Dan Caramanico

Are You Attacking Your Prospects?

May 29, 2013 by Dan Caramanico Leave a Comment

Have you ever been in a conversation with a prospect when all of a sudden (or so it seems) they get defensive? Have you ever been cruising right along with a prospect then suddenly they clam up and become guarded about what they tell you? The chances are that whatever you were saying or doing looks like an attack to the prospect. There are several ways this might happen. I will discuss the top three. If you avoid these three pitfalls your prospect will not be as likely to fight you and will be more open to what you have to say.

Don’t be condescending. This can happen when you have a lot of experience or when you have much more knowledge than the prospect. Inadvertently you can begin to talk down to the prospect, or preach to the prospect or take a didactic stance with the prospect. When the prospect senses this, he or she feels like you are putting them down. This is true even if you are not trying to do so. Many times it is your tonality that communicates to the prospect what they are feeling. To protect against this, you can take a deferential stance which will give the prospect the idea that you hold them in a position as high as or higher than your own, and will almost automatically get your tonality right. Of course your belief has to be consistent with that stance or you will sound phony which is a whole other problem.
Don’t be arrogant. Arrogance will always cause a hostile environment. The prospect will either fight you or clam up. Most people don’t set out to be arrogant on a sales call. But when they are insecure or feel like they need to prove themselves, they come across that way. Be humble and you will not attract undue resistance. Have the humility to realize that though you are an expert in your field you are a rank amateur in what the prospect’s problems are and how she feels about them. You can’t hide arrogance it comes through your tonality and body language loud and clear.
Don’t use jargon and Buzz words. Of course every field has its own particular language. But you should be careful not to assume that the prospect understands it all. It may make you feel like the expert when you use big words, technical language or insider terminology but it will make the prospect feels stupid if they do not understand. They won’t tell you they don’t understand they will either stop interacting or go on the offensive. The worst part is they may not remember what you said but they will remember that they did not feel good when you were talking and mark you as someone to avoid. This may all be just a vague feeling on their part , but it will color every other interaction you have with them.

Be careful how you speak with a prospect you may be telling them more than you think.

When Should You Quote?

May 27, 2013 by Dan Caramanico Leave a Comment

I believe that the prospect has to earn the right to get a proposal from the salesperson. The Optimal Salesperson® will only write a proposal to a prospect who has completely met all of the elements to be considered a qualified prospect. Most salespeople spend entirely too much time writing proposals. They do a cursory job of qualifying the prospect and then they either volunteer to write a proposal or are asked to write one which they eagerly agree to do.

There are several possible factors which can cause this to happen.

The salesperson does not have or does not use an effective sales process
The salesperson knows how to qualify a prospect but is unskilled at executing the process
The salesperson has a belief that they must quote when asked
The salesperson has a fear of rejection so they won’t ask the tough questions
The salesperson believes that they can’t win if they don’t quote so they quote everything that moves.
The salesperson thinks that writing proposals with low probability is a good way to avoid prospecting which they hate worse than writing proposals.

In this article I would like to address items 1 and 2 in the list above. Only about 15% of the salespeople we test admit to using any sales process at all. One large company I worked with had a documented sales process that management swore was being used extensively. I could not find any evidence that the salespeople actually used it when I debriefed the sales team on various sales opportunities. Most salespeople just “wing it” and default to presenting features and benefits and then hoping for the best. An effective sales process will be centered on the prospect and include a detailed criteria for what constitutes qualified prospect. So when do I believe you should quote? You should only quote or propose when all three of the following criteria are met:

The prospect has a compelling reason to proceed and we understand what it is from an in depth discussion with the prospect. We must understand the personal pain of each of the decision makers. Reading about it in the RFP does not count.
We have had a detailed discussion about money with the prospect and enough has been found to execute the project.
The prospect has agreed to make a decision upon delivery (or shortly thereafter) of the quote or proposal.

If you don’t have at least this much information you don’t have a qualified prospect and you should not quote the project.

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Filed Under: Management Tips, Money

What Are Your Hidden Weaknesses?

May 25, 2013 by Dan Caramanico Leave a Comment

We all have hidden weaknesses. These are obstacles that we are probably not aware of but that affect us in a big way when we are in front of a prospect. They are not obvious to those around us and they don’t show up on an interview. So what are they? They take many forms but the most common is a belief we may have about the way things are in the world or the way things work in our industry or in sales in general. For example if you believe that you have to call on purchasing agents first before you can contact the end user of your product then that belief will affect your ability to sell and learning sales techniques to help you deal with the end user will be of no help. Maybe you believe that it is ok for the prospect to think about your proposal for a few days even after they committed to making a decision when you delivered it. If that is true, then you will have a low closing rate and closing techniques will be useless until you overcome that self-limiting belief.

Sometimes hidden weaknesses are more psychological. For example if you have a strong need for approval from people then you will shy away from using techniques that you believe might jeopardize your relationship. You will avoid asking any question or making any statement which you perceive to be aggressive because the prospect may not approve and you need the approval.

So how do we know what our weaknesses are if they are “hidden”. Well you can contact me and we can test you for them. But another way is to pay attention to what you do or say and what avoid doing or saying. Ask yourself why you are doing it or saying it. then ask why that is important and then try to compare what you are doing to what the more successful people are doing. Ask yourself what would happen if I tried something different. Listen to your self-talk. What you are saying to yourself will go a long way to identifying your hidden weaknesses. The good news is that if you are able to identify and overcome just one there will be a quantum leap in your sales effectiveness. This video will help explain.

To get more sales tips click here to sign up for the free OPTMAL SELLING™ weekly video sales tip.

Filed Under: Management Tips, Self Limiting Beliefs

Optimal Selling – A Compelling Business Resource

May 23, 2013 by Dan Caramanico Leave a Comment

The “Make-The-Sale” series, by Dan Caramanico and Marie Maguire, is an outstanding way for salespeople to learn what the difference is between ‘good’ sales techniques and ‘bad’ in this new business world. With this guide, readers will be able to study the ins and outs of the conversations had by an Optimal Salesperson when they ‘hunt’ for their customer’s reasons for buying a product and/or service.

As we know, we’re in an economic upheaval that has just begun to show signs of balancing out. What may come in the future is anyone’s guess. Our society is very much a technologically based realm where consumers head to a keyboard instead of an office when it comes to purchasing products. But, salespeople are necessary! And being a great one – an optimal one – is the key to success.

Opening with “Quincy,” a man who is a literal quoting machine, businesspeople see that even though he can quote like a fiend, research a prospect to the extreme, and find referrals in an instant, he still suffers extremely low production. Hence, he is the man for the preliminaries, but when it comes to selling the product and closing the deal, he is at a loss.

This book literally walks the steps and offers the key techniques on how to understand when a buyer actually NEEDS to buy! Unlike other business books, this goes beyond the norm because the writers have not simply generalized the situation. Such as, they do not simply say all salespeople are the same and by simply doing “this,” you’ll have your dream job, fancy house, etc.. What they do offer are crystal-clear examples that can be used by various backgrounds and attitudes of current and future salespeople. Everything from being able to read a prospect’s body language to being able to take note of the little things that appear in conversations in order to discover what a prospect’s long term problem may be – this book has it all.

Like a sleuth finding the clues to the mystery of what their clients need, this book instructs a salesperson on how to anticipate the need and then ask direct questions – the hard questions – so that the buyer knows they completely understand the issues and want to help…not just make the sale.

This title in the “Make-The-Sales” series will have the business world opening their eyes to the ‘right’ way when it comes to producing successful sales.

http://www.amazon.com/Optimal-Selling-Make—Sales-ebook/dp/B0083AAZYA/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350069929&sr=1-7&keywords=optimal+selling

Filed Under: Management Tips, Sales Technique

Keeping Your Sales Priorities Straight

May 21, 2013 by Dan Caramanico Leave a Comment

Keeping your sales priorities straight is both simple and difficult. It should be obvious what we spend our time on but it must be difficult because so many salespeople spend time on the wrong things. Recently a client hired a salesperson that had great promise. He had all of the skills to be successful. He had and empowering belief system and he knew the industry. Yet, he was terminated within a year. What happened? He didn’t fail for lack of hard work. He didn’t fail because he couldn’t fit in with the corporate culture. He didn’t fail because he didn’t know how to sell or hadn’t been successful in the past. He didn’t fail because of the economy. They are in a growth sector. He didn’t fail because the company was impatient. He failed because on a daily basis he had his priorities mixed up.

He is (or should I say was) in a business with a three month sales cycle and an average sale that should be around $$40,000 to $50,000. He had personal goals that he could attain if he sold one of those per month. If he had done that, the company would have been ecstatic and he would still have a job. His first few weeks in the field he wanted to make a good impression and get a few quick hits. So he chased the first few projects that crossed his path. The problem is they happened to be $10,000 deals without too much urgency to close. Chasing these unqualified prospects cost John valuable time. Of the four he pursued only one closed and that took four months. So at the four month mark he had one small sale and an anemic pipeline. Now his focus changed. Instead of a quick hit he needed to show a growing pipeline so he focused on the wrong thing again. This time he went after the right sized projects but he didn’t care whether they were qualified or not he just wanted them in his pipeline to show management he was making progress. So six months in, he has a pipeline bloated with prospects that will never close and he is starting to attract some adult supervision from his manager. More meetings meant more time away from prospecting. At this point he was doomed and it was only a matter of time.

John had his priorities mixed up on a daily basis. His manager and the company were not expecting a sale for the first 4 months. One month for training and tree months to build the pipeline and close his first deal. John was interested in being a hero in the first few months and forgot about a few things. He forgot about his income goals and focused on the psychic goal of being the star. He forgot about the target prospect and allowed himself to be distracted by the promise of a quick hit. Then when he got behind, he forgot everything he knew and went into panic mode which is never good. What he should have done is keep his focus on his personal goals and his selling process and his target prospect. If he had only done those three things he would never have gotten off track. This video will help explain.

Filed Under: Management Tips, Motivation

Are You Suffering From Magical Hearing?

May 19, 2013 by Dan Caramanico Leave a Comment

Miscommunication is rampant among unsuccessful sales people. They know what they want to hear and they know what they think the prospect needs. Then they magically convert what the prospect says into what they were expecting if the two are anywhere close to each other. What happens next is they stop asking questions and just assume that they are on the same page as the prospect. They don’t verify that there is a compelling reason to move forward, they don’t confirm that there is enough money available to address the issue, and worst of all, they move through the sales process too fast. This causes pipelines that are bloated with prospects that are never going to buy. It also causes lots of wasted time writing quotes and proposals for unqualified prospects.

The problem is not only “magical hearing”. One of the primary culprits of miscommunication leading wasted time and pipeline bloat is being too accepting of what prospects say and not being skeptical enough to ask more questions. I am not suggesting that you disbelieve everything the prospect tells you … but keep an open mind … and verify what you think you heard by asking for more clarification. When you think they are saying what you want to hear, ask for more details. When you think you heard what you were hoping they would say, ask them why they believe that, or think that, or need that.

You don’t have to be confrontational, in fact you shouldn’t be (that’s a whole other subject for a future article). But you need to be curious enough to get deeper, to get behind what the prospect is telling you and get enough detail or enough of the rationale to be sure you are not just suffering from “happy ears” … hearing what you want to hear. Remember that prospects are Leary of salespeople until the salesperson earns their trust. They don’t intend to mislead (most of the time) but they do want to maintain control of the sales process and they do want that information that you can provide them. So they tell you enough to keep you in the game and let you draw (or jump to) you own conclusions. Sometimes they are just too nice to tell you no forcefully enough … and you get the wrong idea on your own.

So the lesson for today is to be skeptical about what prospects tell you. You will be surprised how that will change the nature and depth of the conversations you have with prospects. Watch this video to understand more about how that works and get more examples.

Filed Under: Management Tips, Pain

The Benefits of Taking Time Off – Taking A Vacation

May 18, 2013 by Dan Caramanico Leave a Comment

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By Patricia Quigley

(ISNS)—Rae and Bruce Hostetler not only work very hard, they also relax just as well. Numerous vacations help the suburban Indianapolis couple to maintain their health and emotional well-being—and it’s no surprise to health care professionals.

“Rest, relaxation, and stress reduction are very important for people’s well-being and health. This can be accomplished through daily activities, such as exercise and meditation, but vacation is an important part of this as well,” said primary care physician Natasha Withers from One Medical Group in New York. Withers lists a decreased risk of heart disease and improved reaction times as some of the benefits from taking some time off.

“The impact that taking a vacation has on one’s mental health is profound,” said Francine Lederer, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles who specializes in stress and relationship management. “Most people have better life perspective and are more motivated to achieve their goals after a vacation, even if it is a 24-hour time-out.”

The Hostetlers combined short and long breaks in 2010 and 2011 that included a cruise, a ski trip, two beach trips, a weekend in Chicago, and have another cruise trip scheduled this upcoming fall. Counting the weekend days that buffer some trips, they’ll have been on vacation for 38 days since October of last year. Read the rest of the article here

Filed Under: Lifestyle

Prepare Your Mindset Before The Sales Call

May 17, 2013 by Dan Caramanico Leave a Comment

Beliefs are more important to sales success than sales techniques or sales processes. Everyone knows that if you don’t believe in your product you will not be very effective at selling it. Not everyone knows why that is true. Part of it has to do with the fact that you will not be willing to stretch the truth by saying something is good if you don’t think that it is. But it is more important to understand how beliefs affect everything you say and how believable or effective your words are. It well established that we communicate more by our tonality and body language than we do by the actual words we say. One study showed that as much as 93 percent of communication is non-verbal. If you think about it we all learned to communicate non-verbally first because we did not know any words until we were about 18 months old.

What we believe will be communicated non-verbally whether we want to communicate it or not. For example, many salespeople believe that a client will not be willing to give them a referral. Suppose we train that salesperson to ask for referrals by teaching them what to say and how to say it. But, we do not address the belief that he has. When he goes to a meeting with a client and asks for a referral in exactly the way he was taught, the chances are that the salesperson will return home empty handed. The reason is that when he asked for the referral 7% of what he communicated was “please give me a referral” (more or less). However 93% was screaming out at the prospect (through his tonality and body language) “there is no way you are going to give me a referral”. His belief was not congruent with his words.

Before you go on a call you must get your mindset straight. If you are going to ask tough questions make sure you believe you have the right to know the answers or else the prospect will either refuse to answer or dodge you by dancing around the subject. If you are not sure your product is the right fit or is worth the money, then work on selling yourself first so that your beliefs can match your words. If you don’t, your tonality will try to “un-convince the prospect” in very subtle almost undetectable ways. If you have ever had someone from your company come in behind you and close a deal you failed to close and said to yourself “but how come he didn’t buy when I said that?”, now you know the reason. Before you go on a call make sure your mindset is congruent with what you are planning to do on the call. Click this link to watch a short video for more explanation.

Filed Under: Management Tips, Sales Process

Step Into the Spotlight

May 17, 2013 by Dan Caramanico Leave a Comment

This book is very funny and it delivers good messages page after page. It purports to be about publicity and getting noticed but it is full of helpful advice about how to present your information in a way that is very powerful. The Author with the unlikely name u Tsufit, was a stand up comedienne and she keeps you entertained throughout. I am in good company recommending this book because Tom Peters, and Robert Cialdini and many others endorse it also.

Get the book on Amazon.

Filed Under: Bookshelf

To Sell is Human

May 17, 2013 by Dan Caramanico Leave a Comment

To sell is human is not a sales tactic book. In fact it is aimed at people who do not carry the title of salesperson. His main thesis is that everyone sells. The reason it is interesting to me is that it gives a really good picture of how the population at large views sales professionals. See page 45 for an interesting info graphic. He has done some unique research and claims that the most successful people are neither extroverts nor introverts but what he calls “ambiverts”. The author is not a salesman but his book is worth reading for the insights he gives. His chapter on buoyancy is really about our own self-limiting beliefs which is one of the reasons I like the book so much.

Get the book on Amazon.

Filed Under: Bookshelf