Slay your Sales Demons
Twenty seven sales demons to slay
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- High hill
If you find yourself complaining that your task is too difficult or your territory too barren then you could have been overcome by the high hill demon. There are many ways to raise your game and achieve a challenging sales target. We provide proven tools and methods and teach the skills necessary for tossing the high hill demon off the hill.
- Green field
If you are new into a sales job, territory, or set of accounts you can be sure that any predecessor has either squeezed out every available piece of business or abandoned possibilities and left them to evaporate. This is just the way things are. Stomp on the green field demon. We can provide low cost and no cost strategies and techniques to kick start new business where it seems non-existent or out of reach.
- Too few enquiries
By far the easiest form of selling is converting enquirers to customers. It may seem that marketing is insufficiently effective, that lead generation is not a sales responsibility, or that promises are not being met. If so, you may have the ‘too few enquiries’ demon on your back. Shrug it off with a new set of principles, methods, and habits.
- Reluctance
Most sales people will do almost anything to avoid picking up the telephone to call strangers about business opportunities. It is easy to find other more pressing things to do. If you find yourself justifying your loathing with thoughts like, “it’s a poor use of my time” in any variation then you are cultivating the reluctance demon. This demon leaches away your potential like no other. Strangle it by learning how to cold call with confidence. We have the answers if you have the will.
- Referral
Satisfied customers, business partners, suppliers, and close contacts are a rich source for sales leads, introductions, and referrals yet sales people shy away from asking. If you overlook chances to mine your network for new opportunities, you have the referral demon stealthily sapping your potential. Cast it into any handy pit by developing your own referral prospecting system. We can provide the ideas and methods. All it takes is initiative.
- Unwarranted optimism
When results consistently fall short of forecasted business, you may have the ‘unwarranted optimism’ demon draped across your eyes. PMA – positive mental attitude is not the same thing. Get a large dose of realism. Use our tools to turn a spotlight on the dark corners and rip away the unwarranted optimism obscuring your vision.
- Altitude sickness
It is certainly more difficult to win the attention of senior people. If you claim that such executives won’t discuss what you are selling, you are absolutely right. If you consider this a valid excuse, then you are probably carrying the altitude sickness demon. We offer the means to drop it in the dust and crush it underfoot.
- Don’t go around me
If you find it difficult to obtain access to all of the people who are influential in a decision, then you harbour the ‘don’t go around me’ demon. This is fine if you don’t mind being treated like a mushroom – kept in the dark and fed manure. We put your finger on the light switch and give you a hose to rinse away muck and reveal reality.
- Murphy’s first impression
Have you ever made a poor first impression that cost you a sale? Could it happen again? This demon has a knack of lying dormant until its host gets complacent about a first impression. Leaning a simple set of rules can help you put this demon to sleep permanently.
- Never heard of you
Easily dismissed as a weak demon, it uses subtlety to trap the inexperienced into a fundamental blunder. Use a specific set of habits and skills to suck out its power and watch it wafting away on the breeze.
- Small Talk
Some people seem to have a knack of finding just the right few words to break the ice. They are always ready to start a conversation when a bleak silence threatens to raise tension. If you ever experience difficulty with this then you are a haven for the small talk demon. Drown it with a few easily learnable techniques.
- Babbling Rabbit
You know that you should let the customer do the talking. You have heard it a thousand times. Why then does the babbling rabbit grab you every time the customer mentions something you know a bit about? Turn your listening ratio up with persuasive listening skills and consign the babbling rabbit demon to it’s burrow forever.
- I forgot to ask about that
Have customers tell you everything you aught to know and a lot of extra confidential stuff by simply asking better questions. Never have to make another excuse for failing to ask. Use a set of reliable techniques and forget the ‘I forgot to ask about that’ demon. Let it turn to smoke and blow away on the wind.
- Bravado
Over confidence is meat and drink to this demon. When you catch yourself skipping the preparation and relying only on your abundance of talent, you are flying the bravado kite. Sooner or later, it will catch you out and cause a crash or worse - damage your career. Frameworks and planners help you carry out the necessary forethought, planning, and preparation.
- Money
If the customer hasn’t made adequate provision for a purchase, you may be in trouble. It is easy to accept customer platitudes like, “don’t worry about the money” and “it wont be a problem”. Companies don’t like spending money. They hire people to make it more difficult to spend company cash. If you need a sure way to find out if sufficient funding will be made available, when people don’t want to tell you, we can explain some methods that work. You can leave this demon fluttering in your wake when you know how.
- Prevaricating customer
If you tend to accept what a customer contact says, even when it isn’t clear or doesn’t make sense, you are likely to suffer the feeling of uncertainty that this demon stirs up. There is a multitude of ways to press a customer for more clarity without creating friction or discomfort. Smash this demon and help the customer learn something with persistent communication skills.
- Gullibility
If you tend to accept what a customer says without cross checking with alternative sources, then you may fall prey to the gullibility demon. In many peoples minds, misleading a sales person is not a sin. Your contact may be genuine in their intent to reassure, despite having an incorrect perception or the wrong data. Flush your gullibility demon down the gutter with simple habits.
- Tyre Kicker
If you find yourself working on deals that don’t ever close - for you or any competitor, you have given life to the tyre kicking demon. Use our tools to focus on the right issues, those that will tell you if a sale will really happen, before you invest a folder full of work. Kick your tyre kickers out, early with this unique system.
- Price is too high
If you feel that a high price is an ugly second head that frightens your prospects away then you have the price demon clutching your shoulder. We have the means to rip this demon from its perch and trash it under the wheels of a retreating competitor.
- Cheaper elsewhere
This demon is more subtle than the price demon. It lurks in ambush for the unwary and strikes at the foundation of confidence. It sneaks up and smites the unprepared. Use a practical step-by-step method to rob it of air and suffocate it before it gains a grip.
- Form filling
The management need to capture the knowledge stored in the heads of successful sales people to ensure continuity. They need to monitor the activities of sales people so that they get an early warning if things are going wrong. They need information to help them provide better help and support. Some amount of administration is essential to ensure that customers get what they bought. Use our unique short cut tools and keep this demon firmly in its box.
- Competition
“If you know yourself and not your enemy, for every victory you will suffer a defeat. If you know yourself and your enemy then you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy then you do not deserve to win a single battle”, wrote Sun Tzu. To put it in modern parlance, if you don’t even know who your competitors are, you can’t know whether you have an acceptable chance of winning. We provide solutions that help you discover who you are competing with, who they are talking to, and what they plan to do. Demolish competitors by using these tools to out think and out sell those who oppose you.
- Business justification
Every product or service has a business justification. Marketing people write them up and teach them to sales people so that they can feed their babbling rabbits (see above). If you catch yourself reciting canned business justifications, you are wearing the business justification demon as a belt. Dispense with it and have the customer make the business case for you. Then you won’t need belt or braces. We can provide a step-by-step, dependable solution that leads the customer to justify your sale.
- Written word
Sales people are usually good at face-to-face communication. It is hard to be successful in sales without being someone who inspires confidence, one way or another. At the same time, sales people need to be more action orientated than average. For many otherwise great sales people, the proposal-writing element is a type of communication better left to others. The need for attention to detail makes this task irksome at best and loathsome at worst. We have developed a set of guidelines to help reduce the pain and weaken the dread this demon causes.
- Black hole
Once you have submitted a proposal or quotation, the customer stops taking your calls. This does not necessarily mean that you have fallen from favour. It may only mean that the customer would prefer not to be bothered by your entirely self-centred attempts to hurry the process along. The lack of contact is unsettling because things could be going wrong and without access, there is little that you can do about it. There is a solution to this common difficulty. You can prevent the black hole form sucking you in.
- Empty bottle
You know that you are supposed to ask for the order. You know that sales people are supposed to be able to bring a sale to an early conclusion. In business-to-business situations and especially complex sales that involve many people in the decision making process, it seems as if closing has a neutral or even negative affect. There seems little opportunity to hurry the process or make a sale happen, except by buying the business forward. This thinking is a sign of a lurking ‘empty bottle’ demon. Shaking it off is one of the most challenging business-to-business sales tasks. We teach closing techniques that work in high value, complex sales. You have to supply the bottle.
- Dueling
Sometimes the duel takes place before you know you have won. Sometimes it takes place afterwards. Most customers will attempt to improve their side of a deal through negotiation. The duelling demon can be the most destructive of them all. It demands that you win when the imperative is for both you and the customer to win. It is easier to achieve when customers are as equally interested in your win as they are in their own. Often this is not the case. When the customer plays win-don’t care or even win-lose, you still have to play win-win. We can give you the tools and teach skills for banishing the duelling demon.