How to conduct sales meetings, Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

In part 1, I discussed some of the problems we encounter with sales meetings. In parts 2 and 3 of this post, I will share with you some YouTube videos from experts on how to conduct effective meetings.

Below is a good video summarizing the right way to conduct meetings from Kuza Biashara, a company based in Kenya. Among other things, the company recommends having an agenda and to hold meetings only when necessary.

Here is the video –

Brian Tracy, one of the masters of selling, offered one good suggestion in his video below that I liked. He recommends that if someone arrives late for a meeting, you don’t waste everyone else’s time by recapping what was already discussed at the beginning of a meeting. Instead, you continue to move forward and try to end on time. Eventually, latecomers will get the message. (And I should add, you can always take that person aside later and fill them in on the details they missed).

Here is his video below –

How to conduct Sales Meetings, Part 1

Posted on by
Reply

You arrive early for work. You are eager to make sales calls. But before you dial your first client of the day, someone turns to you and says “Don’t forget – we have a sales meeting in a few minutes!”

Your heart stops for a second. All of a sudden you realize that your entire morning is going to be shot to hell. All those clients you hoped to call that morning will probably be contacted by your competitors. And while you’re sitting in the meeting, drinking coffee, and trying to stay awake, your competitors are laughing all the way to the bank.

The sales meeting. It’s one of those rituals we all encounter in our careers. But do those meetings really have to be so bad? Can’t we make them more productive so that you can do what you were hired to do – get sales.

sales meetingOf all the companies that I’ve ever worked for over the years, only a handful of employers offered productive and thoughtful meetings. The meetings were only 30 minutes long and would be held around 8:30 a.m. or earlier. You had a clear idea of what the meetings were about. Everyone respected each other’s time. Most salespeople got to the point. Why? Because they wanted to quickly return to their desks to make money.

However, those companies were the exception rather than the rule. Most meetings that I have attended have little or no agendas, turn into bitch sessions with salespeople complaining about another department, or about each other. While some people may look at sales meetings as a welcome break from doing sales, I usually look at them as an interruption to my selling process.

I’ve attended some meetings that ran so long I almost wanted to slit my wrists. I’ve heard stories over the years how some sales managers would come up with creative ways of reducing the length of meetings. For example, there would be no chairs in the meeting room. Everyone was forced to stand. Coffee or smartphones were not allowed. They would adhere to a very strict agenda. While not related to sales, I heard of a restaurant manager who had a creative way of reducing his weekly meetings with his staff. He would hold the meetings in the walk-in freezer. The meetings didn’t last very long.

While attending a quarterly meeting of my local food co-op, the board actually hired a meeting coordinator who acted as a referee. If someone got off-topic or got into a shouting match (which happens often), she would step in, enforce the meeting rules and the agenda, and move the meeting along.

In the next few posts, I will provide videos from YouTube on how to conduct sales meetings. I will then provide you with my own tips and advice.

 

Unsolicited Calendar Invites

Posted on by
Reply

Would you send unsolicited calendar invites to prospects?

This is a question that came up recently on a LinkedIn sales profession discussion board.

My answer – no. Here’s why –

I know that it can be frustrating constantly contacting the same prospects and not receiving any call backs or email responses in return. You start to get desperate. When you become desperate, that’s when you start making bad decisions that could hurt you.

I know some salespeople who actually have tried sending unsolicited meeting invites, only to have them backfire when prospects refused to ever deal with them or their company again.

Look, sending unsolicited emails is one thing. It’s commonplace and part of being in sales. But sending unsolicited calendar invites is kind of creepy. Its borderline invasion of privacy when you put a meeting invite on someone’s calendar that you have never spoken to before. It’s almost like arriving at your office in the morning and finding someone sitting your chair.

My advice – forget sending unsolicited calendar invites. Stick with the try and true method of cold calling, sending emails and direct marketing pieces. If that doesn’t work, you can always circle back later. There is plenty of other fish in the sea to find.

photo credit: Mo Morgan via photopin cc

CRMs, Beware of Conversions, Part 3

Posted on by
Reply

In part 1, I gave a brief background about CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) In part 2, I discussed three commons mistakes when using CRMs. In his post, I will discuss conversions.

Conversions are when your employer converts your data to a new CRM. This is done for several reasons. Maybe your employer feels it’s time to upgrade to a better system. But usually, the most common reason is that you are going through a merger or buy-out, and one company has decided to switch to one database to cut down on costs, confusion and ensure better workflow.

Conversions are scary. No matter how well planned a conversion is, there is always the risk you will lose information. I have gone through four conversions in my career. It’s never fun. In fact, it can be very nerve-racking. I had one situation where a conversion was done and the programmers forgot to transfer the sales notes. Fortunately for me, I still had access to the old database for one year. However, it was time-consuming to have to constantly toggle back and forth between one database to another while making sales calls.

How well or badly a conversion is done is a good sign of whether you and your colleagues will survive a merger or buy-out. As a general rule, if the dominating company rushes through a conversion, and forces you to use a lousy CRM, and doesn’t care about your concerns, that is a good sign you will be laid off. For example, one division at one of my former employers based in Maine was forced to use three CRMs at the same time! Each salesperson was required to toggle back and forth between each CRM when viewing customer information, entering information and submitting orders. It was no surprise that a few months later, the entire sales and customer service was laid off.

I went through a similar situation after one buy-out. The dominating company dumped our great homegrown CRM and replaced it with an inventory-style CRM that had no sales tools or features. It was extremely difficult and time-consuming for us to use. Under the new leadership, we were not allowed to use the dominating company’s better CRM. Since we already knew they were going to get laid off the entire sales team anyway, we were not completely surprised that we were forced to the lousy CRM until they got rid of us.

As a rule, the longer it takes the programmers to do a conversion, the better for you. This means the programmers are taking their time and doing it right. I’ve gone through rush conversions where critical information was not transferred over. In one instant, all my old expired clients were not transferred over. I frequently call on old clients to see if they want to order from me again. In that case, I had access to the old database and I was able to manually enter the better old expires in my new database.  But that is a very time-consuming process.

CRM conversionsWhen a conversion occurs, you must speak up and make sure the programmers understand your concerns. Programmers are not salespeople. It’s your job to make them aware of any critical information that must be protected and transferred over probably. When my company was bought by a major corporation, I was pretty much out of the loop in terms of making suggestions. I was low man on the totem pole. However, I knew some of the programmers who were doing the work. Because I was on friendly terms with them, I sent them e-mails with suggestions on what to transfer over. I was completely surprised when I found out they were not planning to transfer sales notes to the new system. When I pointed out the importance of this, and where this information was located, they quickly agreed to move the data over.

You may think I’m being overly cautious about warning you of the potential dangers of conversions. Maybe this story will change your mind – Long before I started working for a major publishing company, that company did a conversion in the early 1990s. The conversion was so bad, that the company could not create or print renewal notices for more than a year. Field reps were forced to visit clients door-to-door asking for renewal payments. Not only did this incident hurt the company financially, but it was a major embarrassment for everyone.

Conversions can make or break you. Speak up.

Normally, you will be given plenty of advance notice before a conversion occurs. That’s good. Because you need to plan ahead and protect your customers and prospects.

Here is what you need to do to prepare for a conversion –

1). Have all your customers backed up on your computer, and if possible, in print. Put your printed copy in a secure place. Use a lock and key if you need to.

2). Make sure there will be no disruption in your call-back calendar. If your call-back calendar is not going to be transferred over, make plans to save it so you don’t miss important calls.

3).  Make sure you take some downtime to learn the new CRM. Yes, I know. It’s a pain to learn a new system. But the sooner you know it, the faster and better you will be doing your sales job.

4). Will you have access to the old database after the conversion? In most cases, companies do keep archive files of the old databases. No matter how successful a database conversion is, I always found myself going back to the original database to access the material. It doesn’t hurt to ask if you can access the old records if needed.

Conversions are a necessary evil in sales. If you are unsure about something or have some concerns, you must speak up.

It’s your information too. If your employer loses it or screws up, it will dramatically hurt your sales and could set you back for months.

CRMs, 3 common mistakes, Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

In part 1, I gave a brief background about CRMs (Customer Relationship Management). In this post, I will discuss the three common mistakes that you need to avoid when using a CRM.  These include taking no or little notes, falling behind on your callbacks and not maintaining good contact information.

1). Failing to take good notes: If you are dealing with a lot of customers and prospects, it’s difficult to remember each person, every conversation, and every order that you have entered. While you may think that taking good notes is a waste of time, believe me, in the long run, it will save you a lot of time. Also, if you are absent one day, and one of your co-workers receives a call from your customer, you want him to have accurate information to draw from to help your client. Nothing sounds more unprofessional than a salesperson fumbling around trying to figure out what your customer needs.

Many sales departments have developed a “hit by the bus” philosophy when it comes to note-taking. What if you get hit by the bus tomorrow, will someone be able to understand the needs of your customer when he inherits your accounts?

Sometimes salespeople just don’t get the message. I heard of a sales rep who worked at one of my old employers who actually was fired for not entering notes into the database. He was warned repeatedly but refused to listen.

taking notes while on a sales callI generally take good notes. I’m not just entering basic information, like which order did the client place, or what products he may be interested in purchasing later. I try to take more personalized notes about the client’s family, favorite hobbies, recent or upcoming vacations, etc. I will also take note of the customer’s tone during my conversations with him. Is he angry, anxious or happy? You are not a telemarketer. You are the salesperson. Your goal is to develop a long-term relationship with your customers. The best way to do that is to have personalized conversations based on good note-taking.

2). Falling behind on your callbacks: The second biggest mistake salespeople make is falling behind on their sales callbacks. I know of situations where salespeople would have weeks – if not months – of callbacks entered in their calendar because they don’t follow through on making their callbacks or have unrealistic expectations of their time. Don’t do this. Keep up. Depending on the CRM you are using, you may want to rank your call-backs from the highest to the lowest priority. Your highest priority call-backs are clients who are about ready to place an order, or finalize a contract or trialing your service, as well as qualified inbound leads. Your lowest priority calls should be courtesy calls to see how your clients are doing or prospects that are on the fence about your product.

3). Not entering good contact information: And finally, the third biggest mistake people make is not providing or updating good contact information. It may sound like common sense, but many don’t include the full names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, titles and other critical information that makes your job a lot easier.

A CRM is a tool. It is only as good as you use it. Use CRMs wisely, could save you money and time down the road.

In part 3 of this post, I will discuss the problems of CRM conversions.

CRMs, Brief Background, Part 1

Posted on by
2

Most of us have used a wide variety of  Customer Relationship Managers (CRMs).  But in case you are new to the sales profession, a CRM is a software system designed to maintain and update customer and prospect records. Those records would include basic information such as names, company names, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses. More sophisticated systems would include order history, sales notes, billing information, and a call-back schedule to plan your upcoming calls or meetings. Marketing tools may be included to help track customers and prospects using social media. Still, others will allow you to develop and keep track of marketing campaigns.

CRMThe major purpose of a CRM is to maximize your time, set priorities, and target those customers and prospects you believe will generate the most sales. In short, it is designed to save you time and money.

I have used seven different CRMs in my career. Some of them are homegrown, and others are off the shelf tools like Advantage,SalesLogix,TeleMagic,Salesforce.com, and Microsoft Access. While I have never used them, I’ve heard positive feedback from salespeople who have used Act! and Goldmine.

The Homegrown databases were created specifically by my employers and are not available in the open market. Some employers believe that developing their own CRMs tailored to the needs of their sales, marketing and billing staffs are worth the expense. In the long run, homegrown CRMs are easier to maintain and upgrade and no license fees are paid to a vendor. If the employer decides to convert from his homegrown CRM to another one, he doesn’t need permission from a vendor or has to deal with the hassle doing a conversion within a limited time frame. I once worked for a mid-size publishing company that was forced to dump all its records from one CRM to a new CRM on a strict deadline because the vendor was upset about the switch. The fast conversion process created a total mess of records in the new CRM that took months to organize.

My favorite off-the-shelf CRM is Salesforce.com.  I find the interface easy on the eye, is user-friendly and does a great job of maintaining customer records and call-back schedules.

If you glance at most help-wanted ads these days, you will find a lot of employers require you to have experience using Salesforce.com. Don’t worry if you don’t know how to use the database. Most employers will train you. I was able to learn how to use the basic features of the program within a couple of days. There are also several books on the market to teach you how to use Salesforce.com if you want more detail.

No matter which database you are required to use, take some time to learn how to use it properly. Any of these tools will save you an enormous amount of time and make you a more effective and efficient salesperson.

In part 2 of this post, I will discuss the common mistakes of using CRMs.