representatives’ access to doctors. Studies have repeatedly shown that without samples physicians would limit access to only 10% of sales representatives.
When you think about access, there are basically 2 types—mental and physical. No doubt

The word “compelling” conjures up an image of being persuasive….very persuasive. It conjures up someone taking the action or adopting the point of view you are advancing because it makes perfect sense emotionally and logically and it is in their best interest. If we are compelling in our sales conversations, the odds are that many of our customers or prospects will be impacted by what we say and buy our product.

What makes our words sound compelling to someone else? Words by themselves can be meaningless—it is how we combine them to communicate a message that’s important

Recently, I had one of those “ah-ha” moments about a simple yet powerful application of the “thinking like a customer concept”. It started benignly….I was told by a good friend to contact Joe. So I sent Joe an email, mentioning my friend’s name and why we should connect. I didn’t hear from him. Three weeks later I was speaking to a different friend who said I really should speak to Joe. I told him I did and explained that I had sent him an email but he didn’t respond. That’s when he told me that Joe doesn’t answer emails

“Real [sales] professionals listen 80 percent of the time and talk 20 percent.” Rick Phillips, the author of the article “Don’t Pressure, Persuade” espoused this ‘fact’ in the Jan/Feb 2010 Selling Power Magazine. I disagree. If you take this statement at face value, you could actually sound more like an interrogator than a sales person.
Certainly we want to listen more than we talk but let’s step back a bit and think of how you may want to approach your potential customer before peppering him or her with questions. You

How valuable can a piece of paper be? I’m not talking about currency—just a piece of paper with words that you wrote on it. For some, it can mean accomplishing your lifelong dream. That’s certainly the case of Reggie Williams, a rookie playing basketball for the Golden State Warriors. It seems that Reggie learned the value of writing down your goals in order to accomplish your dreams. He took that advice to heart and says that was the key to attaining his dream of playing for the NBA. That advice he got was from me