Category Archives for "Sales Management"

Sales Motivation – Remember, There’s more to Life than Money

By John Aberle | Sales and Marketing , Sales Motivation

Can you be bought? What inspires you to extra effort? Will you do anything to win a trip even at the expense of your relationship with your customer? Obviously to the heads of Enron and WorldComm and a huge number of people in the financial industry, massive amounts of money overrode all other considerations. How do you feel about that?

Surveyed employees usually put money as 3rd of 4th in importance

As a management consultant for an international company specializing in small to mid-sized businesses, my co-workers and I often surveyed our clients’ employees to find out what was most important to them in their jobs. Interestingly, money was the most important motivator to only a fraction of the people we surveyed. For most, there’s more to life than money because they ranked it third or fourth in importance. Ahead of money were things like job satisfaction, recognition for a job well done, being part of a successful team, challenging and rewarding work, flexibility in work schedule, educational opportunities and opportunity for advancement.

Especially fascinating is that most small business owners and their managers were surprised. To most people I’ve known, this position sounds strange for a sales trainer and former sales manager to make. It is universally accepted that you motivate sales reps with money and material gain, like trips and bonuses. The thing is, I myself, am rarely motivated solely by money – and I have noticed lots of other salespeople who aren’t either.

Don’t get me wrong, money is a strong motivator for us, or we probably won’t make the effort to overcome a natural reluctance to make prospecting calls and deal with rejection day after day. Besides that, few really good salespeople work only a 40-hour week. We’re studying, researching for prospects, preparing presentations, or doing paperwork, sometimes even attending networking events after normal work hours.

Heart centered salespeople put clients ahead of immediate gain

But heart centered salespeople prefer the soft sell approach. As such, you won’t pressure clients just to win a trip or a bonus. Soft sell means that you care about serving the customer first; making a commission follows. Because of this, you may work extra hard to win a contest; you may even talk with your prospects about moving up their timing, but you value your relationships and your prospects’ trust too much to use high-handed techniques to manipulate them into buying now just for your gain.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs applies to sales rep motivation too

To understand this better, look at psychologist Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The most basic needs motivate people first. These form the foundation, the bottom of the pyramid. As you satisfy those needs, they lose their ability to motivate you to take action so you progress up to still higher needs. The higher you fall on this pyramid, the more likely you are to value heart centered sales and marketing. Keep in mind, as things in your life change, you can regress down the steps to more basic drives.

Remember, salespeople are people too. That means some are definitely motivated strongly by money and achievement; they respond well to hard sell. They love the game of “I win; you lose.” But the more you operate from Love/Belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualization, the more likely you are to find greater satisfaction in heart centered sales and marketing that uses soft sell over hard sell. For you, there’s more to life than money alone.

Passion in Sales Will See You Through

By John Aberle | Sales and Marketing , Sales Motivation

Selling is one of the toughest jobs I know, especially for heart-centered, soft sell salespeople and marketers. Selling can also be one of the one most exciting, rewarding, and fulfilling jobs I know, especially for heart-centered, soft sell salespeople and marketers. For me, it depended on what I was selling and how much I believed in the value my products and services delivered to my customers. When I was excited about the benefits of my products and services, I could be passionate and really enthusiastic about sharing with my potential buyers. But for me to have passion in my sales, I had to believe what I sold would improve their lives. And passion was important to seeing me through the rejections and the dull and unpleasant activities required in sales.

Among the most rewarding sales calls were those when I took the time to find out what the clients felt their problems were and what they were looking for before I started selling. When I knew what they wanted, it was easy to share, explain and demonstrate how my solutions would help them achieve their dreams or solve their problems. In other words, I would feel passionate about what I was doing.

I can think of few things more energy draining, and spirit-killing than going to work at a job I hate. I speak from experience. While I loved the Air Force and stayed in for 9.5 years, not counting my time as a cadet, I put myself into a dead end career field as an electronic warfare officer. For six years, I tried to find a way out and into management and command. I finally left the Air Force on January 1, 1979. My first sales job was in radio advertising in Riverside, California. While I lost the security of my military salary and benefits, I loved helping customers buy.

Questions to Help Find Passion for Your Sales and Marketing

So how do you find passion for what you do? Continue reading

The Problem with Thinking Outside the Box

By John Aberle | Sales and Marketing , Sales Management

How often have you heard people advise you to “think outside the box”? If you’re in business or sales and marketing management, you’ve probably heard it a lot. One problem with this admonition is that they rarely tell you how to do it or even really what it means. So first, thinking outside the box means to be open to ways that you can do things differently than they ever were before thereby finding new and exciting ideas to capture people’s imagination and earn their business.

You need to get out for your thinking to get out

The bigger problem with thinking outside the box is that we are all limited by our experiences. So in order to creatively think outside the box, you need to get outside the box of your current experiences.

My friends Judith & Jim, in SSMA recorded teleconference, “Focus 2010 – What Do You Want?” brought up the point that if you have no frame of reference for something, you can’t see it even if it’s directly in front of your nose.  Judith & Jim described how when the Spaniards first came to the New World, many of the Indians were unable to see them as the ships were so far outside their experience these American natives were blind to them. The shamans, because of their openness to new experiences, were able to teach their tribe members how to see the ships.

I have a similar experience when playing Continue reading

Freakonomics Provides Huge Lesson for Sales Managers

By John Aberle | Sales Management , Sales Motivation

At first glance, Freakonomics: A Rouge Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, seems like a strange book for sales managers. It was a book with no unifying theme. It was more like a collection of essays. However, these stories did indeed have a theme: motivation.

Finding the Underlying Motivation Can Be Challenging

The key point is that motivation is a complex issue. Sometimes money provides the motivation to take great risks, like street corner drug dealers or, in the case of real estate agents, to not risk losing a sure sale for the potential of getting a better offer for their clients later. Sumo wrestlers demonstrated that sometimes maintaining their close knit relationships outweighs the potential dishonor if you are caught throwing a fight.

Hard Sell Sales Organizations Rely Heavily on Money, Recognition, and Material Rewards

The same is true in sales management. The predominant motivator in hard sell organizations is money, lots of money. They also use recognition and other material rewards, like rings, watches, cars, and trips to exotic places.

True Soft Sell Marketers Won’t Push Their Customers Just for a Material Incentive Continue reading

If You Don't Like Selling, It May Be Due to Forcing Yourself to Do Hard Sell Sales

By John Aberle | Sales and Marketing , Sales Management

When You Sell as a Service, You’ll Be Unhappy in a Hard Sell Company

Have you ever felt out of place? I have. I find it happens most often when I seem to share nothing in common with the group where I am. Despite having been in sales and marketing since 1979, I feel uncomfortable in a company or a conference where the sales style is hard sell. I have friends who excel at it. They like the game of jockeying for control. My orientation instead is a service one. I like affirming the client and working with him rather seizing control and dictating. It was really challenging working in a company where I was expected to take control of the client and to prescribe what he would do. One executive told me that I’m the doctor. It’s my job to tell clients what to do.

Had to Find a Way to Satisfy My Boss While Acting Consistent with My Values

I spent 40 months dreading talking to my office because I had to find a way to take their orders and attempt to carry them out using my style of working in partnership with the client. I believe that lasting change comes from buy-in, which comes from agreeing with the objective and contributing to the solution. That’s hard to do when you are ordering instead of proposing a course of action and discussing.

Judith and Jim Seek to Make a Space for Soft Sell Sales and Marketing PeopleContinue reading

The Best Marketing Is Word-of-Mouth

By John Aberle | Sales and Marketing , Sales Management

We know it from our personal experiences. Word-of-mouth marketing is the best because we all believe our friends more than some advertiser. But generating word-of-mouth business is a challenge. I have no control. It just happens, right?

Actually, there are things we can do to encourage people to talk about us. I just listened to a fascinating podcast, “Word-of-Mouth Marketing,” by Karen E. Klein, Business Week Smart Answers columnist. She interviewed Bertrand Cesvet, about his new book, Conversational Capital.

Bertrand said we need to plan from the beginning to encourage word-of-mouth marketing. Think about the “story” we want people to tell. Basically, people talk about consumer experiences. He gave examples of Cirque du Soleil and Volkswagon to show what it means to have a story.

In Conversational Capital, Bertrand covers eight elements to becoming a topic people want to talk about. It really comes down to developing a great “story.” What I got from this is that it needs to be something people experience. I bring this back to benefits.

Just what is it that the customer can experience with your product or service that is exciting? In other words, what emotional connection will they make? Remember, not all word-of-mouth is positive. I’ve told my share of stories about service so bad I’ll never go back. Here’s an interesting “story” from a blog post Seth Godin made July 05, 2005: Red Lobster claims to be a Maine company, but they’re located in Florida and, at that point, didn’t have any restauarants in Maine. While I may not stop going there because of this lie, it undermines my respect for the chain. I’ll give them some slack because it’s a “theme” restaurant.

On the other hand, I’ve also heard wonderful stories about the salesperson who became a resource and so earned ongoing business – he helped the manager of this manufacturing line to solve a problem with production. The engineer I spoke to made it clear he wanted to ensure he would have access to that salesman’s knowledge and ideas because the rep made his job easier.

“Stories” I’ve told people include my confidence in getting a fabulous Ribeye steak at Outback Steakhouses everywhere I go in the U.S. The best story is about how Stephen Brooks in Covina comped a meal because the service wasn’t up to his standards. And I will long remember the extra effort by Tony Gonzales at my West Covina Men’s Warehouse to fix my cuffs so I could take the suit for a trip the next day.

What can you do to make dealing with you enjoyable enough that people will enjoy telling others about the experience? Give them a “story” to tell, but be sure it’s a good story.

Sales and the Super Bowl: What It Takes to Win

By John Aberle | Business Management , Sales Management

I just listened to a great interview by Melanie Benson Strick. She was congratulating James Malinchak on winning the Marketer of the Year Award from the Glazer Kennedy Inner Circle Group. He made a wonderful point about needing to delegate tasks others can do cheaper than you so you can do the most productive activities.

What I particularly appreciated, though, was the story James shared about Michael Jordan telling him and seven others about how he finally realized that he needed a team to win championships. Being a great player and a great scorer wasn’t enough.

I often ask clients, “What does a team need to win the Super Bowl?” The answer is far more involved than most people think. When I ask the group to tell me what they need, obviously a team that wins the Super Bowl must have a great quarterback. However, he alone can’t win the game. He needs an incredible offense. Again, though, the best offense isn’t enough if the defense doesn’t keep their opponents from outscoring them.

So far so good. I will always get those responses. If I ask them for what else the team needs, they will mention the coach. However, I usually have to push to get them to mention the trainers. And if you’re playing in Houston in September in 95 degrees with 95% humidity, most will agree that you need the water boy. MORE ….

Thrive in a Down Economy: Take Advantage of Competitor's False Economies

By John Aberle | Business Management , Financial Management , Sales Management

A down economy causes fear in most business people. While
response is essential to survival, it is actually possible
to take advantage of others’ mistakes, such as cost cutting
that harms their businesses, i.e. false economies.

Years ago I read a story about a seafood restaurant that had
an incredible reputation for their clam chowder. When new owners
bought the restaurant, they decided to cut expenses to increase
their profits. They began watering down the soup. Over a period
of several months, the restaurant’s clientele began dropping away.
Loyal customers gave the owners the benefit of the doubt the first
time they found that their chowder was not up to the quality they
expected. However, most of them stop coming after the second time
they experienced the cheapened chowder. Pretty soon, the owners lost
enough customers to threaten the survival of the business.

The point here is to do everything in your power to maintain the
quality of products and services at the same level or better than
your customers expect from you. Otherwise, you could very well be
the one driving the nail in the coffin of your business.

I tell my clients that cutting corners on your product or service
in an effort to save money is “false economy.” In my first two years
on the road as a consultant, I wrote savings recommendations worth
$2,300,000. I believe in cutting waste and reducing unnecessary
expenses. However, cutting corners is foolish. Customers vote every
day with their money. MORE ….

What questions or comments do you have about selling for fun,
profit, and mutual rewards?