Sales Blog – Why prospects won’t do business with a sales person.
According to a North American study, here are some of the reasons given for not dealing with a salesperson:
• Not following the company’s buying process (26%)
• Not listening to customer’s needs (18%)
• Not following up (17%)
• Being pushy, aggressive or not respectful (12%)
• Not explaining the solution objectively (10%)
• Making exaggerated or inaccurate claims (6%)
• Not understanding the company’s market (4%)
• Being too familiar (3%)
• Not knowing or not respecting the competition (2%)
Harvard Business Review, July/August, 2006
This is an affirmation of some of my past podcasts and entries on the endless line-up of sales gurus claiming to have the ultimate sales process to sell you. The best process is the process the client uses to buy. This comes getting good at rapport, asking the right questions, an being mindful of the stage of relationship development we are in with the client.
Shane Gibson
Can you close too big? Downtown Partners Closes their doors
Globeandmail.com’s small business section recently noted that Downtown Partners a leading Canadian advertising agency closed their doors for good after losing their biggest client:
The advertising agency that was once one of the hottest in the country is closing its doors on Feb. 15, a move largely linked to the loss of its prized Labatt Brewing Co. Ltd. business. Downtown Partners, a division of Omnicom Canada, was dealt a fatal blow last November when Labatt decided to streamline its agency roster and hand the coveted Budweiser beer account to its long time agency Grip Ltd. Downtown, which had had the account for six years, wasn’t even given a chance of bidding on the brewer’s other businesses. “The agency is a victim of consequence,” Dan Pawych, creative director and a founding member of Downtown, said yesterday. More at Globeandmail.com
This is something I’ve mentioned in a few podcasts and sales blog entries. Closing Bigger is about the 7 figure deal. Sometimes though we forget the term “deal”. Deals can be finite, and if we base our whole business on one big client, we’re not in business; we’ve got a deal. I have yet to do a full in depth read on what lead up to this event but I’m assuming that big ole Labatt Brewing Company ate up much of Downtown Partners time, energy and resources, and several critical errors were made. One was somehow being totally out of sync with the client, how do you have a business dependent on one major client, and not have the business intelligence and inside connections to see this coming? The next question is who was responsible for hunting down and landing more big clients?
No matter how successful we are (and many of us are guilty of believing our own positive press) we need new fresh leads, and new clients. It’s what keeps us sharp, fine tunes our pitch and lets us know what’s really going on in the marketplace.
Another title for this sales blog entry could have been “Prospect or Die” or perhaps “How to Be Eaten by a Whale”
One of my biggest challenges when sales training people is when their company lacks the leadership and structure to enforce a quota or at least a level of accountability where people, anyone, including sales people are held to their word and the goals they set. Over the years I’ve seen too many individuals on auto-pilot, then they’re shocked when their company goes under, yet they haven’t prospected for new business or looked for new niches in the marketplace for years.
My closing thoughts for this blog are “Closing Big but keep on closing.”
Shane Gibson is a leading sales performance and sales training authority based in Vancouver Canada. His company offers sales training, motivational sales seminars, and consulting through their offices in Canada, South Africa, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Sales Podcast and Blog Entry – Sales Proposals – Steve Woodruff
Steve Woodruff of the Impactiviti Blog on Pharmaceutical sales, marketing, and management writes a great tongue-in-cheek blog entry on how not to write a proposal. This entry really echoes what we talked about in last week’s podcast on “Selling Beyond the Bottom line”. Customization and listening are key to closing the deal and building long-term relationships with clients.
Here’s come of what Steve had to say:
Vendors: How to Lose the Business
Sep 6th, 2007 by impactivitiIf you’re a vendor, there are lots of ways to lose business opportunities. Here, some free advice on how to make sure your proposal remains at the bottom of the stack at decision time:
1. Don’t ask questions to try to clarify, and draw out, what the client really wants and needs. Just slam out that proposal and cross your fingers that you hit the mark.
2. When you cut-and-paste from prior proposals that you’ve submitted to other companies, be sure that you leave the wrong company name in once or twice. Also, bad grammar and misspellings are recommended to help assure the client that you are, indeed, detail-oriented.
Shane Gibson is the author of Closing Bigger the Field Guide to Closing Bigger Deals and President of Knowledge Brokers International Systems Ltd. a leading sales performance and leadership development organization. Shane divides his time between his entrepreneurial projects, speaking at major conferences and mentoring salespeople and entrepreneurs.
Quick Links:
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Training South Africa
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Complete Sales Action System
Managing Complex Business
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Sales Blog Entry on Free Leadership Self Assessments
I have put together a series of self assessments on coaching and leadership which are provided free (not-for-profit use and distribution only.) Here are the assessments:
Five levels of leadership self assessment
Coaching skills assessment
Enabling versus equiping self assessment
I would appreciate any feedback and comments on the usefulness of these tools and how we may improve upon them.
Shane Gibson
Shane Gibson is the author of Closing Bigger the Field Guide to Closing Bigger Deals and President of Knowledge Brokers International Systems Ltd. a leading sales performance and leadership development organization. Shane divides his time between his entrepreneurial projects, speaking at major conferences and mentoring salespeople and entrepreneurs.
Quick Links:
Sales Training Canada
Sales
Training South Africa
Sales Training Boot Camps Vancouver
Complete Sales Action System
Managing Complex Business
Relationships System
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Sales Podcast – Sales Presentation Skills Part 3
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This week’s sales podcast on sales presentation skills is focused on how to effectively avoid and recover from common bombs and mistakes in sales presentations. Selling in the boardroom is a skill that can greatly accelerate our ability to close big deals in our sales career.
This sales podcast is presented by Shane Gibson.
Shane Gibson is the author of Closing Bigger the Field Guide to Closing Bigger Deals and President of Knowledge Brokers International Systems Ltd. a leading sales performance and leadership development organization. Shane divides his time between his entrepreneurial projects, speaking at major conferences and mentoring salespeople and entrepreneurs.
Sales Podcast Entry – Presentation Skills in the Board Room Part 2
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This weeks sales podcast is part 2 of a 3 part series on presentation skills in the boardroom. This entry is focused on adressing the various buyer and learner styles we will encounter when doing sales presentations.
This sales podcast is presented by Shane Gibson.
Shane Gibson is the author of Closing Bigger the Field Guide to Closing Bigger Deals and President of Knowledge Brokers International Systems Ltd. a leading sales performance and leadership development organization. Shane divides his time between his entrepreneurial projects, speaking at major conferences and mentoring salespeople and entrepreneurs.
Sales Podcast – Sales Blog Entry – The 12 Steps to Making the World Your Networking Function
In sales networking is the much coveted strategy to generate leads and help us close deals while reducing the amount of cold calling or hard selling we do. With that said, many people misunderstand what real networking is all about. Today’s sales podcast is about the 12 Steps to Making the World Your Networking Function:
1. Be referable don’t gather contacts or push for referrals
2. Be interested not interesting
3. You can’t have 200 best friends – prioritize
4. Add value with your network
5. Bank your equity (with the right people)
6. It’s a small town
7. Map and seek out the players
8. The more you give the more you get
9. Do your due diligence before you refer
10. Keep Promises, Follow-through
11. Be seen
12. Step it up every year
You can subcribe to this sales podcast series by using one of the many options on right hand navigation bar or you can download the MP3 file here:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Shane Gibson is the author of Closing Bigger the Field Guide to Closing Bigger Deals and President of Knowledge Brokers International Systems Ltd. a leading sales performance and leadership development organization. Shane divides his time between his entrepreneurial projects, speaking at major conferences and mentoring salespeople and entrepreneurs.
Quick Links:
Sales Training Canada
Sales
Training South Africa
Sales Training Boot Camps Vancouver
Complete Sales Action System
Managing Complex Business
Relationships System
Subscribe in iTunes to this Sales Podcast
About Shane Gibson
Author of Closing Bigger the Field Guide to Closing Bigger Deals
Shane Gibson is an internationally recognized speaker, trainer and entrepreneur who has addressed several thousand people over the past decade in Canada, the US, South Africa and South America. He combines a diverse background in sales force leadership, new entrepreneur development and extensive sales and leadership coaching. Shane is a contributing author to Knowledge Brokers International (KBI) Ltd.’s The Complete Sales Action System™ and a master trainer in the Managing Complex Business Relationships System. Shane is President of KBI North America.
Shane Gibson has been published in numerous publications on the topics of Leadership, Marketing, Sales, Strategic Communications and Assessing Business Opportunities. He has also addressed the topic of Entrepreneurial Leadership in magazine, radio and television interviews. More recently Shane was interviewed in the Financial Post and Profit Magazine on sales performance. In March 2006 Shane Gibson was a guest speaker at the World Summit for Young Entrepreneurs, a gathering of over 1000 entrepreneurs from 70 countries organized by the UNDP and the WTU.
Internationally, KBI has implemented large-scale sales performance programs with SAB Miller, SIEMENS Industry and Transport Division, ACER Computers, BMW, Vodacom, and dozens of major financial services companies on three continents.
Shane’s North American clients include:
The Vancouver Board of Trade, The University of British Columbia, Pacific International Securities, The University of Victoria, Fitness World, Ladies Only Fitness, InfoSat Communications, ALS Environmental, The BC Automotive Retailers Association, Dye & Durham, Cendant Rent A Car (AVIS Rent A Car Budget Rent-a-Car), The Financial Advisors Network, The Pacific National Exhibition, Travel Insurance Coordinators & Trent Health, TOS Insurance/Hub International, Sauder Business School, Allied Van lines.
Special Blog Entry – A Message to the Media and Concerned Canadians
From Shane Gibson co-author and friend of Trevor Greene
Thank-you for all of your prayers and concern for Trevor at this time. I have passed on your well wishes to his family and those closest to him. At this time I will not be commenting on interviews in regards to Trevor’s situation until he and his family give me the okay.
His family is busy praying and hoping for the best and I will forward any requests to make statements or comments directly to them. Just drop an e-mail to shane@closingbigger.com. At this time I have been asked not to disclose their contact details.
Trevor is very professional in everything he does. This includes keeping in the strictest confidence the nature of his military responsibilities and past experiences while serving our country. Your best source of information is from the Department of National Defense.
Here’s what I can be quoted on:
“Trevor is a talented author, an amazing Dad and partner, the kind of person you can count on always. He is deeply committed to protecting and preserving the freedoms we enjoy as Canadians.”
Kindest Regards,
Shane Gibson
Co-author and friend
Vancouver, BC
Sales Podcast – Avoiding one of the top big deal killers the “dead-air trap” – Sales Blog Entry
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One of the challenges in selling, especially in closing big deals is avoiding the “dead-air trap.” Keeping the momentum rolling in the sales process and the relationship is absolutely critical.
Today’s sales Podcast is focused on helping you to always be closing. That doesn’t mean you’re always closing the deal, but it does mean that you need to be always closing on the next step in the process.
Shane Gibson is President of Knowledge Brokers International Systems Ltd. and author of Closing Bigger the Field Guide to Closing Bigger Deals and High Impact Mentorship – The Transformational Mentor’s Field Guide. e-mail shane@kbitraining.com or call 604-351-2328. For more information on in depth mentorship and personality style assessments visit http://www.kbitraining.com/mentorshipguide.html
Sales Podcast – Mentoring and developing high performance sales people – Sales Blog Entry
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Today’s sales Podcast is focused on prioritizing our efforts as leaders and mentors when we are developing our sales people to big deal closer status. Many of us spread ourselves too thin with too many people and often invest too much time in the weaker members of our sales team.
If you truly have 3 hours a week to for your mentorship program you need to invest that time and your knowledge and insight with the right people. Many mentorship and development programs get abandoned by the leadership in an organization because they get disenchanted with the results.
This Podcast will focus on mentoring the team members who will give your organization the biggest return on investment.
Shane Gibson is President of Knowledge Brokers International Systems Ltd. and author of Closing Bigger the Field Guide to Closing Bigger Deals and High Impact Mentorship – The Transformational Mentor’s Field Guide. e-mail shane@kbitraining.com or call 604-351-2328. For more information on in depth mentorship and personality style assessments visit http://www.kbitraining.com/mentorshipguide.html
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