Selling in 2010, especially as the economy grows again, hinges on how you handle those critical junctures in your interactions with sales prospects. As I’ve said, what you say or do during those junctures can most impact the outcome, moving the deal more quickly to a close or immediately breaking it. The first 120 seconds with a prospect, whether on the phone or in person, is the most important or “golden” juncture — that’s when what you say or do you creates that first impression.

So, now you’re thinking, “Don’t I have enough pressure going into my sales calls?” While focusing on the critical junctures may seem daunting, it’s actually easier than you think to say and do what will win over the prospect. You don’t have to be a super-bright and entertaining conversationalist or wow the prospect with a slick PowerPoint and a stack of collateral. Mainly, you need to be prepared and you need to be proactive.

Your focus may be on your presentation of your company and its product or service, however you need to also keep in mind that minor behaviors during your interactions with the prospect can reveal more than your slides do and have more influence on the prospect’s ultimate decision to buy from you.

For example, I had sat down with a prospect in a conference room at their office to start our first meeting. To get settled in for taking notes and answering my prospect’s questions, I took off my suit jacket and neatly rolled up the sleeves of my shirt. I later won this prospect’s business and when I did the due diligence of asking them why they selected my company, they told me that removing my jacket and rolling up my sleeves (among other things) had made an impression. It showed to them that I was ready to go to work and that I was a true consultant and not some slick salesperson.

So you see how easy it is for the smallest action to have an impact on the direction your sales call or meeting takes. An action such as this demonstrates to the prospect that you are sincere about wanting to work with them and it can help you establish trust. Conversely, behavior that indicates you’re not listening (e.g., not answering the prospect’s questions or interrupting them), talking about irrelevant subjects, talking fast, and making poor eye contact gives the impression you are not totally engaged, disinterested, in a hurry to close the sale or trying too hard.

You want to proactively include behavior such as what I describe in the example as you interact with your prospect; but at the same time be yourself and make sure you are tuned into the prospect’s current mindset. It’s really easy to incorporate the behaviors that will have a positive effect when you remember to be prepared and be proactive.

I am a sales nerd, and compelling performance really fires me up.
Attended the NEHRA conference in Dedham, MA last week and was treated to an amazing presentation. Considering that it took place during the last session of the day makes it all the more remarkable. As you can tell from recent posts I am all about timing in selling interactions – and yes, giving a presentation, even when it is not overtly selling, is selling!
Kris’ presentation on social media was timely, thought-provoking and note-worthy. Now, while the material was interesting the phenomenal aspect of the presentation for me was the way Kris executed it.
Kris was part of a two-person team presenting on the subject; she waited patiently to the side of the podium as her colleague spoke. This alone can be a nerve-racking experience…waiting for your opportunity, running through your presentation in your mind…worrying that you’re forgetting something…!
Twenty minutes into the session Kris was introduced to the audience. Sharply dressed and confident in demeanor, she quickly moved from behind the relative “safety” of the podium and addressed the audience. I am extremely interested in what a presenter does in the first two minutes of her presentation – a critical time period to hook your audience; or, put them to sleep.
Well, Kris nailed this critical 120 seconds of every sales call wonderfully. Of note: Body language including eye contact, placement of arms (forward), soft hand motions (a lot like the professional baseball player smoothly fielding the groundball) and stance (not cowering like she didn’t want to be up there; rather that she just knew her information would be compelling to us…). So the first two minutes went well, but could she keep it up? I was inwardly cheering her on. I wanted her to succeed.
And, did she ever!
The pace, energy and fluidity of the first two minutes continued throughout the entire presentation. At approximately the 15 minute mark, I looked down at my notes; I had written four words: Energy / Projection / Knowledge / Enthusiasm, as I wanted to capture the essence of this tour-de-force. She stayed positioned in front of the podium the entire time; with no reference to notes, instead working masterfully off the slides being projected on the screen.
After she finished, I eagerly approached her because this is the kind of stuff I love. I wanted to analyze not the information she presented on, but rather her presentation technique. I asked her what she did to prepare – over-and-above being an expert in her field, of course. In my consultancy I stress the importance of preparation, execution and debrief. So I was particularly interested to find out how she prepared for such a high level of performance. In response to my saying, you must have role-played and rehearsed this a couple of times, she replied “No, not a couple of times; ten times.”
All the hard work paid off and resulted in a masterful performance for her…and a great learning experience for all of us. Way to go Kris!

If there’s a sales professional you know who is consistently closing deals and exceeding sales goals, chances are that person is skilled at connecting with his/her contacts and nurturing those relationships. The essence of great selling is the relationships you establish and build, primarily with your prospects, but also with your current customers and with associates in your business network.

You don’t need to be a social butterfly or leave your specific human relations comfort zone to be great at relationship-building. All you need to do is employ the following tactics in your sales approach and you’ll see that making and fostering connections is a natural process which can lead to rewarding relationships with long-term advantages for both you and your contacts.

1. Find out what your prospects’ goals, issues and challenges are at the outset of your first call or meeting. By proactively inquiring about and learning your prospect’s needs, you demonstrate you care but also have the information you need to best respond to those needs and provide a solution.

2. Establish and maintain trust – this is very important to building and maintaining relationships. You want to make sure you protect the relationship you’ve formed by “walking the talk” — for example, if you tell your customers they can call you 24/7, be available to accept the call 24/7; or, if you promise to deliver something by a specific date or time, make sure you deliver on that promise.

3. Focus on what’s in it for them. As discussed in my last blog post, taking the opportunity to explain “what’s in it for them” is a critical juncture in every sales interaction. You need to convey to the prospect the value they’ll receive by buying from and working with you, and that point needs to be part of your core sales message in the early stages of your first call or meeting.

4. Listen. This is so vital to cementing your relationships and perhaps the greatest gift you can give any prospect. Your prospects are accustomed to having sales people talk at them and recite their product’s or service’s features without getting an understanding of their problems, needs or goals. By listening, you convey respect for what they have to say and in turn earn theirs.

The sales profession is crowded with people who are focused on just telling the customer about their product or service and making the sale — not on the customer. By interacting with your prospects in a heartfelt way, you’ll make that essential connection much more easily and help shorten your sales cycle. By continuing this approach as prospects become customers, you will strengthen that connection and create enduring relationships that will benefit you in multiple ways.

Too often, sales people start off their sales calls by making casual conversation in an attempt to form a more social or personal connection with the prospect. Or they immediately launch into the exhaustive details of their product. Not only are they not focusing on the prospect’s goals for the sales call, they are neglecting to address and respond to the question that is utmost in the minds of all prospects during a sales call or meeting — Why should I buy from you? A variant of that question is “What’s in it for me (WIFM)?

Of all the critical junctures in a sales call or meeting, the opportunity to respond to “Why You?” is up there at the top of the list. And, it is an opportunity that should be seized on in the very early stages.

The reasons for why a prospect should buy from you are the most powerful part of your sales pitch and should make up the core of your overall sales message, which is why you need to convey them sooner rather than later. It is critical that you avoid talking about superfluous matters and engaging in any energy-sucking conversation as you steer toward this heart of your pitch.

As long as you have something in your message that identifies what’s in it for them — the value the prospect will receive from buying your product or service as well as what separates you from the competition — they will listen, and you’ll have greater success at capturing their interest in your product and, ultimately, their business.

You can ensure your sales pitch leverages this critical juncture and responds to the “Why You?” question by doing the following:

• Determining and focusing on your prospects’ goals;

• Creating a sales message that is concise and conveys the value the prospect will gain from buying your product or service; and

• Creating and executing a plan for how the sales call or meeting will be conducted and when you will establish why the customer should buy from you.

Once you’ve won the customer’s business, you should make sure you then do the due diligence of finding out why they bought from you. Chances are the messages and actions you used to respond to “Why You?” will come back to you.

The signs are there that we’re pulling out of the recession and businesses are starting to see growth. While there are certain areas that are still feeling the squeeze from the downturn, optimism has become the prevailing outlook.

This is good news for sales professionals. With business activity on the rise, that means you’ll start closing more sales! Right? Right?

Well, that’s right as long as you go out there with an approach that works for the changing times. Remember that selling situations have evolved since the last time the economy was healthy. The business owner or executive with the buying power has developed a different mindset — they’re more focused on streamlining operations, being efficient and getting more bang for their buck. Gaining value as well as solutions is a primary goal and they’re more thoughtful about their purchases. They’re also more pressed for time.

Therefore, with the “new” economy, your old tried-and-true sales techniques won’t work. You need to start using fresh approaches and techniques, but also return to sales fundamentals such as preparation that are crucial to winning over prospects.

The Golden 120 Seconds of Every Sales Call offers a fresh approach to sales focusing on the critical junctures in every sales interaction in which what you say and do can most impact the outcome. The principles of this approach focus on what you do before (in preparation) and after as well as during the sales call or meeting. Most important are the initial critical junctures, which is when you make that lasting impression, establish trust and have the best opportunity to connect with the prospect by demonstrating what’s in it for them.

As announced in a press release last week, my Sales Training seminar that’s coming up on May 6-7 will highlight and expand on the principles in The Golden 120 Seconds of Every Sales Call. It’s the perfect opportunity to learn this fresh sales approach and gain new techniques that will maximize your sales efforts and ultimately boost your sales revenue.

Selling in 2010 is going to hinge on how you handle the critical junctures in your sales interactions. Are you ready?

Too many sales people get into a conversation with a prospect and can’t stop talking. It doesn’t matter whether they are on the phone or meeting the prospect in person — they just have this urgency to say everything they feel needs to be said to the prospect to make the sale. It’s the belief of many sales people that the prospect should know every piece of information about the product or service they are selling — every feature and every benefit.

What is really bad about this behavior is that the sales person, in his or her drive to get to what they want to say, is very likely not listening to the prospect. They are not letting the prospect explain their goals and needs because they are too focused on conveying all the great things they know about their product/service. Worse, they may even be interrupting the prospect in their rush to say what they want to say!

What’s almost comical about this behavior is that sometimes the sales person will have the sale (and the prospect will have even conveyed that), yet the sales person WILL STILL BE TALKING! How annoying to have someone continue to “sell” to you even after you have said “yes.”

What these overly talkative salespeople fail to realize is that the prospect is often only interested in hearing about specific aspects of the product/service; prospects are usually looking to address just one or two problems or needs. If these salespeople would stop and listen to their prospect, they would actually make the sales process easier. By learning what the prospect’s issues are, a sales person can then pinpoint what their sales pitch should focus on. By listening, sales people would not only learn what the prospect’s goals and needs are, but learn enough about the prospect’s business to discover what other areas need to be addressed (even areas the prospect might not even be aware of). They would discover what’s in it for the prospect, because that’s all the prospect wants to know — “What’s in it for me.”

Listening is the greatest gift you can give a prospect. It is how sales people can establish trust and start building the foundation for a lasting client relationship. Once a prospect knows you are listening to them and that you’ve heard what THEY want to say, you’ll have cleared a shorter and smoother path to winning their business.

There are many companies (notably, those in the business of selling professional services) who have a business model structured around “business development.” They use the term “business development” rather than “sales” because their focus is growing the business through expanding the base of customers or clients using their service and finding leads on potential customers/clients. Meanwhile, there are companies who may have a “business development” person or team as well as people in a “sales” capacity. In either case, business development people are also in the practice of selling and follow the same procedures as salespeople.

Typically, the people who are part of a company or firm’s business development team are sales people by trade; they have a sales background and a sales person’s mindset. Also, they use a sales person’s approach and tactics, such as cold-calling prospects, scheduling presentations and engaging prospects in follow-up discussions to win the deal or business.

Although my book, “The Golden 120 Seconds of Every Sales Call” and my consultancy look at the “sales” process, the principles I discuss also apply to business development.

The person engaged in “business development” (he/she could be the business owner or someone in the role of heading up business development) is “selling” themselves, their company, their brand and their value proposition as well as the key features of their service or product. They’re trying to make an impression as, like the salesperson, they are often trying to set themselves apart from companies who are competing for the business.

For those of you in business development, there are also those critical junctures with a prospect — those golden moments — in which what you say and do can impact whether you win the prospect’s business. These junctures are brief and can come and go before you have recognized them and grabbed at the opportunity and acted upon them.

Like the sales person, preparation prior to a call or meeting is crucial, including planning how you’re going to engage the prospect in the first 120 seconds. You need to employ proactive behaviors to move things forward in your business development interactions, however you want to make sure you observe proper protocol for dealing with and winning over prospective clients.

By using the approach of acting on “The Golden 120 Seconds,” you can gain the confidence, the focus and the edge you need to close more business.

The critical junctures in which sales people can make or break the sale don’t necessarily occur during the actual sales call or meeting. As I’ve discussed in prior blog posts and in my book, “The Golden 120 Seconds of Every Sales Call,” preparation — what you do in advance of the sales call/meeting — is vital, as is remembering that the sales call begins the moment you drive into your prospect’s parking lot and doesn’t end until after you drive away.

It’s this later point I now want to focus on.

When traveling to a prospect’s office, you may not be just using a car — you may be also taking public transportation such as a train, plane or bus. If that’s the case, watching your behavior starts as soon as you enter the terminal, occupy public waiting areas and especially once you are on the plane/train/bus itself.

My public relations person recently shared with me this scene she witnessed on a flight from Boston to Florida: Two gentlemen sitting in the aisle seats across the aisle from her (one was seated behind the other) were talking quite loudly about the meeting they were going to with a well-known company. It was clearly a sales presentation and the man in the front seat had a laptop open and sticking out in the aisle so the man behind him could see it. They were working on their presentation and discussing their strategy for closing the sale, frequently mentioning the company’s name and the names of individuals who would be attending the meeting. There were a couple times in which the tone of their discussion with respect to this prospect sounded less than positive.

So many things occuring in this scenario are terribly wrong!

1. These men were talking publicly about their sales prospect.
2. They were mentioning the prospect company and meeting attendees by name (again, publicly).
3. They were displaying their sales presentation so others could see.
4. They were discussing publicly their strategy for closing this sale.
5. They were allowing a derogatory tone to enter their discussion which others could hear.

What if someone from the prospect company was on the plane (which is very likely since the two men were traveling to the prospect’s location)? Or someone who knew the company, the people who worked there or the people who were mentioned in the two salesmen’s discussion?

Just like the parking lot scenario in which the two salesmen were spitting in full view of the prospective client’s office, you need to watch your behavior when traveling via public means to a sales meeting. You just never know who might see (or hear) you.

I did a lecture at Becker College on Tuesday night on “The Golden Rules of Negotiating with Your Boss, Co-Workers and Family.” This is one of my favorite subjects to talk about, because most people don’t realize that the outcome of a negotiation can be impacted more by what they do before the conversation than during the conversation itself! Also, many of us enter a negotiation with the goal of getting what we want and do not think ahead about how the outcome could be a win for all the parties involved.

In my “Eight Golden Rules for Negotiating,” preparation is a dominant theme. First among those eight rules is do your research. You want to make sure you fully know and understand the audience with whom you are negotiating and also the environment in which the conversation is taking place. Another thing to do before the negotiation is think about and know your objective. It should be crystal clear to you.

One task that’s critical to your preparation before a negotiation is to know your “game plan” — how you will start the conversation and conduct the interaction. The first two minutes are most important — they are “the golden 120 seconds” — and the point in your interaction in which you will set the stage and tone for how the negotiation will go. You will want to not only plan what you want to say, but rehearse it several times and even role play with others.

Another preparatory step you want to take — and this is probably the most important — is to think about and write down what’s in it for the person you are negotiating with. Even though you are clearly focused on achieving an objective to obtain something for yourself, you don’t have to be the only one gaining here. Think about what winning the negotiation will potentially mean for that person, what it will bring them and/or how it will affect them. Then ask yourself if there’s anything you need to do to ensure the outcome is positive for them too. By doing that — as well as taking the other steps — you can be assured that what you’re negotiating for will result in not only a win for you, but a win for everyone.

I can’t emphasize how important it is for salespeople to be on their best behavior.  As obvious as that sounds, I’ve seen deals lost after a great meeting because the salespeople are spitting in the parking lot.  Don’t leave the customer with a bad impression or you’ll lose the sale.  In this video, I talk about how my sales team lost a big contract after a fantastic meeting with the client.  We had nailed it, and the key internal champion of the organization pulled me aside afterward and said, “Peter that was really good.  We want to move ahead to contract and implementation.  We’re going with you.”  Watch the video to find out what went wrong!