Archive for the ‘professional development’ Category

The Hostile Business to Business Sales Person

January 11, 2012 by Scott Olsen

You may not want your friends to demonstrate hostile behavior, but professionals who are hostile by nature are more likely to succeed in business sales and high level leadership in the long run than those without it.

Why?

…because their hostile nature tends to fuel their fire day in and day out. So what does this mean to possess a hostile behavior trait? Here’s an example, if the hostile person were to leave their wallet at a restaurant, when they get home and realize this, their likely first thought would be, “I left my wallet at the restaurant. Someone has stole it and spent all of the money. I need to cancel my credit cards immediately.” The opposite of the hostile person in this sense is the tolerant person. If the tolerant person leaves their wallet at a restaurant, when they get home they might think something like, “I left my wallet at the restuarant. I’m sure someone turned it in for me. I’ll just call up the restaurant, ask them to hold it for me and when I swing by tomorrow to pick it up, I might make a best new friend in the process.” This may be an exaggeration, but the point is the tolerant person has a buoyant view of the world, “it’s all going to work out.” On the other hand the hostile person has a view that “the world is a nasty place. It’s a jungle out there. If I don’t get up and fight my way through it everyday, it will eat me up alive.” The hostile person is more likely to wake up each day with a fire in their belling thinking, “what do I have to do today to make something good happen.”

Harness the Hostility

Given the choice between the aggressive sales person and the passive sales person for their team of “hunters,” sales managers know they need the aggressive ones to really make things happen in opening up new territories. The sales manager knows there ’s a risk associated with the hostile sales person, but it’s well worth it if sales person can harness this trait. Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson’s new book, The Challenger Sale, describes the most effective sales people as assertive, not aggressive, but assertive. Dixon and Adamson go on to compare the assertive and aggressive sales person in the following ways:

Assertive

  • Directly pursues goals in a constructive way
  • Defends own personal boundaries
  • Uses direct language

Aggressive

  • Pursues goals at the expense of  professionalism
  • Attacks others’ personal boundaries
  • Uses antagonistic language

In summary, the hostile trait tends to fuel the fire of the business sales person and high level leader, but it’s only when they transmute this behavior from aggressiveness to assertiveness that they become most effective. For those who want to become more assertive and deal better with aggressive counterparts, I suggest participating in our Effective Negotiation Skills course.

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Categories: Differentiating You, Executive Selling, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Selling in Difficult Times, Uncategorized, professional development, selling

When Buyer’s Use Negotiation Tactics

January 10, 2012 by Scott Olsen

How many times have your heard a customer sing the sad song of an “erratic economy” or “unstable financial times” as a way to get deep discounts. This tactic, or negotiation trick, is known as “violins.” While some companies are experiencing very trying times, this isn’t true of all corporations. Borrowing from Charles Dickens, I’d say it’s been the best of times for some corporations and the worst of times for others. Even the companies who are experiencing the “best of times” are using “violins” to get amazing prices. These “well off” companies have told me, “just because we’re not suffering financially does’t mean we shouldn’t be able to get in on the great deals.” The best sales professionals have learned to approach the negotiation process as a game.

So, how does the effective sales person deal with buyer tactics and avoid becoming a victim? The first step is recognizing a tactic. A negotiation tactic can come in many forms and by definition is a gambit or probe used by the buyer to expose and/or weaken the sales person’s position. The important thing to remember is that negotiation tactics are not demands, they are bluffs made up by a buyer to get “unreasonable” deals from the seller.

Once you’ve recognized the tactic, the best way to deal with the tactic is to neutralize it by countering the buyer’s tactic with a seller tactic. It may seem counterintuitive to some, but it is essential that the buyer understands that the sales person is on to the buyer’s games and that the sales person can play this win/lose game too, and perhaps even better. Once the buyer believes he or she can’t beat you at this type of  ”game” you may have a chance to raise the negotiation from the win/lose level to the balanced level. The balanced level deals with real demands and is typified by “quid pro quo.”

Some of the most common tactics I see are “competition,” “hoops” and the “fritz.” And let’s not forgot the all time classic, “your price is too high.” As the name implies, “competition” is when a buyer says something like, “I may have to look and see if your competition is willing to meet my needs.”

Hoops

You might be experiencing “hoops” if a customer asks you to do a series of worthless tasks without a clear end in sight.

Although “hoops” may be one of the most frustrating tactics to get caught up in, it can also be one of the easiest tactics to counter, by asking the customer, “if I fulfill your request, do we have a deal?”

Fritz

The “fritz” tactic can be the most intimidating to experience and usually comes across as loud and abrasive language in response to something you’ve said, usually immediately after you’ve shared your price.

In summary, the first step in dealing with buyer tactics is awareness. The second step is to neutralize the buyer’s tactic by countering or exposing their tactics. For example, if a customer uses “fritz” on you, you may counter with your own “fritz” or any other tactic. Any tactic can counter a tactic.

Balanced Agreements

Warning! When you engage in win/lose negotiation, typified by either or both sides using tactics, there is always a chance your negotiation could end is lose/lose. If you are adept at countering or exposing tactics, you may be able to raise the level of negotiation to balanced or possibly win/win.

Buyer’s negotiation tactics are not demands, they are games. Tactics are designed to fool or trick you into caving and lowering your price. A customer demand, by definition, is a deal maker or deal breaker. The wise sales person can tell the difference. When a customer makes a demand, you are in prime position to make own your demand of equal or greater value. Recently, one of my clients experienced a negotiation that went like this… The seller requested 50% payment up front and 50% upon delivery of services, with payment terms of net 10 days. The buyer stated that their policy is to pay in net 30 days. In response, the seller said he could go along with the “net 30″ if the buyer allowed the seller to submit the invoice at 100% immediately. The buyer agreed. In the end, the seller was delayed the initial 1/2 payment up front, but received the full payment earlier than originally expected.

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Categories: Creating Ideal Customers, Executive Selling, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Stories, Selling in Difficult Times, Tactical Selling Skills, Uncategorized, negotiation skills, professional development

Attitude, Aptitude & Skill

December 19, 2010 by Anthony Nicoli

Attitude: Manner, disposition, feeling, or position with regard to a person or thing. Tendency or orientation, especially of the mind.

Aptitude: Capability; ability; innate or acquired capacity for something; talent. Special fitness.

Skill: The ability coming from one’s knowledge, practice and aptitude to do something well. Competent excellence in performance; dexterity.

Many of you are working to better prepare yourselves to secure a new position or replace previous employment. As you do so, remember that your potential employer is constantly asking themselves questions related to the three areas cited above as they consider candidates for their role.

They are wondering:

Does this person possess the attitude required to help me succeed in my role?

Do they have the inherent qualities that will allow them to not only contribute to my organization, but also assume initiative and leadership?

Do they possess the skills needed to execute the role successfully?

While we remain in a time when employment is dear, recall that your task in seeking a new role is to find one that is a good match for what you have to offer. Too often, we believe that we must jump at a job simply because it is available or offered. This is particularly difficult to resist when we have been without employment for some time.

It is fine to accept a role temporarily to secure financial stability. However, do not let this distract you from your true purpose in seeking new employment. That is, to identify a role that better ables you to grow your level of contribution to the organization and community you serve, and thereby, grow your personal compensation, abilities and character.

The task of your potential employer and yourself is to find a good match between the objectives of the role and the person who will hold it. So, as you work to prepare to interact with potential employers, take time, perhaps substantial time, to become conscious of the attitude you hold and communicate, the natural aptitudes, or strengths, you possess, and the areas in which you have become skilled.

There are many techniques that can help you bring these aspects of yourself to mind and prepare to communicate them to potential employers. We can consider these later. For now, the important thing is to recognize that you must understand yourself so well in these areas that you can, with confidence:

1-      Communicate them to a potential employer to help them make an informed choice among candidates; and

2-      Hold them up to what you understand about your potential new organization, role and manager to make your own choice as to whether you want this new role.

Anthony Nicoli

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Categories: Differentiating You, career development, professional development, professional growth

The End of the Never-ending Sales Cycle

August 13, 2008 by Scott Olsen

Need-Urgency-Money

Often, sales people are adept at confirming need and money within a sales opportunity, but struggle with urgency… Recently, two different corporate clients shared very similar experiences about their prospective customer situations. Both clients were engaged with prospects who were demonstrating a great deal of interest in their products and services and had the resources to make a purchase. While the interest seemed high and the feedback was positive, the prospects weren’t making a final decision. The sales cycle just kept going on and on and on…

Critical Events

When I asked about the critical events in the sales cycle, both clients responded with the usual answers I hear initially from participants in my sales training classes. They suggested the critical events in their sales were things like… the date of their next meeting scheduled with the customer, the date their proposals were due, the date the customer said they would make a decision, and the end of their quarter to achieve their bonuses. The best sales professional I work with are very aware of the “real” critical events in their sales opportunities that make a difference. The critical events I’m suggesting are the ones that are critically important to your customers. These are the critical events that your customer’s really care about. These events are usually independent of anything you are doing. Some examples might be:  the launch of your prospect’s new product, a trade show where the prospect is exhibiting or presenting, your prospect’s board meeting, your prospect’s end or beginning of their fiscal year, an important anniversary date for your prospect, or the launch of your prospect’s new advertising campaign.

Examples

The best sale professionals uncover critical events in their customer’s world that they can tie their sale too or they create a critical event that their customer believes in that they can tie their sale too. For example, one client who builds and maintains websites started asking their prospects when their anniversary date of their business occurs and suggested that date as a date to launch and advertise the redesign of their website. Another example from a company that provides web analytics was to identify any major advertising campaigns where it would be even more important to ensure the accurate tracking of people to their customer’s sites. By tying the sale of their products and services to the customers’ critical events, they increased their success rate shortened the average sales cycle.

What critical events are important in your sales?

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Categories: Sales Skills, Sales Stories, Uncategorized, professional development, sell, selling

Negotiating for What You Want

July 25, 2008 by Scott Olsen

What you don’t negotiate can cost you.

You’ll never know what you can get unless you negotiate for it. The following story is a reminder to me that “negotiation” is a skill that has to be learned, developed, and thoughtfully put into action to work.

Do you ever wonder how much you are paying for your airline seat compared to what the person paid for the seat next to yours? How about what the person at your athletic club is paying to use the same equipment as you each month? And finally, how about the office space next to your office? Well, one of my career development clients just learned the hard way. She was paying $1300/month for a one person interior space with no windows. She was told that the one person office across the hall with the beautiful windows with the forest view was $1800/month. When she asked if their was any room to negotiate, the response was “no.”  A few months go by and she starts to talk with person who ended up leasing the window space across the hall and learned that he was paying $1300/month. After she got over her frustration that she was paying the same as him without the window…, she asked how he got that rate? He replied he asked the management firm to match another (less desirable) space across town or he would walk. He used the “competition” tactic like a pro and it worked!

How do you negotiate for what you want?

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Categories: Sales Skills, Uncategorized, career development, negotiation skills, professional development, sell, selling

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