Who can you TRUST? Trustworthiness is the most important characteristic to have in sales

I participated in a discussion forum generated from the question posed on what really counts when selling print? The same answer applies to most any form of sales: TRUST.

If you ask most customers to choose, they will say either/or Quality and Service, with price being last. Other attributes emerging in today’s technological environment will require adding technical know-how, business savvy, produce results, etc.

There is only ONE thing  that is important in selling and that is TRUST!

I like to back up my comments with examples. Think financial/security printing. The customer has to TRUST that you will deliver on time, accurately.

One of my former sales managers,  cited a survey results asked of decision makers. The most important characteristic in their relationship with sales folk is the ability to TRUST.

A contributor to the discussion made a great point that you cannot establish TRUST without engaging EMPATHY. In my opinion, empathy transpires from asking the right questions. I agree with this, but it is still a bit more. You have to be able to DISCUSS what their issues are – no different than what you do in your personal relationship building. You ask questions to get familiar with the individual, you establish empathy for their problems, you offer suggestions that are appropriate, you discuss what you know/they know and from that you decide that there are many things you have in common that you decide you would like to keep in touch. That grows into association and then if you’re lucky – mutual TRUST, respect and friendship.

When your discussions with clients start out by "I was wondering if you could ..." or "How soon would you be able to ...." or "I need ...." -- definite signs that you've established TRUST. Those words come along with anxiety for production typically .... so be sure to have a strong team on side to help you deliver on your promises.

On the flip side, the biggest deal-breaker with decision makers by sales professionals is “over promising and under delivering”.

One way to ensure you can build TRUST is by being able to work with your T-E-A-M – your TEAM are those that help you deliver on what you promise. You'll find the most successful reps gain the respect of their team, if not always favored by their demands. There can sometimes be a fine line between coming across as being unreasonably demanding to your support TEAM and being able to communicate effectively how much you need their help to deliver on promises made by you based on what your customer’s needs are. One of the best ways to ensure this, is to engage them, if possible, BEFORE you make any commitments.

When you set up your support team for success, you will find they will leap over tall buildings to get your customer what they need. It’s their pride in delivering and by including them and sharing the credit with them, will almost guarantee you will deliver on promises. Then, you will be able to trust.

Many organizations believe that their sales reps need to be technical. Yes, you do …. to a point. Another great manager, who WAS fun, Jim Thom, used to advise me not to get too caught up with the technical side with my clients (as long as I understood): "It doesn't matter if there are chickens in the back doing the work, as long as its done on time, great quality, at the price agreed".

Others define successful selling interpreted by being able to sell at C-Level (in layman’s terms the executive or highest level decision maker). When you being too technical at the C-Suite, chances are they will not be technical. What will happen then is they will bring in the troops of IT Managers who won’t miss a chance to show off their talent (which they have in their space a great deal of, one of which is avoiding sales people at all costs).

Another way to help establish TRUST with C-Level is to portray that you, too, are high level. Most people like to deal with those in “the club” or those they consider equals. If you don’t ask the right questions or you take the chance to be in front of them to do your feature or benefits dump, see how quickly they will bring in a manager’s who will grind you on price.

If you want to qualify or test the strength of your trust, try asking a question like “what keeps you awake at night?” Most people are honest. If you are trying to form a winning business relationship, you will try to help them solve some of those issues even if it means calling in the troups to help you deliver. Don't forget to share the glory!

Talking Turkey about .ppt Presentations

So, you've been asked to "to put together a few slides to present" to your mgt, colleagues, community, or as an expert on a topic ... now what?

Public speaking, which includes presenting .ppt, is the number one fear, over death, divorce, poverty, etc. Hopefully, some insight can reduce most of your tremors. Many people are either great at putting together a great .ppt or presenting, few master both.

Many organizations and most corporations culture require .ppt -- there are many benefits and reasons as to why. I simply believe its because its a guide to what you are saying and saves you time in the long run!

A link was shared on LINKED IN, yes an intentional pun, (Death by Powerpoint by Alex Kapterev) with a eye-opening statistic that there are 300 million .ppt users in the world! Now, that got me thinking!! Here are a few of my own tips:

1) Prepare a dozen (no more) powerful slides (Alex's .ppt slides had way too many with 61 slides!!)

2) Make sure it reflects your personality and presentation style

3) Rehearse, rehearse, REHEARSE!! The .ppt should be a backdrop to what you are saying

4) If asked to do a presentation from an existing .ppt -- give it an overhaul regardless of whether you think you should use the existing one -- the number of slides reduced, the graphics way up,

5) By having very minimal points, more graphics, you will be forced to prepare and you cannot simply read from the .ppt -- which is the way to murder a presentation and put your audience to sleep!

6) With minimal slides and maximum rehearsal, you will be more engaged with your audience to watch body language, engagement.

7) You should be watching your audience -- body language, etc. -- not the .ppt -- they will help you set the tempo

8) Audience size should influence how you present. Smaller audiences allow you to ask if they're following without breaking for questions to lose the momentum

9) The BEST .ppt I've ever seen was doing research -- Steve Jobs on unveiling the iPAD -- on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poaUbmdUcCY&feature=channel

a) Steve Jobs is probably not the most dynamic speaker so its obvious he rehearsed
b) The .ppt is incredible -- unfortunately, we all don't have a team available to help us like Steve did -- graphics, flash, etc.
c) This is a great example where preparation + ppt make who/what could be boring into something more interesting

10) If its a small audience, have a number of handouts printed and be prepared to give them AFTER your presentation. If you give them beforehand, they will be flipping through them and not paying attention to you. If its a larger audience, you can include or ask people to request a soft copy so you can follow up/send afterwards.

11) An adage that was drummed into me at Toastmasters that can be used to act as your guide (reminded by LINKED IN member George Dunn):

a) Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em
b) Tell 'em
c) Tell 'me what you told 'em

12) Join Toastmasters to sharpen your skills in an environment that encourages you to test your speaking skills with other folk that are in the same boat. There are thousands of clubs in a variety of formats, times, etc.

On that note, someone was promoting himself/org on a YouTube presentation. I was overwhelmed with the urge that I acted on. My feedback to him was to recommend he attend Toastmasters because his umms and ahhhhs discredited a lot of what he was saying and he was going to lose viewers based on that.

A mentor of mine from Toastmasters had a saying "if you talk like a turkey, take the turkey out of your talk" ... by joining TM.

QUALIFICATION versus RESULTS

A new sales veteran pal of mine, Mel Harding, (on LINKED IN) VP Product Development of Occulus.com and I have been exchanging and participating in discussions on qualifying.

Everyone knows that they've heard the term "qualify" or told that qualify is part of the sales process. My definition lends it as a method to identify a quality sales prospect or lead to boost success ratio. Yet, I'm of the opinion its considered just more sales jargon with only the most dedicated sales professional or sophisticated sales organizations understand.

I can certainly appreciate why a website service such as "Occulus" would be started. For many of us that have worked for major sales organizations like Xerox, Digital, IKON, etc. these tools are developed for us and are part of the process/accepted practice.

Qualifying IS the one part of sales that IS rocket science! Think of it as another tool in your tool box along with cold calling, objections, closing, relationship selling, etc. You have to be able to more than simply understand not only who you are targeting or engaged in sales with, you have to RECOGNIZE who a qualified prospect/customer is. Check out their website www.occulus.com to get a feel for what I'm talking about. This is NOT to be confused with CRM systems which capture and communicate information about prospects/customers. The various methods of qualifications are about identification, understanding you/customers/competitors, diagnostics, formulas,etc. It can be simplified by asking if you know if you are talking to the key decision maker .... who have gatekeepers who's major priority is to keep sales people away. Talk about contradiction!

When I've worked with smaller companies and try taking them down the "qualification" path they think I'm over-complicating the sales process, not getting results fast enough and what the heck am I doing all this analysis for! Fortunately, others might say "I get it" whereas they don't. The quality of your qualification process will uncover a strong identification of prospects that can save a lot of time in the long run, increase your success rate PLUS make more lucrative successes than smaller hits most consider "results". That's why some organizations distinguish sales reps from mainstream to major accounts ... meaning the larger the revenue opportunity, the longer the sales cycle.

Another compelling reason for capturing a qualification process. This other company I worked for had a Sales Director with 20-30 years industry experience. This gentleman knew how to price based on who they were competing against, the time of year, even the sales rep. What do you think happened when he left? How would others know what he had in his head?

So, get that scientific brain working and start qualifying better. Also remember, the best opportunities are the ones that are found in unchartered territories. By careful examination and identification (i.e. qualification) you will feel more confident to go down the longer, windier path where your solution, service or product will fill a void. Otherwise, you best get your call activity way way UP in order to get those results!

Please comment or keep me posted on how you're doing in the world of business "optioneering".

Jeannette