Archives for January 2019

To “pay attention” is one of those weird English formulations which non-native English speakers have a hard time understanding. (Where did it come from anyway?) Regardless of how weird it sounds, we can take a lesson from its literal meaning. When we pay for something, we give something up (usually money) to get something back (usually a product or service). In sales, when we “pay attention” we are giving our attention to the prospect in return for valuable information (pain, budget, decision process, etc.). unfortunately, most salespeople don’t pay properly. They don’t really listen to what is being said. Rather they listen for a break so they can start talking. Or they assume they know what they think they heard but they only heard half of it because they were not “paying” with their full attention. So the lesson for today is “pay” with your full attention and you will be rewarded with more and richer information.

Being uncomfortable asking certain questions or talking to certain people is no excuse not to do it. Comfort is not a prerequisite for success in sales. In fact, you could make the case that getting out of your comfort zone is the only way to grow. Everything is difficult before it becomes easy and in sales that is true in spades. Are you uncomfortable talking to strangers (making cold calls)? Do it a bunch of times and it becomes easier. Are you uncomfortable talking about money? Do it a few times and it becomes easy. Afraid to talk to CEO’s? Do it a few times and you will feel comfortable in the c-suite. In fact, top salespeople get paid because they are willing to do the things that ineffective salespeople are afraid to do. Repetition breeds comfort. And comfort paired with skill breed success. So, the best advice I ever got from a sales mentor was to “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. Whatever you are afraid of or uncomfortable with probably won’t happen.

What we think is better in a product is unimportant. What the prospect thinks is better is what counts in sales. Your product might be better in one respect and worse in another respect. For example, yours might have more “bells and whistles”. But, on the other hand, it requires more maintenance because of the added complexity. You might think the bells and whistles make your product better, but the prospect may value reduced maintenance costs and have no use for many of the extras you provide. So, while you think the product is better, the prospect doesn’t agree and may go to a competitor even if yours is cheaper. The solution is to focus on the prospect first and determine what they value. Or, in other words, discover their pain. Once you do that, you can focus your pitch on what they value and eliminate any mention of the other things even (and this is the hard part) if you are passionate about the cool features your product has that the prospect does not care about.

Pay time activities are things like talking to prospects, closing deals, and setting up appointments. If you call in the time zone you live in then any time is usually somewhere between 7:30 AM and 6 PM. Of course, this varies with who you are calling. Admin (non-pay time) activities are things like expense reports, some email actions, proposals (many times, especially low probability proposals), and similar activities. In order to increase your ability to hit your sales targets you should shift as many non-pay time activities to be accomplished outside of the time frame when you can be talking to clients. An added side benefit of this is that you may have more motivation to qualify prospects harder. If you realize that you are going to have to choose between writing a proposal or spending time with your family, you might ask a few more questions and increase your probability of success or decrease them to zero which means you don’t have to write the proposal at all.