Sales Training That Works

by Rich Harshaw, CEO

Marketing & Advertising - 66 Strategies: Y2M TIP 13

Rich & Ed vs. Traditional Sales Training

Part 2 - Rich & Ed's Sales System

We'll begin this discussion of sales training by identifying the two areas that most salespeople have the most difficulty with - which, incidentally, are the same two areas that traditional sales training rarely talks about - presumably because they don't know how to help.

Area #1: Prospecting. All the great closing techniques taught by all reputable sales trainers are rendered useless if there is no meeting with a prospect. Today, we're going to talk about how to get in the door...and how to set up your sales system so you don't have to knock yourself out trying to "sell" the prospect once you do get in front of him. He'll already want what you have by the time he asks you to come sell it to him.

Area #2 is related: Managing prospects. We'll also talk about managing huge quantities of leads without all the traditional hassle of trying to build a relationship with every one of them. You can be like most salespeople and spend 80% of your time kissing butt and managing prospects (to no avail) or you can be kicking butt and spend 80% of your time closing business and getting rich. This should be an easy choice.

To help you more clearly understand how sales works and why competition even exists, let's review the analogy of the cherry tree. It's simplistic, but it's also true to form. All the cherries on a tree represent your prospects. Some of the cherries are ripe, but most of them still need a little bit (or a lot) of nurturing on the tree. The ripe ones are easy. These are prospects you call on with an immediate need and you happen to be there and get a sale. This is not where you get rich. Your potential wealth lies in the green ones still on the tree.

Your average 9 to 5 salesperson will pick all the red cherries off the tree, throw them in his/her little bucket (no need for a very big one), and run off to the next tree. Maybe your next tree is a trade show or a networking group or a telemarketing list. But wait a second...don't you think some of those green ones might pan out in the future?

Joe Average suspects his green cherries might turn red someday too. So he sets up a great system for cultivating them. It's called the tickler file. Every so often, Joe calls the people on his list from a given tree and at that moment becomes what I call "THE ANNOYING LITTLE VOICE." See if this sounds familiar...or if you've been guilty of saying it. "Hello, may I please speak with Tom Prospect. Tom? Hey, this is Joe Average over at Digits and Widgets. Remember I met you at the trade show a couple of months ago? You don't? Well, did you get that letter I sent you with my business card? Oh, don't worry about it. Anyway, I was just calling to see if you guys over there need any digits or widgets yet. You don't? No big deal. I'll give you a call in a couple of months to see if you need some then. Bye!"

Do you know how dumb that sounds from the prospect's end? Do you know how annoying that is? Do you know how much that makes Tom Prospect hate your ever-living guts? That's like picking your ripe cherries then leaving the tree alone for two months. No watering. No fertilizing. No spraying for bugs. No pruning. No nothing. It ain't gonna happen. YOUR TREE WILL DIE!

Why do you think competition exists? Because the next day after you leave your tree for a new one, your competitor comes along and throws a little bit of his fertilizer on it and guess what? A few more cherries turn red and he picks them. Those were your cherries! Are you going to stand for that? Actually, chances are you will...because you're down in another part of the orchard looking for a new tree. You're picking somebody else's cherries that they left there, almost ripe, from the day before.

You can call me greedy, but in my idea I want to pick all the cherries off of all the trees in the orchard every day. We call the process of "Guarding and Nourishing" all the trees Monopolizing the Marketplace. Think back to when you were a kid; remember the game Monopoly? What happened? One person (usually your dad) would end up with tons of houses and hotels on several properties and it was just a matter of time before you landed on a hotel and were forced to give up everything you owned. Your dad would try not to laugh and gloat too much and you would try not to let anyone see your tears. Well, maybe we played rougher in my house than you did, but the point is simple: When you monopolize your market, you eliminate your competition.

In sales, remember that there's an educational process a prospect must go through before he's ready to buy from you. He may need to learn more about your industry in general or he may want to know about you and why your offer is any better than anyone else's he's considering. Or maybe he just doesn't need or can't afford what you have...for now. Your challenge is to educate and nurture this prospect along. But that's a tough deal if you've got more than 10 prospects. Lots of people tell me about relationship marketing...or the process of building a personal relationship with a buyer so he'll think you're his friend. After all, given a choice, we'd all like to buy things from our friends. By the way, most buyers can't figure out that your only motive is to collect commissions from their sale.

Let's go back to the orchard to find the solution. In the orchard, you cultivate cherry trees by watering, fertilizing, de-pesting, etc. and you also let nature take care of some things (sun, rain, and so forth). But remember, prospects are like cherries, not entire trees. Building a relationship with every prospect is a lot like paying a lot of attention to every cherry on the tree. Imagine inspecting all the cherries for bugs every day or somehow adding a small but precise amount of water to each cherry each day. This sounds dumb to make a point.

In the orchard, you could set up an irrigation system that would automatically come on every day to water the trees. You could hire an airplane to drop pesticide on your trees once a week. In other words, you can treat the entire orchard at once. All the cherries will ripen when the time comes. Then you just sit there and pick.

In sales, your nurturing consists of two things: education and innovation. You must, first and foremost, innovate your product or service so that it fits your prospect's idea of "The Best Deal." Then you must set up a system for continual education. Think about it. What's the purpose of me sending you this newsletter? There are also dozens of other ways. But, as usual, I am out of space and you're probably tired of reading.

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