There is a big difference between what’s legal and what’s right. As professional sales people, we must hold integrity above all else, including the letter of the law. Honesty is key, misleading, deliberately confusing and bamboozling sales advertising, literature and talk is no more acceptable today than the old school smile and dial rhetoric of the past.
Here’s an example of what I mean.
A new car dealer was using this misleading statement: “Bankruptcy Sale”
Bank Owned Cars Must Go!
Over 300 Bank Reprocessed vehicles for sale to the public!
All Must Go!
Now, when you look at that, do you get the feeling the bank has repossessed cars from some unfortunate people who failed to make their payments and sold them on to the garage for profit and now the garage is off loading them at hugely discounted prices?
Well, look again and you may notice that it doesn’t say “repossessed;” it says reprocessed! I asked the owner what that meant, and he had no answer. Especially since the cars in question (only about 150) had all been on the forecourt for months. Also, what and who is the “bankruptcy” what’s that all about?
The owner, in an effort to defend himself, informed me that the ad was perfectly legal, to which of course I (quite emphatically) let him know that it wasn’t.
Let’s continue to restore the integrity in our profession by ensuring truth in advertising, honesty in selling and let’s finally put the BS to R.I.P!
You see, when you make a telesales call and get through to voicemail you’ve got two options:
1. To hang up
or
2. Leave a message
Now if you leave a message all you should be doing is to “SELL THE CALLBACK”
You should not be going into a long winded “We do this, I called for that” etc
Instead, you should just “SELL THE CALLBACK”
So, how do you do this?
Well, my favourite is to say something like this:
“Hi Sean, this is Jo from ABC. Could you give me a quick call please with reference to XYZ Industries? My number is 33333333. Thanks a lot Sean”
Now, XYZ is a company that ABC would be familiar with or do business with or that you do business with - it must have some sort of connection.
When they call back you say “Thanks for returning my call Sean. XYZ have just taken out a full page ad with us and I just wanted to give you a call to see if there were any synergies between our companies too?”
Notice I have not used the words “Would you be interested in advertising etc”
You’ll get the majority of your voicemails returned if you use this approach.
Hope this is useful to you? Remember, there has to be a company connection if you’re going to use this approach.
So we decided to go to our local garden centre to have a wonder around and we ended up in the conservatory section!
My 2 year old daughter and I were looking at some plants and I look around and find my wife talking to a salesman about a conservatory. I wish I could sell to my wife!
Anyhow, I make a sharp dash over to join her before she sells the family jewellery and to my amazement they are talking figures!
GULP
To my surprise when I walk into the “showhome conservatory” I am hit by the heat. I could hardly breathe and my daughter starts to get uncomfortable. It was seriously hot. I had a major dab on!
Forcing my way into the negotiation part of the proceedings I ask “So are all of your conservatories as stuffy as this?”
The salesperson replied “Oh no sir. Yours would be a lot cooler”
“Why?” I replied “If you are trying to sell these at 15k a pop for the size we wanted why would the one on show be worse than the one we would buy?”
The salesperson was stumped.
Sales are made based on emotion backed up with logic. If I’d have walked into the showroom to find a very cool, inviting conservatory then I’d have felt good because it was 30 degrees outside. It would have stirred an emotion and the odds of me buying would have gone up considerably.
The fact that I was not impressed with the heat inside the room, the fact that I was sweating as the salesperson was talking to me did not give me a great feeling.
“Would you like to put down a deposit sir” he asked
The fact is, I didn’t trust what the salesperson was saying through my experience and I needed to find out more information. I need to find out:
1. Are they all as hot as that?
2. Was it just that brand that was boiling?
3. What else is out there?
The conditions that the salesperson had to work in were awful. It would have been like a sales person selling a freezer only to get an ice-cream from it that was nearly all melted.
Not good.
Set yourself up for selling in the right way. Our sales training would never have allowed all of the mistakes to happen and at 15k price just image how much lost revenue that company is experiencing?
Corrielle, my PA just received a call from a “Michael from Zoo” trying to sell us some meeting software I think because the sales call was that bad I couldn’t really tell you what he was offering. (BTW I was listening in on the call when after my PA motioned to me that I would love to hear what was going on!)
Let me tell you about how awful this sales person was.
The opening:
“Can I speak with Sean McPheat. A sales director or a gatekeeper will do as well”
What? This was awful!!!
He was arrogant and upon some resistance actually admitted he was arrogant!
“Do you mind if I am arrogant? I would hate to have go to one of your competitors and for them to get the edge over MTD with this product”
What?
How 1970’s was that line!
My PA is an awesome gatekeeper and she told the salesperson that old outdated sales techniques were useless!
“Okay, I’ll try another approach” he ended the call with.
Appalling!
Please, please, please DO NOT USE these selling tactics - they will ruin your business.
Use professional sales tactics, be warm, friendly and have my best interests at heart and you will have a good chance!
I love analysing sales people at work especially when someone tries to sell to me as I know exactly what is coming next!
One particular instance happened when we moved premises into the prestigous Business Innovation Centre that is part of the new Univeristy of Warwick development.
If you haven’t seen a picture of our premises yet please click here.
Anyhow, I wanted to give the office a makeover so I decided that for the new move we would purchase brand new furniture
I rang around personally to negotiate prices whilst some of my trainers listened in to the call as part of their development.
I ended up with a list of prices that all of these companies would “do for me”.
I then left it.
The following couple of days our office received call after call after call from salesman asking for me. They knew that this was a big deal and they knew that I was the decision-maker.
I played hard to get.
I then got one of my assistants to call each one back to say “Sean has narrowed his supplier search down to three firms, and he is interested in your product, is that the best price that you can do?
That’s it. I told her to say nothing more as I sat next to her whilst she was making the calls. I told her to say very little else and enjoy the silence!
What happened next?
Well, we received a further 10, 12.5 and 15 percent reductions in price!
The truth of the matter was that the salespeople were very poor and yes I screwed them completely.
As a prospect I was in-fact happy with the prices I had negotiated in the first place so to get an additional 15 percent was incredible.
But, all I was interested in was quality and not one sales person talked about quality and WHAT I WANTED and WHAT WAS IMPORTANT TO ME.
Instead I “smoke screened” them with the “best price” reply.
The reason why I say this is because your suppliers will try to screw you too so you need to be careful.
Here are some lessons from this encounter:
* Ask better quality questions up-stream to learn what is MOST important to the prospect. Just because they ask for discount don’t think that this is their main purchasing criteria.
I actually decided to go with a company a little more expensive than all of them who offered a superior product!
* Understand that your prospects will try to “play you off” against your competitors.
Knowing this, you do not have to jump through all of the hoops that they put in front of you. Sometimes its a game of bluff and double bluff.
Maybe that’s why I always clean up at our annual office Poker tournament?!
* Hold firm in your beliefs about the quality of your product.
Don’t discount it just because you may lose the business.
* Be prepared to walk away if the price is not right. A sale needs to be win win situation.
As always if you would like me or any of my team to come in and talk to you about how we could help your company, please do not hesitate to reply to this email and we’ll set something up.
Having been brought up in the industrial city of Coventry, the football team has always held a soft spot in my heart, even though there are times when I delve into the deepest of despair with their performances. Living many miles away from the city means my visits are most infrequent, but when I do make it back there, I sometimes catch a game.
And so it was that on one chilly October evening, I happened to find myself ensconced in a blue plastic seat, watching my ‘heroes’ take on Watford, a team 14 places above them in the league table. Of course, that wasn’t going to put us off, and, like all supporters of a team, I started with hope in the heart and wishes in my head. Alas, one of the poorest performances of the season saw my beloved team succumb by three goals to nil. At home. On a cold night. With only one shot at goal that could be remembered. Oh, well, I thought, better luck next time.
Then a very enthusiastic stadium announcer clicked on his microphone just as 17,000 disgruntled fans were milling their way sadly home. The irony of his comments were noted by fans surrounding me…”Don’t forget” he said, without a hint of sarcasm, “we will no doubt be seeing you all for our next home game on Saturday. Remember, it’s only £10 a ticket to see YOUR team!”
The sarcastic laughs around me made it obvious that those comments were not the most welcome. The general mood was pessimistic and unforgiving of a particularly poor performance by THEIR team.
I wondered what the response would be just four days later when the same team played again. I read the score and the report on the Saturday evening. Should I have been surprised to see that the attendance was over 23,000? Perhaps not. No doubt the discounted price had something to do with the increased crowd numbers.
But I also can’t help thinking that thousands of supporters who had been moaning, groaning and booing their team just four days earlier had also turned up at the next game. What is interesting is how our allegiances and loyalties rarely die, even though the embarrassment of a defeat lives long in the memory (well, at least 24 hours, anyway!)
It makes me think that, in business, some of the things we say and do stick in the memory for a long time, and many other things just fade and die away. Our loyalty to a company may not be very high these days, but we still stick with them, for a myriad of reasons. We have so many choices these days that it is difficult to stay loyal to a company for long before you see or hear of something better with someone else.
If you have customers, do you know what keeps them loyal? Have you asked them? What would make them walk away from you? Or are they fickle enough to leave for a small reason like ‘lower price’? My friend knows someone who drives more than 6 miles to a petrol station so he can save 1p per litre on fuel. That ‘duh’ type of loyalty doesn’t make sense to most people, but it would make sense to the person who drives that distance. We can always rationalise our emotional decisions, but when was the last time you found out specifically what makes your customers loyal?
Try asking them. And then do your best to meet and exceed those expectations.
There are some people, like die-hard footy fans, who would NEVER give up their allegiance, no matter how they felt about their team. Would you be able to buy that kind of loyalty? No, but you could find out what makes them choose to be loyal. Don’t let them walk away without you knowing why.
And, by the way, the next time I’m in the Midlands, I might just slide along to the Ricoh and see how the lads are doing. It’s in the blood, you know!
10 top tips to become the worst sales person in your company!
Have you ever had sales people who just never seem to make it no matter how hard they try? These sales people are one of the main factors for decline in business. Your sales people are the heart of your company and without good ones you will find it difficult to succeed in selling your products. To train good sales people you sometimes need to take a different approach.
Here are 10 tips that will save you from becoming the worst sales person in the company:
1. Not being punctual: being on time is very important to a customer. Take into consideration that many of your seasonal Christmas customers will be new. Your sales people will represent the first contact these customers have with your company. First impressions are lasting ones and your sales person need to make a good impression. Being on time will give a good impression to the client and increase their confidence in your company.
2. Poor presentation: some sales people just do not have all their ducks in a row and simply do not present the product well. A presentation is the first thing a customer will know about your product. If your product is not shown correctly to the customer he is very unlikely to buy.
3. Bad attitude: rudeness and unprofessional behavior is not acceptable under any circumstances. It is quite surprising that you will meet some sales people who are just plain rude and short with you the consumer. This gives the potential buyer the wrong impression about your company. They do not get a proper picture of the product, as they will probably not even wait for the presentation to end. You will lose many sales like this.
4. Not being articulate: a sales person must know how to express himself with confidence and fluency. He needs to be able to greet the prospect and introduce himself with assurance. This will start the whole presentation off to a good start. When he actually presents the product he must be sure to do this in a confident manner. He should also be prepared to answer all questions concisely and well. If your sales person cannot do this, your sale will not go through.
5. Not listening to a customer: a sales person should not only be able to present your product but listen to the prospective buyer. There is nothing more irritating to the consumer than having a sales person go on about a product and not letting you ask a few simple questions. After all whose money is on the line here? Worse still is when you do finally get to ask your question and instead of giving you a straight answer they go off on a tangent and have clearly not been listening to you. This will make a customer angry and they will probably never do business with you.
6. Basing a sale on cost: it is extremely risky for a sales person to depend on cost to close the sales. The prospective buyer will be quick to take advantage when he sees that the deal depends on the cost factor. He will drive the price as low as he can and you will take a heavy cut in profits for the sake of a sale. The buyer may hold off and then not even buy.
7. Not knowing when to close a sale: This is a common fault but a lethal one. Many sales have been lost because the sales person did not know when to close the sale. A good sales person is in tune with the prospective buyer and knows instinctively when to move to close the sale.
8. Hard sell: Hard sell is when sales people try to push the sale on the prospective customer. This will make the buyer aggressive and he will try to get rid of your sales person as soon as possible. It is a proven fact that nobody likes to be sold to.
9. Inflexibility: a sales person should be aware of different personalities and various situations. They must be flexible and able to adapt to different circumstances. The presentation may be the same but the buyers are rarely the same. Each buyer wants to feel special and expects the sales person to understand his circumstances. Inflexibility will cost you many sales.
10. Not following up a hot prospect: Follow up is very important. It is actually plain good manners. You have spoken to a person who has expressed interest in your company’s product but may not have been able to make a decision yet. It is courteous and good for business to follow up with hem. You may even make a sale this way. If your sales person does not know how to do this you will end up losing valuable customers and sales.
Last weekend we decided to go for a silly day out to Blackpool.
We wanted to take our little 1 year old daughter to the seaside for the first time and also take in the lights too.
We ended up in Harry Ramsden’s Fish and Chip shop for a sit down meal just before we set off for the 2 hour drive home.
I’ve just got to tell you of my experience:
1. We queued out the door for 20 minutes while table upon table were empty inside! Little Holly was getting restless as we had to hold the door open and wedge it with our pushchair!
2. We got "told off" very sternly by a Polish waitress that we would have to leave our pushchair by the door which had all of our valuables in it
3. I therefore asked for a highchair to put Holly in "Sorry they are all in use"
4. I was holding our little baby when the food arrived "How am I supposed to eat this when I cannot put my daughter in her buggy?" I asked. "She should be in a highchair" was the reply! "I know, all of the higchairs are in use" Is replied. The waitress walked off never to be seen again
5. My wife and I took it in turns to hold Holly while we had our fish and chips - ridiculous
6. Looking around by the till were 6 people waiting to pay and no-one taking their money. Looking over my other shoulder were 3 members of staff gossiping!
7. When the bill arrived it came to £28.50! We only had fish and chips twice
8. I went to pay - "Was everything ok sir?" said the staff "No, it’s a shambles in here I replied and I have never had fish and chips twice for thirty quid before"
9. They never replied to that!
Overall, it was an utter shambles.
I hope that you have better systems in place if you run a shop or restuarant.
It was over priced and the service was awful. Mr Ramsden will not be seeing any more of my cash!
Now that my wife is finally back home from hospital after beating a life threatening illness for months on end, it’s time to get back to some normality!
It was only yesterday that I tried to fit in to some of my suits and she was poking fun at me so things are getting back to normal! Whilst Donna was in Intensive Care I pigged out on take aways most nights because by the time I got back home from visiting her and after picking up our 1 year old daughter, I just could not be bothered to cook each night!
It had a BIG impact on my waistline I can tell you. And for someone who is used to going to the gym 3 or 4 times a week and someone who loves his grub, any change in the status quo means I only have to look at a bag of chips and I put on a couple of pounds.
Anyhow, I was looking for treadmills online and wanted a heavy duty one like you see in a proper gym Did you know some of them cost as much as 10 grand!
I saw one that I liked and the price was £3,000. So I called up the sales person who I took an immediate disliking to and thought to myself "I’ll have you, you cocky so and so!"
"I really like that £3,000 treadmill but I’ve only got £2,400 to play with and I want to buy today" I said
"I’ll see what my manager says" he replied
He called me back 10 minutes later with an offer of £2,350 for the same model! £650 cheaper! Just shows you the mark up. I would have accepted a counter offer of around £2,600-£2,700.
LESSON 1 - Never go too low on your counter offer. There is normally another round of negotiation to go.
Anyhow, I gave him the usual "I’ll think about it line"
Just now I sent him an email to say that I will purchase it this Friday and he replied back with:
"Yeah, no problem mate. Infact we are running another series of sales at the moment and I’ll probably be able to get another couple of hundred quid off for you"
He wasn’t wrong!
He came back with a further £250 off! And I never even asked for that.
LESSON 2 - I was sold already. There was no need to reduce any further. I actually said I will buy at the £2,350 mark and he came back with £2,100.
So, I look forward to ordering my treadmill this Friday and with almost £1,000 off it gives me a chance to get some forgiving trousers in the meantime! (These 32 inch waists are killing me! Yeah right!)
Happy Selling
Sean Mc
PS Never go too low in your negotiations with price!
My admin team are always given the enviable task (or not!) of arranging the MTD Sales Training Christmas party!
There’s more to it than meets the eye though!
Not only do they have to find somewhere suitable but I always like something different too. I get bored easily with a sit down to a 3 course meal followed by a disco - it’s just zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
This year they have really done a great job. We are at the Ricoh Arena where there is an indoor funfair, magicians, table entertainment, live bands - you name it!
I’m really looking forward to it.
Now, the reason for this post is to tell you of a ridiculous sales process the Ricoh have in place. As you probably know by now I like to work hard and play hard and hence the Xmas bash is always held on a Saturday so there is no work the following day for hangovers etc, I always pay for everything including partners and we also book hotel rooms for all of my staff that have travelled from our nationwide offices.
Now, we wanted to book some rooms at the Ricoh but were told that they were all sold out but if we call back in October there will be loads of them free then as they always have lots of cancellations when it is time to "pay up".
"Could you please put us down on the waiting list and give us a call when the rooms are free in October" said one of my staff.
"I’m sorry, we do not do that - it’s our policy. You’ll have to call back in October" was the reply.
Now, how stupid is that?! We will have to call back every day in October I expect.
Here we are ready to pay for 10-30 rooms and they can’t even be bothered to call us back!
I keep going on about making it easy for your clients to do business with you. This is a poor example of that. 30 rooms x £100 is £3,000 and they can’t be bothered to make a note in the diary to call up my team in October? Ridiculous.
I sure hope your company is easier to do business with. Cut through all of the "Policies" and crap you have to put up with and help your clients - JUST MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM TO PART WITH THEIR MONEY AND THEY WILL!
I received an email recently from a guy called David Poole who described his experiences when purchasing some furniture.
Maybe you can learn some lessons form this too?
Here’s David’s email:
Hi Sean
(Sean my apologies for you not knowing who I am, my name is David Poole and both Nick and I subscribe to your fantastic newsletters, oh and Amelie is my fiance…you’ll see.)
How often have you seen this in sales related industries?
After leaving my friends house last Sunday, Amelie and I went to browse at dining tables. We first went to XYZ COMPANY based on the Meteor Centre in Derby, we had been there 2 weeks ago and saw a table we loved, priced at £700. Upon our arrival I gave the mother of all buying signals, "Do you do finance?" I spoke to the person we had spoken to 2 weeks ago, so should have a memory of who we are, especially with Amelie being French. His immediate response was, "yes we do, its interest free for 12 months, but after that you get whacked with a 29% interest charge which is paid off over 4 years."
Not the response I was expecting so I gave him another chance, after all Amelie and I were really serious about buying it. "So Mr Salesman let me get this right, if I have an outstanding balance of £100 I would be hit with a 29% charge, is that 29% of balance or initial order cost."
Sean, he didn’t know, he didnt tell me that, but is was obvious he wasn’t so sure himeslf. Im positive in thinking that because he didnt know the answer, and that he didn’t want to face FSA penalties , he gave incorrect information so he didnt have to do a finance sale.
However I wouldn’t give up.." What if I have an outstanding balance in month
13 (remember its 12 months interest free) if I pay it off in one lump sum, what penalties will I receive?"
Sean he went as far to say they there are penalties based upon length of term, ie 1/4 1/2 3/4 his information was vague and I only had an idea of what he wa talking about because ive sold finance before.
UPSHOT
Amelie and I left dissapointed. It was £700 and we could have put down a sizable deposit. If there had been a fact find, the salesman could have said…
Mr Prospect if you place a deposit of £350 , it would leave you with £350 to pay, or in other terms £1 a day, what can you buy nowadays for £1 a day?
2nd Upshot - the emotional purchase
We visit a second store and met a real life David Brent…..he even did the dance to secure the sale because I asked him to! oh he is branch manager!!
Amelie and I Identified 2 dinings tables we both like…we were really in the mood for buying.
Bought the most expensive at £575 + £45 for a 3 year accidental warranty and got the delivery for free, which should hae been another £45. Oh yes, we paid cash.
Overview
XYZ COMPANY didnt have a clue and lost out on a sale, how many do they actually lose?
2nd company (Harveys) only got the sale because I wanted to buy. I bought, they did not sell. You could argue he made me feel like it was our choice, truth is, it was us who drove the deal, we did the bargaining and approached him.
Morals of the story
1) When staff are trained is it done properly? XYZ didnt have the right information and as a result actually violated FSA rules.
2) How many sales are by chance, can we have a new column in the annual finanical report, lets call it "chance"
3) How many sales people automatically think that a finance requirement will be for 100% of the deal.
4) We don’t move into our new house for another 2 weeks and understand there could be a delay in delivery. If XYZ did a fact find of budget and timing, we could have paid in installments without the need for finance.
I hope you find this read interesting and that you use our experience to your advantage.
