The thorny issue of voicemails came up in a recent online forum in which I participated and it was fascinating to see the range of responses from the professionals. Ultimately, as with all things in sales, I think it comes down to ethics and common sense.

A lot of the discussion was around what clever wording could be left on the answerphone. Much of it was not quite dishonest but misleading. But I think all this missed the point about how prospects will listen to the voicemail.

I can categorically say that I have never called back anyone who made a cold call to me after they left a message. It does not matter how clever their pitch. If it is a sales call, I probably won’t be interested and I sure as hell ain’t spending my phone bill to find out!

The reality may be that the caller has done their research and I am missing out on a great opportunity. But I am willing to take the risk and I believe so will most prospects.

So my mantra for voicemails is think why anyone why might call back someone that has not given them sufficient reason to call back? I think two approaches are head and shoulders above the rest. Either the curiosity approach or the confusion approach. Either way, the prospect chooses to call back because they want to know more. What better position to be in as a salesperson?

I know there will be some people who think this is misleading but it is not. We are simply playing on people’s psychology and the fear of missing out.

So, two examples: “Hi, Andy from A&P, can Gemma call back. Oh, the number in case you don’t have it is…..”. The point is it does not sound like a sales call. It sounds like a friend or contact. How you deal with the incoming call is the subject for another article!

And the other example: “Bob, can you call me back about the widgets please? In case you don’t have it, the number is….”. And that is it. No embellishments, no pitch.

Don’t expect a deluge of calls. Maybe one in 100 might call back. But that is one more than if you don’t leave a message and probably a higher response than leaving a detailed benefits statement. Try it and let me know!

Moments of truth (MOT) in a sales context are those instants in a presentation, negotiation, telemarketing call, prospect meeting or needs analysis where you can see the deal swing to you or away from you. They are the moments when something is said or done that takes the prospect’s desire to buy a new level; up or down.

The best salespeople spot these moments and adapt. Poor salespeople blithely chunter on without realising that the right statement or question can move the whole process one step nearer to the close. We have all encountered the latter – most recently I had an domestic energy rep come to the door and I told them I was busy upstairs and thought they were someone I was expecting. Nonetheless they insisted “but this won’t take a moment and you could save…”. A better line might have been “when is a better time?” but that was not in the script.

Often these MOTs can be very subtle and it is inexperience that prevents you from noticing them. It could be something as small as a noticeable hesitation by the prospect, often when we mention the price! In a face-to-face meeting, it could be a frown when you talk about delivery times. Or it could be one raised eyebrow when you mention one of your existing large clients.

The thing with MOTs is that even the most experienced salesperson cannot be certain of its significance. And that is why they stop. They stop talking. They pause. They ask a question. They make an observation about the prospect’s reaction and they become the detective: “Mr Smith, I can’t help noticing your reaction to our lead times – how does that compare to your expectation?”.

Other MOTs are blindingly obvious. The prospect might ask; “So how much would 500 of those be if we wanted them next month?”. Alternatively; “How many times do I have to tell you people, we don’t need any widgets?”.

When we focus our attentions more on the prospects and less on our product or presentation, we allow ourselves to intuitively raise our awareness of these MOTs. Don’t be worried if you get it wrong: better that you misinterpret a comment or hesitation by the prospect than you miss a big clue that could help you win the business.

Ever come across a puppy-dog sale? You almost certainly have but possibly did not know that is what it is called. Look at it as a try-before-you-buy.

In principle these are fantastic ways to generate interest in your service. But you have to be willing to give away something of genuine value.

We offer 1.5-hour free taster sessions to prospective clients. This can actually end up being quite expensive because the organisation, travel cost and time involved is not hugely less than a paid day. But I call them our “shop window”. It gives potential buyers a chance to try before they buy.

In effect we are mitigating the risk that a buyer perceives in choosing the wrong product or service. This fear of making the wrong decision is one of the biggest “drags” to even beginning the discussions of changing supplier.

You may well be a brilliant company with a wonderful product but how can the buyer know that UNTIL they have already started using you? This especially so if your product or service is “disruptive”. Computer-related products are just such a product. Almost all the stakeholders in a company are affected by the installation of a new computer network or phone system. If the main buying unit gets it wrong, EVERYONE will give them grief!

However, you need to be careful about how you offer your “puppy dog”. It must be genuine and offer a real chance for the user to get a benefit. Nearly is not good enough.

As an example I recently downloaded some software that converts file formats for video. There is a free trial version. It differs from the full version only in that it applies a “watermark” to the video, so the marketing explains. In reality an ugly and obtrusive message sits over the image telling people that the video was created using an “unauthorised” version of the software. But you only realise this when you make your first converted video.

There is no way anyone could tolerate that “watermark”. “But they do this so you can just use it for free”, might be the response. But remember what I said before, the best puppy dog sale gives you a genuine chance to try before you buy. Software company Adobe are a classic example: they offer their PDF document reader for free. But you have to pay for the software that does the converting.

Rather than being impressed by how well the video conversion software works, I will be looking for another one. Even though this is actually irrational, I would rather spend more time finding another software that I will pay for and possibly not even use their free version at all before buying. So the first company has actually HELPED the competition.

So, think of how you offer puppy-dog sales to generate interest and ensure they are genuine useful offers: “sow, and you shall reap”!

I have just had two young chaps knocking at my door, fairly late in the evening, pitching their solar panels to me. One was listening, the guy talking to me was truly awful. Plus I am no eco-warrior and I know that solar panels and wind turbines are best reserved for the wealthy, the naïve and the tofu-addicts. But I still took a leaflet and gave him my number? Why?

Persistence. In fact, the offer they have can be compelling if the salesman gets a chance to pitch. However, his attitude was truly awful: he was confrontational, seemed aggrieved that I wanted him to go away (it was 20.30 and I was cooking dinner) even though it was HE that disturbed ME, did not pitch the benefits but the features and he failed to engage me.

He did not even ask me any open questions. When I told him that I understood that the return on solar panels was 25 years, he bluntly countered with “no, it is actually 5 years”!

As a sales professional I marvelled at his lack of training and poor people skills. But, you know what? I took the leaflet and agreed to a call back. He was like a pit bull with a manual (and a minder in this instance). He knew what he had to do and stuck to the task in hand: get the prospect to agree to the follow-up.

Now you could argue that I would never have responded positively if I had not been in sales training, but I bet some others in our road were be won over by his persistence! I could not help but wonder how great the young man would be if he was more respectful, smiled more, asked open questions…oh, well I will make sure I call his supervisor and pitch our services.

Have you ever had a prospect seem really keen to buy and then they disappear off the face of the earth? The were a “sure thing” when you put the phone down or left their office. Then you can’t get hold of them even though all you need now is the signature?

Possibly this is a version of “post-purchase remorse” that I call “pre-purchase remorse”. This first is a recognised psychological response to buying. Sometimes buyers start to rationalise their purchase and panic over a number of factors such as having spent a budget on the wrong thing, that they are no longer able to choose an alternative, what will the boss say, etc Other buyers almost predict this effect before they have even made the commitment to give you any money and behave as if they have “pre-purchase remorse”, in other words they regret that they are about to no longer have all the options open to them – including not buying.

The good news is that you must have done a good job as a salesperson because they must have been convinced by your arguments at the time. After all, they did not kick you out of the office or ring off. However, once they began to think about taking their interest to the next stage – in other words paying – they have become rabbits in the headlights. Almost paralysed. And that is why they don’t take your call.

Firstly we need to accept that some prospects have been in buying mode for a long time. Maybe they have seen and spoken to many representatives over a particular purchase they are considering. On some occasions we see “analysis paralysis”: they have so many options that they cannot now mentally process all the information. And this can lead to an irrational decision, rather than a well-researched one.

It is possible they have been doing this research for so long that they have almost become addicted to the process. In fact, making the purchase will end this process, which they have become very comfortable with. And making the purchase might put them in an uncomfortable place.

We can’t know for sure if a client has simply made a firm decision not to use our product or service, or if they are in “pre-purchase remorse”. If the latter, then they need a little more support and they will complete the purchase with us.

So, if you suspect pre-purchase remorse; confront it. Explain in an email or voicemail message that you know this is a big decision and that it should not be taken lightly. Then offer to provide some sort of reassurance. Cases studies or ”customers like you” (note the presumptive language) are one way to help reassure them. Let them know you are there to answer their questions. And be patient and persistent. You need to believe that they will see the light eventually, and you WILL get your sale.

A good friend of mine described a concept that is not readily translated from the Sanskrit into English. The word “dhairya” is generally translated as patience. However, it is a lot more than that. It is not a passive thing: in other words you sit back and wait. It is more a constancy of purpose and effort. Or to have the will to maintain effort through hard times when results might not be immediate.

I see the confusion of dhairya with patience frequently when it comes to sales. Maybe you recognise it in yourself.

That process whereby you wait for the prospect to come around; you don’t want to bother them too often in case you scare them off. That is patience.

The dhairya version is to keep believing the prospect will be ready to buy. But you need to DO something to keep that vision alive. You need to have a reason to contact them: useful information, chat about a latest industry development, refer a potentially useful partner to them, invite them to an event – social or business – that they might find interesting.

It is this ability to build long-term relationships that distinguishes the best consultative salespeople. It applies more to higher value goods and services where the margin justifies the ongoing effort. But even lower value goods can integrate the long-term marketing with the occasional sales call.

I was reminded at a recent meeting that good selling is not so much a case of a portfolio of specific skills but simply good communication.

We have a number of ways to measure how good a person is likely to be at selling using a number of specific tools such as Fit4 and elements of Thomas International, Belbin and others. But one trait seems to shine through amongst the best salespeople - they are great communicators.

But what do we mean by this? What we don’t mean is they are great talkers - hence the title of this blog entry. “Selling ain’t telling” is one of our A&P mantras. In other words, talking AT the prospect rarely gets them to commit to buy. Conversing WITH them is way more powerful.

The old adage about having two ears and one mouth and us using them in that proportion (paraphrasing the Greek philosopher Zeno I believe) still applies. Getting a message across is not a function of the number of words we use, or how long a meeting lasts. The best newspaper headlines are often very short, but they still get the message across with impact, sometimes with wit, but always with brevity.

All the great wits and thinkers in the world were always able to cut down critics with a few short words. As Winston Churchill once responded to the accusation that he was inebriated (again): “I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly”. I am not saying we need to insult our prospects, but we can do so much more by choosing our words carefully.

And communication is not just about the economic choice of words. It is the stuff in between…….silence. One of the most powerful closes is “first to speak, loses”. And so it is with handling objections or analysing the prospects needs.

So let’s pay more attention to how we gather information and less to how we broadcast it. Put away the megaphone and pick up the microphone, you could say.

Commission means that salespeople sell more doesn’t it. And more commission means they will sell even more. Right? Wrong.

Apparently commission and all incentives kill the personal motivation to get things done. More than that, the quality of work falls and it is actually a relatively poor way to motivate people, according to the research cited by Alfie Kohn in the book Punished by Rewards.

It is an astonishing conclusion for anyone that has been involved in sales for a long time. However, the more one thinks about it, the more it could be true. I know plenty of people that work incredibly hard for less than the market wage and others that do as little as they can get away with despite the chance to make a lot of money. The recent series Make Me Millionaire Trader showed several talented prospective traders abandon the project due moral objections. Despite the fact they could have made a lot of money.

The suggestion that commission does not work then begs the question, “how do we motivate sales people then”? Indeed! I have to say, the evidence is very persuasive suggesting that commission is a very poor way to encourage salespeople to sell more.

At the very least, commission in the long run appears no better a motivator to working hard than helping staff to get job satisfaction. The problem is two-fold in my view: how do you replace the deeply ingrained tradition of commission being used to motivate salespeople? And the other problem is, how do you train sales managers to adopt the better way?

STRATEGIC
It would be a brave sales organisation that ditched commissions for improved management. It would certainly be difficult to attract some of the best salespeople.

However, my experience suggests that really good sales people will do their best work where they like the company and believe in the product. It is another matter whether they would set aside their “greed” to work for such a company without commission instead of an alternative company with a great compensation scheme.

TACTICAL
If you are a salaried salesperson with an element of commission, then, frankly, there is little you can do about the commission you get. Time and again I hear salespeople moaning about the fairness or amount of compensation schemes. Sometimes they might have a point. But the inescapable fact is that they probably can’t change it.

So the decision has to be, how do you motivate yourself? My suggestion would be to say the commission is simply a way of keeping score against your fellow salespeople. The main thing is to do the best YOU can do.

Judge yourself against your own benchmarks and learn to me “intrinsically motivated”. In other words, find your reasons. And set your own goals. These should be independent of those imposed upon you by managers or your employer.

You will find this discipline will see you right wherever you choose to work and however fair the commission package.

A friend of mine who is heavily involved in property development remarked that in the last few years, “even a dog with a bank account could have made money from property”. With property prices falling now, it would be a mistake to think that all investors are such dogs and thus are now all losing money.

In fact, there is plenty of evidence that shrewd investors are snapping up repossessed properties at auctions at half their previous values. With smaller mortgages but rents pretty much at 2007 levels, it means that these are profitable investments with yields around 10%. So their capital value is less of relevance.

But why am I talking about property investment in a sales training blog?

When times are good, it is not so difficult to be among those making a profit from a particularly buoyant sector. The best operators are lumped in with the “lucky” and those jumping on the bandwagon.

Now, the good salesmen and good sales managers will shine. I worked in telecoms in the late 1990s and I saw all manner of charlatans make huge commissions selling mobile phones. Where they good salespeople? I think not in many cases, because most of these are out of the market scraping a living in a different sector.

STRATEGIC
The pie is smaller and we are all fighting over smaller slices. One of the biggest issues is how to reward the good sales people. These are the individuals that you want to hang on to when the upturn comes.

The consistently best salespeople have been shown to be the ones that don’t do the job just for the money but for the satisfaction. Big commissions and fancy holiday rewards are affordable when the business is flowing in and the more mercenary staff are bringing home the bacon. When the new business acquisition tap turns to a drip, we need to get smarter about motivation.

Why not try reducing the differential between the rewards for the best sales people and the poorer performers? The good guys should understand it is a team game and be willing to take a cut in commission and the poorer performers will be brought back into the game.

TACTICAL
There is an odd paradox that occurs in sales when times are tough. The buyers are more reluctant to commit AND are more demanding. In contrast, salespeople feel the need to close harder and generate more commitment, sometimes due to pressure from management.

This smacks of unstoppable force meeting immovable object! It is my view that buyers buy when they are ready and there is little (notice I don’t say “nothing”) we can do pin them down against their wills.
Look at it from your point of view; when you are buying, is there nothing more irritating than the salesman that wants to lead you to the checkout when you want to just have a look at the other colours available? I have certainly left shops where I might have otherwise made a purchase, but was hassled by a pushy salesperson.

Indeed, this recession is the time to REALLY build on the relationships. Spend more time researching your prospects and building the bond. Send them useful press cuttings, come up with free seminars that are useful to a client group, telephone for a chat or to pass industry intelligence. There are dozens of ways to put yourself more front of mind with the client than your competitors.

When the purse strings loosen, who will the prospects come to for a quote or to make a purchase? The pushy salesmen that just wanted the order or the “advisor” that wanted to help the prospect to make the buying decision?

We have had some great feedback about our blog and I have been surprised how many people dip into it. As a result of some of the comments, I realised that we are trying to be all things to all people. That we have as many senior sales managers and directors/business owners that read it as executive sales people. And your needs are different. So, from now on, we will have each blog in two sections Strategic (for those managing people) and Tactical (for those selling). Please let me know what you think about the change! And now to the subject of today’s article…

I recent spent 3 days with a client on an exhibition stand up at the NEC in Birmingham and was struck by the differences in the way we were using the space and the way that our neighbours were spending their investment.

STRATEGIC
If I had £1 for every time a contact told me that selling at exhibitions was a waste of time I would be a millionaire…I often think. Time and again, this belief stems from a simple deficiency – lack of preparation.

I will assume, albeit dangerously, that you have researched the market and decided on the “right” event. You know the right prospects will be there and you have decided that, instead of attending in order to build brand awareness, you are there to get customers.

Everyone on the stand needs to be focussed on one thing: finding prospects. Note that I do not say “selling”. Visitors to business exhibitions are rarely ready to be sold to. They are just “tyre kicking”; researching.

For this reason, you need to first engage as many people as possible to sift out the serious contacts. It is a numbers game. So the stand needs to have a competition, pretty people, images and logos that grab attention and is manned by tenacious energetic staff that will engage passers by.

And then you need to make sure you have the forms and questions that lead the attendee to either reveal their need, or reveal to you whether they are a prospect.

After that, it is all about your follow up. You have captured their details, your team has set aside time in your diaries for when you get back. You will then devote a couple of days to decide who you want to contact and then you contact them. Sounds simple. But why were so many of our neighbours at the recent event NOT doing it?

TACTICAL
Spending time at exhibitions is a great way to fill your pipeline. Or it can be a fantastic and exhausting waste of time. You can choose.

The temptation is to have nice chats with visitors, relax with a cup of coffee, get very drunk in the evenings and chat/flirt with other exhibitors. This attitude can seriously damage your wealth.

Firstly, it is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to look after your body. Don’t drink coffee or tea at all, because it dehydrates you. Do have a bottle of water handy (kept out of view) and sip regularly. This stops your breath smelling (don’t be surprised if you can’t retain visitors on your stand as a result!) and keeps your energy up. Have a light breakfast and lunch and graze throughout the day on non-sugary foods.

And resist the urge to have more than a couple of evening alcoholic drinks if you are on the stand the next day. Difficult as such temperance might be, you will look better for it and your stamina for standing for six hours will be massively increased. Any time you are off the stand recovering, or on the stand looking like a dogs breakfast you won’t be generating leads for yourself!