Podcast

Episode 22 – The Power of Storytelling

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The problem: Average salespeople have a tendency to barf the features and benefits onto their prospects. You know you’ve done it. They put the pedal to the metal and start pitching, and ultimately start sounding like everyone else.

A good story conveys value, builds trust and credibility by using social proof. As children we were raised on storytelling.

Would you like to be able to connect with your prospects on an emotional level that accelerates trust and rapport while building value for your product or service?

In this episode:

• The storytelling formula broken down into simple steps
• How to use stories at each phase of the sales cycle
• The reason why stories are so powerful and differentiate you from your competitors

Podcast

Episode 21 – Empathy Builds Trust

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Imagine that you are preparing for a sales call. You have the goals, objectives and agenda for the call all planned out. You have researched the customer. You have debriefed your team (if you are bringing your manager or an expert from your product line) on the agenda and goals. You’ve got your sales brochures in hand.

That is pretty much all you need for a successful call, right? Anything missing?

Often, I see salespeople so focused on the “external” aspects of the sales call. Yet how much focus are you giving to the “internal” aspects of the customer interaction? Among the qualities of great salespeople, internal aspects are most important, and empathy is among the most powerful because it is a cornerstone of building trust.

At the end of the day, that customer sitting across from you is just another human being with needs, wants, fears and goals. To be understood is what they most want, not to be sold.

Cultivating empathy for your customers and prospects is not only a very genuine way to build a relationship; it will also create trust in a way that will differentiate you from your competitors. Empathy is a fundamental building block of strong relationships and creates an environment where your customers feel safe enough to surface information that they normally would not.

This will give you insight into what the real problems and challenges your customers face, allowing you to develop an even more powerful solution and an even stronger relationship.

Empathy is so important to Google that they build it right into their product development process by spending time with and thinking about their customers.

Empathy is a muscle, and if you practice and strengthen it, you will see results. Here are ways to develop more empathy:

1. Become aware of your own emotions: It does not matter how emotionally hardened you are, we all have emotions. Since they can get messy, we often we check our emotions at the door “because it isn’t professional.” Next time you feel an emotion that you want to immediately shut down, allow yourself to breathe and observe the emotion. An emotion typically lasts only a few seconds, and you do not have to act on it, just observe it. You will find that it is simply sending you a message and wants to quickly move through you. Being aware of your own emotions is a catalyst to sensing others’.

2. Practice ‘Caring Curiosity’: Do you truly care about making your customer successful? If yes, then you are half way there. Next is to get curious about what is happening in their business, and determine their desired situation. Ask genuinely curious open-ended questions as if you were asking a good friend about their trip to Rome, and listen to the answer for the sake of the answer (most people listen to the answer only to formulate a response). Take the thread deeper through more open-ended questions.

Good open-ended questions usually start with “what”, “how”, “why”, “tell me more about…” Ask yourself, “How would that situation make me feel?” Put yourself in your customer’s shoes as they are talking, and try to figure out how you would feel if you were in the same situation. This will give you insight into their experience, perspective, and emotions.

3. Reflective listening: Once you have a feel for what the customer is experiencing, repeat back what your customer said (and how they’re most likely feeling) in your own words to make sure you are on the right track. This will demonstrate your empathy, and if you are on target, the customer will say something like, “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about!” If you are wrong, the customer will correct you and appreciate that you are demonstrating true curiosity and concern.

The more you build empathy based customer relationships, the more you will be pleasantly surprised at how rich and rewarding your sales role will become. When you have a stake in solving your customer’s problem, and can literally “feel their pain,” you will have more fuel and energy to come up with powerful solutions.

Practicing empathy will also allow you to know your customer better than your competition. After all, would you be open to a trusting relationship with a person who treated you with the above empathy?

Podcast

Episode 20 – Build Value by Showing Proof

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Would you like to move through the sales process more quickly?

Would you like to build incredible value to move your customer off the status quo?

Want to know a powerful way to do this?

Mac N Smith share stories and inspiration to push you beyond your current limits.

In this episode:

• Ways to accelerate the sales cycle by demonstrating proof
• Why you need to have your details in order
• Examples of how to give proof

Sales Success

Quiet Your Mind, Increase Your Sales

This morning I got up with my thoughts racing around to all of the tasks I had on my plate for the day. It was a big day, and it was hard to justify sitting, closing my eyes and doing nothing for 20min. But I did. And I won the day because of it.

Why? In the middle of an important sales call with executives in the room and big money on the line, I was able to quickly relax, stay focused and alert and attune to the customer. Our natural tendency is to follow urges, but if you can resist your urges, you can make better, more thoughtful decisions.

Meditation is growing in popularity, and a growing number of high profile business execs do it. Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons meditates. So does Ray Dalio, the 64-year-old founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. Bill Ford is a big advocate. Steve Jobs was often associated with the practice. Facebook, Ebay, and General Mills execs are all meditators. Google set up separate rooms so senior staff would be able to pursue it.

Meditation has several benefits:

* Meditation trains your mind to focus – With all of the thoughts, decisions, and information input the typical salesperson deals with, focus is essential. Furthermore, focus enables active listening because it allows you to focus on what the customer is communicating – verbally and non-verbally.

Meditation creates a “mind like water” (as Bruce Lee used to put it) which will make a huge difference on your level of concentration. How would your sales benefit from being twice as focused and listening more deeply to your customers?

* Meditation increases your ability to relax – Relax much? I didn’t think so. With the pace of life today and the need to stay ahead of quotas, bills and family responsibilities, life can seem like a perpetual struggle. The problem is the mind is constantly grasping at “more”: more prospects, more deals, more emails, more problems. This isn’t your fault, it’s just how the mind is wired.

Meditation releases you from this mental trap, allowing your body to release built-up tension which increases your ability to relax and not follow urges – the urge to talk when you should listen, for example. This enables you to respond creatively with whatever is needed to move a deal forward.  How would your sales benefit from being relaxed in front of the customer and staying hyper-focused on your top opportunities?

* Meditation increases your empathy and emotional intelligence – The quality of empathy tops the list of the 5 qualities of great salespeople. Empathy allows a salesperson to understand what their customer is feeling, allowing them to create an authentic connection, creating trust and opening the customer up to sharing their biggest business problems, challenges, and opportunities.

Meditation is arguably the best way to develop empathy because it enables introspection, and it increases your emotional intelligence (ability to sense emotions and maintain positive emotional states), thereby increasing your ability to sense and attune to your customer’s emotion. How would your sales benefit from increased trust and opening your customer up to sharing their deepest and most troubling problems?

* Meditation gives you access to deeper insights – How do you make big decisions throughout the day? Do you stop and think strategically or do you decide on the fly? The best leaders make decisions by being in the present while integrating their knowledge and all the events that are happening around them simultaneously.

Meditation cultivates this ability to be present while simultaneously receiving input and tapping into your knowledge and instinct in the middle of a busy day. How would your sales benefit from being present while making strategic decisions?

The essence of learning meditation is to practice it. Below is a quick meditation to get you started:

1. Choose a quiet place. Sit comfortably in a quiet place (might be your car) where you won’t be disturbed for ten minutes. Try sitting at the edge of your chair with your back gently straight to help you avoid slouching (and falling asleep).
2. Breathe naturally. Close your eyes and take 3 slow deep breaths to relax, then breathe naturally and slowly. Inhale in through your nose and out through your nose.
3. Focus on your breath. To help you concentrate, try focusing on your breath. Counting may help: while breathing in, count “one, two, three, four five…” until the lungs are full, and then “one, two, three, four, five…” until the lungs are empty.
4. Managing distraction. You’ll inevitably find your mind drifting to other thoughts as you meditate. Don’t worry, this happens to everybody, even meditation pros. Just bring your attention back to your breath every time you catch yourself losing focus, and if you’ve lost count, simply start over.
5. Start with 5 minutes. Continue focusing on your breathing for five minutes. Build up from there, eventually aiming for 20-30min sessions.

I hope you find meditation helpful for increasing your mental clarity, empathy, relaxation and ability to be present while making tough decisions. Give it a try and let me know your experience in the comments below. I’ll be glad to answer any questions you may have.

Sales Success

Episode 19 – How to Create Emotion & Impact

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Would you like to move through the sales process more quickly?

Would you like to learn to build deeper relationships with your customers?

Are you able to evoke emotion with your customers?

Mac N Smith share stories and inspiration to push you beyond your current limits.

In this episode:

• Ways to accelerate the sales cycle by evoking emotion
• Understanding the process of painting possibility and avoiding pain
• The neuroscience behind customer choices

Sales Success

The 5 Qualities of Great Salespeople

The difference between runaway business success and mediocrity often comes down to sales.  Yes, you need a great product that uniquely addresses a market need.  You need operations and manufacturing teams that can execute.  However in the competitive world of complex “solution selling,” the difference between a great product either sitting on the shelf or getting designed into a successful project often sits with the sales team.

What sets great salespeople apart from good salespeople? I set out to answer this question and interviewed over a dozen successful Silicon Valley technology sales leaders, and discovered what I had already intuitively sensed – great salespeople have developed skills, qualities and characteristics built on key values.  Having been shaped and molded by their life’s struggles and their desire for excellence, they’re driven by qualities that run deeper than mere surface skills. Qualities that aren’t often discussed during quarterly business reviews.

Here, in no particular order, are the top qualities of great salespeople that I discovered upon further reflection of these interviews.  Included with each quality are ways to further develop each:

1. Curiosity: More than any other trait, the ability to engender trust through active listening is fundamental to building strong customer relationships. This is really about being curious about the customer’s business needs and challenges. Displaying optimistic, unaffected curiosity will get the customer talking so you can listen for areas where you can bring value. If you don’t uncover any kind of challenge, and display that you care about solving it, you’re not going to sell them anything.

How to develop curiosity: The Zen master Suzuki Roshi called this unaffected curiosity, “Beginner’s Mind.” Developing curiosity is to be open-minded towards other perspectives and investing time to discover and learn something new. So be a beginner again and go try something new. It is also important to not take things for granted – do not assume you know the answer – and relentlessly question everything your customer says.

2. Compassion: Sometimes the customer’s problem is right under your nose. However the more complex the product or service, the more it requires asking open ended questions, with openness and curiosity, to uncover the deeper underlying problems. And it is usually these deeper problems that customers will pay MUCH more to resolve, and where you’re more likely to engage their executives. To do this the way amazingly effective salespeople do means to truly care about the customer’s problem. You have to be able to put yourself in their shoes. You have to have compassion for the customer’s plight. If you’re really interested in helping somebody be successful you’ll be compassionate and truly interested in understanding and solving their dilemma. And executives are more interested in working with you because you’re adding value to their bottom line.

How to develop compassion: Being introspective is a good way to build empathy, which is a cornerstone of compassion. Not introverted, but introspective – being able to notice your feelings and thoughts – which can help you develop a sense of care and concern for others.  Because how can you put yourself in your customer’s shoes until you’ve felt their pain as closely as possible?

3. Confident humility: The ability to establish a connection, and then a rapport, and ultimately a strong relationship, requires humility. It takes humility to ask for feedback, to build respect, and to ask the customer, “How can I do better?” Not that you’re so humble that you feel lesser than other people and lack confidence, rather it’s acting with credibility while remembering that others deserve respect. Humble and yet confident. Ultimately humility is about being of service, and that’s what being in sales is all about.

How to develop confident humility: Start by simply asking for feedback and admitting your shortcomings. We all make mistakes and admitting this to others gracefully while seeking ways to learn how to do things better will take you far down the road of confident humility. At the same time, acknowledge your strengths and think about how you can use them in service of your customer.

4. Courage: Another skill that sets superstar salespeople apart is the ability to go to bat internally for the customer. Often internal obstacles, including schedule slips and internal company politics, can have a drastic impact on the customer’s success. It takes courage to stand up and challenge your own executive, engineering and marketing teams in support of the customer. Courage makes a difference in front of the customer too. Great salespeople challenge the customer’s thinking and their beliefs around their own business. In a recent article by Harvard Business Review titled Selling Is Not About Relationships, the authors write, “Challengers win by pushing customers to think differently, using insight to create constructive tension in the sale. Relationship Builders, on the other hand, focus on relieving tension by giving in to the customer’s every demand. Where Challengers push customers outside their comfort zone, Relationship Builders are focused on being accepted into it. Fully 54% of all star reps in a solution-selling environment are Challengers.”

How to develop courage: Start by noticing your posture – most people have a tendency to slouch and this has an subconscious negative effect on their confidence. Stand straighter and lift your chest a bit. Next allow yourself to feel the fear that comes up in these situations (notice the fear never really goes away) and gently pressing through it by taking action. Start with small actions and build the momentum of courage one small success at a time. For example, try being more assertive first at your sales staff meeting, then try it with the customer. Remember the bigger picture – you’re doing something in service of a customer’s larger goal – don’t take things personally. Ultimately great achievements involve great risk!

5. Self-Discipline: In a complex sales process, the ability to think and plan strategically is built on discipline. Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state (think getting up at 5am when you’re tired). It’s easy to get swallowed up in email and daily tactics but great salespeople stay focused on the big picture. Thinking strategically requires pausing and discovering and reflecting on what’s important for the company and for the customer and then meeting w/ key stakeholders to brainstorm ways to strengthen the partnership. Discipline also fuels consistent and timely customer follow-up, and ultimately you must exercise discipline to ask for the business once the appropriate buying environment has been established. Great salespeople thrive on achievement and success, and self-discipline must be fostered to consistently achieve at high levels of performance.

How to develop self-discipline: Self-discipline is a muscle that gets strengthened over time. It starts with identifying the most important projects and tasks and then having a process for implementing them. It also requires the ability to pause and reflect, even in the midst of a negative emotional state. Acceptance of negative emotional states can be developed through meditation or a steady exercise routine. Some people can simply schedule their ”strategic” time, while others need to learn to stop in the midst of a busy day to assess their strategy and then decide next actions. Developing the ability to pause can simply start with learning how to walk a bit slower if you’re somebody that zooms around, eventually moving to a full pause to assess the strategy and appropriate next action.

Ultimately each of these qualities are like muscles. The more you train them, the stronger they become. The less you train them, the weaker they become. Great salespeople consistently strengthen these ‘muscles’ through alternate periods of stress and renewal, and over time turn achievement into great success. Professional mentoring and coaching is another great way to develop these qualities, as often the obstacles to growth are out of our individual awareness and a good coach can spot these obstacles and carve out new paths for growth.

Podcast

Episode 18 – Getting Your Prospect’s Attention

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Would you like to gain the customer’s attention more quickly?

Would you like to learn to build stronger value with your customers?

How would your business prosper if you could get the customer’s attention and find pain points quicker?

Mac N Smith share stories and inspiration to push you beyond your current limits.

In this episode:

• Ways to accelerate the sales cycle by getting the customer’s attention
• Uncover the customer’s pain early so you can develop a more compelling solution
• The map to success for accelerating a sales cycle and booking larger deals
• When to ask open-ended questions, when do use close-ended questions

Podcast

Episode 17 – Where Have We Been? And looking ahead.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this episode:

• MacNSmith went radio silent for a few months, where did we go?
• How pausing and reflecting on life will make you a better salesperson.
• What to expect in the episodes ahead.

Podcast

Episode 16 – Ask Better Questions, Close the Deal Faster

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Are you asking the right questions of your customer?

Do you uncover your customers pain quick enough?

Are you looking for some tips to get to the real issues quicker so you can solve problems and get the deal done?

Mac N Smith share stories and inspiration to push you beyond your current limits.

In this episode:

• Examples of the right types of questions to ask customers depending on the situation
• A live role play between Chris and Justin that illuminates different ways of asking questions
• Why it’s important to ask questions that build a relationship, and also questions that uncover the business goals
• When to ask open-ended questions, when do use close-ended questions

Podcast

Episode 15 – How to Smash Your Quota and Finish the Year Strong

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Do you get to 90% of your quota and run out of steam?

Are you making the kind of money you think you’re capable of?

Do you wish you could have the energy and enthusiasm to finish the year strong and blow past your quota?

Mac N Smith share stories and inspiration to push you beyond your goals.

In this episode:

• How to shift your mindset to empower you finish strong
• How to set the tone for the rest of your team so you all finish stroger than the competition
• A story about how a professional sports team finished strong, and the results they got
• Steps you can take today to ensure you finish strong