Monthly Archives: January 2009

Least Favorite Customer Type: The Bully

By John Aberle | sales

We all knew them when we were growing up. It seems every school or every community had at least one bully. The problem is that most of us still have to deal with them at work or as our customers.

If you’ve any length of work experience, you’ve had at least one boss who was a bully. If you are in sales, you’ve encountered them as customers. Sometimes they are normally nice people who are so frustrated with your company’s policies they lash out. But others bully people as a normal course of dealing with others.

I never felt comfortable that I knew how to handle them. Then I read Seth Godin’s blog for January 28, 2009. It rang true.

In a few paragraphs, Seth clearly defined bullies and then stated how to handle them. In essence, “A bully is someone who uses physical or psychological force to demean and demoralize someone else. A bully isn’t challenging your ideas, or working with you to find a better outcome.”

His solution is captured by the title, “Take the ball and go home.” I encourage you to check out this article at http://tinyurl.com/bhalav.

Suzi Defines "Sales"

By John Aberle | sales , Sales and Marketing

Suzi Pomerantz on her YouTube interview, “Business Development Defined,” described the difference between networking, marketing, and sales. I was particularly interested in her take on what sales is: “Sales is really implementation. That’s when you’re out meeting people, talking to people, finding out what their interests are, finding out what they do, and how, whether or not your services can help them.” Obviously my interest is self-serving. After all, I believe the role of a salesperson is to Help Customers Buy.

Ethical Dilemmas – When Billing Becomes Theft

By John Aberle | Consulting , Ethics

Greed and a lack of an internal moral compass produced our current economic meltdown – incredible numbers of people so focused on making astronomical profits that ethics went right out the window. Corporate executives have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders and investors that they completely ignored. Now, the American taxpayers are bailing out an industry that had our funds in trust.

The interesting thing is that it’s easy to point fingers at the people in the news to complain about how they committed theft and ignore our own ethical shortcuts. This past week I got some insight into how difficult it is to set our own ethical limit.

I had the great good fortune this past week to participate in training with a major small business consulting firm. I was excited about being there because the trainers said the things I wanted to hear about doing what’s best for both the client and their company. Everybody wins. I love it!

Even though I tend to be idealistic in how I approach caring for a client, I too have failed at times to live 100% according to my values. Sometimes personal survival temporarily overrode what I felt was right because I “needed” to keep my job. So this past week was good because I got to see other viewpoints that softened my rigid standards a bit.

But in the end, one executive’s story showing how he cared about what was in the client’s best interest, back when he was a field consultant, really stuck with me — because it showed me how far apart we could be in our viewpoints while both of us sincerely say the same words.
(For the rest of this article, go here).

NOTE: To read the rest of this article,you will need Adobe Reader.

To Find Your Place in the Market, Innovate

By John Aberle | Business Management , Sales and Marketing

Yesterday, when I was looking for a way to explain to my client what I meant about solving a need that customers have, my wife’s frustration with passenger seatbelts dawned on me. Why is it that the driver’s seatbelt gives freedom of movement whereas the passenger seatbelts are restrictive, confining, and uncomfortable? It’s no wonder we need laws to make people wear them. This is an example of finding a need to something that isn’t working well.

Alex Mandossian in one of his podcasts made the point well that the money is made by innovators, not the inventors. Innovators take an existing concept and tweak it so that the public will want it more than the original. I think a good example of this is Starbucks. They certainly did not invent the idea of coffee shops.

Faith Popcorn in her book Clicking describes it as “Clicking Through Small Indulgences.” Actually, I think Starbucks tapped into “Clicking Through Fantasy Adventure” as well. They definitely tapped into the desire for community. They created coffee shops that specialized in fancy Italian coffee drinks and cleverly expanded the concept of “small indulgences.” They’ve done a lot more things right that I intend to cover another time because they are off the point here.

The main point is that the people who survive and even thrive in down times are those who manage to innovate. Find out what your customers want and need – what works well with what they are doing now? What isn’t working? What would it take to make it work? Why? Be sure before you invest heavily in manufacturing that 1) the need is large enough to support ramping up production and 2) that the market is willing to pay enough for it to be profitable.

Once you have done all of this, remember the world does not beat a path to your door for inventing a better mousetrap. You still have to do a great job of marketing – read that to say of describing and showing the benefits they have been looking for. And finally, you need someone to sell it, to “Help Customers Buy.”

In closing, please let me know
• What are your favorite innovations?
• What are you interested in reading or hearing more about related to sales and marketing?
• Do you agree with my point here?

Sales Training from TD Ameritrade's Commercial

By John Aberle | Sales and Marketing

It’s interesting when you decide to make a point that you expect to annoy some people in sales then you see a commercial that actually reinforces your position. I was watching Numbers tonight, enjoying a new show instead of a rerun! Yeah!

While I often ignore commercials, TD Ameritrade’s commercial caught my attention. I like their commercials better than most. I’ve liked the character Sam Waterson plays in Law and Order so that positive feeling carries over to give him automatic credibility. However, you can burn that trust quickly in advertising. Fortunately for my “relationship” with this star, the ad agency and TDAmeritrade play it straight. Their commercials are believable.

Tonight’s was especially apt because Sam Waterson commented on their stock broker competitors. He implied that all they care about is the sale and their commission. In contrast, TD Ameritrade’s stock brokers “Listen first.” Moreover, they “Talk, not talk down.” I couldn’t write fast enough to get all of the rest, but he made the point about guiding you.

These are the points that I stress with my clients, my readers, and my listeners. In my “ethical bribe,” as Alex Mandossian calls it, I offer a free article on “Easy Sales” to encourage people to sign up for my mailing list. (I have not put this article on Ezine Articles so this is the only place to get it.)

The main point I make there is that when you know your ideal prospect, and you know what they want and feel they need (perceived need), and you offer benefits that fill their desires, you have an easy sale – no pressure, no manipulation, no control of the prospect.
You “help customers buy” because you guide them through the process of buying what they actually want. Hint: they don’t buy a drill to own a drill.

Do You Have the Sales Passion to Become Outstanding?

By John Aberle | sales

In the chapter on “The 10,000-Hour Rule,” in his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell makes the point that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve world-class performance, whether it’s with the violin, the piano, or programming – provided, of course, that you even have the basic aptitude to excel at that activity. While he covers many other things necessary to great achievement, the point of this chapter is that the competent put in 4,000 hours of practice. The good performers will invest 8,000 hours while those who want to be true masters of the activity invest a minimum of 10,000 hours. It takes the brain that long to digest and organize those skills.

So what does this have to do with sales? Everything – if you want to become an extraordinary salesperson. You need to find sufficient desire and motivation to put in the time needed to become great.

Learning to Help Customers Buy still takes effort; it’s just developing a different sales approach than the Old School one. It takes an incredible level of persistence to perform 10,000 hours of sales activities, especially to do so with a conscious view to improve. You must constantly look for new and better ways to communicate and to grasp the real wants and benefits your prospect desires – without using control of the prospect, manipulation of his or her emotions, or pressure to buy.

Having a passion for what you are selling is vital to achieving world-class sales performance. After all, why would anyone put in years to master something they hate doing? To become an acknowledged master salesperson, you need enough drive to keep yourself focused on developing and improving your knowledge and skills – 10,000 hours’ worth of persistent practice.

I really value your input. Let me know what you think about this article. Does it jive with your experience? Please comment.