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Issue #363 August 6, 2008 – Selling and Sales Skills Newsletter
Publisher: David Riklan – http://www.selfgrowth.com

In this issue:

– Sponsor of the Week
– Inspirational Quotes for the Sales Professional
– Article: How To Seal The Deal In Seven Seconds – By Lydia Ramsey
– Article: Compensate To Motivate – By Lee Salz
– Book Review: The Truth About Email Marketing – Simms Jenkins
– How to Subscribe and Unsubscribe from this Newsletter

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*** Sponsor of the Week ***
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* How to Become Known as the “Productivity Wizard” *
Do you have a mountain of things to do and no time to do them? Do you constantly work late but have little to show for it? Well, it’s time you learned the Amazing Time Management Secret that Shows You How To Master Your Time! With the new book “Super Tactics of Time Management Expert,” you will learn how to become proficient in the art of prioritizing, how to finish work in less time and attain a balanced life, and much more! Learn more here.

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*** Inspirational Quotes for the Sales Professionals ***
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We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are.
- Tobias Wolff

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
- H. L. Mencken

It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.
- Sir Winston Churchill

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** Article: How To Seal The Deal In Seven Seconds – By Lydia Ramsey **
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Can you close a sale in just seven seconds? You can do it even faster if you make a great first impression. Seven seconds is the average length of time you have to make a first impression. If your first impression is not good you won’ t get another chance with that potential client. But if you make a great first impression you can bet that the client is more likely to take you and your company seriously.

Whether your initial meeting is face-to-face, over the phone or via the Internet, you do not have time to waste. It pays for you to understand how people make their first judgment and what you can do to be in control of the results.

1. Learn What People Use To Form Their First Opinion.
When you meet someone face-to-face, 93% of how you are judged is based on non- verbal data – your appearance and your body language. Only 7% is influenced by the words that you speak. Whoever said that you can’t judge a book by its cover failed to note that people do. When your initial encounter is over the phone, 70% of how you are perceived is based on your tone of voice and 30% on your words. Clearly, it’s not what you say – it’s the way that you say it.

2. Choose Your First Twelve Words Carefully.
Although research shows that your words make up a mere 7% of what people think of you in a one-on-one encounter, don’t leave them to chance. Express some form of thank you when you meet the client. Perhaps, it is “Thank you for taking your time to see me today” or “Thank you for joining me for lunch.” Clients appreciate you when you appreciate them.

3. Use The Other Person’s Name Immediately.
There is no sweeter sound than that of our own name. When you use the client ’s name in conversation within your first twelve words and the first seven seconds, you are sending a message that you value that person and are focused on him. Nothing gets other people’s attention as effectively as calling them by name.

4. Pay Attention To Your Hair.
Your clients will. In fact, they will notice your hair and face first. Putting off that much-needed haircut or color job may cost you the deal. Very few people want to do business with someone who is unkempt or whose hairstyle does not look professional. Don’t let a bad hair day cost you the connection.

5. Keep Your Shoes In Mint Condition.
People will look from your face to your feet. If your shoes aren’t well maintained, the client will question whether you pay attention to other details. Shoes should be polished as well as appropriate for the business environment. They may be the last thing you put on before you walk out the door, but they are often the first thing your client notices.

6. Walk Fast.
Studies show that people who walk 10-20% faster than others are viewed as important and energetic – just the kind of person your clients want to do business with. Pick up the pace and walk with purpose if you want to impress. You never know who may be watching.

7. Fine Tune Your Handshake.
The first move you make when meeting your prospective client is to put out your hand. There isn’t a businessperson anywhere who can’t tell you that the good business handshake should be a firm one. Yet time and again people offer a limp hand to the client. You’ll be assured of giving an impressive grip and getting off to a good start if you position your hand to make complete contact with the other person’s hand. Once you’ve connected, close your thumb over the back of the other person’s hand and give a slight squeeze. You’ll have the beginning of a good business relationship.

8. Make Introductions With Style.
It does matter whose name you say first and what words you use when making introductions in business. Because business etiquette is based on rank and hierarchy, you want to honor the senior or highest ranking person by saying his name first. When the client is present, he is always the most important person. Say the client’s name first and introduce other people to the client. The correct words to use are “I’d like to introduce…” or “I’d like to introduce to you…” followed by the name of the other person.

9. Never Leave The Office Without Your Business Cards.
Your business cards and how you handle them contribute to your total image. Have a good supply of them with you at all times since you never know when and where you will encounter a potential client. How unimpressive is it to ask for a person’s card and have them say, ” Oh, I’m sorry. I think I just gave my last one away.” You get the feeling that this person has already met everyone he wants to know. Keep your cards in a card case or holder where they are protected from wear and tear. That way you will be able to find them without a lot of fumbling around, and they will always be in pristine condition.

10. Match Your Body Language To Your Verbal Message.
A smile or pleasant expression tells your clients that you are glad to be with them. Eye contact says you are paying attention and are interested in what is being said. Leaning in toward the client makes you appear engaged and involved in the conversation. Use as many signals as you can to look interested and interesting.

In the business environment, you plan your every move with potential clients. You arrange for the appointment, you prepare for the meeting, you rehearse for the presentation, but in spite of your best efforts, potential clients pop up in the most unexpected places and at the most bizarre times. For that reason, leave nothing to chance. Every time you walk out of your office, be ready to make a powerful first impression.

About the Author:

Lydia Ramsey is a business etiquette expert, professional speaker, corporate trainer and author of Manners That Sell: Adding The Polish That Builds Profits. She has been quoted or featured in The New York Times, Investors’ Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Inc., Real Simple and Woman’s Day. For more information about her programs, products and services, e-mail her at lydia@mannersthatsell.com or visit her web site http://www.mannersthatsell.com

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** Article: Compensate To Motivate – By Lee Salz **
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Channeling the energy of a sales team can be challenging. How you compensate them determines where they invest their time and the results you get.

When I speak to business executives, one of the challenges I often hear is that their sales team is not doing the things they feel are most critical to the success of the company. I then ask to see their compensation plan. After a thorough read, I share my impression of the message of the compensation plan and ask if this is their intention. That’s when things get scary! They look at me blankly and say, “No, our intention is for our sales people to…” For them, the disconnect has been exposed.

What many forget is that the blessing of sales is that a compensation plan doubles as a job description. However, that blessing is also a curse as a compensation plan doubles as a job description. As one executive shared after going through the aforementioned exercise, “We want our sales people to focus on selling our new product to our existing clients. Yet, we are compensating the sales people in a way that they are better off pursuing new clients.” He got it!

The incongruence of sales compensation is one of the biggest disconnects in companies. Executives sit in a board room with strategic plans of grandeur, but the plan collapses when they don’t address the compensation for the sales troops. It is a very simple equation. Sales people invest their time on activities that drive their compensation. Plain and simple. The thought that sales people will actively and consistently perform activities that are not in their best financial interests is naïve.

Further complicating matters, there are instances where sales people are compensated for delivering certain results while their managers are compensated on a different set of results. Thus, the sales managers are driving their team consistently with their compensation message, but inconsistently with their sales team members. It creates the visual of the sales manager pushing a boulder up a hill trying to get their team to focus on activities that contradict their income. Best of luck!

When structuring sales compensation plans, a company should strongly consider the goals for the company. Working backwards, the goals for the company drive the structure of the sales compensation plan. Thus, they should be directly aligned. If the company’s goal is to gain adoption of a new product in the marketplace, the plan should reward sales people for accomplishing this feat. If the goal is to increase revenue with their current clientele, the plan should reward for that. Anyone should be able to read the plan and derive the intended message.

The second consideration, when structuring sales compensation plans, is that sales managers and sales people should have alignment with their respective results. If one is compensated for adding new clients and the other for selling a new product to existing clients, and it does matter which is compensated for which, the incongruence causes a paralysis of performance.

Making this more daunting is that in complex sales environments, those that have protracted buying cycles, the standard salary and commission model does not create enough of a framework to ensure that the sales team performs the right activities every day. How do you structure the plan so that the team is motivated to do the right things every hour of every day?

Employers also face a challenge of hiring sales people who are concerned about the length of time of the buying cycle in contrast to their earnings. The standard solution is to bridge the gap with a draw. As you probably know, there are two types of draws. There is the recoverable draw which is, in essence, a loan against the sales person’s future commissions. Then, there is the other, the non-recoverable draw which is money, free and clear, to the sales person for some period of time. Nothing good comes out of either of these. The recoverable draw, almost always, puts the sales person in a financial hole. They wake up each morning knowing they owe the company money. No one enjoys the feeling of debt. The non-recoverable draw, often times, creates an earnings cliff. Let’s say that the draw is for three months at $2,000 per month. In month four, the sales person probably experiences a significant fall-off in their earnings. The end result is relationship damage between the sales person and the company and a poor corporate investment. How do you structure the sales compensation plan to bridge the earnings gap when recruiting new sales people?

The challenge of motivating sales people and bridging the sales earnings gap can be solved with a creative compensation approach. In the 1980s and 1990s, the big buzz term was MBO (Management by Objective). Business people were provided with a series of objectives, and following a performance review, were compensated for achievement of such. What if the MBO concept was applied to sales compensation? What if you created a Sales Behavioral Objective or SBO?

If you are reading this and think that I’ve just created additional sales cost, think again. I’m proposing a reallocation of the dollars paid to your sales team. A percentage of the dollars normally budgeted for commissions would be allocated for an SBO bonus.

Consider this. A company has a typical buying process with its clientele that is six months long. They pay their sales people a base salary of $60,000. At 100% of plan, the sales person earns $90,000 or $30,000 over their base salary. However, no commissions are earned in their first six months of employment due to the buying cycle. The company, as a means of managing sales behaviors and attracting strong sales talent, budgets $15,000 of the $30,000 of commissions for the SBO bonus. The sales person is then eligible to earn a $3,500 bonus each quarter in year one.

At the beginning of each quarter, the sales person has a formal review where the results of the prior quarter are shared and the mission for the second is presented. The SBO changes from quarter to quarter based on the tenure of the sales person and the needs of the business. The SBO is also not a “gimme.” 100% accomplishment should be a stretch goal, but achievable for the sales person.

In the first quarter, the overall mission is getting the sales person assimilated into the company’s environment. The measurements of success at the end of the quarter are: a business/territory plan, the ability for the sales person to call on prospects, and knowledge of the products. As measurement of achievement, the company provides a written test on product knowledge, a scored, mock sales call, a scored, mock, sales presentation, and review of their business/territory plan. Based on the sales person’s accomplishments, they will receive a percentage of the $3,500 up to 100%.

In future quarters, a points system is put in place, making the SBO entirely objective, tied to performing the activities deemed critical for the success of the business. In each quarter, the goal is for the sales person to achieve 100 points. The main objective in the second quarter for this company is to have face-to-face meetings with qualified prospects. They are looking for their sales person to have twenty face-to-face meetings in the quarter as a way to jump start their sales pipeline. Thus, the SBO compensates five points for each meeting held. At the end of the quarter, whatever percentage the sales person delivers of the 100 points, with a minimum achievement of 75%, is paid as a bonus. This includes those who over perform. Why penalize them for doing more of the right things? What about quality? How do you know they are doing the right things in the prospect meeting? Hopefully, you measured their proficiency in doing those things in the first quarter.

The SBO program, in future quarters, is designed by identifying key, measurable sales activities aligned with the needs of the business. Place weighting on the activities commensurate with your expectations of the sales person.

Some of you are probably thinking, “No way, I pay for results!” Well, results are a function of doing the right things each and every day. Results are not miraculous. They are formulaic. The reality is that you have skin in the game with the SBO. As a business executive, you and your team are tasked with determining what it takes for a sales person to generate the results you desire. If you have done your job of identifying the success metrics and the sales person achieves those, the results take care of themselves. The SBO is not just for year one since the challenge of managing sales behaviors is perpetual. One important key is to budget enough dollars for the SBO bonus that it gets the attention of the sales people, but not so high that it overshadows commissions.

The bottom line is that the SBO program gives you the tool kit to channel the energy of the sales team toward achieving that goal. It also provides you with a mechanism to attract sales talent to your company where, right on day one, they need to perform to earn dollars over their salary. One other benefit of this program for those companies with lengthy buying processes, the SBO provides you with a way to assess the sales person’s performance in a way that you can identify, more quickly, those who will not be successful in your company.

One thing is for sure, the executive team of the company in the story knows that if they paid a sales person $15,000 SBO bonus in year one, year two and beyond are going to be stellar.

About the Author:

Lee B. Salz is the CEO of Business Expert Webinars, President of Sales Dodo, and author of “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager.” Known as “The Sales Dodo,” Lee specializes in helping companies and their sales organizations adapt and thrive in the ever-changing world of business. He is an online columnist for Sales and Marketing Management Magazine and the host of the Internet radio show, “Secrets of Business Gurus.” Look for Lee’s new book in 2009 titled, “The Sales Marriage… How to Hire the Right Sales People.” He is a passionate, dynamic speaker and a business consultant. Lee can be reached via email at lsalz@salesdodo.com, or by phone at 763.416.4321.

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*** Book Review: The Truth About Email Marketing – Simms Jenkins ***
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Everything you must know to utilize email marketing in your corporation or small business!

* The truth about recession-proofing your business with email marketing
* The truth about measuring results and improving promotional and newsletter campaigns
* The truth about email marketing versus spam

This book reveals 49 proven email marketing best practices and bite-size, easy-to-use techniques that get results

Email marketing is one of the most incredibly powerful yet misunderstood marketing channels of the business world. While many companies practice email marketing, few get it right. Industry expert, Simms Jenkins, provides a set of best practices to help you assess and refine your strategy and tactics. Your organization can gain much from new and proven approaches to email marketing: strengthen customer relationships, create loyalty, and build trust and awareness. The result is increased responses in sales, leads, registrations, and more.

About the Author:

Simms Jenkins is chief executive officer of BrightWave Marketing, an award-winning email marketing services firm specializing in the strategic optimization of email marketing programs. He has extensive relationship and interactive marketing experience on both the client and agency side. Jenkins has led BrightWave Marketing in establishing a large and diverse client list, including top-tier brands such as ACS, BellSouth, California Casualty, CoreNet Global, Lowe’s, Sports Illustrated, and Ted’s Montana Grill, as well as leading advertising and marketing firms.

Jenkins is regarded as one of the leading experts in the email marketing industry, and the expertise of both Jenkins and BrightWave clients have been recognized and featured by a range of prominent media outlets, including Bloomberg and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Jenkins and his column for iMedia Connection, a leading interactive marketing and media publication, have been called one of the top 21 information sources for email marketers. In 2007, Jenkins facilitated a major industry partnership as BrightWave Marketing and The Email Experience Council joined forces to launch EmailStatCenter.com, the first centralized online repository of statistics and research specific to the email marketing industry.

The list price for this book is $18.99. To purchase it from Amazon.com for $12.91. a 32% discount, go directly to http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0789737949/selfimprovemeonlA/