The Sales Café

Here's something simple: how to read your customer's mind. Can you read it with certainty? Of course not. But can you read it with some insight? Absolutely.

Think about this for a moment: many of us rely on good psychics and fortune tellers who are right often enough to make a better living than most ordinary people. They're called stock analysts and brokers. When they're really good, we can make a fortune, or at least quite a few bucks on their predictions. How do they do it? There's nothing like a couple of well placed questions coupled with very good observation skills to predict the future.

What does this have to do with selling? Everything, really. The art of successful selling - and it most definitely is an art when it's successful - relies heavily on the skills of questioning and observation. We know that these are two pillars of selling, but what about before the sale, or aside from actual customer conversations?

Today, I'm going to focus on the most difficult customer mind-reading skill. This is the skill of preparation: studying public information, recognizing patterns, and making intelligent deductions (guesses) that more often than not allow you to peer into the mind of your customer before you ever meet them.
First, how do you prepare for a sales call? Do you psyche yourself up with positive self-talk? Do you spend your time on LinkedIn figuring out who the person is you're meeting and who you might know in common? Do you read 10-Ks and 10-Qs, shareholder letters and websites, competitive analysis and news reports?

Let's hope you're doing all of this and not winging it out there with all the other amateurs. Seriously - you are meeting at the buyer's pleasure, hoping to discover their needs and interests, so that you can earn the right to talk about your solutions. You need to be in the zone. You need to be on-message. And you need to be prepared. This is especially true during the opening minutes of an interaction with a buyer.

Download your customer's 10-Ks, 10-Qs and annual reports. In the management discussions and shareholder letters you will find your customer's view of the road behind and the road ahead - recent and long-term results, and short- and long- term goals. Did you know that you can also find out what your customer gets paid to do? Download the proxy statement and read the compensation committee report.

Now for the mind-reading part. What do the top executives get paid to do? What executive team (plus the direct reports, and the folks who report to those direct reports) ever focuses on anything other than what they get paid to do? The first answer gives you a significant glimpse into the mind of your customer. The second helps you check your assumptions.

While you're psyching yourself up and trolling LinkedIn for your next call, spend the time to research the public reporting and answer those two questions. Use your answers to prepare how you will explore your customer's interests when you meet them.

I'm interested to know how this works for you on your next few sales calls. If it does anything less than focus you and your customer on what's important to them and doesn't cause a few of your competitors to melt into the woodwork, I'll be very surprised.

By Jim Horan

It must be something about my background or upbringing. When I hear “supervision” and “accountability,” I go to the negatives. When I think of supervision, I think of hall monitors, playground supervisors and prison guards. When I think of accountability, I think of disappointment, warnings, bruised egos, reprimands, enforcement, retribution and big brother.

If you find yourself obsessed with accountability and supervision, I question five things:

1. Did you hire the right people?
2. Do your managers know how to lead?
3. Are you focusing on the right things?
4. Does everyone in your business understand who the customer is and what benefit the customer is expecting from your products and services?
5. Does everyone in your organization understand his or her role, responsibilities and outcomes?

These are big questions. Few of us, if pushed to answer honestly, would be able to give a resounding yes to all of them. So the question is, do you have processes to assess these issues, and action plans for continuous improvement? If not, are you just hoping the problems will go away?

So how do we manage a sales force we don’t see eight hours a day? What is the proper role of supervision and accountability in this 21st century?

My philosophy is simple: Help people be the best they can be and find the right work! I believe when people find the right work, in the right environment, properly encouraged and supported, they need little supervision. They manage themselves and hold themselves accountable to a much higher standard than you or I ever would. Your top producers do this; you just wish everyone did.

This type of relationship, in my opinion, starts with ensuring the people you select truly understand the nature of the work they are going to do and know it’s a good fit for them. How do you do that? Explain the job, the role, the work. Explicitly describe who your business serves and what your clients expect. Be very clear about the outcomes and results you expect, and share stories about people who have been successful and why.

Now here is a radical suggestion! When you think you have found the right person and you’re ready to make an offer, ask him or her to write a business plan — concise and to the point — for the new job. Buy a day’s worth of his or her time at market rates, and don’t be cheap.

Here is what you will learn from this process. The individual will either embrace this process or not. That alone will tell you a lot. When you read the plan, you will learn if he or she heard, understood, agreed and knew how to pursue the opportunity. You will also learn a lot about how he or she thinks and plans to act. You will be able to make a much more informed decision about whether this person is a good fit for your company. And you will have a much better idea of how much energy you will have to spend supervising and holding this individual accountable.

Enforcement is a drag; leave it to the police! Encouraging, supporting and watching your people grow and prosper is the ultimate work. Make better hires, and maybe “supervision” and “accountability” will drop from your vocabulary.

Jim Horan is the president and CEO of The One Page Business Plan Company.

ELA's lead generation survey results are in!  Nearly all respondents are from or with sales organizations where they are responsible for the relationship or partnership with their customers. Everyone expects salespeople to generate new leads, every month.

The best return on time invested included local networking/public speaking and asking for referrals.  Over 80% thought the lead generation approach used was vital or important to developing trust.

Respondent advice on lead generation ideas sorted into four primary buckets.

• 1) Reward lead generation activity as part of overall sales process
• 2) Focus on the Customer in all interactions
• 3) Be professional including making and keeping commitments to prospects
• 4) Always provide value by knowing your product and value proposition

Since relationships are based on trust, then the lead generation approaches like asking for referrals, networking, and public speaking must cultivate trust between the prospect and the sales person.  Let's create a list of tips for each approach that are both effective and build trust.  I will post a short ELA RTG blog entry on each approach over the next few weeks.  You can enhance the approach by adding your comments and ideas. 

Thank you to all who participated.