I was called on last week by a guy who seemed like an OK chap. But he never stopped smiling. It was some kind of a “put on” smile. Pretty obvious.

He seemed overly enthusiastic–and you know what I think about fake enthusiasm (I hate it!). So, when it came to him asking me some questions about what I was looking for–and any problems I was experiencing with my current vendor–I thought he’d hide the smile.

But No!  Similar to the “tell tale heart” he kept right on smiling!  Smiling right past the pain.

At one point, I felt like saying, “Why are you feeling so happy when I’m telling you my problems?” But I didn’t. I just said “Goodbye.”

Lesson

Come on people…if you’ve bought in to our philosophy that you are a problem finder — then a problem solver, wipe the fake, cheesy grin off your face. It’s not helping me tell you my problems. And it certainly doesn’t give me much faith you’re listening.

Full disclosure, David asked me to be a part of it–and I told him I’d promote it to our blog readers.

There are something like 13 trainers/speakers/experts. I can’t vouch for the value of every one of them, but there are thirteen hours of content. You will be able to find something of value (in mine, I revealed a couple of things you may not have heard from us before).

It begins next week–there are three teleseminars/day.

COST: It’s free to be on each call. Or, you can pay $67 and own them all–all 13 hours. (The thing I like about this is that if you don’t like what you’re hearing, hang up and move on!)

Register Here.

The 3-day event started with an expert summit. The presenters and a few invited guests were given time to present on a subject where they have expertise. As some of you may know, I have an “alter ego,” the Ultimate Sales Chick. I do a podcast (listen at www.ultimatesaleschick.com), so I did my best to teach the ins and outs of podcasting. The other women shared wisdom on everything from writing your first book, to really understanding who you know and how to leverage your connections.

The next 2 days were spent in breakout sessions, either teaching or attending. What a blast! I taught on the power of personal value in the sales process. I didn’t realize how ironic that would be.

To be honest, at first I shied away from presenting at the conference. Wouldn’t we all be teaching the same thing? How much value could there be in each of us putting our thoughts and feelings behind our subject matter? I know, maybe I should start drinking my own Kool-Aid!

I learned some huge tactical lessons, but, more importantly, I learned some huge life lessons:

1. Every woman had the intent to help the other participants—no ego, no ulterior motives.
2. There was an ABUNDANCE of knowledge and an unending generosity to share it.
3. Because we are all very different, each lesson was unique. I heard lead generation discussed in 3 different ways and took something different from each!

What can you take from this, especially in crappy times like this when we tend to feel a bit nervous, desperate and worried? Go serve! Go talk to other people you may be able to help or connect. Heck, go talk to your competitors. Think outside the box.

My personal values (and yours) make our products unique. Don’t bury your head in the sand. Learn from the wisdom around you. Celebrate it. Share it.

It comes back tenfold.

It has to do with text messaging—and the promise of your brand.

It used to be that when a coach came to recruit a kid from high school, one of the things they’d talk about is playing time. After all, what kid wants to sit on the bench for two years waiting for “his chance”?

So coaches would promise all sorts of wacky things like, “You’ll get playing time as a freshman!” Or, “We’re building for the future so freshmen will be a key part of the strategy.” (Whatever that means.)

But then when he got to college, the story changed. And most freshmen who got big promises—got no time.
But what could they do? Nothing.

Now it’s different. Now, all of these high school seniors know people from all over the country due to the AAU schedule. These relationships have been built since 7th grade—and they text them constantly.

So now, when a HS senior is thinking about going to a certain college, all he has to do is text his buddies to see what they’re hearing about playing time. And the frame of reference is set.

It doesn’t matter what the coach promises anymore. It’s what the kids hear from their friends.

And isn’t that the way it should be in marketing? Don’t listen to the promise of the company trying to sell you something. Listen to the buyers who have experienced that promise.

Which brings up the lesson: Are you treating your clients like they’re texting your prospects? Because they are.

It might be casual. And it might be infrequently. But in the next 10 years, you’ll begin to see a quickening in the connection between the value you bring a client and the referrals coming from that client. People won’t refer average solutions. But they’ll talk forever about valuable solutions.

So read our blog. Find the pain. Link the pain to the solution. And make damn sure that you don’t leave that client until he is ecstatic with your value.

And if you have a sales team, make sure they are competent at problem-finding and problem-solving.

A yellow flag might be your prospect saying, “We’re going to look very closely at price” or “John will have a little influence but not much so you don’t need to talk to him” or other such nonsense.  

Batch The Flags

But in long selling cycles/complex sales, there might be dozens of yellow flags throughout the cycle. My suggestion would be to batch them. Here’s how it works.

After every sales call, especially if you have a team that calls on the prospect at different levels, come back and “brainstorm yellow.” Meaning, talk about all the things each of you has heard from the client that are yellow flags–those things that might prohibit the sale from moving forward. 

Use The Minds of Your Team 

Get into a true “mind-share” attitude with your team. You’ll be amazed at the customer data you collect on the buying process. Then,  make a list of all the things that your team senses  might be roadblocks and bring them up to the customer in batches. Let’s say you have 10 things that your team senses could be yellow flags. The next time you’re speaking with your prospect, say, “I have several things that I’d like to talk to you about–things that have come up when we do our weekly team debriefing.” And then tell him the issues.

Yellow flags are things your prospect has to solve for you. Remember, it’s him/her that has the problem that he wants you to solve. Therefore,  it’s up to them to get you comfortable–not just up to you to get him comfortable.  As we say in our advanced sales courses, you’re the one that needs to be bringing up objections–not him. He needs to be selling you on why he’s committed to solving his problem.  

But sometimes, the package just isn’t right. Which has caused me to think a lot about packaging lately. I wonder if this is a skill for the 21st century salesperson. Or, maybe I should say the 21st century company.

Years ago, we used to refer to Proctor and Gamble and the like as “packaged goods companies” before they were consumer products company. That was probably a very useful description.

Mainly because they knew that on the supermarket shelves, it truly was a packaging challenge. Album covers were the same way–and CD covers. Ever bought an album partly because of the package/design?

B2B Challenge 
If you’re in B2B business which most of our readers are, then you, too, are a packager. You package your message, your diagnostic and yourself. How a message is packaged can be as important as what the message is.

A new way to define it is “all that the customer sees ‘around’ the product/service.” It’s not just website. It’s not just brand/color scheme.

It’s “how you are” and “who you are.”

So when we’re training sales teams, we work as much on “the package” of questions you ask, of skills you possess, of stories you tell, and of “how you behave” in front of the prospect.

In selling high level solutions, the package is the thing. Bryan Neale and I will podcast on this topic in the future. But what do you think? How important is “packaging” in your business? Before you say “not at all” think hard.

Last week, one of my clients called and said that his price had slipped out during a conversation with the prospect, and he realized, after he left, that it was much higher than what the prospect thought it was going to cost to do this work.

How should he go back in and have a further conversation about it? While I gave an answer for him to use, the real issue here is “how to navigate around the prospect’s mental budget.”

We all seem to have budgetary categories that we put things in, especially those things that we are familiar with. If you’re selling a product that people are familiar with, regardless of the actual price, they will put you in to a budget category. If you’re going to be much higher than that category, you’ve got to bring that up upfront, but do it in the context of “the cost of the pain,” not the cost of the solution.

In our sales philosophy, we are oriented to solving problems. In order to know whether problems are worth solving, we have to denominate those problems in some way. That’s the cost of the pain.

If you’re not finding /discovering/leading the prospect through a diagnostic where you determine what the cost of the pain is, then your price will always be compared to “doing nothing.” That’s not a good position for you or for your prospect.

So, as you go through your sales cycle, and you become aware of the types of mental budgets your prospect has, make sure that those budgets are compared to the actual pain – which will be much higher. Then you can talk about your value/price from a position of confidence, not a position of defensiveness.

My friend, Bob Bly, sent me an article that talked about the seven sales traits that customers say will make them buy (The Selling Advantage). He had a quote from Peter Drucker from The Practice of Management that I think is worth repeating: �What a customer thinks he is buying, what he considers value, is decisive�it determines what a business is, what it produces and whether it will prosper.�

We stress (harp) on this all the time in our training. Your value is nothing unless it is �valuable� to your prospect.  And it�s only valuable to your prospect if it�s:

a) solving a problem that he currently has,
b) avoiding a problem that could strike him in the future or
c) exploiting some type of dream or possibility in his life. 

I believe this is even more important in business-to-business selling, because in most businesses the soul�s been sucked out of the business and all that�s left is managing, management by objectives and boring, mundane, intellectual gobbledygook. 

So, if you can re-frame your value in a way that helps a buyer (purchasing agents, CFO, whomever you�re calling on) see that they have problems they didn�t know they had or see that the dreams they had for that fleeting second are actually �within their reach,� then you will be bringing enormous value. (And you will be inspired).

Consequently, that means you have to have a process/system/philosophy/method that actually supports that goal of you bringing value to the customer. It�s what we talk about in most of our posts, but I thought the Drucker quote was interesting enough to bring to your attention.

by Brooke Green

Do you even know what you do?  Sounds absured doesn’t it? Especially when you hear it from me – someone you don’t even know. How dare I question you?

Well, here’s my experience: One of the biggest challenges that companies (and the people who work for them) have is understanding and communicating their value – and getting paid for it.

Most want to throw up features and benefits – the number of employees, number of offices, size of revenue, qualifications of people, etc. Boy, that’s interesting to a prospect– NOT!

Don’t you think people would rather hear about your company’s passion, how you help your clients solve problems, your “story”? Yes, they would.

By doing it the right way, you’re also taking the first step in differentiating yourself from others in your same business segment. If you can’t communicate your company’s value (and your value) in a way that differentiates you from your competition, what’s left?

Answer: Price.

And we know what happens when the focus of your offer becomes all about price. Let’s just put a sharp object in our eye and get it over with.

Doing This is HARD!

There are several things that you should know about creating a value statement:
1. It’s hard work.
2.  It’s never really finished.
3.  You will have several different value statements based on who you are talking to.

While it’s much easier to throw up facts and figures, what your company does should be all about your prospect – not about you wanting to get out as much information as possible. You’re not trying to sell them something. Your intent should be to help them understand how you work with companies to solve problems. It should evoke emotion from your prospect (and you). It needs to mean something.

You want them to say (or feel) “Hey, that’s me. Those are the EXACT problems we have.”

[This subject is covered in depth on our podcast at http://billcaskey.podshowcreator.com/podcasts.aspx?feedid=106 It's about 15 minutes but it applies to you who compete against ANY low price competitor - not just offshore.]

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My friends tell me I take selling way too seriously. And that I break every problem down to a sales or communication issue. Well Bill, in Reagan’s words, “There you go again…”

I used to call on WalMart and other major retailers in a previous job, so I know how powerful their order-writing pens are. When they say to their suppliers, “JUMP” the response is usually, “YES SIR, HOW HIGH WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO JUMP?”

I can see it now…
…I can imagine a US toy company going in to sell WalMart their Christmas 2006 line of toys. After the presentation, the buyer says, “John, I like your offer. But I can get these from China for 30% less. You have to drop your price.” To which John concludes that it’s all about price (it never is, even at WalMart) and gets pulled down into the commodity conversation. He eventually can’t sell his products at a premium – so he loses the business.

But as we see now, all toys are not created equally. They are not a commodity.

The problem occurred when the US toy guy couldn’t differentiate between his toys and the cheaper, lead-painted Chinese toys. My question is: Was it a selling problem?

You see, the consumer (even WalMart) does NOT just look at price. The sales organizations who don’t know how to sell any other way (except for low price) will NEVER admit that. Consequently, the admonition of “everyone buys on price” is a convenient way to prevent them from having to work on their message – or themselves. It’s a lot less effort to ’sell cheap.’

Cheap Labor – Same Issue
I admit that cheap labor is quite enticing to businesses and customers. If I’m in the market for landscaping and I get three bids, chances are the one that uses the lowest-cost labor will probably be low bid. But is that what I’m buying? Just price?

Hell, if the American consumer bought on price and price alone, they wouldn’t buy anything. Because doing nothing is ALWAYS CHEAPER than doing anything.

When will American companies understand that they offer value – that their value is tied up in things broader than price – that how they sell/market/communicate to the customer is as important – if not more so – than their price?

I’ll tell you exactly when – when they get out of their own way and start focusing on the customers – and how they can bring value to the customers – instead of how can we sell a bunch of toys? (In the world of retail there are many more important things than price – like retail profit margins, marketing campaigns for the item, store sell-through, in-store displays, etc.)

If you’re in a head-to-head combat with a low priced provider – and you get chewed up often on price – then look much deeper into your value. Get a third party assessment of the value of your solution.

Here’s What To Do
Spend time away from the office with your people – and some customers. Record every word of what they say. Have it transcribed. Study it more. And soon, you will come up with the 3-5 things that separate you from everyone else. And it won’t be price. Ask them this question: “What do you believe you give up when you decide not to do business with us?”

If they say, “Nothing” then start worrying because you are nothing but a commodity. 

Because if you don’t believe your value is worth 10% – 20% – 30% – 100% more than your competition (and you should) then you won’t be able to sell that value to the customer.

And they’ll buy offshore. And babies might be poisoned.