Inquisix Networking Night – Boston – Jan 29 2008

18 Jan

Join Inquisix and fellow beta members for a night of networking!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 starting at 6pm

Our guest speaker is Rick Roberge, the great sales coach and mentor from Dave Kurlan and Associates, who will speak from experience on why giving referrals is so beneficial to his business….and yours.

This is an invitation-only event with limited space so please email me early for an invitation.

Location
Papa Razzi
2 Wall Street, Burlington, MA
781-229-0100

Schedule
6-6.30pm – Registration & Networking
6.30-7.30pm – Rick Roberge, Sales Coach
7.30pm-? – Networking, Inquisix Q&A

Appetizers & cash bar will be provided.

This is a great opportunity to meet fellow Inquisix members, learn about giving & getting referrals from a sales master and learn how to use Inquisix to its full advantage.

RSVP now – space is limited – email me for an invitation.

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The most important word in sales

16 Jan

I attended a networking group meeting hosted by the Pawtucket Networking Meetup group. It was well attended by almost 20 people, some selling B2B and others selling B2C. The guest presenter was Marty Eerhart presenting his mini workshop, “New Business Development for Professionals.”

He spent time talking to us about creating our own Informercial about ourselves – something that Joanne Black calls her, “10 seconds to get a smile” when telling someone what you do. The people you are speaking to want to hear

  • What you do
  • What’s in it for them

Then Marty asked the room, “What’s the most important word in sales?” He received many answers including ones you’d probably think of

  • sale
  • now
  • please
  • final
  • offer
  • benefit
  • discount
  • value

and many others. He said, “Nope” to all of them. Marty says that the most important word in sales is BECAUSE.

What you do because what’s in it for them.

His reasoning? When you were a child and were begging for something from your parents, they turned to you and said, “No.” And as most children do, you asked, “Why?” and their answer, “Because!”

Why should I buy from you? BECAUSE…..what’s in it for me.

Anyone think there’s a more important word in sales?

Collecting online friends like airlines miles

3 Jan

How many invitations are you getting a week to become a friend of someone on their online networking site? Invitations from social sites like Facebook and business sites like LinkedIn come to my mailbox daily. Then there’s MySpace and Going and MeetUp – the list goes on. It seems like a game or a treasure hunt, “…whoever collects the most friends win….” Remember in the early days of frequent flyer programs when you’d stand around saying, “Well I’m a 50K on United” and another salesrep would trump you by saying, “I have Platinum status on American!” Some of these people have collected online friends like they collect airline miles – I mean seriously, who really knows the 500 people they’re connected to in LinkedIn, for example?

I had these thoughts rattling around for a while but it was Seth Godin’s recent blog that got me to put it down on paper. Seth asks, “I wonder if there’s a more useful measure: who trusts you?”

I agree! Can you really know more than 150 people that well? Enough for them to trust you and vice-versa?

* eBay has seller ratings to help buyers determine if they can trust a seller.
* TrustPlus is a new site that lets you view the reputation of others while building your own reputation.
* Inquisix has member referral ratings for each of our members to help determine if members want to exchange referrals with each other.

Having lots of online friends is nice. Knowing who you can trust online is even better.

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Get Productive, Drop Your P.I.T.A. Clients

27 Dec

We’ve all had a “PITA client”-perhaps more than one. (PITA stands for “pain in the a**.) A PITA will drain you, consume valuable resources, upset your team, squeeze you on price, pay slowly, and will never be satisfied with the results-even when you’ve agreed on the deliverables.

You know the warning signs. A PITA client will:

  • Nickel and dime you on price
  • Tell you they’re the decision makers when they’re not
  • Threaten you with your competitors
  • Make unreasonable demands, and expect fast, complete, and reliable delivery of your service
  • Not return phone calls

Talk about loss of productivity! PITAs are our biggest time wasters and they erode our profits. When we accept a PITA, it’s an opportunity cost-an opportunity lost to do business with our ideal clients. Yet companies continue to accept this bad business, all the while thinking it’s better than no business. But is it?

Sometimes it’s because we have a quota to meet, or our company insists we do a deal, or we think we can turn a bad situation into a good one. We’re dreaming. Bad business is bad business. Period.

Salespeople frequently say that they will sell to “anyone who fogs a mirror.” Avoid this kind of thinking. We shouldn’t target just “anyone.” “Anyone” all too frequently turns out to be the PITA customer.

Fire the PITA! Most of the time we can identify the PITA client before we even begin to work with them. Say no. It’s OK to walk away. In walking away from the PITA, you’ll have time to attract the kind of clients you really want, to do the work you love, and your productivity will soar!

Want more?
Listen to my podcast on Productivity on Salesopedia

Get the No More Cold Calling Self-Study Workbook

This self-study program equips you with referral strategies for finding clients who truly need your product or service.

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Holiday Reading to Recharge Those Sales Batteries

19 Dec

For many of us, the end of the calendar year coincides with the end of the sales year. Have you made it yet? Will you (and your customers) enjoy the time between Christmas and New Year’s because you’ve already delivered your revenue committment to senior management?

Battery

When you need a quick break from all the holiday cheer and want to recharge those sales batteries with some quiet time then consider catching up on your sales reading and learning. But don’t have time to read all the new books on selling? Would you like the Cliff Notes versions instead? The Top Sales Experts website has just the booklet for you – and it’s co-authored by many of the top sales experts.

TopSalesExperts

I like “Leaving PowerPoint Behind and Make the Person-to-Person Sale” by Joanne Black, author of “No More Cold Calling” and guest blogger on this site.

Another good article is “A Glimpse at Sales 2.0 – the Potential and the Pitfall” by Keith Rosen. As salespeople, many of us started selling in the days laminated presentations and always making sure there was change in our pockets for the pay phone. Today we’re using web-based conferencing and wouldn’t be caught dead without our cell/PDA. So what’s next?

Read the article. Read them all – in the the order they interest you.

Which articles did you enjoy best?

Happy Selling!

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Where to start networking?

5 Dec

Everyone agrees that getting referrals to new prospects is so much better than cold calling down that long list that your company provided you. But how do you get started? John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame has put together a brief video primer on just this very topic. He focuses on

– defining your value proposition
– who you tell this to
– why you are asking for the referral

http://workbench.ducttapemarketing.com/kickapps/flash/premium_drop_v3.swf?b=1&widgetHost=workbench.ducttapemarketing.com&mediaType=VIDEO&mediaId=114181&as=10266

In principle I agree with how John suggests you get started even if it seems a bit pushy and low-tech. A vital part of any networking program is to ensure the people you want referrals from understand exactly what you do – ie your value proposition. Sure, your customers probably know that already but what about your friends, family and colleagues? Don’t bore them with a feature/benefit pitch – think of your elevator pitch that gets makes them chuckle and excited about telling other people about you. What do I tell people we do at Inquisix? “We’re matchmakers [pause] for salespeople!” Joanne Black, author of “No More Cold Calling” announces, “I’m the Referral Queen!”What do you tell people so they’re remember you?

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Bootstrapping an entire industry

27 Nov

I recently attended a dinner event hosted by the Pioneer Institute where the main speaker was selling his dream to us – to bootstrap entire industries. He has a great vision to get entrepreneurs and companies to build amazing things – but with no government funding or oversight. Even the big companies aren’t interested in participating but he certainly has captured the imagination of millions. So who is this gentleman and how is he achieving this? Dr. Peter Diamandis took his inspiration from Lindbergh’s first flight over the Atlantic. Lindberg was 26 years old who no one thought would be the first one to cross the Atlantic. Lindbergh won the Orteig Prize, “…a $25,000 purse offered by hotel magnate Raymond Orteig to the first person to fly non-stop between New York and Paris…” and proved that entrepreneurs could outperform large corporations and governments. Lindbergh’s success helped launch the commercial aviation industry.

Dr. Diamandis created the Xprize as a way to foster the drive to achieve great things. He partnered with the Ansari family to offer a $10M prize to the first organization to reach space without government funding. That prize was awarded in 2004 to the builders of SpaceShipOne. Dr. Diamandis believes that prizes are a great way to bring a whole industry forward, not just a single company. He sets the prize money low enough for the big guys to ignore about but big enough for entrepreneurs to care. He commented that the day before a breakthrough happens, it’s considered a crazy idea that only entrepreneurs are willing to risk it all to achieve.  Change is brought from the outside, not from the current group in charge.

100mgcar genome moon spirit spaceshipone xprize

He now has Google offering a $30M Xprize for the first organization to reach the Moon and send back video. Again, no government funding is permitted. They’re calling this Moon 2.0.

More prizes are coming – prizes for the first 100mpg car, for mapping the entire human genome and more. The foundation that Dr. Diamandis chairs is looking at prizes to focus on improving education, on renewable energy sources and on reducing poverty. This blog does not do justice to what he’s accomplished and how he’s inspired so many people to do wonderful things.

Please go to his website to learn more, to be inspired and to build something great yourselves.

Thank you to Erik Britt-Webb for inviting me to the event and to Pete Peters, Founding Chairman of the Pioneer Institute for inviting such a wonderful and inspirational person as Dr. Diamandis to speak to us.

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Humor From SalesLadder – part 2

15 Nov

The SalesLadder emailed me this funny comic today, although with my need for coffee, it’d be a nice keyboard to have!

SalesLadderCoffee

Stop the Cold Calling Insanity!

12 Nov

Frank Rumbauskas, of Never Cold Call fame, recently sent me a 5 minute video on why cold calling is ineffective. His premise is that cold calling equals 0 results. So cold calling 50 times still means 50 times 0 equals 0. His punch line made me laugh, “…I heard the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

FrankRNoColdCalling

Sales Coaching with Dave Kurlan

8 Nov

I recently attended a luncheon meeting with Mike Ford of TownConnect and about 150 other sales and corporate executives hosted by Dave Kurlan of Baseline Selling fame. Dave spent two hours with us discussing his philosophies on sales management best practices and sales rep hiring & success factors. The audience had the opportunity to choose the agenda based on our biggest concerns – sales management, forecasting, hiring & planned turnover were the most requested topics.

BaselineSelling-small

In reviewing my notes from the meeting, the things that I underlined as most interesting and thought provoking were:

– Hire sales managers for accountability, coaching, motivating, growing and recruiting. NOT for closing deals.
– Sales managers should motivate reps to get deals into the funnel and the coach them on moving deals through the funnel.

If you attended the event, what did you find as most interesting? (other than the tour of Gillette Stadium!)

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