Great Sales Sins – Opera Singer Syndrome

When I go to my dentist, I wear an Ipod.

For the record, yes, I do consider myself clever for this innovative solution to the problem of having dental professionals practically “fisting” my mouth, while simultaneously being overwhelmed by the desire to be “chatty”.

This is the typical scenario that happens in the chair:
“So Sasser, hows that golf games of yours? Whoops, holy smokes, I cant believe my whole Rolex fits in there! Wow. Hang on….we need to give you another shot for no darn good reason…..so anyway, your short game?”

The real problem is the assistant. Nice as she can be, but her lord has put her on a mission to share her life story, especially the tragic parts, with anyone in pursuit of good oral hygiene.

During a two hour session in which an old crown was being removed and a temporary put in its place, I learned the unabridged version of how her son-in-law had a series of unfortunate career turns. For the sake of screen space, here’s an “abridged” version; he’s a under-achiever who flunked out of welding school, impregnated her daughter, dumber than a stool sample, and couldn’t find a job if it leaped up and bit him on the butt. But I’m paraphrasing.

A month later during the follow up visit to have the temporary removed and the replacement crown fitted, I wore an Ipod. An audio book loaded and I was set. The great thing about headphones, it tells the world to shut the heck up in a very direct, yet somehow polite, way.

While the plan was working flawlessly, there was one 15 second window of opportunity when one of the ear buds slipped out. As I reached up to replace it, the assistant seized the moment and screamed at me “I have three distant cousins with cancer!!!!”.

A lovely woman really. Here I am, nervous as everything having more drills in my mouth that you find at Home Depot, and she needs to share this nugget with me.

Me….Me….Me……information without context or empathy is simply noise – just like an opera singer or a poorly planned sales presentation.

In that light, your favorite competitors should be your biggest ones. Especially those with the long histories, the great brands, and the customer list a mile long.

Why?

The odds are higher that in smaller deals they will not bring their “A game” to the table. A 100k deal a sales presentation their sales teams will spend the majority of the time talking about the greatness of the company, their “platform”, their vision for the future, and then, in the twelfth hour, actually start talking about the reasons why the prospect met with them in the first place.

My team was competing against the big guys at a flooring manufacturer in North Georgia. We walked into a group of people who were very professional and friendly but whose body language cried “If I see one more mission statement I am going to take a swing at someone”. They were viewing all vendors back to back to back. Two days, four vendors, each with half a day. We were in on the second half of second day.

We started our presentation with one slide that listed the major objectives of the project – lower costs, increased productivity, expanded branding, etc., followed by one slide each with a succinct description of how we would achieve each of the goals. We followed that with a practical demonstration, showing them what we discussed in the slides, followed by a brief overview of 3 clients with similar projects in the same industry as them.

Done – Start to Finish – 1.5 hours.

Vendor 1 took 6 hours, Vendor 2 took 5 hours, Vendor 3 took 2.5 hours and got into a fight with their technical expert.

One of the most common flaws made in presentations today is focusing so much on who you are as a company, your vision, yada, yada, yada, and you wind up burning the attention span of your prospects.

As recommended in a previous post, go through your sales pitch with a non-company person. At the end of each slide, ask yourself “Why would the prospect care?” or the shorter “So what”? If you don’t have an answer remove it from your slides.

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Great Sales Sins – The Eager Beaver

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who was just a wee bit too happy? Specifically, they were just a little too eager to please?

In a normal, productive relationship, there is a balance of compromise and empathy where the needs of the individual are weighed against the corporate good of the couple. This is a nice way of saying that if you want sweet, hot, monkey loving, your sorry butt best get off the golf course and watch a little “Desperate Housewives.”

Things can get out of whack when balance is not maintained. For example, if “Hey baby, me and my buddies are going to Hooters to get drunk and then embarrass ourselves to the extent that we may have to move,” is met with a warm, sincere, “Well, you be careful. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to my little love possum,” then you may have an imbalance.

What Not to Wear

Back in my Federal Days, my team received the opportunity to work on a project with the Executive Office of the President of the United States.

Damn near wet myself when it got setup. Here’s how sad I am, I still remember saying to the cab driver “Take us to the Executive Office of the President”. I am sure he was impressed.

After our inside team gave us the details, I called the project lead at the EOPOTUS and made introductions, confirmed the major details of their evaluation, and walked through the needs analysis. At the conclusion of this exercise we scheduled an on site meeting and presentation.

Great Sales Sins – Trashing Your Competition

“Hi Bob, have you tried “natural” male enhancement? I saw the commercial on TV last night and immediately thought of you”

“Wow Barbara, that dress looks great. Did you get it in the “big girls” section at Lane Bryant?”

“So the wife and I just joined a swingers club……”

I would hope the readers of this blog would agree that these are lines that would exude a certain level of awkwardness and discomfort if they appeared in casual conversation.

However, as a sales professional we can generate similar feelings of discomfort with our prospects if we start to trash our competition.

I hate to burst your bubble, but you remember that great conversation you had where you felt like you and the prospect really “connected” and you shared how your competitor’s solution has been linked to Herpes Simplex 10?

Well here’s a news flash, your competitor had that same “connecting” conversation and when the subject of your company came up, he responded this with this:

“You are looking at ACME? You know they do very well in Java shops and I’ve seen some good press on them. However, knowing your internal infrastructure, project requirements, and with the fact that your CEO is sponsoring this project, I am confident that our solution, along with the reputation of our company, will not only surpass your technical needs, but offer a degree of comfort and validation that you are doing business with the industry leader.”

See the difference? Herpes vs. Industry Leader?

Of course we need a real life example to really drive this point home. Next week, we’ll share a life less from Don.

Remember Don?

The Best (and Worst) Goodbye Email Ever

You know how when coworkers leave they typically send out that sweet, gushy, goodbye email with a tone that would lead you to believe that they were going to pick up the torch and continue Mother Theresa’s work in Calcutta, as opposed to working second-shift at the customer service counter at the local bait and tackle store?

Some years ago, we had a situation where an employee needed to be removed from the organization after a rather public display of insubordination. Because of the number of employees who witnessed or where indirectly involved, our President made the wise choice of sending out a company-wide email in which he tactfully spelled out the conditions and reasoning behind “Don’s” departure.

One small problem.

We forgot to shut off Don’s email.

Yep, he received the President’s email and decided to share his unique insight into the situation via a company-wide reply.

Just a word here. We are sharing this because we reminding those who are considering a borderline candidate for an open position, that there are fates far worse than being a little short handed.

All of the names below are fictitious.

To all employees, Don’s employment with ACME was terminated because the executive staff is horrible to say the least. I couldn’t take it any more. These cheap executives you all work for are out for themselves…and themselves only. I am not lying to you all…this is a fact. They are cheap and expect you to be happy out it.

The reason why you’re considered a “second tier” company has nothing to do with the products, but everything to do with the executives. What you have in this company is a first rate product and a junior varsity executive team. These idiots are still living in the product mode…they have no clue how to run an enterprise software organization.

The Biggest Idiot of all is Bill Heller. He has lied to me constantly about various issues…do not believe anything he tells you!!! I have no idea how this moron was hired to begin with. Bill is a CHEAP VP of sales. Typical of ACME’s style!!!

Here’s an idea for the President, bring me back, get rid of those idiots…and together we’ll build out a world class organization!!!

If I am not treated fairly by the end of the day today, all industry analysts will soon get the same messages I am sharing with you now…after all, I do have time on my hands. I have never been more disgusted with the actions of a company before, and all of a sudden, I am interested in making sure you fail.

Don

So let’s recap Don’s position shall we?

A. Our company, and its executives, where horrible, cheap, and second-tier

B. The President should really consider hiring Don back, and fire the rest of his executive staff

C. Finally, if there was not an adequate response to this manifesto, Don would begin black mailing the company immediately. In addition, he personally wanted to see us fail (we didn’t).

For the record, Don’s a Yankee.

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Great Sales Sins – Spaghetti Selling

Spaghetti Selling

Spaghetti Selling is one of the reasons that former programmers make lousy software sales guys or why former bank examiners or worse consultants usually stink at the revenue generation profession. Why?

Well first lets clarify what we mean by spaghetti selling, so named, because when you cook spaghetti the easiest way to tell if its done is to throw it at a wall and see if it sticks. In spaghetti selling, you throw everything you know at your prospect and hope to hell something “sticks”. You pray for the “oh that’s interesting, I didn’t know you did that” moment.

Imagine you wanted to buy a car, and so you go to the dealership. When you get there two people sit you down and tell you the history of the automobile and the dealership, going into great detail about who invented the gasoline engine, who started the dealership, how the pretty flags got hung in the parking lot, etc. Then after about 30 minutes, they start with the first car you come to and then show you ever other car on the lot. Then after the last car, you leave, they proclaim “call us if you want to buy us something”.