Recommendations - Social Media's Game Changer

Recommendations are increasingly important with written social media. LinkedIn is my primary driver, but those recommendations are so good they deserve a wider audience beyond my LinkedIn connections.

I think my recommendations are better than any brochure or resume I could write. Customers describe us differently, and their perspective may be more valuable to prospects.

When you ask a customer for a recommendation, you encourage them to evaluate your relationship. Most of the time we are so busy doing it, doing it, doing it, we don’t have time to focus on what the work means. Defining importance is good for the health of the relationship.

Story matters. Describing what happened has more power than a pile of superlative adjectives. Running an outplacement firm, I found that when asked to supply a reference, explaining the story in addition to giving the contact information led to the interviewer not calling the reference a surprising amount of the time. The interviewer had what he needed to know. 

Short is good. Blogging is teaching me that a lot of the detail I treasure just isn’t that interesting. If someone wants to know more they ask.

There’s drama and truth in “just the facts, ma’am” 

Do you have a process for generating meaningful recommendations? 

Please join us for:
Talk Your Business - How to make more and better sales right away! Wednesday, November 10th, 7:15am to 8:30, Intelligent Office, Rockville, and
How to Scale Your Organization - Build, Borrow, or Buy? Thursday, December 9th, 7:15am to 8:30, Intelligent Office, Rockville
http://www.saleslabdc.com/leadership

Handouts

I go to meetings because that’s often where people go to learn something new.

When I connect, I want to make an impression. Neither one of us has time for an extended discussion as the value is in meeting the people in the room, and following the discussion.

Rather than trying to make sales, I measure the number of handouts I give out.

What is a good handout? Inexpensive, interesting, providing a clear benefit with a deadline.

Do your handouts do that?

I recently met a Roy Rogers Restaurants franchisee. He had a normal looking business card. On the back was a walk-in coupon for a free chicken sandwich. He had a unique offer and established his authority on the back of his business card.

I have a card that fits into my pocket that offers valuable advice on one side, and our next public presentations on the other. The handout updates every month, so people I know well and see often keep getting new information.

I once got a phone call asking me if I still presented Talk Your Business – How to make more and better sales right away! I said I did and asked him how he had learned about it. He had just been hired and was cleaning out his predecessor’s desk, when he found my handout. That started a multi-year client.

More recently, Phase://Technology, an open source software development company gave me a wine bottle "opener." They made themselves understood and desired before they started talking.

Comments - What’s the best handout you’ve seen?

Please join us for:
Talk Your Business - How to make more and better sales right away! Wednesday, November 10th, 7:15am to 8:30, Intelligent Office, Rockville, and
How to Scale Your Organization - Build, Borrow, or Buy? Thursday, December 9th, 7:15am to 8:30, Intelligent Office, Rockville
http://www.saleslabdc.com/leadership

Talking Cold Call Blues

Thanks to Ram Iyer for asking about cold calling.

Cold calling is a technique for getting focus from new prospects. Sales professionals use the phone because it covered a wider geographic footprint than canvassing door-to-door, and the weather is usually better indoors.

The golden age of cold calling was before voicemail. Return has been decreasing over the last 30 years. However, if you can't imagine anything else, it is cheap and allows rookie salesmen to learn about their product beating on people they will never sell.

I am downright frosty when doing something else and interrupted by a cold caller. It's not a buying moment.

When we cold call, we are trying to interest someone in our offering. When do people want to learn?

Most people schedule specific times and activities to learn. How can you be there then?

How do people want to learn? Trying to listen over a staticky phone connection in the middle of another meeting is not optimal. With all the rich media available today, what is a better way to make your case?

Many salesmen think talking about their process is the key to making a sale. It is not.

Explaining how others have benefited from buying your offering usually works better. Doesn't have anything to do with what you did.

Even better is having your happy customers explaining their benefit to their peers. How do you do that?

What can you add? 

Please join us at:
Talk Your Business - How to make more and better sales right away! Wednesday, November 10th, 7:15am to 8:30, Intelligent Office, Rockville, and
How to Scale Your Organization - Build, Borrow, or Buy? Thursday, December 9th, 7:15am to 8:30, Intelligent Office, Rockville
http://www.saleslabdc.com/leadership 

When Will We Get Back To Normal?

Our economy has been going through cycles – up & down – since the depression in the 1920's. Cycles start and cycles end – we are trained to expect things to 'return to normal' at some point. 'NORMAL' was back to growth and abundance – with some adjustment, it was business as usual.

We will not return to rapid growth and abundance this time within the span of a cycle or two. We ARE back to normal, but it is a new normal. What you see in the economy today is the new normal. It is more modest with less return and growth than we have enjoyed in the past. So, it is time to quit holding our breath - waiting, and get back to business at this level and pace.

We may have been distracted by the economic implosion and missed the structural change that has taken place. Seth Godin calls it “the forever recession” which is the end of the industrial age and local markets. Now it's best mix of price-quality-value for goods & services and the extensive access to information and communications for finding them.

The reality of all of this shows up in a recent conversation with a guy launching a start-up – his planning uses what is today for scale and scope and being flexible for opportunities as developed.

Good point of view for all of us, don't you think?

Subscribe for RSS Notification for Upcoming Sales Lab Events http://bit.ly/Sales_Lab_Events

How To Get More Value From Your Existing Resources, October 19th, Intelligent Office, Rockville  http://morevaluefromresources.eventbrite.com

Championship Leadership in Resource Constrained Markets, October 20^th, Mount Vernon-Lee Chamber of Commerce http://champleadershipmvl.eventbrite.com

The Point Of The Presentation

Lunch with one of my strongest salesmen. He is introducing some new products and fretting that he needs deeper product knowledge.

I let him finish and then asked, “What is the point of your presentation?”

He thought, and said, “To get the prospect to define his problem in your presence.” Usually the best service we can give is to let the prospect focus to define her problem. A side benefit for us is that everyone who came before is no longer qualified to solve that new definition.

He then said, “As a matter of fact, I made a list of ten questions I was going to ask…I only asked four.”

We discussed that and designed the single question that he thinks will get the whole story out, which most often leads to buying his offering. In artillery, you bracket the target, throwing one short and one long. Except the really good guys. They like to put it down the chimney first time.

He has a trade show next week where he can ask his question to between 60 and 100 good prospects in three days. He said, “Do you think I should spend more time cold calling?”

Really good guys never let up.

What does this remind you of?

Please come to

How To Get More Value From Your Existing Resources 

 Tuesday, October 19th, 7:15am to 8:30, Intelligent Office, Rockville, or 

Championship Leadership in Resource Constrained Markets  

Wednesday, October 20^th, Noon, Mount Vernon-Lee Chamber of Commerce, www.SalesLabDC.com/leadership

The Molehill Business

The other day I sat through seven presentations. That’s about ten hours.

The sales guys uniformly wanted to drape their presentation around their process. The better presentations focused on providing cool nuggets of immediate value.

The boring presentations all featured The One Right Way. The better presentations let me pick and choose.

And after looking at all those clouds and circles, I realized that a process is just like a blog. Shorter is better.

When you get over 50 variables or gates, rethink your model. Your process has died. Tommy Smothers called his imaginary golf book, 352 Things To Remember At The Point Of Impact.

The other thing I realized was that after fifteen points in a model, the purpose is more failure analysis. “Not doing this thingie right here must have been the reason we failed.”
Dr. Deming said, “People who focus on failure become experts on failure.”

The best thing I learned was the novel concept that best practices should be so blatantly obvious that your people rush to adopt them. If you have to apply force, they are not best practices.

What do you think?

Please come to

How To Get More Value From Your Existing Resources Tuesday, October 19th, 7:15am to 8:30, Intelligent Office, Rockville, or Championship Leadership in Resource Constrained Markets  

Wednesday, October 20^th, Noon, Mount Vernon-Lee Chamber of Commerce, www.SalesLabDC.com/leadership

Your 75 Accomplishments

This is all about YOU! You are an accomplished person. You have done some pretty amazing things in your life. There are individuals who know and respect you. Others who have benefited from your wisdom and/or labor.

You are a valuable member of the community and of society. AND you are in transition. The latter does NOT change the former! However, at times you may lose sight of what you have accomplished – so having a list helps to remind you.

Here's the task: write up a list of 75 of your accomplishments – the things that you are proud of, that are hard-won, that mean something to YOU. And start it NOW! Keep at it – if you are struggling, put the list aside for a while, then come back and add more.

What makes the list? Things you have done professionally, personal accomplishments and even private achievements that may not mean a thing to anyone else -but are meaningful to you.

Why make this list? When you dig deep you learn more about yourself and by writing it down have it at hand when writing resumes, cover letters and preparing for interviews.

When you are feeling blue, pull out your list and review it – reflect on the things that you have achieved – it can change dark gray clouds into bright blue sky in a heartbeat..

When you complete the task, you will have a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and pride – there's your item #76!

Your comments and experiences will help others – please share them below.

Come to How To Get More Value From Your Existing Resources Tuesday, October 19th, Intelligent Office, Rockville www.SalesLabDC.com/leadership.

Subscribe for RSS Notification for Upcoming Sales Lab Events http://bit.ly/Sales_Lab_Events

Change Agent

Last week a client, a CXO in a large government contractor, said he was ready to move on. “I’m looking for something better, just so it doesn’t involve business development.”

He has spent the last five years leading the introduction of new technologies to a thirty year old organization. Many of his projects are unique, most are successful, and the company has grown more than ten-fold during his tenure. He is an energetic, effective inside guy.

He is fighting increasing resentment from his superiors. They are tired of the constant upgrading, doing what he wants. He is getting whipsawed by The Older I Get, The Better I Was selective memory.

So, he probably has to go. I had the same problem, at the same organization, twenty years ago.

But what about his desire to stay away from business development?

First, BD is a  government contractor word for sales. Their sale is complex, takes place over decades. However, it is sales, not business development. As Seth Godin defines business development, contractors don’t do it.

Why would a great inside guy shy away from sales? He is breaking himself to make the company perform better for “the right reasons,” to fulfill his idea of the way the world should be. If he had a customer paying for it, he would be making the organization better to improve sales and margins. Same result, more authority.

Working out is a process of breaking down your body and then recovering. Making important sales makes your organization stretch to complete more commitments. That involves stretching, breaking down, and recovering. I think they are similar processes. Breakthroughs usually start with a breakdown.

What if important new sales turn out to be the most important change agent for making your organization better? For making your customer’s organization better? Is sales the real change agent?

Your thoughts?

Come to How To Get More Value From Your Existing Resources Tuesday, October 19th, Intelligent Office, Rockville www.SalesLabDC.com/leadership.