Brian Sullivan, President of PRECISE Selling

In this column we often talk about the importance of being a master questioner and listener. We teach that all the solutions to your professional success lie in the answers to the questions you ask of your customers and peers. But we don’t talk enough about how you can find many answers within yourself. And often the only way to find your answers is to make time to sit in silence. So turn off the computer, iPhone or TV, and find a quiet place. Take several minutes each week to silently interview YOU. Ask questions like, “What do I want? What am I doing well? Where am I falling short?” And while doing so, get out of the way of that truthful part inside of you that contains some of the answers you need.

In short, it is important to question, listen and learn from others. But everyday we miss the opportunity to get to know and better understand one of your most important customers…YOU. And once you get reacquainted with that “pretty cool” person, you can then attack your career and life with more peace and purpose.

Listen to Brian interview Trish Bishop, author of the book, The Question Journey, on his weekly radio program by going to www.preciseselling.com/Radioaccess.htm. This interview will teach you how to find the answers…in you.

Peter Ebner, President of Ebner Seminars

Not to undermine the importance of developing powerful selling skills that overcome objections and make closing easy, but in the overall scheme of things nothing is more important than ….

To listen to Peter Ebner’s sales tip of the week, click here.

Brian Sullivan, President of PRECISE Selling

“Technology sucks! I’m a relationship guy,” were words recently mumbled to me by a salesperson at a recent meeting. And the more he spoke, the more I thought that this fella was the Grand Wizard of the Anti-Geek Squad. But you and I know exactly why he felt this way…because technology scares the hell out of him! But here is the reality…even idiots can become tech savvy. How do I know? Because the idiot writing this article did! But it didn’t come easily. I punched my PDA, crushed my CRM tool, exploded over an Excel spreadsheet, and butchered countless PowerPoint presentations before “it” hit. And when I finally saw the “techno-light,” I felt the sudden urge to put masking tape around the center of my sun glasses. And through my geek goggles, I finally realized that if I could use these techno tools effectively, they would NOT distance me from the people I serve. In fact, technology just may help me serve them in ways I didn’t believe were possible.

For instance…is investing in and learning to use a CRM tool tough for businesses and salespeople? (Customer Relationship Management for you nongeeks) Sure…it could be. But on the other side of that pain are more customers, more orders and more profits. And yet, too many businesses and salespeople take the “I need to spend more time with customers and less time on the computer” approach. But I don’t buy it! Because I believe that if you commit to better understanding how technology can help you, you will then spend less time trying to figure it out and more time serving others.

So this week, think of that one piece of technology you loathe and “make up” with it. Stop fighting, give it a second chance and commit to the relationship. And as you grow closer to your new nerdy tools, watch how you grow further from the competition. And who knows, maybe I’ll even get to read all about it on your new BLOG.

For more information on PRECISE Selling, please click here.

Dale Rothenberger, VP of The Winters Group & Associates

I’m always asking questions about the business or person taking care of my purchase. It drives my wife crazy (and many times, she’s embarrassed by my inquisitive nature). Just this week alone:

- I learned that during the height of the real estate market we had 24,000 homes for sale in our county; today that number is 44,000. (Talked to a real estate agent while getting my car serviced).

– I learned that the EMR (electronic medical records) system chosen by the largest hospital in our area is fine for “main campus” use; but for the doctors who have to use it as part of remote office locations, it is impractical for small office, one-on-one patient visits. (Talked to my family physician during a routine check-up).

- I learned that the economic recovery in my area has improved about 20% since January 1st (talking to a waitress at local Italian restaurant and the amount of diners and tips received on a typical Tuesday night.)

What do I do with all this “nuisance” information? I use it when I am talking to clients and prospects about their business, their industry, and the customers they serve. It provides me with “real-time” statistics (restaurant), case study examples (hospital should have done a focus group across all user groups), and the economy is still slow to recover in real estate (buyer’s market).

As a business owner, when do you want sales? Today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year… so the sales funnel must be constantly filled and monitored. How good are your sales people with providing you forecasts? (Did you know that only 42% of most sales professionals can provide an accurate sales forecast? And only 45% of sales people actually reach quota? And more than 50% of quotes are lost due to inability to “close”?)

How important is your sales funnel? It’s the lifeblood of the future of your organization.
So I ask you, how much attention are you paying to your Sales Funnel. The world of business and marketing communications is changing dramatically. The kinds of marketing technologies gives the service provider a presence where never before considered. The monitoring systems and process improvements to achieve sales “technology” management is not far off, its here today. It’s just not widely known or advertised. It is affordable, measurable, and adoptable.

If you are working to fill the funnel to over-capacity in production, look to changing your presence in the marketplace. Technology can elevate your market position and bring you opportunities in net new sales revenues.

For more information on The Winters Group & Associates, please visit http://www.wintersmg.com.

Craig McConnell, President and Founder of PrintGrowPro

A few years ago, what was supposed to be a quick up and back sales call to Chicago had turned into a 17+ hour day of delays, food courts, large crowds, and lots of ‘quality’ time sitting on the tarmac. To say that whatever natural charm I may have possessed was gone by the time I landed at Lambert would have been an understatement.

So I really wasn’t prepared for what I experienced as I exited the parking garage. As I drove up to the booth to pay, I was assaulted with some great eye contact, a big smile and an enthusiastic “Welcome home ‘Hon’!” “Glad to see you back safe and sound!”

Let’s get real here: What ‘right’ did Betty (she was so disarming that I had to ask her name) have to be so happy and positive? It was 17 degrees and she had been sitting in a 5 x 5 x 10 glass enclosure (with a small space heater on the counter behind her), opening and closing her sliding window for stranger after stranger for going on almost 8 hours; and, I am pretty sure, she wasn’t on a big salary nor expecting a year end bonus.

No, she had no right to be positive. Don’t you think she should have been lamenting her plight and blaming others for her lack of upward mobility and opportunity for advancement? Well, she knew that she had a choice, and she chose to look at things differently. She chose to be the master of her circumstances and her attitude.

Pretty cool!!!!!!!!

Now, you would think that with all the books that have been and are being written (wander into a Barnes and Noble the next chance you get) on having a positive attitude that everyone in the world would be bouncing around with a smile on their face never letting life’s little annoyances ever spoil their perfectly positive way of looking at the things.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple and it really doesn’t work that way.

Like all good selling techniques (yes, having a consistent, sincere, positive attitude is a selling technique), until you make the decision that you are going to become a positive person — in thought, word, and deed – it’s not going to happen.

So why all the emphasis on having a positive attitude and why am I adding to the plethora of words that are out there on the subject? Because attitude really does make all the difference! It can be a career changer!!!!

You should never underestimate the value of a positive attitude and if you are out selling against someone who is just as good as you, the right attitude will give you the advantage.

Selling is not easy; it is not for the faint of heart; you’ve got to be prepared to fail and then bounce right back up; selling requires discipline and you must be committed to sales as a career; you’ve got to believe in yourself and don’t ever forget — only you can motivate you.

So if you’re committed and really want to begin the process of becoming a positive (sales) person, here are a couple of PrintGrowProBESTPRACTICES you might try. Remember, it has to become a habit in order to have any impact at all.

My PrintGrowProBESTPRACTICES are simple, inexpensive alternatives that are easy to implement and could make a difference in your sales career.

Number 1: for 30 days, avoid negative people (can’t get much easier than that); you always have a choice and you can choose not to be around them

Number 2: for 30 days, read something positive right before you go to bed or as soon as you get up. No more ending (or beginning) your day with the local newspaper (“fire destroys family home”, “domestic argument leads to gunshots”) or TV news (“if it bleeds, it leads”). Your options are virtually unlimited: The Purpose Driven Life, Who Moved My Cheese, Think and Grow Rich, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Chicken Soup for the Soul, or Winners Never Quit. The first step however, is to find something.

So ‘just do it’ for 30 days and see if it doesn’t make a difference.

Bonus PrintGrowProBESTPRACTICE: the next time someone asks you how you’re doing, instead of saying “fine”, try “Terrific” (even if you have to manipulate your lips with your fingers to get the word out).

Make it a great day and go sell something.

For more information on PrintGrowPro, Inc. please click here.

Peter Ebner, Industry leading sales trainer

If you expect to grow your sales you need to know what your prospects want and although different prospects may have different needs and interests none want to deal with a printer. But they are desperately looking for and want to work with a salesperson that can….

To listen, please click here.

Brian Sullivan, President of PRECISE Selling

What is it with April Fools Day? Who on earth would create a holiday celebrated by most of the Western world that encourages others to think of creative ways to trick somebody into believing or doing something that makes them look, act, or feel silly? Well, whoever it was, I would love to meet them! Because the world needs more days where we take ourselves a little less seriously. With sales quotas, balance sheets, countless emails, and meeting after meeting after meeting, don’t we deserve a day when we act just a little goofy? Of course we do? Because I believe when we close our work computers for the last time, we will not only be remembered by how well we did our jobs, but also by the number of smiles we brought to everybody around us, while we were being productive. Because each day gives us a chance to build a “resume of happy memories.” And I believe the best life and professional resumes are filled with smiles, laughter and stories that can be told over and over and never get old. And I believe there are only a limited amount of days to fill up that resume.

So as you continue this week doing everything you can to be a top performer, you have only one more person that needs to be fooled…YOU! Trick yourself into believing that everyday is April Fools Day.

• Add a little “foolishness” to that next big presentation you are giving by adding a humorous video, audio clip or image (www.googleimages.com). And how will you know if it is foolish enough? Easy…you will start laughing.
• Fool a customer who is having a bad day with a handwritten card or care package.
• If you are a leader in your company, cancel that next hard-core meeting and take the team bowling, to a ball game, to a movie…whatever!

Just find a way to add a little foolery into the daily, weekly or monthly routine. And don’t worry about the real fool, who takes himself too seriously. Because the real fool doesn’t understand that both customers and colleagues listen better when they have a smile on their face. You, on the other hand, armed with your personal creativity and passion, will be building lifelong business relationships, laughing with your team, all the way to the TOP.

For more information on Brian Sullivan and PRECISE Selling, please visit preciseselling.com.

Linda Bishop, President and Founder of Thought Transformation

Warm weather, blue skies and plenty of sunshine motivated me to get my car washed. The attendant inspected my filthy car and immediately recommended the more expensive service with tire detailing. (I was an easy up-sell.)

After handing over my keys, I walked to the waiting room and paid the cashier. With a few minutes, I looked around and realized the car wash used print to generate incremental revenue.

There was a rack of greeting cards—how smart. Everyone knows someone with a birthday or an anniversary, or maybe a car wash customer needs a get-well card for a friend who is under the weather. By making it easy for customers to check card-buying off their to-do list, the car wash chain made extra money.

Along with cards, they sold memo pads appealing to women, and laminated information handouts for students on topics like chemistry, math and grammar. When I got my car, they handed me a printed coupon encouraging me to make a return visit.

Who are your clients? How can they use print to create revenue? The answer to that question could create new selling opportunities for you.

For more information, please visit www.thoughttransformation.com.

Dale Rothenberger, Vice President, Winters Group & Associates, LLC

The US Postmaster testified before congress earlier this month that the USPS is facing a financial crisis and needs to undertake several major initiatives to survive. In addition to a rate hike, Saturday delivery is to be ended. Many post office facilities will close, and letter carriers will lose their jobs.

The volume of mail has dropped by almost 20% in just three years time. While much of this volume is the shift to on-line bill statements and electronic payment, a large part of this decline is due to the changing habits of consumers. The USPS is asking Congress to give it more flexibility to allow it to adapt to these changing times.

What we are really experiencing is a change in how consumers and businesses wish to be communicated with. For those of us in the marketing communication field who still believe that business is slow due to the recession and once we start seeing growth in the economy our print volumes will return, its time to face reality and see the world is changing around us.

Mail delivery will continue, but at what price? And as prices increase, marketers will look for alternate ways to get their message out to their customers and prospects. Resistance to change is inevitable, but those who can see that choices being made today will change the way we communicate tomorrow, opportunity abounds.

Anytime you get to hear or read information about “integrated cross-media marketing” take advantage of the opportunity to further your education; the payoffs can be huge particularly because you would still be in “first movers” advantageous position.

For more information on The Winters Group & Associates, please visit http://www.wintersmg.com.

Craig McConnell, President of PrintGrowPro Inc.

Despite the commercialism that has crept into amateur athletics over the years, to me, the Olympics still embody everything that is good about sports: dedication, team work, persistence, goal setting, sacrifice, hard work, winning with class, losing with class, etc.

And, I must confess, I still get a lump in my throat every time the National Anthem is played.

Did you ever stop and think about how many hours Evan Lysacek, Lindsay Vonn, or Shaun White have practiced in their lifetimes? Odds are they didn’t decide last summer that they wanted to win Olympic gold.

There is a fascinating book out that I would encourage everyone to add to their sales library: Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell (he also wrote Blink).

In Chapter Two he quotes neurologist Dr. Daniel Levitin: “ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world class expert – in anything.” “In study after study of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, chess players, composers, concert pianist, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again.”

Gladwell goes on to give specific examples: the Beatles, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and actually shares this quote from John Lennon: “the more we practiced, the better we got.”

So where does that leave us in our quest to master the art of selling? Are any of us approaching 10,000 hours yet?

Prospecting, listening, presenting, networking, asking the right questions, professional persistence — are we already as good as we can get? Or, can we raise the bar, figure a way to become more valuable to our clients and start to live and work outside our comfort zone?

So as you go into tomorrow, remember the Rule of One: make one more call, learn one more thing, swim one more lap, hand write one more thank-you card, read one more page, practice your elevator speech one more time, add one more customer to your pipeline, find one more client’s PAIN, research one more prospect, and eat one more carrot.

Have a great day and go sell something.

For more information on Craig McConnell and PrintGrowPro Inc., please visit
www.printgrowpro.com/.