The Pipeline of Success

Like all good salespeople I'm always looking for ideas to improve myself.
One of the ways I do that is to read articles. Ones that have a big impact on me I keep a hard copy of so I can read it again later. At least once a year I go through them all and make sure they are still relevant to my life as a salesperson.
Some articles are saved and some are tossed. Below is an article by Jeffrey Gittomer that has survived my test of time:

The pipeline of success.
An excerpt from Jeffrey’s
Sales Bible: New Edition

I am about to present you with a formula and a challenge.

If you’re looking for a magic formula, go read a book on the life and times of Houdini.

If you’re looking for magic, that’s different. You have all the magic needed to double your present income. All you have to do is learn to execute the tricks.

Here is the theory behind the formula. These questions will provide the answers to your sales earning capacity:
• How many sales do you want to make per day, per month?
• What is the dollar value of your average sale?
• To make your goal, how many dollars in sales do you have to make per day, per month?
• How many prospects do you need to see to make a sale?
• What is the set of numbers you need to get to these answers?

Want to do it in 30 days? Easy – up your urgency. Get committed. I can supply the jet plane. It’s up to you to provide the jet fuel. When I started out in sales, I used to pick up the paper and read the obituaries until I found someone who was close to my age. It lit a candle under me for weeks.

Here are the 12.5 elements in the formula…
1. Your attitude. The key to your success. Get CDs now. Listen two hours a day for six months. Stop doing or listening to negative things.
2. Your goals. Set them today. Read the 6.5 steps in the Post-it Note section again (page 47). Use the Post-it Notes beginning right now.
3. Your networking. Find out where your best customers and prospects meet (trade association, chamber, club). Begin attending every meeting you can. It is imperative that you attend regularly.
4. Your power questions. Write ’em. Learn ’em. Use ’em.
5. Your power statements. Write ’em. Learn ’em. Use ’em.
6. Your sales tools. Figure out what tools you need and get ’em.
7. Your sales knowledge. Get sales skills CDs and listen to them. Alternate with the attitude CDs. Use the idea as soon as you hear it. Read every chapter in this book twice. One chapter per day.
8. Your preparedness. Are you truly ready to sell? If you are, you will. If you’re not, you won’t. The opposite of preparedness is failure.
9. Your follow-up. Tenacious, creative persistence that leads to a sale.
10. Your sales numbers. Making yourself see the numbers you need to build your pipeline and keep it full. Find your formula and use it.
11. Your prospect pipeline. Seeing the proper number of people a day who are qualified to buy builds your pipeline. The key to double income is having the right number of prospects ready to buy.
12. Your commitment. Write it to yourself. Tell others who will help you. Your commitment is your personal promise to yourself. Keep it at all costs.
12.5 Your self-discipline. Your determination and ability to achieve your goals and live up to your commitments.

There is a sales adage that says, “Your chances for success increase in proportion to the number of sales calls you make.” It’s amazing how the truth can be so simple. If it’s so simple, why don’t you do it?

Good fundamental sales skills and solid product knowledge are meaningless unless you see and follow up the proper number of prospects.

Seeing the numbers creates a pipeline…the number of prospects at or near the buying point.

A quick check of your numbers will reveal why your sales are booming or slumping…

If you appoint and present to 10 prospects, two will buy no matter what you do and two won’t buy no matter what you do. The other six are on the fence and will buy or not buy as a result of what you say or don’t say. A sale will be made either way. Either you sell them on yes, or they sell you on no.
The above is still true 10 years after I received this article through a subscription to Gittomer's newsletter. Thanks Jeffrey!

Ev
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"

August Jokes

Jokes for August 2010 (Always clean enough to tell your mother):

Where does a boat go when it gets sick?
(The doc)

A woman walks into a vet's waiting room.
She's dragging a wet rabbit on a leash.
The rabbit does not want to be there.
"Sit, Fluffy," she says.
Fluffy glares at her, and sopping wet, jumps up on another customer's lap, getting water all over him.
"I said sit, now there's a good Fluffy," says the woman, slightly embarrassed.
Fluffy quite miserable and perhaps feeling rebellious, squats in the middle of the room and urinates.
The woman, mortally embarrassed, shouts,
"Darn it Fluffy, will you be good?!"Fluffy then starts a fight with a Doberman and pursues it out of the office.
As the woman leaves to go after it, she turns to the rest of the flabbergasted customers and says,
"Pardon me. I've just washed my hare, and can't do a thing with it!"

THE POTATO
Girl Potato and Boy Potato had eyes for each other, and finally they got married, and had a little sweet potato, which they called 'Yam.'
Of course, they wanted the best for Yam.
When it was time, they told her about the facts of life.
They warned her about going out and getting half-baked, so she wouldn't get accidentally mashed, and get a bad name for herself like 'Hot Potato,' and end up with a bunch of Tater Tots.
Yam said not to worry; no Spud would get her into the sack and make a rotten potato out of her!
But on the other hand she wouldn't stay home and become a Couch Potato either.
She would get plenty of exercise so as not to be skinny like her Shoestring cousins.
When she went off to Europe, Mr. and Mrs. Potato told Yam to watch out for the hard-boiled guys from Ireland and the greasy guys from France called the French Fries.
When she went out west, they told Yam to watch out for the Indians so she wouldn't get scalloped.
Yam said she would stay on the straight and narrow and wouldn't associate with those high class Yukon Golds.
Mr. and Mrs. Potato sent Yam to Idaho P.U. (Potato University) so that when she graduated she'd really be in the Chips.
But in spite of all they did for her, one-day Yam came home and announced she was going to marry Tom Brokaw.
Tom Brokaw? Mr. and Mrs. Potato were very upset.
They told Yam she couldn't possibly marry Tom Brokaw because he's just.....a “COMMON TATER”.

Feel free to submit jokes to share for September!

Everet Kamikawa
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"

Summer Doldrums for Recruiters & Salespeople

Has your sales team hit the summer doldrums? August can be a tough prospecting month as your team hears "They are on vacation but be back in a week" again and again.

When this happens it's really easy for your team (and your company as a whole) to fall into a slump. Suddenly everyone is in the "no one is around so why try" trap. As your team makes fewer and fewer calls as they make fewer connections - and you'll see the impact on your top line in a few months (depending on the length of your sales cycle).
What's the best way to get out of this slump? Proactively focus your team on ideas to finish the year strong and build momentum for 2011.
In order to jump start your team when they return from Labor Day weekend, take a few moments now to plan the agendas for your weekly September meetings. Set aside part of each meeting to focus on a different area that can drive revenue this year and build momentum for next year. Potential topics to consider include:
• Top five (5) prospects
• Top five (5) customers
• Budget discussions
• Referral campaign
• Building momentum into 2011
As we see the end of August approach, now is the time to prepare for a year-end push and to focus your team on the right activities to drive strong results. Good luck and stay focused!
If you cringe at the phrase "Summer Sales Slump," it's clear it's taking place at your company.

Ev As A Company Spokesman

A short 45 second video I starred in during 2010:



Thank you!

Ev
"A Heck of a Nice Guy"

Summary of the Salesperson Recruiting Process

For years I've heard recruiters talk about how frustrated they are with recruiting good salespeople. You've read my views and experiences when it comes to recruiting salespeople over the years and I hope you've taken the advice and put it into practice.

Dave Kurlan, author of Baseline Selling wrote a great summary of the recruiting process for salespeople. It summarizes everything I've said for years about the recruiting process for salespeople. Here is his article:

When you are in the process of recruiting salespeople, there are a number of KPI's you can track to reveal how effective you are at finding, attracting, assessing, screening, interviewing, selecting, hiring, on boarding and retaining great salespeople. Yes, each of the topics just mentioned are pieces of the sales recruiting process and they can all be tweaked, improved and refined until you get it just right. It's sort of like cooking with the only difference being that I can't cook (grilling doesn't count) but I can sure find the right salespeople.

Your candidate pool is comprised of the quantity and quality of candidates who respond to your online posting. If you are not happy with either the quality or quantity of your pool, then your ad, title or job site settings are to blame. Tweak those as you would your recipe ingredients. In about 9 out of 10 cases that I've seen, the ad is to blame. Describe the candidate you need; not the darn opportunity or company!

If you aren't happy with the number of candidates who are getting recommended by your assessment, your assessment criteria could be the reason. However, if you remove or reduce some criteria you'll be compromising on the quality of the candidates. Once again, it is more likely that you need to tweak your ad. See above.

If you aren't happy with the candidates you speak with by phone, you can add criteria to your assessment and you'll simply have fewer candidates that get recommended. Then you won't waste your time talking to frauds, wanna be's, and morons!

If you find that the candidates who make it all the way through to your first interview aren't the quality you were hoping for, your phone screening call is probably to blame. You probably aren't being tough enough with your questions or your scoring is too generous. You must be fast and firm on that phone call!

Finally, if you aren't happy with the salespeople you are selecting, you can look in the mirror. Ask yourself to what degree you are putting your likes and dislikes ahead of the data. The data never lies but your eyes will tell you you're hungry right after you eat! There is a place for gut feel, but it should never take place at selection time when following your gut means overruling the data.

Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.

Thanks Dave!

Here is a link to the article and Dave's blog:http://www.omghub.com/salesdevelopmentblog/tabid/5809/bid/13783/How-to-Refine-Your-Sales-Candidate-Pool-and-Selection-Criteria.aspx

What to Look for When it Comes to Hiring a Salesperson?

What do you look for when it comes to hiring a salesperson?
I recently asked several sales coaches, sales authors, and sales trainers what employers should look for:





Dave Kurlan of Objective Management Group (www.objectivemanagement.com)and Author of Baseline Selling



Mark Green of Performance Dynamics Group (www.time-for-change.biz)



Howard Popliger of Epic Development & Evaluations (www.epicdevelopment.ca)



Sales Expert Adam Boyd of Market Sense (http://www.ms.sandler.com)

Avoid Job Posting Cliches

I've rewritten thousands of job ads in my career. Despite my best efforts, there still seems to be a plethora of cruddy ads out there. I'm forming an army of converts to go out and evangelize my job ad writing tips.

Here is the first shot fired from our job ad writing cannon:

Avoid cliche words and phrases!

"outstanding growth potential"
"highly motivated"
"competitive salary"
"complete benefit package"
"fast paced"
"be your own boss"

Words like these don't tell the job seeker anything! Get rid of them.
THEY WILL NOT HELP YOU ATTRACT THE TALENT YOU WANT!
EVERYONE has good pay and benefits, however one job seekers idea of good pay and benefits may not be another persons idea of good pay and benefits.

I talk with job seekers who are applying to clients all the time.
They say that these words tell them nothing about a particular job.
These words started being used to save money in newspaper ads, where you pay by the word. The perception among advertisers was that job seekers would know what was meant by these words.
When it was only the newspaper that provided job ads, job seekers just had to accept it.
That changed with online job ads.
Online job seekers are used to seeing longer, more detailed ads.
They are used to scrolling down the screen to see more information about a job.
Job seekers see a well written and informative ad by a company as a place that shows a certain level of care for its employees.

Job seekers would much rather know that they are:
-expected to be at a job from 7am to 7pm,
-call on presidents and CEO's,
-and sell $200,000 packages in a market with five competitors,
The above lines actually tell the job seeker something about the job rather than generic words like "fast paced environment."
What does "complete benefit package" include? Dental or vision?
In addition to traditional benefits like health care, does the benefit package include non-traditional benefits like concierge service for dry cleaning, or a monthly employee massage, maybe an employee lunch cooked by the president? Does "outstanding growth potential" mean growth in earnings or in management? If a job seeker does X, does that mean they will be promoted to Y in a certain amount of time?

Stop being generic and start being specific and you will see a change in the type of candidates that apply to your ads!
Will you be one the soldiers in my army? Can I get an amen?!

Ev
A Heck of a Nice Guy

Job Search Advice for Salespeople pt. B

There are a lot of good salespeople looking for work these days.
I was a guest on Street Smart Conversations with Kathy Bornheimer.

Here are some tips on how salespeople can find jobs in today's market.
For more information on Kathy Bornheimer's job coaching program go to:
http://www.streetsmartjobsearch.com

Ev

Job Search Advice for Salespeople pt. A

There are a lot of good salespeople looking for work these days.
I was a guest on Street Smart Conversations with Kathy Bornheimer.

Here are some tips on how salespeople can find jobs in today's market.
For more information on Kathy Bornheimer's job coaching program go to:
http://www.streetsmartjobsearch.com

Ev