Kahle Way B2B Sales Blog

by Dave Kahle

“Mañana.” It will wait until tomorrow. There are times when it is so tempting to tell yourself that, and actually believe it. Clearly, sometimes it is true. However, when we continually put off for tomorrow those things that could and should be done today, we become less effective today. And while it is true that it is only one day, the truth is that we will never have that day back again.

If we accept mediocrity in our performance for one day, we will never be able to gain that time back, and live that day over. And a day wasted can easily become another day, and another, and eventually turn into a habit. Habits turn into character traits, and character eventually determines our performance.

Procrastination, the character trait of putting far too many things off to be done later, is one of the insidious cripplers of sales performance, lurking under the surface of sales performance, and sucking the energy out of a salesperson’s performance.

The best salespeople guard against procrastination. They work hard, with discipline, to insure that every day is spent as effectively as possible. They recognize the temptation, and build tools, practices and disciplines into their routines to prevent themselves from falling prey to it.

There are proven tools and techniques to help with this. Scheduling appointments as fully as possible throughout the course of the day keeps you working. If you have an appointment for this afternoon, it’s difficult to put that off until tomorrow. The best salespeople are in the habit of making appointments for at least the first call of the day, as early as they can, and the last call of the day, toward the end of the day. That way, the temptation to put something off until tomorrow conflicts with the need to stay mentally in the job until you are finally finished.

“To-do lists,” re-organized at the end of every day, with firm priorities and deadlines, is another effective tool utilized by the “do-it-now” group. By creating a prioritized list of the things that you must do, and assigning deadlines to each of them, you force yourself to confront the necessity to get things done.

And, of course, the regular discipline of developing realistic goals and attaching clearly envisioned rewards to them is one of the most common devices used by the pros to keep themselves in the moment and on top of their games.

The best salespeople understand that they need to manage their weaknesses. They understand that their ability to manage themselves is one of the keys to sustained sales excellence. That’s why they excel at overcoming procrastination.

If you’d like to learn more about this best practice,

• Read Chapter 12 of How to Excel at Distributor Sales 
• Read Take Your Sales Performance Up-a-Notch 
• Listen to the Best Of Dave Kahle Recorded Seminars #52. 

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For Sales Managers…
Use this rating scale to assess the extent to which each of your salespeople evidence this best practice.�

Comments: ____________________________________________________________

To help a salesperson build this practice into a habit,

a.  Share your assessment with them.
b.  Talk about how that impacts their performance.
c.  Refer them to one or more of the resources listed above.
d.  Ask them to commit to a couple of specific changes.
e.  Monitor their progress at a future, pre-determined date.

By Dave Kahle
The job of the salesperson is always a bit of a balancing act. On one hand, we continually cruise our territory to see what opportunities look the most promising. We’re constantly scanning the account base to identify that to which we should react. On the other hand, we also need to be proactive, determining which accounts hold the most long-term potential, and strategizing our approaches to those accounts.

It’s the second part of that equation that is the subject of this piece. The best salespeople regularly (annually, quarterly and monthly) think deeply about their highest potential accounts, and create a step-by-step plan for methodically penetrating them. That’s the definition of a strategic plan.

Note that the practice assumes some prior work: The salesperson has methodically identified the highest potential accounts. That’s a special process all by itself. In order to do that, he/she has collected meaningful information, analyzed it, and applied some thoughtful criteria to it in order to bubble up to the surface those accounts which offer the highest potential.

Those top 5 to 20 percent have so much potential that they warrant special attention. And that special attention means a well crafted, constantly reviewed strategic plan.
Typically, these plans involve:

• A clear understanding of the opportunities within the account.
• A specific plan for expanding and broadening relationships with key people within the account.
• A set of short term, as well as long term, objectives for penetration of the account.
• A specific, step-by-step sequence of actions to follow in order achieve those objectives.
• Benchmark measurements to which to compare your results.
• A written commitment.

The best salespeople spend time annually reviewing and refining their list of key accounts. They then spend time either quarterly or monthly defining, in writing, their strategic plans for those accounts. The resulting document helps them to effectively focus their investment of sales time in those actions which will get the best results.

It’s a matter of “thinking about it before you do it,” one of my ten secrets of time management for salespeople. And that means devoting the necessary time to the task, acquiring the important disciplines, and asking the right questions.

Alas, so few salespeople do that. That, of course, is why this is one of the best practices of the best salespeople.

To learn more about this practice,

• Buy the 10 Secrets of Time Management for Salespeople book and tool kit. Review Chapter 2. 
• Review Chapter 15 of How to Excel at Distributor Sales. 
• Review Chapter 4 of Take Your Performance Up a Notch 

*Read the free article “Strategic Planning for Salespeople” on the
www.davekahle.com website.

It continues to amaze me that so many salespeople shuffle into most of their sales calls with very little, if any, prior planning. I suppose that is why this is one of the practices of the best.

Most surveys of how field salespeople really spend their time conclude that the typical salesperson spends somewhere between 25 to 30 percent of the work week actually talking with customers. Just think about it – that time spent with customers is the heart of your job. Of all the things that you do in a typical work week, of all the tasks that you perform, nothing is more important than that!

Without time spent with your customers, your company would not need to employ you. Everything else that you do is either a result of, or in preparation for, your person-to-person sales times.

Combine that with the growing pressure on your customers to make good use of their time, and you have tremendous pressure on salespeople to manage an effective, purposeful and valuable sales call.

How can you possibly do that without spending time preparing for it? The answer is, of course, that you can’t. 

That’s why the best salespeople meticulously plan every sales call. That planning process brings greater value to the customer, and greater return to the salesperson.

What’s involved in planning a sales call? Typically, a well planned sales call has these components:

A set of objectives for the call. 

An agenda.

A set of questions, prepared for the situation

All the necessary material and collateral (literature, samples, etc.).

A variety of “next steps” the customer can take as a result of the call.

Time spent reviewing the account profile and/or personal profile previously compiled on this customer.

Sounds a bit arduous doesn’t it? Clearly this takes some time.
In my first full time sales position, my manager shared some advice with me that has stuck with me ever since. “Spend 20 percent of your time preparing for the other 80 percent.”

I’ve followed that rule ever since. It means that you discipline yourself to invest the necessary planning time for every sales call. Then, the time you spend in conversation with your prospects and customers will be valuable to them, and valuable to you.

To shrug it off and make a sales call that is unplanned, unfocused and unorganized is to waste your time and your customers’.

That’s why the discipline of thoroughly planning every sales call is a best practice. Those sales people who don’t strive for mastery of their jobs inevitably slide away from the discipline to do it the way the best do it. Consistent, disciplined behavior – that’s what separates the best from the rest.

To learn more about this, visit http://www.davekahle.com/bestof/topics.new.html, and consider the “Best of Dave Kahle” recorded seminars #1 Target Laser Sharp Sales Calls – A New Way to Focus for Better Results. Then, go to the Articles section of the website and read this free article: “One of the Emerging New Rules of Sales – The Value-added Sales Call.”

To study this best practice, take advantage of these resources:
How to Excel at Distributor Sales, chapter eleven�
Take Your Sales Performance Up-A-Notch, chapter thirteen�
“Best of Dave Kahle’s Phone seminars” numbers 45, 46, & 51�
“Up-A-Notch” video training kits, Module number four. 

The best salespeople earn that designation because they write more business than the mass of salespeople. They get the order!

One of the practices that contributes to that success is that of “closing the sale”. Unfortunately, there is no one issue that is more misunderstood and incompetently trained than that of “closing the sale.” Much of the sales training on the subject, as well as the vast preponderance of sales literature, is way off the mark.

Closing is not a matter of continually pressing for the business, nor using manipulative techniques, nor clever repartee, nor memorizing any “magic” closes.

Just today I said “no” to someone who kept pressing me for the order. I interpreted his pressure as desperation on his part, and his desperation meant that there was something not right about the deal. I said “no.” In this case, the highly trained, very skilled salesperson, with the right product at the right price, did exactly the wrong thing, and brought about a negative result — solely on the basis of his poor judgment about the customer, and his repeated attempts to close the sale.

While there isn’t enough space in this article to fully explore the issue of closing, I have some general observations.

When it comes to closing, the best salespeople do two things. In the traditional sense, they ask for the order when they sense that the customer is close to committing to a decision. This has always been the classic definition of closing the sale.

But in the hands of a master, closing takes on a larger meaning. Sales masters also understand that “closing” is more than an event that gets tagged onto the tail end of the sales process. They understand that “closing” is the process of attaining an agreement with the customer on the action that the customer will take as a result of every interaction. They have the mindset that every sales call – whether 45 seconds on the phone, or 90 minutes in the customer’s office – always should end with some agreement on the next step.

The process of closing, then, starts with the first “Hello” and continues through every interaction that the salesperson has with the customer.

So, confirming an appointment is a mode of closing. As is gaining a commitment to view a presentation, test a sample, research other users, etc. The best salespeople continually seek, and obtain, commitment from the customer to take action at every step along the way.

As a result, the final decision to buy the product or service is a natural, logical result of all the commitments (closes) that went before.

The best salespeople are continually and effectively closing every conversation with the customer. That’s why this is a best practice of the best salespeople.

To study this best practice, take advantage of these resources:
How to Excel at Distributor Sales, chapter eleven
Take Your Sales Performance Up-A-Notch, chapter thirteen
“Best of Dave Kahle’s Phone seminars” numbers 45, 46, & 51
“Up-A-Notch” video training kits, Module number four.

By Dave Kahle
Copyright MMIX

The best salespeople understand that their company has assembled a collection of resources into which they can tap in order to further their sales success. One such resource is your sales manager.

Now, I understand that the quality of sales managers varies tremendously. Some salespeople view their sales manager as a liability. That is unfortunate. But that is not the point. Regardless of your opinion as to the competency of your sales manager, you still must work with him/her. And that means that you must have a working relationship with that person.

In my tenure as a salesperson, I had eight sales managers. Seven of the eight were solid and experienced with good people skills – an asset in front of any customer. One was incredibly pushy and alienated every customer with whom he spoke.

If you are fortunate enough to have to a manager who brings additional resources and strengths to your customers, good for you. By all means take advantage of that.

If, however, you believe your sales manager doesn’t have that kind of capability, then do what you need to do to limit his/her exposure to your customers. Find the strengths that he/she does possess, and seek ways to utilize them. That doesn’t mean, however, you should disrespect, belittle, or ignore your sales manager.

You are an employee of a company, and therefore you have a moral and legal obligation to be a good employee, and to respect and interact positively with your manager.

An excellent working relationship with your boss will strengthen your sales ability, prevent unnecessary stress, and make your life easier.

It may take time and effort. But, having an excellent working relationship with your boss is one of the best practices of the best.

About the Author Dave Kahle has trained tens of thousands of B2B salespeople and sales managers to be more effective in the 21st Century economy. He’s authored seven books, and presented in 47 states and seven countries. Visit his website or sign up for his ezine .

The best salespeople understand that the more comfortable the customer is with your company, the less risk the customer perceives there to be in dealing with you, and the more likely it is that the customer will prefer your company as a supplier.

That’s just good common sense. I bank where I do, for example, because when I walk in, everyone knows my name. That makes me feel important, and it makes it so much easier to do business. Or, at least, I feel like it does. And that is what’s important.

There is a simple principle at work here: The customer should be comfortable with more people in your organization than just you. The more people your customer knows, the better for you. That simple principle leads to a powerful sales practice. By proactively introducing your good customers to others in your organization, you broaden the relationship between the two entities, and tie the customer to you via additional relationships.

Make sure that your boss has been introduced to your customers. Methodically take him/her to your customers and facilitate the introductions. Bring a customer service person or two to visit your good customers.

If it is appropriate, constantly invite your customers into your facility to meet the people who make things happen inside your organization.

Each of these relationships makes the customer feel more comfortable in dealing with your organization, and increases the likelihood that you will become the preferred supplier.

That’s why this is a best practice of the best salespeople.

Here’s how to implement this best practice. Start with a self-assessment: List all of the key people in your “A” accounts in the first column of a spreadsheet. Across the tops of the columns, list each of the key people in your organization. Then, put an “X” in the cell where the two people have connected. For example, if customer John Smith knows your customer service person “Jenny,” then put an “X” in that cell. When you have completed that, use the empty cells as a guide, and plan to remedy the situation. Over the next few months, proactively introduce those customers with the key internal people until all the cells are “X’d.”

By Robert Middleton

Copyright © 2007-2008

The “beat your competition” mentality is, at best, severely limiting; at worst, it’s evil and destructive. You don’t need to go there to be more successful than you can possibly imagine.

I was paging through one of my business magazines last week, when I came across a small ad that made me smile.

The headline read: “Everything You’ve Ever Learned About Marketing Is WRONG!” But it was the subhead that really gave me a chuckle: “Beat Your Competition into A Demoralized Quivering Pulp.”

Yes, you read that right. And the offer was for a free 2-CD Program. The picture in the ad was of an angry looking man (named Bill, apparently) wagging his finger at me.

I’m not sure the kind of response he got, but it was very clear who he was targeting: Angry, fearful people. People with so little sense of themselves that they would actually find this ad appealing.

“Yes, crush the competition. I kind of like the ring to that. Then I would be the KING OF THE WORLD… Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

The sad thing is that he just might get a decent response to this approach, if only out of curiosity (yeah, I sent for a copy). And the reason is that there’s a lot of people out there with this twisted mindset. But I assure you that there are mindsets that work a whole lot better, are much easier to live with, and leave you feeling happy and fulfilled about your marketing.

Let’s see what Bill might have said about that:

“What? Are you daft?” Bill screamed. “Marketing is a cut-throat, dog-eat-dog business. It’s either you or them. Kill the competition, Grind them to a bloody pulp and come out victorious!”

“Brilliant,” I replied. “And what will this actually get you except a few more dollars in your pocket? Will you (or your clients for that matter) really be better off? How about all the enemies you create?”

“That’s the problem with all you bleeding-heart liberals,” sneered Bill. “You come across with all this win-win B.S. But I’ll tell you, it’s the last man standing that counts. Don’t you watch the reality shows like Hell’s Kitchen and Survivor?”

“Well, I admit I’ve watched an episode or two of The Apprentice with Donald Trump but after awhile it wore thin. It pretended to champion excellence but the underlying theme was ‘win at all costs or die.’ Don’t you think that’s kind of limiting?”

“Limiting, are you kidding?” Bill’s eyes were filled with fire. “It’s ALL about WINNING. What else is there? You have the winners and the losers. And I want to be a winner. Trump is my hero, my god.”

“Hey, I don’t have a problem with winning the game of marketing. I’m all for that. But my biggest competition isn’t out there, it’s me. It’s my resistance, my procrastination, my indifference. When I’ve conquered those, there’s enough business to go around for everyone.”

Bill, with a perplexed look replied: “Man, never admit your weaknesses. You’ll be eaten alive for lunch by the big guys. You need to show strength no matter how weak you feel. Make no mistake, your enemy is out there.”

“Well, Bill, then I have a question for you. What kind of person would be so worried about the competition? What kind of person would have to succeed no matter what the cost?”

“What do you mean?” said Bill with a dirty look.

“Wouldn’t it be someone who deep down was very unsure of himself, who had something to prove, who didn’t feel confident that he had a great service and value to offer?”

“Are you saying I’m weak, Middleton? This is war, buddy. Watch your back, because I will crush you to a pulp. When I get through with you, you won’t even recognize your business.”

Bill stormed off, muttering and cursing to himself. I managed to get in the last word: “Well, OK Bill. Enjoy your day. I have some clients to go take care of.”

The “beat your competition” mentality is, at best, severely limiting; at worst, it’s evil and destructive. You don’t need to go there to be more successful than you can possibly imagine.

Robert Middleton, the owner of Action Plan Marketing, has been helping Independent Professionals be better marketers since 1984. On his web site http://www.ActionPlan.com find valuable resources, products and programs for attracting more clients. Get a free copy of his Marketing Plan Sart-Up Kit.

By Dave Kahle

We’ve all heard the numbers: Consumer confidence is down, retail sales are dismal. The housing market is non-existent. And for many of us, the markets we serve are down as well. There is an important relationship to note here. Confidence – an attitude – is down, so sales are down. When confidence is up, sales follow. The principle at work here is this: Our actions follow our attitudes. The relationship between actions and attitudes is so close, that the two go hand-in-hand, and our actions can be seen as outward expressions of our attitudes.

For example, let’s say that you got up this morning in a great mood. You bound down the steps, give your spouse a passionate kiss, announce to the kids that it is going to be a great day, and with effervescent energy dance out the door to the car. It doesn’t take a psychologist to see that your attitude – your great mood – influenced your actions.

While it is easy to connect the two in this example, the principle that it unveils – that our attitudes influence our actions – extends to every aspect of our lives, and particularly to our jobs, in even the slightest and most mundane portions of our work lives. I was in a particularly pensive mood yesterday afternoon, for example, and, as a result, chose not to answer a couple of emails, but, instead, left them for this morning. An action as simple and mundane as responding to an email was dependent on my attitude.

And that leads us to one of the greatest principles of self-improvement: You can choose your attitudes. You can choose to be happy, you can choose to be sad, you can choose to be confident, and you can choose to be cautious. Don’t believe it? Take this little test. Tomorrow, as you are eating breakfast, tell yourself these things over and over. “It’s going to be a rotten day. Everybody’s afraid to buy. Most people probably won’t even see me. I’ll probably be laid off soon anyway.” Now, having repeated that litany of dreariness to yourself, pay attention to what kind of attitude you exhibit during the course of the day. You are probably not going to be effervescent and overwhelmingly positive. Instead, you’ll be depressed and discouraged, and you’ll spread it to the people around you like the plague.

You could, on the other hand, dramatically change your attitude for the day if you were to get up in the morning, and repeat this kind of dialogue with yourself: “It’s going to be a good day. I can’t wait to see what good things are going to happen. I know there are some good things I can do for my customers. I’m going to make a difference in their businesses and their lives.” The result of that train of thought is confidence and positive energy.

Look at the mechanics in these simple illustrations. You started out thinking a thought, then expressed that thought, and that action created an attitude, which in turn influenced future actions. In other words, your thoughts eventually and directly influenced your actions. And that brings us to the key to self improvement – you can choose your thoughts!

You can choose what you think. And when you do that, it influences everything up the chain – your attitudes, your actions, and your results. It starts with how you think.

So, here we are, in the middle of a major economic downturn, with all sorts of negative attitudes populating the menu of the day. Choose to be discouraged about this, or depressed about that. It seems as if everyone we meet has a worry, anxiety or tough luck story to tell.

What do we do? We don’t look outside of ourselves – at the federal government, for example, to borrow and spend our way to better times. Instead, we look inward, accept responsibility for our own actions, attitudes and thoughts, and start to change who we are, by changing what we think. We change ourselves, one thought at a time, to influence our attitudes, to shape our actions, to produce better results.

I believe we have a responsibility to do so. We are responsible, not only to ourselves and our families, but to the companies who employ us, the industries we serve, and the communities in which we live.

Attitudes are contagious. You know that if you spend a lot of time with negative people, you begin to see what’s wrong with everything and everyone. Hang around a lot with depressed people, and you become depressed. On the other hand, if you are with energetic and optimistic people, it rubs off on you as well.

Here’s the point. You can choose to be part of the problem, or part of the solution. You can choose to be influenced by the negativity around you. You can reflect that cautiousness and lack of confidence. You can contribute to that downward spiral in attitude. In that case, you have chosen to be part of the problem.

On the other hand, you can choose to be part of the solution. You can choose an attitude of confidence and optimism. By so doing, you influence those around you and you do your small part to contribute to the solution. Of course you are not single-handedly going to change world attitudes. But you can positively influence those in your spheres of contact.

You are a professional. You contact more individuals in the course of the day than most people do. Your customers, prospects, colleagues; your friends and family; the people you work with and supervise; even your managers – all of them can be influenced via your attitude. Because of your position of great potential influence, you have a greater responsibility to be proactive, and to lead others.

It’s time for you to step up to the plate and to become a positive leader for those around you.

Here are a couple guidelines to help you…

1. Start with yourself. Make sure you are nurturing your own personal attitude. Now is the time to revisit and revitalize your faith in God. Hang around positive people. Make a point to read uplifting books and articles. Get some additional training, expose yourself to positive audiotapes. Create a set of strong affirmations, and read them to yourself at the start of every day.

2. Assume that you are the leader for which people around you are looking. Be sensitive to opportunities that come up in the course of the day to influence the attitudes of those around you. If you are a manager, do something positive for your people. Invest in them someway. Enlist their input and involvement in some new initiative. Don’t just talk the talk; show your attitude by your actions. Walk the walk.

It is time that we, American salespeople and businesspeople, step up. It is the combination of applied energy, knowledge and wisdom of American businesspeople that has brought freedom of choice, dignity and financial opportunity to our own people, and has been a model for billions of people around the world.

American business people need to step up and accept our leadership opportunities. It’s time for each of us to contribute to the solution, not to be part of the problem.

Sometimes I am almost embarrassed to have to actually spend time describing some of these best practices. There are some that seem so blatantly obvious, so basic, that there can’t possibly be salespeople who don’t do them.

Alas, no matter how basic and fundamental a best practice may sound, there are good numbers of salespeople who just don’t implement that practice well. They may agree on the concept, and give lip service to the idea, but they just don’t find themselves practicing that procedure with any discipline.

That’s why the best practices are called best practices. You have to do them. It’s one thing to acknowledge their value and expediency; it’s quite another to routinely execute them with excellence.

This one falls into that category. Could there possibly be a salesperson who doesn’t have all the literature for every product or service he sells — the specifications, the efficacy studies, the price and packaging – organized so he can easily find it and retrieve it?

More than you would think.

As a result, they look unprepared and unorganized in front of the customer, waste time looking for things they should have, and miss opportunities due to a lack of readily available information.

The best salespeople understand the need to be organized, and specifically to have their product and service information and literature readily available. They understand that this means both hard copy and electronic files, organized in some logical and coherent fashion, kept up to date, and readily assessable whenever they need it. That typically takes the form of a file box in their car for the hard copy literature, and a set of files on their laptop for the electronic.

That’s why they are the best, and this is a practice of the best.

I just came across some research that confirmed what many of us in the profession of educating salespeople have known for years: That purchasers would be “much more likely” to buy from a salesperson if that salesperson would just “listen” to the customer ¹. The survey found that some of the worst offenders were experienced salespeople.

Listening is one of the four fundamental competencies of a professional salesperson, and yet, the profession is, in general, so poor at it that most customers remark on our inability to do it well.

Gee, if there is anyone I wouldn’t want thinking I was a poor listener, my customers would be towards the top of the list.

Why is listening such a powerful sales competency? In my book Question Your Way to Sales Success, I describe a number of reasons. Here are a few.

First, it is our primary way of digging beneath the surface of a customer’s needs and uncovering deeper and more powerful needs and motivations. That makes it a primary tool – of which the skillful use separates the master salespeople from the mediocre. For example, it doesn’t take any skill whatsoever to pick up an RFQ, a set of blueprints, or to write down a list of what the customer says he needs. You don’t have to be a master listener to do that. But to dig deeper and uncover deeper issues, that takes the ability to listen.

Here’s an example. In a routine sales call with a regular customer, the customer says, “We’re thinking of going to X product. What’s your price?”

Lots of salespeople would look up the price and provide it. There. Job done.

The master would hear the words “Thinking of going…” and dig a little deeper. “What makes you interested in that?” he says.

The customer replies: “Well, we’re looking for a solution for a problem with our widget production line, and one of the key operators mentioned it as a possibility. ”

“I see. What sort of problem are you having in that production line? ”

“An abnormally high reject rate. ”

“I may have some other solutions. Can I talk to your production manager?”

I don’t have to take this scenario much further to make the point. A visit with the production supervisor could very well result in a deeper understanding of the problem and the development of an alternative solution with a whole lot more gross margin to it. The master salesperson, exercising excellent listening skills, hears opportunities where many salespeople don’t. Listening is the primary tool for digging deeper and uncovering deeper and more significant issues in our customers.

But that’s not all. When we listen, we send a powerful message that we care about the other person. Conversely, when we don’t listen, we send the message that our agenda is far more important than the customer’s trivial ideas and issues. That makes effective listening one of the all time great relationship-building devices.