Posted by
Colin Wilson
8
Aug 07
I just bought a new car… well used actually… fed up with paying high depreciation. I bought another Merc, this one is a little bit more boring than the last one, but it’s nice and I can get passengers in the back – which is a novelty for me.
Anyhow, when I picked the car up the sales rep was at pains to point out that I will probably get a survey questionnaire from Mercedes and that he thought he should take me through one just in case it arrived one morning in my post box. As he went trough the questions he wanted to make sure I was happy that I could put excellent against each question – if in court I’m sure the judge would be saying to the barrister that he was leading the witness!
Now, the local branch don’t give out the surveys and so they have their own one that they wanted me to fill in – there and then – just as a dry run for when the real one comes in the post.
That was a week ago and I’ve just taken a call from customer services at the branch from where I purchased the car. They wanted to make sure that everything was ok, that I was getting on fine with the car… and did I have any questions and is there anything else they could be doing… etc… oh and before he went he remembered to mention that I may be getting a survey through the post and if there was any reason why I would be marking them down on any point… are they paranoid or what!
It turns out that Mercedes link their car quota’s to the survey response. The lower the mark from the customers the fewer cars they get. Fewer cars, less profit. So they need to make sure every customer realises the importance of this survey to their business and to do this they have to go out of their way to make sure all customers mark them as excellent. I understand their problem, but this just does not sit right with me… what’s your thoughts?
Oh and by the way, I will be marking them as excellent on all the points – I know I can because I’ve been trained to answer them correctly!
Posted by
Colin Wilson
15
May 06
In my last post I touched on the subject of professional services and giving sales people the wrong targets. I mentioned that delivery people and sales people need to be left alone to do their respective jobs – don’t get sales targeted on billings, for instance. Of course, in many smaller firms the sales person is also the delivery person. That’s how it works in our company. We sell and we deliver. It’s important, therefore, that both activities are managed separately. Many professionals who both sell and deliver fall into the trap of ’submarine’ management. In other words, they win some business and dive into the delivery and only surface to look for some more when the delivery of the job is over. They then have a delay while looking for new business. And this delay means they’re not billing. It’s important to look ahead and determine far enough in advance when more work is required. That means you need to take small amounts of time out during delivery to manage the selling process. This way, you’ll have a better chance of continuous work.
Posted by
Colin Wilson
12
May 06
One of the most common mistakes that I see in service organisations is that they mix sales and billings together. I applaud those services organisations that understand that selling is a profession and which have put in place sales people with targets – well done. Unfortunately, many of them link sales targets to billings – revenue. Billings are linked to delivery – and sales people don’t deliver. Why set them targets, therefore, for something over which they have no control? A service organisation delivering consultancy will have a project manager who controls when the service is delivered. They are the ones responsible to the client for delivery. In most cases they will also be responsible for the billing. So why would you set the sales guy a billing target? It’s mad. You end up having two people looking at delivery and, while the sales guy is pestering the project manager about billings, he is obviously not out looking for the new business necessary to create the work required to keep the consultants in work. High utilisation of consultants brings high billings. Service organisations need to make sure their sales people are set targets on contract value only. Don’t link their commission to billings. Do this and their focus will be on what they do best – bringing in new business.
Posted by
Colin Wilson
10
May 06
Here’s a thought: Everyone sells. Every organisation in the world needs to sell in order to survive. Those with a tangible product can see it and touch it and, above all, need to sell it. Those selling a service also have a product, although it’s intangible. Now, the tangibles may need to see their customers a number of times before they can sell their products. They’ll build up a list of customers and try to manage this list of prospects in a sales pipeline system. The intangibles will, in many instances, need to follow the same process. In their case they may visit a client a number of times to develop an understanding of the client’s need before they can develop a proposal that is acceptable to their client. However, how many of the people selling a service - the accountants, the consultants, and the lawyers - manage their potential sales using a formal sales pipeline? Many will no doubt have a list of potential deals, but how many will give themselves a target for sales? Now don’t get confused here with billings; billings come from orders that have been won. What I’m talking about is a target for winning orders. If you need to bill 100k in a month, how much business do you need to win to allow you to bill that amount? And by when must you have won it in order to deliver it? People selling services must separate sales from billings. They are two different things and need to be managed separately. I’ll look at this further in future posts.
Posted by
Colin Wilson
9
May 06
Lawyers are human after all! Of course, to assume that lawyers are not human - based on the actions of a few - is a generalisation (see Understanding Communication part two). Let’s face it, all professions have their representative aliens that make us feel like a potential dish of the day for a carnivorous invading army. I digress. My experience with the lawyers of the International Practice Group is that they are all very human and a great bunch of people. What came across particularly clearly is that they have a very practical outlook on how they support their clients. They also recognise that they are all sales people, although like many people in professional services a number of them are probably uncomfortable with this thought! The feedback to my presentation was very positive and I believe I made them think – mission accomplished.
I also managed to get them all up out of their seats developing their circle of excellence. This ritual may look very funny to the onlooker but is a powerful technique in helping you reach a very resourceful frame of mind. Master it and you’ll have the confidence to tackle anything. Lawyers always seem to me to be a very confident bunch of people (a generalisation), except when it comes to discussing fees (yet more generalising!) with their clients. I asked them how confident they were in discussing fees and you could see most of them squirming just at the thought. Did they feel confident about talking to their client on this subject – No! Now here’s the learning point. If they are not confident about asking, why would the client be confident in paying?
Posted by
Webmaster
9
May 06
Firstborder.com invites you to download our free needs analysis tool. The first in a suite of tools by First Border designed to make selling easier…
“The first part of helping someone to buy is to understand their need. This is fundamental if you want to sell with integrity. This is also fundamental if you want to be successful at selling.
Understanding and finding out if there is a real need is also the first part of correctly qualifying a prospect. Without a ‘need’, there is often no sale.”
The First Border Needs Analysis Tool will help you develop and understand your prospects needs - available now as a free download.
Posted by
Colin Wilson
8
May 06
My presentation in Vienna was sandwiched between those of Dr Maximillian Burger-Scheidlin and Professor August Reinisch. I sat in on Dr Burger-Scheidlin’s presentation on “Why do we facilitate to finance organised crime?… are we partly the root cause?” This fascinating talk looked at how different laws and government actions that are designed to stop criminals making money actually make it easier for criminals to make more money. He also spoke about how trade barriers put in place by governments to help protect some of their national industries actually end up having the reverse effect and damage the industries by making them less competitive. Laws brought in to help stop the take up of smoking, for example, actually increase smoking. In Austria they have recently hiked the price of cigarettes by 20%. This was designed to put the price of cigarettes out of the reach of the young. However, what it actually does is increase the size of the black market for cheap (tax free) cigarettes and make them more affordable for the young. Taxes raised from cigarettes will decline and less money will be available to fund the medical facilities required to treat those who suffer from smoking related illness.
What I took away form this presentation is that there are many ways of looking at the same thing. What you see is not always what it at first appears to be. The same can be said about communication – what you hear in words is not always the meaning of the communication. I explain this apparent paradox in my series of articles on communication. I also explain how we arrive at our own view of the event, which may be quite different from the event itself. This was part of my message to the lawyers – how would they take it?
Posted by
Colin Wilson
8
May 06
I’m in Vienna to give a presentation to the International Practice Group. The IPG is an international network of independent law and accountancy firms and they’re having a conference this week in the beautiful surroundings of the Austrian capital. A few months ago I delivered a talk on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to an American Chamber of Commerce meeting in Strasbourg. One of the delegates there was a lawyer and member of the IPG. He enjoyed the talk and invited me to this conference. So, here I am with the opportunity to address a captive audience of lawyers and accountants on NLP. My presentation is called “Communicating Your Uniqueness – an introduction to NLP”. In many ways it follows the series of articles that I’m posting on the website and it’s also highly flavoured with references to selling. How will lawyers and accountants feel about being considered sales people? I’ll let you know!
Posted by
Colin Wilson
4
May 06
In my previous post I mentioned South African ski resorts. You may not think the idea of this strange but there was a time when I did. That was before I lived there, of course. We moved to South Africa in October 1994, not long after Mandela became president, although I don’t think the two events were directly connected! October is spring in SA and summer is on its way. I had imagined South Africa to be a very hot country and so it is – just not all the time. The first car we got had a heater and we laughed at this and put it down to the fact that all cars must come with them fitted as standard and it would probably cost too much to take them out. When winter came we found out why the cars have heaters. We also learnt the huge benefit of a north facing house. Ours was south facing and, as the sun shines from the north, it was a huge disadvantage in the winter. Quite simply, the house never warmed up. The temperature fell to about -4 centigrade during the night and rose to +20 centigrade during the day. But still the house never warmed up during the day because it was south facing. We had coats by the front door, not to put on when we left the house, but to put on when we came in! That house was so cold… it’s the coldest I’ve been in my life - and that’s saying something.
However, we soon learnt how to live in South Africa. We learnt, especially, to appreciate the heater in the car. We then moved to a north facing house – and what a difference that made – and we also learnt to appreciate that the country has ski resorts. It’s a beautiful country with wonderful people and well worth a visit. But be warned; it can get cold.
Which brings me to my point – cold calling. Last week I advised a new customer that I thought cold calling does not get great results and that the money spent on doing it could be better used. A couple of days later I was reading a sales magazine article about the success of a sales director. He explained that he’s looking for salespeople who can take a sale from cold call to multimillion pound deal and was lamenting the fact that there are not many people who can do it. Given my experience, I’m not surprised! What he wants are salespeople who can sit down with the Yellow Pages and make calls. As I said; I do not believe cold calling works well. I know lots of people do it but I believe there are better and more intelligent ways of getting business. After reading the article I came across Frank Rumbauskas’ views on cold calling – basically don’t. I then also read Jill Konrath’s views on cold calling in her book Selling to Big Companies – basically don’t. So I’m not on my own here. Is cold calling on its death bed or am I just attracted to the views that I agree with? In my defence I can only ask who in sales enjoys being out in the cold? I certainly don’t!
Posted by
Colin Wilson
3
May 06
Whenever I start looking through my diary to set some dates for appointments I find myself having to take into account one holiday season or another. Easter was a week or so ago. You can’t sell then because people take an Easter break. Before that it was Christmas and we know what that’s like. But that’s just the official holidays. Between Christmas and Easter you can struggle to get to anybody who enjoys skiing. Then, between Easter and the summer we have Whitsun and a couple of Bank Holidays. Do you guys in the USA have Whitsun?
Speaking of the US, how much time do you think you lose over Thanksgiving? Here’s an idea. You know how companies use follow-the-sun support? What about implementing follow-no-holiday for selling. The UK is good for selling over Thanksgiving, for instance. Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa will be good for selling in July and August because it’s deepest winter. Of course, you may have a South African client who likes skiing so they’ll shoot off in July or August to a South African ski resort – yes, South Africa does have ski resorts! (http://www.webpro.co.za/clients/ski/sanipics.htm). And there are quite a few countries that don’t celebrate Christmas, so if you need to keep your quota going during the festive season, they could prove a good bet. Maybe. Maybe not.
So when is the best time for selling where?
Grab our Feed 
In 
