5. December 2009 by admin.

Here’s a little known fact, actually it is a well-known fact that is just plain ignored most of the time:

If you let them people will buy the items that you offer. It may not happen every single time that you offer it but it will happen. Just keep offering your goods and services and someone, at sometime, will buy it!

Here’s is a real life situation that happened to me just yesterday. I went to get my oil changed at one of the nationally branded oil change businesses. These companies have been around since the 1970’s, and these days they do much more than just oil changes. 

These days they can do almost any simple maintenance from greasing the transaxle, to changing a wiper blade. And if you go to the same one enough times they know what you need.

You probably know this drill, I went in for an oil change and an emissions check. A few minutes later the technician starts walking towards me with his clipboard. I know what he wants, he’s going to offer me a plethora of other services. 

I’m in sales and I even hate to see these guys walking towards me. You know on that clipboard are the things that I’m supposed to be doing to this car. There was one item that I was going to give him today even before he opened his mouth. I know that I need to change the transmission fluid.

As a Sales Consultant working in Georgia I can’t help but critique these selling situations. And this one was bad. Here’s how it went down…

Salesperson: “The manufacturer recommends that you change the transmission fluid every “x” amount of miles. It’s been “x+” so you need to do it. We have two services one that drains and fills for $39.99 and one that drains, fills, and flushes for $99.99.”

Me: “So what’s the difference again?” (I couldn’t understand him he was mumbling and  looking down at his clipboard as he spoke.)

Salesperson:  “The $39.99 drains and fills, but the $99.99 drains, fills, and flushes and that is what I recommend that you have done today.”

Okay so far so good. Besides the mumbling, the rapid speech, and talking to the clipboard, I’m about to buy a transmission fluid change for $39.99. But wait…

Just before I say let’s do it, he says…

Salesperson: “I would never do the $39.99 service its worthless.”

Hmmm so this nationally branded oil change business is trying to rip me off with a worthless service. Sounds like a quick call to the Better Business Bureau is needed here.

I didn’t call the BBB on this outlet. I knew he probably didn’t mean what he said. He was trying to sell me. But as a sales consultant I’m thinking about the impact on this chain’s business if this “salesperson” is doing this 15 times a day, 5 days a week! That is almost 4,000 bad sales pitches every year.

Heck, I tried to give them $39.99, now I’m going to give them a cold call on Monday morning. I think they could use just a little bit more sales training!

David Peterson - President: Atlanta Sales and Consulting

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17. November 2009 by admin.

The gatekeeper…

The gatekeeper instills fear to every cold caller except me. Here’s the way I look at it: Gatekeeping is a job, and a damn powerful one as well. Get past the gatekeeper and you have a shot at millions of dollars. Get shut down by the gatekeeper and you get to move on with your tail between your legs, your hopes  smashed by someone who probably makes less than $50k a year.

With that being said gatekeepers are people. Your job in getting past the gatekeeper is to try to build rapport quickly with them. Try these small tips:

1. Listen to exactly what the gatekeeper is saying.
   • Don’t put words in their mouth and DO NOT talk over them.
2. How does the gatekeeper sounds to you (old/young/southern/etc).
   • You may want to mimic their dialect.
3. Empathize immediately to begin building rapport.
   • If you hear anything that you can use to start a conversation then by all means start using it.
4. Be friendly and respectful – try to have fun.
   • Remember you are not the only one calling or interrupting their day today.
5. Be Concise.
   •  Do not waste their time. If you want to have a bad day waste a gatekeepers time.
6. Ask for the gatekeepers help.
   • My favorite method of getting past this person.
7. Sometimes you have to punt and move on.
   • There are a lot more fish in the sea don’t take it personally.
8. Always remember this is THEIR job.
   • If they don’t keep the gate closed they don’t get to keep their job!

Personally the one I use is to ask for the gatekeepers help. To me if you sound sincere and ask for their help the gatekeeper will move you on in your sales process. You might not get exactly where you wanted to go but… at least you move past that darn closed gate.

David Peterson - President: Atlanta Sales and Consulting

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16. November 2009 by admin.

Ever since my son was a little boy I started to teach him about money. We love playing this counting game together. It goes like this…

When you walk into any location that has a set price and a lot of people just start counting. Paying for parking at a baseball game then it’s $10 per car so start counting $10, $10, $10, etc. At a gym working out, start counting the monthly fees of $40 per person - $40, $40, $40, etc. We always share a smile when we run across this type of situation because as a reoccurring revenue stream or a captive mass market the $$$ really start to add up.

This weekend we went to the University of South Carolina to watch the Gamecocks take on the Florida Gators. It was packed, full house, sold out! As usual we started counting $10 to park, $55 per ticket, $3 per coke, peanuts, program, the dollars collected at this one event has to be in the millions.

At halftime we went down to get a couple of hotdogs and cokes. This would have been another $5 at least for each of us. I said would have been because the upper bowl concession stands ran out of hotdogs and a lot of concession stands ran out of diet coke. I saw person after person being turned away (-$5, -$5, -$5, -$5). My son looked at me, smiled, and said “imagine the amount of revenue this event is losing.”

Not to mention we didn’t roam the whole stadium looking for food, we went back and watched the rest of the game and got something to eat after the game. The Subway’s down the Interstate was pack with families and students (+$5, +$5, +$5, +$5).

One of my “rules of thumb” is that when someone is trying to give you money for your product or service you need to take it. It sounds so simple but… the manager of concessions at the stadium blew a whole lot of revenue. He has history on his/her side. He should know (I’m being kind after countless games he DOES know) that 80,000 people will eat “x.” It’s not like they haven’t had sold out games before at that stadium.

You only have so many chances to make a good impression on your customers. Don’t create customer dissatisfaction with unacceptable stock levels. I could see it if you were a new small business heading into the Christmas season for the very first time. If you are an established business you really have no excuse.

People are trying to give you money… take it or someone else will.

PS: Take the revenue because it adds up quickly, on the other hand the opportunity costs adds up quickly as well. So  at this event depending on who you are  you either had a very good night or you could of had a very good night.

(Subway +$5, +$5, +$5 or USC =-$5, -$5, -$5)

David Peterson - President: Atlanta Sales and Consulting

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13. November 2009 by admin.

I just ran into this today and I got taken to the woodshed. I have been  killing myself trying to get a job out for my new client and then BAM! He says… “What do you mean that you are ready to go, we are not ready?”

With the kind of projects I work on that tells me that the last two weeks and the three other people involved on this project have just wasted a whole lot of time and money. So how high should you jump when the client or boss calls?

Let me tell you what I used to do.  This is my tried and true method of jumping through the hoops. When the boss calls maybe just maybe you should wait at least a day before jumping. The reason, things change and you could spend an entire day on stuff that doesn’t matter - i.e.: Busy Work!

Sales organizations have no time for busy work. This is typically the only revenue producing group in the entire company. As an ex sales manager DO NOT SEND ME BUSY WORK… I will ignore it and go about my day.

How high should you jump? Well this past week I moved away from my tried and true method of waiting at least a day before jumping. This was a new customer and I have the staff and the contacts to get the job done. The client was hot on the subject. Then, BAM! I just got burned.

If you have a hyper boss or a hyper customer you will do yourself a world of good by just waiting at least 5 minutes, 15 minutes or even 1 day before acting  on what ever just popped up in their heads. Hyper people make bad decisions. STOP let the situation come to you and then proceed.

This is 20+ years of experience talking. You have to wait before firing off that email to your team, or you will be taken to the woodshed. Right now the beating stings but by tomorrow I will use my 20+ years of experience to get everyone back on track.

David Peterson - President: Atlanta Sales and Consulting

Thinking about a new method of sales training… Read This

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11. November 2009 by admin.

Okay, what is it? What exactly is a BPO?

BPO is the acronym for Business Process Outsourcing.  The BPO’s function is to take on the responsibility of routine repetitive jobs that are labor intensive. As an example world-class businesses need to focus on their core best practices. Is it really cost-effective for a lumber company to build and staff a call center for inbound customer service billing questions?

30 years ago the answer would have been a resounding YES. However, technology and productivity has changed so fast that now the answer is a resounding NO. The development of call routing, IVRs, IP-based phone systems, the Internet, call monitoring software, call recording software, data collection,  and a host of other productivity enhancing technologies have enabled a single BPO to handle multiple customers at one time.

To make it more interesting today a single call center associate could be handling a payment processing call for customer #1, while a customer service call for customer #2 is being handled through a live chat… both at the same time. As soon as that chat session ends the next one pops up. As soon as that payment processing call ends the call center associate gets a little whisper in their ear telling them about the next call they are about to receive.

The moral of the story is BPO’s allow more routine business functions to be done with less personnel. If you outsource your routine business functions, like payment processing to a BPO then you will NOT have to:

1. Hire payment processing personnel
2. Pay for their benefits
3. Hire a training staff to train them on payment processing
4. Budget or expense any funds for recruiting the personnel
5. Hire a manager to supervise their activities
6. Expand your HR department for all of the above reasons… OR
7. We haven’t even touched on the build out of the technology or the technical personnel you would need to run a call center of your own. 

Years ago the big craze was to outsource routine business functions like payment processing, or credit card processing overseas. The American public is still not crazy about this thought. Luckily there are plenty of BPO call centers in the U.S. that can handle these types of needs.

If you have been thinking about outsourcing to a U.S. company and you don’t know where to start then my advice is to start by clicking here.

David Peterson - President: Atlanta Sales and Consulting

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8. November 2009 by admin.

Notice the picture says “DANGER THIN ICE.” I was speaking with a sales manager that had just returned from a quarterly sales award presentation. I could tell from the tone of her voice that it didn’t go well. Then the dreaded words… “I hate this job, can I come work for you?”

Here is an employee that should have been returning from a quarterly sales event FIRED UP, not looking for a new job. This sales manager was clearly on thin ice.

The reason: Management had screwed up the numbers so the people who should have won didn’t. Now she has an entire team pissed off at her for the mistake(s). Any momentum or motivation that she should have received is now gone.

As a sales consultant I work with organizations that fall through this ice. These organizations want to do well. They want to reward their employees. They spend the money, create the trips, offer spiffs, cash, dinner and plaques. The goal of a sales award presentation is to recognize the sales employees who have gone above and beyond the results  of the other representatives.

However the real goal of these sales presentations is to motivate the group of sales representatives that didn’t quite get on the stage. You want this group of sales reps to perform next quarter at a higher rate.

The award ceremonies are one of the most positive events you can have. They are usually a lot of fun with guest speakers, dinner and cash. Everyone has a good time.

So how do you blow it?

Mess up the sales numbers, or worse have representatives question the numbers. If your sales reps don’t completely understand  their compensation plans then the management of that sales department is doomed from the beginning.

The risk with not having a solid compensation plan is that sales reps will not know exactly how they are being measured. If you make changes to the compensation plan in the middle of a quarter then you better have good bean  counters and you better make sure all the representatives understand the change.

Otherwise…

Otherwise what happens is that all of the motivation will be sucked right out of your sales department. No amount of reward will be useful because the reps either don’t understand the numbers or they don’t trust the numbers.

Risk, Reward, and Motivation: You WANT and NEED your award ceremonies to go off with out a hitch. Before you assigned the date of your next award ceremony you need to make sure that all of the reps know their sales goals. They need to know the number they are responsible for. If not you will suck any motivation or worse momentum right out of the room.

PS: Talking about thin ice, it will take at least 1 quarter to move past a motivational problem like this.

David Peterson - President: Atlanta Sales and Consulting

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6. November 2009 by admin.

I just read an excellent blog post entitled Selling more by seeing your store through your customer’s eyes. The author did an excellent job of describing how your employees actions affects the buying habits of customers and how the customers feels about your store.

I encourage you to read her posting. I couldn’t agree more about how your employees create the general perception of a retail location. One way to really test how well your store looks through the eyes of a customer is to use a secret shopper.

The secret shopper will report back through unbiased eyes on how well your store personnel are performing and how well your store looked.

While that secret shopper is at it have them actually look at the merchandise and how it is laid out on the sales floor. I want to know… What does the customer see in terms of your merchandise when they walk into your store? 

I was talking to the owner of a small bike shop the other day. We were covering topics like using the good, better, best method of selling, selling what is in stock vs special orders, inventory turns, and a host of other topics.

Then I brought up the topic of what does the customer see when they walk into the store? Here is what I saw…

In the case of this bike shop the owner has hundreds of bikes, side by side, road bikes on the top, mountain bikes on the bottom. He had kid bikes in the corner, accessories along the wall. To the owner it was all very orderly. To me – it was a mess. It was overwhelming. Plus there were so many bikes that it was difficult for the salesperson to remove one to show the customer.

Here’s another example of bad merchandising. The next time you walk into a Lowe’s or Home Depot’s paint department I want you to check to see if your eyes can quickly pick up if you are in the interior or exterior paint aisle? Can you find the stain aisle? Which one of these 1,000s of paint cans would you choose if there was no help available?

My point is even companies selling billions in merchandise make this mistake. When your customer walks in, what do they see when you are not there to help? Is it overwhelming to them, are they confused? Could they steer themselves in the general direction of what they are looking for? Do they walk out without speaking to anyone - that is the real killer, they left and didn’t give you a chance.

David Peterson - President: Atlanta Sales and Consulting

http://www.atlantasalesandconsulting.com/

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28. October 2009 by admin.

What kind of title is that: A small business must compartmentalize its duties? I started to think about the compartmentalization of duties after working for 10 days in an account management role with a local small business.

What I noticed is that this business owner had a REAL business. Real invoices, real checks, a real bank account, real receivables, real payables, real everything. The one thing it was missing was real people to run the various departments. Bring in the sales consultant - that’s me (I love it when that happens - from account management straight to sales consultant!)

This operation on the backend was a one man show. The owner did everything from sales to collections. From ordering product to delivering it to the job site. He did have a couple of supervisors who were awesome workers but they only worked the crew they didn’t actually participate in anything that wasn’t classified as skilled labor. Nor did they volunteer to!

Once the owner returned to work I took off my account management hat and put on my sales consulting hat. This owner was accidentally running his own business into the ground by not dividing his day into compartments. These compartments should include sales, customer service, vendor interaction, accounts receivable, and accounts payable.

As a sales consultant when you see something that is wrong you have to bring it to the attention of the business owner. This particular problem is easy to fix if you can get the owner to have some discipline regarding his/her time. The object here is to have the business owner place his/her duties into buckets or compartments that must be strictly adhered to on a daily basis.

As an example since this was a small contractor then ordering, receiving inventory and picking up that inventory should be done in the morning. Selling needs to be done when your prospect are typically available but it needs to be within a set time. Accounts payable and receivables should be done at night or on the weekends when it is quite in the house. Emergency customer service should be done immediately but normal service should also have its set time.

In a big business everyone knows their role, their job description, and what is expected. In a small business the owner also knows what has to be done. As a sales consultant my role is to make sure that they live up to those commitments by placing each duty into its own compartment. Those compartments have to be dealt with in a timely but orderly manner. If you don’t compartmentalize the duties you will start running around like a chicken with your head cut off. No business can survive without its head.

David Peterson - President: Atlanta Sales and Consulting

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