Btb Guest Author

Miriam Ahern

Face-to-face business networking is a much cheaper way to promote your business than advertising or PR. It is a low-cost activity where the pressure is on your time rather than on your pocket. It’s more effective than on-line networking as you build important personal relationships more quickly.

Nevertheless, meeting someone just once is unlikely to bring you new business. The key lies in repeat-encounters. However, the old maxim still holds – time is money. Here’s how to spend that time wisely:

Step # 1 - Determine why you need to network and set clear networking objectives for yourself

Action - List the main (important and urgent) objectives for your networking activities for the next twelve months. These objectives might be aligned to a personal or business plan that you have developed. Be very specific in terms of what you need to

do and why and when you need to do it. Use the SMART principle so that your networking objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

Step # 2 - Audit your existing networks

Action - Make a ‘master list’ of your existing networks on one sheet of paper. Then, for each of those networks, take a blank sheet of paper and brain-storm that network. What you want to end up with is a set of individual lists of all of your active contacts within in each of your current networks. An active contact is someone with whom you have interacted during the last three months or so. If you are used to ‘mind-mapping’, that method makes this step really easy.

Step # 3 – Align your ‘master list’ to your new networking objectives

Action – Ask yourself this question. Are there other relevant groups of people that I need to network with to achieve my current networking objectives? If the answer is yes, your immediate mission is to identify, locate and engage with these new groups or individuals. Different networking objectives may require you to interact within different networking groups.

Step # 4 – Galvanise your existing networks into action

Action – In the context of your new networking objectives, review the names on each of the sheets that you have prepared for each of your networks. Are there other people available to you through those existing networks that you have not included in your list? For example, are there wider family members, ex-colleagues, or co-professionals with whom it would benefit you to acquaint yourself? Plan to connect with these additional people at your earliest opportunity.

Step # 5 –Re-educate your existing contacts

Action – Make sure that your introduction, or ‘elevator pitch’, is up to date. For many of us, the way in which we introduce ourselves may depend on which network we are interacting within. Make sure that if you have a ‘set’ of introductions that they are all freshly aligned to your networking goals. Do this in advance of any networking activities. Don’t get caught on the spot at events or meetings where you might get tangled in a long explanation about how or why you have changed your slant.

Step # 6 – Encourage your contacts to be your ambassadors and your sales reps!

Action – Make yourself memorable. One extremely good networker that I know carries a stunningly beautiful pair of diamond earrings in his pocket. Not so strange, really. He’s a master jeweller and a diamond grader. You should see people flocking around him when he’s in action. No-one ever forgets having met him either!

Use every available opportunity when you are networking to become involved in the event itself. Here are some suggestions:

Get to know your network organisers or facilitators

Volunteer to ‘buddy-up’ with newcomers at formal networking events

Become a connector, introduce your acquaintances to each-other

Offer to present a short talk on your subject(s) of expertise

Extend a special discount to fellow-networkers

Offer to be a table facilitator or host during round-table networking activities or exercises

Follow up a promising chance encounter with a one-to-one meeting over coffee or lunch

Relationships + Reputation = Referrals

Miriam Ahern is the founder and managing partner of Align Management Solutions – a consultancy specialising in organisational change and development. She also manages LINK! - Dublin City Enterprise Board’s Network for Start-up Businesses. Miriam is a regular contributor in the national media on issues relating to business management and human resources. She is a Certified Management Consultant and a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants and Advisers.

Mobile: + 353 86 234 2789

Office:  + 353 1 412 5890

www.twitter.com/MiriamAhern

www.linkedIn.com/in/miriamahern

Over at TSE

I am really looking forward to tomorrow’s roundtable “Harness the Power of Referrals”

Do you know what it takes to build a referral business?

Join five Top Sales Experts share their techniques that turn up the heat in prospecting by harnessing the power of referrals.

Joanne Black, Jonathan Farrington, Paul McCord, Steve Martinez and Nancy D. Solomon present this 60-minute roundtable on Tuesday May 26th.

Your current clients are your most under-leveraged referral source. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Learn where traditional referral training falls short, why it is so essential to understand your ideal client profile and recognize your ideal referral source, how to overcome referral roadblocks and how to develop a process that does “what it takes” to build a referral business.

The investment? $25.00  or $99.50.

HUH? You can become a VIP member of Top Sales Experts (at $25.00 for the entire year) and the Roundtables are FREE. If you’re not ready to become a VIP member then they are $99.50.

Btb Guest Author

Paul McCord

The simple answer to why decision makers hate cold calls is cold calls are one of the biggest time wasters for them.

Decision makers hate cold calls and have no interest in taking your call because all you do is waste their time.  Period.

Now, you don’t see it the same way.  You believe you have something of value to offer the decision maker–actually, you want to see if you have something of value for them. You have to qualify them and that’s one of the things you’re hoping to begin to do while speaking with them.  All you want is a couple of minutes of their time to set an appointment and learn a little something about whether or not they’re a qualified prospect.

To you, all you’re asking is just three, four, maybe five minutes of their time and a short little 10 or 15 minute appointment.  No big deal–just a moment of their time.

But look at what you’re asking from their point of view:

1. You’re not the only call they’ll get that day. They’ll get 5, 10, 15, maybe more cold calls on any given workday.  You only want 5 minutes of their time?  Well, that 5 minutes can add up to a half an hour, an hour, two hours or more if they spoke to everyone who called.  Everyday.

2. You only want a short 10 or 15 minute meeting. Sure.  They understand that you’re asking for 10 and intend to stay 45.  They learned the BS about the 10 minute meeting their first week on the job.

3. You just want to ask a few questions to gather information to grab their interest to set an appointment. You sound like every other salesperson who calls.  That’s what they all want.  They want the decision to educate them about why they called, that is, to give them a reason to try to set a meeting with the decision maker.

4. When they politely say ‘no,’ you won’t accept it. Instead you try to probe, to flush out the objection, to give more reasons to meet with you.  Finally, they get mad enough to slam the phone down or tell you in no uncertain terms ‘NO.’

5. When you call, you have nothing of interest to them. They’re not thinking about your great new copier because they still have 2 years on the lease of their current copier.  They’re not thinking about replacing their phone system, they’re thinking about the server that just crashed.  They’re not thinking about a new accounting system because they’re thinking about the big deal they just lost that morning.

How would you like to go through that 5, 10, 15 times a day? Everyday?  Without fail? What would be your resolution to the problem?  Would you take those calls?  You would do the same thing they do—not take any calls.

And decision makers have made it as obvious as possible that they don’t want your call.  They’ve put gatekeepers in place to keep you out.  They’ve got voice mail to filter who they want to talk to and who they don’t.  They put signs on the door that say ‘no soliciting.’  As soon as they discover you’re a salesperson they say ‘no,’ and hang up.

Yet, you think—you hope—that you’re the exception. That they’ll take your call.  That they’ll want to speak with you despite the signals they’ve given.  That you’re different from other 5, 10, or 15 salespeople who will call that day.

Cold calling is viewed by many salespeople, managers, and companies as the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to find prospects. It isn’t. It is in many ways the most difficult and expensive because when you cold call you’re trying to connect with someone who has already indicated as plainly as they possibly can that they don’t want to speak with you.  In order to overcome that, you have to make massive numbers of calls in order to find someone, anyone you can corner.

If you choose to cold call, you’ve a hard road ahead of you.  Few top producers waste their time cold calling because it is so ineffective and costly.  However, if you do choose to cold call, invest in getting the best cold call training you can.  Your investment will pay off with greatly increased results—you’ll still waste a lot of time; you’ll still face a tremendous amount of rejection; you’ll still have to eventually find better ways to connect with prospects; but at least make your efforts as profitable as possible.

Paul McCord is a leading authority on prospecting, referral selling, and personal marketing.  He is president of McCord Training, a Midland, Texas based sales training, coaching, and consulting company.  His first book, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (John Wiley and Sons, 2007), is an Amazon and Barnes and Noble best-seller and is quickly becoming recognized as the authoritative work on referral selling. His second book, SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar has just been released.  He may be reached at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com or visit his sales training website at www.mccordtraining.com or his highly popular blog www.salesandmanagementblog.com

Over at TSE

After all the build-up, Top Sales Experts launched our new site. It was certainly worth the wait and the new VIP Zone is incredible value. Sign-up is only $49.50 for a whole year, but you can join for just $25 via me.

Here is a taster:

Life is about choices. So are sales.
So… here at TSE we thought you’d want to see your choices, clear and simple:

OPTION A Register for FREE and you get access to:

1.The Article Vault (2200 articles)
2.How to Guides
3.Podcasts
4.Best Sales Blogs in the World
5.Monthly Newsletter
6.Jobs Board

OPTION B The VIP Zone:

$49.50 per year OR $25.00 if you join us through a TSE team member

You will also receive:

FREE Webinar Registration (That’s FREE access to over 100 webinars - normally $59.50 each)
FREE Roundtable Registration (FREE access to 12 monthly events - normally $99.50 each)
FREE TSE Quarterly eBooks ($19.95 each for non-VIP members)
FREE TSE Assessment Tools (Priceless!)
FREE access to “Ask the Experts” (You put your own value on getting FREE advice from sixty Top Sales Experts)
FREE Invitation to join the TSE LinkedIn group

PLUS 10% Discount on all purchases from the new TSE Shop, which will debut June 15th.

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Join here

Btb Guest Author

Maureen Blandford

Perhaps you’ve heard about Merrill Lynch’s John Thain’s $1.22M office renovation, including $87K for an area rug? Preceded, of course, by AIG’s spending part of their bailout on spa treatments for execs. Nice. And then there was the Big Three auto execs flying corporate jets to Washington to plead for their share of the bailout. Next up: Citigroup. Led by an exec team that the NY Post calls “Citiboobs.”

In this Wednesday’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd asks:

“How could Citigroup be so dumb as to go ahead with plans to get a new $50 million corporate jet, the exclusive Dassault Falcon 7X seating 12, after losing $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $345 billion in government investments and guarantees?”

“Citiboobs,” indeed.

While I am appalled by story after story detailing greed, stupidity, and obtuseness in corporate leadership, and applaud the world’s righteous indignation over the executive termites who have caused irreparable damage to our many fine organizations, there’s a part of my business psyche that is pleased such horrid behavior is seeing the light of day.

For years (actually two decades), I have often felt horror at how the B2B version of Fat Cats (Marketers and the executives who support them) burn through $s on truly ridiculous marketing tactics, while the Working Poor (Sales orgs) struggle to do more with less.

An $8K shower curtain or an $87K area rug look like wise investments next to spending in Marketing I’ve witnessed over the years. At the same time that sales organizations have seen their training & coaching budgets shrink to next to nothing, marketers think nothing of dropping $100K on new logo development or color consultation. They produce brochures that are rarely read by target audiences. A few years ago, I witnessed a tech client approve a $200K photo shoot (in NYC, of course) for photos that easily could’ve been obtained for a fraction of the cost from one of many fine stock photo agencies.

Why are our field sales folks so often building their own sales tools (wasting valuable sales time), when their corp HQ folks are spending millions on marketing materials? Because much of the corp-produced stuff doesn’t meet real selling needs. Have you ever seen the garage of a pharmaceutical rep? Packed with marketing materials they don’t use.

Very briefly, corporate marketers have been trained solely in consumer marketing, not B2B. They’ve rarely actually carried a bag and consequently don’t understand that today’s great sellers are more about asking great questions rather than selling stuff.  Our marketing materials, if you’ve noticed, are packed with selling stuff. That’s not the kind of sales support we need today.

The dark side to this story is that many B2B Marketers have much in common with our ego-centric execs. They love to be wined and dined by Madison Avenue types and spend hours talking about things like shades of color and the emotions one shade or another evokes. And, this drives me crazy, marketers disdain sellers and sales organizations. Consequently, when a sales org tries to help a marketing org better meet their needs…well, they might as be talking to the hand.

Now, more than ever, responsible leadership will be open to a little righteous indignation over the imbalance in marketing and true sales support spend. If Starbucks is halting decaf brewing after noon in the hopes of saving $400M by the end of the year, I’m thinking leadership will be open to considering many cost-saving options.

Sellers and Sales Leadership: if you happen to have an internal marketing organization who supports your needs – Bravo! You can count yourselves lucky.

If, however, you’re not getting the support you need from your marketing organization, speak up. Consultative/Relationship/Collaborative selling is precisely what we need our sales orgs to be executing. But, it’s not easy. Features/Functions/Benefits selling is part of our DNA, having evolved over thousands of years.

To be effective in transitioning our sales folks over to great selling and ridding ourselves of bad habits takes time.  A sustainable sales support plan must include on-going mentoring, coaching, & training. For both sellers and sales leadership.

The good news here is that the investment needed for GREAT, sustainable sales support is a fraction of the budget that’s being wasted in B2B marketing today. For instance, marketing organizations executing a marketing plan that truly supports B2B selling could do a great job with about 60% of their current budget. I’d recommend redirecting some of the remaining 40% to on-going sales training needs (yippee!). And either saving the rest, or redirecting to HR efforts to hire and retain great sales people.

I’m giddy thinking about this: Sales folks supported by great training and marketing materials that help them move the ball down the field. Now – isn’t that worth some righteous indignation?

Maureen Blandford is CEO of the MindTime Group. Maureen helps her clients break through ineffective marketing strategies to develop tactics that work. Blandford combines her 20 years of practical expertise with her ground breaking theories to alert B2B decision makers to reallocate marketing dollars to a consultative selling motion. AT&T, NCR, The Iams Company, McAfee, Health Plus Technologies, PSC, are just a few of the many clients she’s worked with. Regarding her first book, Branding Doesn’t Work in B2B, Blandford says, “I’m doggedly determined to help B2Bs with a direct sales force understand that in B2B it’s people, and how they perform in the sales and delivery processes that have the greatest impact on current and future customers. Not Branding.

In the News

Paul McCord reviews (or should that be rightly pans a new book)

“The “what would Jesus do” close.  You use this close when your customer “is a Sunday go to meeting” type (throughout the book this level of respect for customers is demonstrated).  You acknowledge that you know he is a fine Christian and state that you understand that he wants to be like Jesus, just as every good Christian does.  You then tell the customer that you’ll give him your product or service free if he can show you anywhere in the Bible where Jesus said, “let me first ask my friend,” or “let me first ask my accountant,” or “I have to think about it.”  You point out that Jesus never had to hesitate to make a decision on his own.  According to the authors, after delivering this close, “The customer is stunned.  The master closer has made such a strong and truthful point, the customer doesn’t know what to say.”

HILARIOUS!!…….Can you believe this sales advice, this is not a joke - read Paul’s review here

Btb Guest Author

Paul McCord

I’m hearing more and more frustration from both salespeople and sales leaders as the slow economy increases the panic on the part of senior management. Sales are slowing dramatically, profits are down or have completely evaporated, and the pressure is increasing on all levels to produce, produce, produce.

Along with the pressure to produce comes the micro managing of the sales team and its leadership. Managers are having daily pipeline meetings with the members of their team. Increasingly these meetings are getting uglier and uglier with increased threats if sales don’t increase.

Middle managers are having daily calls–in some instances two or more calls per day–with the managers under them as they want an accounting for each team member’s activities, including reviewing the sales status of each and every prospect.

Management is demanding detailed reports for each prospect. If a salesperson deems a contact to be a non-prospect, managers are demanding the salesperson continue to pursue the contact in hopes of turning them into a prospect.

Each minute of the day must be accounted for. Management is accepting no excuses for not closing a sale–bad credit, not a reason, get them pay cash; no need, not a reason, create a need for them; want to wait to see what the market will do, not a reason, convince them that now’s the time to buy; cash flow issues, not a reason, get them to factor their receivables to get the cash to make the purchase.

As salespeople get bombarded with threats and each second of their day is micro managed, they resort to discounting and trying to include as many incentives to purchase as they can in an effort to get sales to get management off their back.

They quickly discover that even if that creates a sale, it creates a new set of problems as they get a lecture about how the company doesn’t discount and their job is to maintain gross and if they can’t, the company will find someone who will. Many managers resort to writing all proposals for their sales team to insure that they control every aspect of the sale.

As morale declines and sales lag even further, senior management gives more and more directives, demanding greater control and more ‘accountability’ on each employee’s part.

When today’s demands don’t create the desired result, they’re added to or changed tomorrow, spiraling in a seemingly never-ending series of demands and threats, each more ominous than the last.

And sales plunge even faster than before.

Once management panics it seems impossible to stop the downhill flow of negative consequences. The more pressure management feels, the more they try to spread the pressure downward, believing they can demand production via force.

The process inevitably produces nothing other than a bigger hole from which the company must emerge.

If micro managing is such a negative force, why do managers resort to it? The root cause may be panic, but the belief they need to micro manage their team is based squarely in a distrust of their employees–a belief that their salespeople and managers aren’t working hard enough, that the sales team doesn’t care enough, that their team is intrinsically lazy and is only looking for the low hanging fruit, not willing to get dirty and dig for the hard to find business.

If sheer force and threats don’t work, what can the management team do to stabilize–or maybe even increase–sales during this time of economic stress?

1. Don’t panic.
Of course, this is easier said than done. But panic leads to overreacting and bad decisions.  We need look no further than the US government over the past 6 months to see the consequences of panic–squandered opportunities, a diarrhea of ineffective spending in an effort to ‘do something now’ with little regard to the future, and a massive list of decisions that upon reflection many–even those involved in the initial decision making process–wish had never been made.

2. Make an honest evaluation of the situation and communicate it to the entire team.
Employees are not stupid. They are aware of the economic situation and they not only wonder what impact it has on the company, they speculate–and most often their speculation is far worse than the truth of the actual situation.

Employees–and in particular the sales team–perform best when they know and understand the company’s goals and objectives and the obstacles standing in the way of reaching those goals and objectives.

The more clearly each sales team member understands the company’s needs and concerns, the more clearly they can not only understand where they fit in, but what they can–what they must –do to help address those needs and concerns. If team members sense that the company isn’t communicating honestly with them, they begin to retreat into themselves, resisting the company’s entreaties and even the most dire threat falls on deaf ears.

3. Formulate a comprehensive and workable plan that includes participation by all parties to address market conditions.
History is replete with examples of monarchs and generals who when faced with tough opposition retreat into a bunker mentality. They become increasingly overwhelmed with circumstances, they become delusional, they begin to distrust even their closest friends and companions. In short order they are totally isolated. Their plans and orders have little to do with reality.

This same phenomenon happens in the executive suite. When faced with potential crisis, senior management will often retreat to their own mental concrete bunker.  Rather than seeking the wisdom and cooperation of their employees, they barricade themselves in, shouting orders through the barred door.

In our current economy where quality prospects are difficult to find and sales must be fought for, gaining the cooperation and commitment from staff is critical.  Senior management cannot survive on their own.

If they and the company are to survive, it will take the active participation of all the work force.  Consequently, the more ownership in the solution to overcoming the company’s obstacles each member of the team feels, the more committed to the solution–and to their individual contributions to the solution–each will be.

4.  Commit the company to giving the needed support to accomplish the goals and overcome the obstacles.
When panic sets in, the cost cutting butcher knife comes out.  Management looks at every expense as a waste.  Can we use a shorter, less expensive screw here; can we make that piece of metal a little thinner?  Do we really need that much money in our marketing budget?  Slash sales training, it’s never done any good anyway.

As the butcher of the executive office is in the midst of a budget-cutting orgy, critical resources for sales stability–much less sales growth–are apt to be gutted also.  While belt tightening is necessary when business slows, a finely honed scalpel is necessary, not a meat clever.

Creating sales takes money. Salespeople need the same resources in slow times to create sales as they do during hot markets. Certainly gratuitous expenses such as client dinners and games of golf may be legitimate areas for trimming, but training, travel, clerical support, and other expenses that lead directly to or support the closing of business are not to be cut indiscriminately. In fact, when it comes to training, prospecting, lead generation, and client retention expenses, the slower the economy, the more funds should be directed to those areas.

Times are tough. That doesn’t mean that it is time for a management meltdown.

There are solutions to slowing sales.

Resorting to micro management and threats won’t produce anything other than disgruntled employees and slower sales.

However, gaining the trust, cooperation, and commitment of your team to address the issues facing the company–and by extension, themselves–can give your company the coordinated effort by all to weather this economic downturn.

Paul McCord is a leading authority on prospecting, referral selling, and personal marketing.  He is president of McCord Training, a Midland, Texas based sales training, coaching, and consulting company.  His first book, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (John Wiley and Sons, 2007), is an Amazon and Barnes and Noble best-seller and is quickly becoming recognized as the authoritative work on referral selling. His second book, SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar has just been released.  He may be reached at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com or visit his sales training website at www.mccordtraining.com or his highly popular blog www.salesandmanagementblog.com

I first came across this super article from Paul through Jill Konrath’s blog

This is timely advice for us all, micro management is a really easy trap to fall into and something we have all got to wary of.

Over at Top Sales Experts

I have always thought that PowerPoint is a limiting sales tool.

Here is a recent TSE daily interview with Mark Hunter on this very subject.

Listen as Mark tells us why PowerPoint is not nearly as important as we might like to think.