“If you don’t make sales, your business will go bankrupt. It’s that simple.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

What Makes a Business Successful?

Any business has several essential elements.

These include:

  • Legal & Banking Compliance Structures
  • Financial Controls, Budgets, Projections etc.
  • Products and/or Services that People Want to Buy
  • Order & Delivery Mechanisms
  • Future Plans for Growth
  • Employees for Production and Administration
  • Marketing and Sales Plans
  • Etc. Etc. Etc.

BUT… Sooner of later: sooner, if you’re self-funded; later if you are funded by venture capital you actually need to make a profit… Which means that you need to make sales (preferably a growing number of them at a variety of price-points.

If you don’t, you end up bankrupt.

You Can’t Take Likes and Shares to the Bank!

You probably already know that no matter how many followers and fans you have on social media, how many people attend your free webinars etc. None of those things will pay your bills. Plenty of people have said that before me.

On the other hand, you’ve probably also heard people say that “the money is in your list” (both email and physical mail) which is only partly true. The money is actually in your list of buyers. Many of the people on that list are just empty names. If you are sending via email, then all those dormant names aren’t costing you $… But they are affecting your credibility and deliverability. If you are sending physical mail then there is a specific monetary cost attached to those non-buyers names.

This is not the place to talk about my method for qualifying people and distinguishing between:

  • Buyers,
  • Not-Yet Buyers, and
  • Never-Buyers,

But I wanted to get you thinking about these things because I’m seeing people take this “money is in your list” idea way too far.

The ONE Metric That Changes Everything!

= SALES!

If you don’t make sales you can’t afford anything else in your business.

I’ve worked with businesses of all sizes from start-ups to multi-million dollar turnover publicly listed corporations. From lifestyle and make-the-world-a-better-place businesses to profit-driven entities and mission-centric entrepreneurs. Sooner or later all of them realise that when they focus on improving their sales numbers, everything else starts moving in a positive direction.

It’s especially true when you are set on growing and taking your business to the next level:

  • From start-up to a half-million dollar business
  • From a half-million dollar business to a one million dollar business
  • From a one million dollar business to a five million dollar business

The thing you need is… More sales!

Are You Treating Sales as an Afterthought?

I can’t tell you how many people make this mistake.

They act as though sales are just  peripheral… And as though sales skills are only useful for the ‘sales professionals’ (often meaning – but not saying – those people who couldn’t do anything more useful with their lives).

Interestingly enough, many of the people who say, act, or think like that either lose their business or come to me and ask for urgent help with their sales either to save their business or so they can create the income and life of their dreams instead of struggling to make ends meet each month.

It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way

 


One of the things that brings me the deepest level of satisfaction is seeing business owners realise that developing their (ethical) sales skills helps them enjoy life more and develop deeper relationships with:

  • Staff and Colleagues
  • Prospects
  • Clients
  • Friends
  • Family

That’s because communication is at the heart of successful sales and better communication skills help you in every area of life.

In addition, once you master the art of opening sales conversation and closing sales, the tangible benefits appear in your bank account and your level of stress goes down… Dramatically.

If you’d like to join the thousands of people who have experienced the transformation that comes when you master ethical sales systems and implement them in your business, check out the programs and events I host and join my email list HERE.

“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.”

~ Jim Rohn

Preparation is Key!

Some people close some sales quickly and easily some of the time.

A few people close almost every sale all the time.

The difference is mostly in their level of preparation for their sales calls and their skill in communicating effectively with others. You might be surprised to know that many of the most effective sales people are not normally extroverts, they’re introverts who understand that if you close nearly 100% of your sales calls you don’t need to make very many of them to be highly successful.

There are three primary areas in which every sale is won or lost:

  1. Your Mind; (see Part 3 for more details)
  2. Your Preparation and Presentation;
  3. Your Prospect’s Need.

Qualify Your Audience

I believe that the most important part of any sale is determining whether your prospect actually needs what you have to sell… or if they don’t. I call this process ‘qualifying the client’.

An effective qualifying process means that you are not trying to sell people things they don’t

need and that has two positive outcomes:

  • You don’t feel sleazy;
  • Prospects trust your recommendations.
  • I’ve been known to convince prospects not to buy things when it was in my immediate interest to make the sale. As a result, they’ve often come back to me when circumstances changed to find out if now would be a good time to work with me.
  • I can guarantee that that doesn’t happen when you push people to buy things they don’t really need, or that aren’t fit for purpose to meet your own sales and income quotas.

Know Your Audience

Before you talk to someone, it is a good idea to do a little bit of research and learn about the company or maybe even the type of person that you are contacting. This will help you find the “hot buttons” that will motivate them to take the next step in your sales process once you have qualified them (whatever that step may be).

For example, if you are talking to a CFO, your best opening is to point out difference between the financials of the prospect’s firm and other firms in the same industry. These things will differ based on your product, your industry and what your outcome for the call is. Knowing these things will be the stuff that sets you apart from your competition.

Know Your Message Thoroughly

It should go without saying, that you need to have a thorough knowledge of your product, its ideal applications, and its benefits… but that isn’t always the case. I’ve worked with sales teams where their response to technical questions is either ‘I don’t know I’ll have to ask a technician’ or else they read aloud from a slide or brochure with no real understanding.

Don’t let that be you!

If you know your audience thoroughly, you will have a better idea of how to structure your message as well as of the information they will be interested in hearing. One of the sales teams I have trained was selling complex IT solutions. The sales people certainly didn’t have the technical expertise to do the work, but they thoroughly understood the problems their system solved and they could express the essential points in laymen’s terms.

I recommend mapping out a script that covers the basic conversation, potential objections, and the “close” on whatever action would fulfil the goal of your call.

Practice Until Confident

Once you have your script map ready, you should go through the process until you are thoroughly familiar with the flow of your calls. This is where internal sales teams have a massive advantage because you can role play extensively and every actual call (whether it is a success or a failure) provides you with more information.

Rehearsal and repetition will help you master the script and the rhythm of the call and turn it into a natural dialogue form which your statements and questions flow naturally. This will give you the confidence that comes from competence and that confidence will project onto your prospect whether you are meeting face-to-face, over the phone, or via Zoom.

Put Time in Your Calendar

Making sales calls demands a focused mindset and positive energy as well as appropriate preparation. Successful sales people tend to block off a period of time to make these calls so they can create momentum. That means that you also need to have a list of names/companies to contact and then set a goal for the total number to contact in a given time period.

If your company provides this list for you, that makes it easy. However, if you are also responsible for finding people or companies to call, my suggestion is that you separate the research and compilation of the list from the actual calling. That way, when the time comes to make calls you can use the momentum to further develop your confidence and rhythm.

After the Call

Treat every call as an opportunity to learn and experiment and don’t sweat the rejections. Not every prospects you call will turn into new business opportunities. In fact, a cold call that eliminates a prospect is almost better than a cold call that puts a ‘maybe’ prospect into your pipeline.

Make notes after each call whether you set an appointment or not. After a while, you will get a feel for the prospects who are saying encouraging things and even agreeing to take the next step, but who are unlikely to move forward. In addition, be sure to celebrate your wins. If cold calling is a struggle for you, then every time you pick up the phone you score a victory over yourself. If your prospect moved to the next step or you closed a sale, it’s relatively easy to celebrate, yet surprisingly few people do so… Even if you received a “no” or a “maybe” you still did the work and that’s yet another reason to reinforce your achievement.

“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do.

Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.”

~ Jim Rohn

When Referrals Are Not Enough

Does your business rely on a steady flow of new clients to make a profit?

Are you relying on referrals for all of those new clients?

Does it impact upon you when referrals quieten down or things become less busy?

Recently, a prospective client called me and explained that he was relying on referral business to get new clients. This strategy had been working fairly well, but when Covid hit, and networking was restricted, his referrals dried up and he had no new clients to do business with. This presented a major problem!

After going through our client qualification process we determined that we were a good fit for each other and started working together with clear goals for the number and type of clients he was looking for. I worked with his team and we identified a pool of ideal prospects and a process for reaching out to them.

When he implemented these steps he was managed to increase his team’s call to appointment ratio from 12% to a whopping 85% success rate in just one week (This means that for every seven calls they used to make they now only need to make one!) and he also realised how much more effective and profitable this strategy was than his former networking process.

Taking the ‘Cold” Out of Cold Calling

I’ve done a lot sales calls in my time. At a former job my manager expected every person on the sales team to make 50 calls every other day, so that they could book 5 appointments for the next day – he based that on the calculation that we would close 1 appointment for every 10 calls.

My problem was that if I made 50 calls, I would end up with closer to 30 appointments, but he still wanted me to keep making the calls and my calendar was quickly booked out for months ahead. When I moved into a team manager role, I didn’t make the same mistake!

My best-selling book Confident Closing: Sales secrets that grew a business by 400% in six months and how they can work for you! tells the story of later adventure, but when I was first made manager I told my team,
“Appointments are the things that generate income. You need to make as many calls as you need to book 15 appointments per week with qualified buyers.” I then taught them how to take the ‘cold’ out of cold calling so that they could make fewer calls and set more appointments.

Not only did that make my sales team happy, it also meant that they closed a phenomenal number of sales because we worked on how to turn more appointments into closed business as well.

DON’T 'Start at the Very Beginning’...

I’ve done a lot sales calls in my time. At a former job my manager expected every person on the sales team to make 50 calls every other day, so that they could book 5 appointments for the next day – he based that on the calculation that we would close 1 appointment for every 10 calls.

My problem was that if I made 50 calls, I would end up with closer to 30 appointments, but he still wanted me to keep making the calls and my calendar was quickly booked out for months ahead. When I moved into a team manager role, I didn’t make the same mistake!

My best-selling book Confident Closing: Sales secrets that grew a business by 400% in six months and how they can work for you! tells the story of later adventure, but when I was first made manager I told my team,
“Appointments are the things that generate income. You need to make as many calls as you need to book 15 appointments per week with qualified buyers.” I then taught them how to take the ‘cold’ out of cold calling so that they could make fewer calls and set more appointments.

Not only did that make my sales team happy, it also meant that they closed a phenomenal number of sales because we worked on how to turn more appointments into closed business as well.

Success in Sales (and many other things) Starts in Your Head

Have you ever noticed that when you are having a good day and feeling really positive that you have better conversations with people?

It’s not just that you are looking at yourself with more kindness, it’s based on the reality that people tend to pick up unconsciously on the way that you are feeling no matter what you say (or how much you smile). If they don’t get a positive projection from you then (regardless of how much they need what you are selling) they will often say “No,” to you and go out looking for an alternative provider. All your conversation did was to make them aware of their need.

That is why it is absolutely essential for you to get you in the right frame of mind before you call anyone.

When you do a simple activity to raise your energy and prepare for the call, you raise your confidence, raise your awareness… and you will see the difference in your results. One of my colleagues used to make cold calls from under his desk if he needed to change his state of mind – he claimed it raised his call to appointment ratio by more than 25%.

Jim Rohn’s Secret of Success is True in Sales

There’s a simple reason why this series is entitled “How Much Do You Want That Sale?”

I’ve noticed that most of the time when people don’t get what they say they want it’s because they aren’t willing to do the work it takes to achieve their goal. This doesn’t mean they’re lazy… Many people work very hard… But they focus on the wrong things.

The people who get what they want are willing to do the things that are hard or go against their natural talents. They’re always learning, always growing their skills, and they’re willing to try something new even if it feels unnatural.

If you want to succeed in sales (and after all, sales is the #1 life skill) then there are just a few key areas to focus on. I’ve already covered most of them and we’ll look at the last 2 areas in the next segment.

“Business owners and sales people who don’t realise that their livelihood depends on provoking the twin emotions of curiosity and inadequacy struggle to make and keep their business profitable and meet their goals.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

The 3-Step Framework for a Confident Close

My goal is to empower people and the number #1 tool of empowerment is confidence in your sales skills. Despite what many people think when they hear the world ‘sales’ there is nothing sleazy or negative about a highly skilled sales person… Sleaze and pushiness belong with those who are desperate, needy, and lack confidence in themselves and the value they bring to the table.

If you want a step-by-step sales guide that does not take into account the particular needs of both your prospect and your product, then you’re about 40 years too late. One-size-fits-all selling was an Industrial Age phenomena that has minimal effectiveness today where customization and personality are at the forefront.

My sales framework has several segments but today we’re looking at how to move from introduction to the next step no matter what stage you are at within the framework. It is just as powerful at helping you create momentum when you are first meeting someone at a networking function and want to set an appointment as it is when you are ready for their signature and first payment.

The Power of Curiosity

There are very few people in this world who wake up looking for things to buy – especially in the business world.

That means, that if you want to close the sale, your first task it to arouse curiosity in the minds of your prospects and of your clients. I’m often asked to work with clients to hone their elevator pitch into a brief statement that opens discussion rather than shuts it down. If your answer to the question, “What do you do?” starts with “I am an…” You’re not only failing to answer the question you’re being asked, you’re also shutting down the conversation which is the very opposite to the goal at which you are aiming.

That’s one side of the curiosity equation, and it’s a powerful way of inviting your prospect to initiate a sales conversation or close the deal. The other side of the equation is even more powerful in some ways: that’s the side where you demonstrate curiosity about your prospect or client and find out what they need and where they are feeling pain or lack of confidence.

Questions that Uncover Possibilities

When you ask appropriate questions, you enable your prospects and clients to help themselves see that they have…

  • Serious Problems
  • Unmet Needs
  • Dangerous Levels of Exposure
  • Unprotected Vulnerabilities

At this point, you hardly need to sell because they will sell themselves. You just keep silent, listen carefully, and wait for them to say the magic words, “…and that’s why I really need to work with you!”

Along the way, you’ll find the three key sentences that you can use to confirm their decision to work with you after they have finished selling themselves into your program or product.

What are those questions?

There is no ‘one size fits all’, because there really is an art to formulating appropriate questions that will help your prospects SEE the possibilities, FEEL their present pain, and KNOW that you can work with them to solve their problems because you don’t merely have knowledge and experience, you also have insight and wisdom.

Every Interaction Has A Clear Goal

“How will you know when you have achieved your goal?” is a key question that you need to answer before every sales conversation.

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series (you can find that HERE) the business world is shifting rapidly and it’s more important than ever to stay up-to-date with your clients and customers and monitor their need and their pain so that you can solve the problems that are uppermost in their mind.

Sales calls aren’t just used to bring new clients onboard – that is the ultimate goal, but along the way there might be other goals.

I’m always worried when I’m conducting an in-house sales training and more than one person says, “I didn’t close any sales this week, but I had X number of conversations and Y appointments.” The only thing that is worse is when they say, “I had lots of conversations and appointments but no sales.” Both of these responses demonstrate that the sales systems and processes themselves need work and that the building and training process will be extensive.

However, when I hear a detailed breakdown of the goals for each call or appointment around areas including:

  • Nurturing relationships with clients and prospects,
  • Discovering more about specific areas of concern or need,
  • Moving the prospect or client from one sales stage to the next,
  • Offering clients and prospects an opportunity they might not have heard about otherwise,
  • Requesting feedback on existing services,
  • Following established systems and processes to create momentum,
  • Then I know I’m dealing with an organisation that is truly committed to serving it’s customers and solving their problems and the sales team are usually wanting to take their skills to the next level because they’re true professionals who always want to grow, but they’re working with a system that is supporting their efforts.

“If every unscheduled call is defined as a ‘cold call’ then your sales team are likely to end up out-of-work.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

Selling Strategies for a Changing World

As the world slowly regains it’s equilibrium many companies (from multi-national behemoths to smaller or medium sized) find themselves struggling to make the volume of sales they need and they’re calling me in to help them diagnose and solve the problems with their sales team. It’s been a fascinating experience because I’ve been shifting between strategic assessments, overhauling sales systems and processes, and hands-on training so I’ve really had a 360º view of what is going on.

The reality is that things have shifted during the pandemic your sales strategies need to shift to meet the new situation – or at least they do, if you want to survive and thrive.

Here are 3 areas of potential change:

  1. Your clients and customers’ circumstances may have changed meaning that your solution may now be too large or too small for their new needs;
  2. Your team membership may have changed as people retired, moved elsewhere, or came to work with your expanding demand;
  3. Your processes and systems may have changed – or they may need to change – to meet new circumstances;

All of this change means that you cannot take anything for granted, so it’s more important than ever to:

  • Nurture relationships,
  • Educate and inform clients as well as prospects about your services,
  • Assess your offerings and adjust them to meet demand,
  • Implement sales systems and processes that help you do all of those three things.

Over the past decade of rampant growth, many people have felt comfortable in sales roles because all they’ve needed to do is close leads that have been funnelled to them in almost endless supply. This meant that a 30-50% close rate was still acceptable, because there were always more leads to tap.

BUT… The math changes when the leads (and I’m talking about qualified leads here) dry up.

The Hungry Sales Professional

One of my most popular reports is “How to Talk to 10 Hungry Buyers this Week” (if you’re interested, you can download it HERE). It’s popular, but I’ve noticed that some of the sales professionals in my trainings turn up their nose when they are expected to implement its lessons to increase their close rate… they’ve become so used to the old world of sales that they’ve forgotten (or never learned) that Hungry Sales Professionals can create Hungry Buyers almost out of thin air IF they are willing to do one thing…

Get on the phone and call people.

Cold Calling has an Extended Definition These Days… And it’s Killing Your Sales!

Later in this series we’ll talk about the art of classic ‘cold calling’ and when and where you should consider using it.

Here, I’m going to focus on an attitude I’ve been addressing in many of the business owners (which is possibly expected) and sales professionals (where it’s inexcusable) I’m working with… The idea that they need to wait until someone else schedules a call.

In other words, the new definition of cold calling includes: “all calls which have not been pre-booked by a third party.” I’m extremely keen on attraction marketing and pre-qualifying prospects, but this approach is ridiculous, because it assumes that your prospects and clients know what they need and why they need it!

Let’s get this straight, once and for all:

Unscheduled calls to clients and prospects for the purpose of discovering how they are doing; what they need; and even letting them know about updated packages are NOT cold calls!

In fact, they are beneficial to you because they provide valuable feedback… And productive for the recipient because they have a chance to vent or celebrate.

These calls are extremely valuable opportunities for sales people to hone their conversation, communication, and listening skills, and they often end up yielding sales, referrals, and other opportunities.

The Qualifying Question

I believe that people should enjoy their work and find it satisfying, so… Early on in my sales training (after we’ve talked about the importance of sales skills in every area of life and looked at the way that skill benefits both parties) I ask this question:

Are you committed to changing people’s lives and future enough to step out of your comfort zone?

There’s no right or wrong answer – the choice lies with each person. BUT… If anyone’s answer to that question is, “No. I want to stay in my comfort zone when it comes to sales calls,” then they probably aren’t suited to sales or business ownership unless that attitude changes.

In Part 2, I’m going to talk about how you can use unscheduled calls with clients and prospects to do all that critical information-gathering and keep your organisation in the lead when it comes to service delivery and product offerings in any industry.

“The map appears to us more real than the land.”

~ D.H. Lawrence

What Does This Have to Do with Business and Sales?

In it’s most general term a ‘map’ is any tool that helps us understand and navigate the situation we are facing and the ‘territory’ is our actual situation.

In business and in sales, these maps include:

  • Sales processes, scripts, and tools
  • Business processes and protocols
  • Dress and speech codes
    Financial instruments
  • Lead generation and nurture

The territory would be the actual real-world conversations you have, the sense of rapport you do or do not have, systems glitches, etc.

Every day your business uses a map to function. Even the decision to ‘wing it’ and make up the rules as you go is a map… of sorts.

One of my favourite stories to tell with regard to following a map is about a sales rep named Bob. My friends know him as ‘Bob the photocopier man’. Bob’s map was detailed and fixed in his mind. He went from Point 1 to Point 2 to… Point X without any variation.

I encountered Bob on a day when I was short of staff and short of time. I wanted the answer to a SINGLE question and was ready to sign the purchase order as soon as that was answered. Unfortunately, Bob was so fixated on his map, that he couldn’t read the situation… And lost the sale!

This principle can make the difference between paying your bills… And not doing so.

Reality Check!

When you mistake your map for the reality you actually face, you can get into big trouble.

This is why, in business and sales, there is no such thing as a perfect process or structure. There are frameworks that apply when certain things are true, but if someone says, “Just do x, y, and z, and then you will 100X your profit this year,” then you should run away as quickly as you can.

There are many valuable online courses that promise to help you succeed if you have the confidence and motivation to work at implementing them. Most of them are genuinely effective, but you still have to bring your analytical skills and imagination to them. This is why we insist on pre-qualifying people for our programs: they are designed for people who have specific needs and there are some people whom we cannot help for one reason or another.

In business, your processes, theories, and understanding cannot be divorced from the reality of everyday life. If you try to ignore reality, your business is likely to fail… Fast.

In fact, one of the reasons people often contact me is that the financial reality of a business that does not have a strong sales process and supporting sales structures has become painfully evident. The truth is, you can have a fantastic product or service, but if you can’t actually close sales then you are at risk of failure.

Jumping to Conclusions

A map is like any other model. A quick glance may expose the similarities, but may not give enough information to highlight the differences.

That’s where both parties need to ask good questions to establish their suitability. I’m always rather wary of a high-ticket service business that lets me pay my money too easily, especially when they are going to deliver an outcome. It may be tempting when you need to make sales quickly to take ‘anyone with a pulse’, but it has a negative effect on your positioning and your own confidence in the results you deliver.

This is why the most famous and successful sales and business consultants have a very stringent application process and turn away as many applicants as they accept. Those they do accept are happy to pay astronomical fees because they know they will get results. These companies have set up a process that weeds out all the people who do not fit their profile.

There are other consultants and trainers who offer one-size-fits-all courses and deliver the same advice to everyone without digging into specific situations and needs. Frequently, these people are well-known, but their programs don’t deliver such stellar results and there is rarely any effort to pre-qualify applicants.

There’s a third group of consultants and trainers who offer customised interactive programs that deliver stellar results to members even when they are at different stages (within limits). These consultants and trainers qualify and evaluate candidates and they exclude those they can’t help, but their aim is to fully understand just what the prospect is looking for and where they are in the process.

Who Made the Map?

When it comes to sales training, specifically, it is extremely important to know who made the map you are following… And when it was made.

There was a long period in the 80’s and 90’s when sales training focused on what I call, ‘drag, batter, and kill’ methodologies. The idea was that when you see someone who was a potential prospect, you should corner them, beat them over the head with information, drag them to the desk, and close the sale – preferably on a long-term contract.

Some of these ideas are still practiced and taught today… And I find them out-dated, repulsive, and arrogant.

When you think about your sales strategies, my question is: if you used them to offer your service to your best friend, would you still be friends?

If the answer isn’t a resounding “Yes,” then it’s time to re-evaluate your sales strategy and discover how to tweak (or redesign) your map so that it is truly useful in today’s business territory because sales has never been a more critical skill to develop if you want to succeed.

“Finishing strong is an everyday occurrence as there will never be a race, goal, day, quarter or year that does not come to an end. This means finishing strong is not an act…it’s a habit.”

~ Gary Ryan Blair

What Does Closing have to Do with Finishing?

Michelle looked at me with hostility. I was training and managing the sales team for her organisation and her boss had asked me to have a talk with her. Based on her history, personality, and skill profile, she should have been a top sales performer, but her results were extremely average.

In response to my questions, she had just presented me with a litany of excuses for her uninspiring results that ranged from lousy leads to the economy to her marital problems. Then I had asked her a seeming irrelevant question “How many unfinished projects do you have in your life?”

That provoked another angry outburst culminating in her furious response: “What does closing have to do with finishing anyway?”

She didn’t quite add, “and how is that any business of yours?” But the unspoken words hovered in the air.

I wasn’t willing to back down, though. Her boss, Justin, had asked me to resolve the problem or let Michelle know that the company would be asking her to leave due to her poor performance. I didn’t think Michelle wanted that to happen, so I answered quietly… “The habit of finishing things and the practice of closing a sale are both tied to your overall wellbeing.

Research is exposing more and more the inter-relationship between unfinished tasks and projects in every area of life and people’s mental health and overall performance. It’s behind best practices in goal setting, project management, and task management and it’s part of the reason that many high performers practice daily meditation (the art of letting things go) and micro-meditation (the art of resetting as you move from one task to the next).

Michelle’s sales performance had been stellar. I was trying to discover what had changed – and this was indeed the key.

Judgers, Perceivers, and other Key Indicators

At first, Michelle hid behind the Myers-Briggs concept that she was a perceiver (P), so of course she was comfortable with open loops and unfinished business, but I knew that closing sales hadn’t always been hard for her so I kept digging through the excuses until we reached the root…

Uncertainty had become such an integral part of her life that she had developed the unconscious belief that everything was outside her control. As a result, she had developed a habit of blaming anything and everything on someone else and delegating as much as possible. Over the past few months that habit had spilled over into smaller and smaller projects and tasks until now, she acknowledged that closing a sale seemed to in the realm of ‘out of my control’.

“It’s easy for John,” she went on (talking about her colleague) “he likes everything neat and tidy, so he just won’t quit until he has closed a sale any more than he will quit before he wins an argument.”

I had to smile. She had summed up John’s judger personality perfectly, but the reality was that Michelle had always delivered a far higher number of high value sales than John – simply because she was willing to see the other point of view, read the situation, and circle back – either later in the conversation or on another day.

I was committed to working this through for her sake, not just for the organisation’s. It turned out, that once Michelle was aware of the shift in her belief and habits, she was also willing to address the issue and do the work required.

Why Does Everyone Get So Caught Up with Closing Sales?

Sales is far broader than simply the need to bring clients on board or sell produces and packages.

When you realise that sales skill are necessary to:

  • Get a job in the first place
  • Land a promotion or salary raise
  • Lead a team or organisation
  • Persuade friends, family, and children to take action
  • Shape beliefs and adopt habits
  • Communicate ideas and offer alternative paths…

You also realise that the ability to close sales is a very important skill that affects your happiness, opportunities, influence, and much much more.

There are many different ways to “close” and they are shaped by context and personality, but choosing not to close sales at all is a recipe for unhappiness and a deep-seated realisation that you have chosen to play small when you could have had a greater positive effect on your world.

That’s why I’m so passionate about closing sales…  For me, it’s about helping you to be, do, and have all you can be: to fulfil your potential in every arena!

YOU should also be caught up with closing sales!

  • That idea you had that would solve your business’s lead generation problems…
  • The lifestyle change that would enable both you and your partner to lose weight and become healthier…
  • That new prospect you know will experience total transformation if he buys…
  • That hobby that will help your son make friends and feel valued…
  • That restaurant you really want to dine at…
  • That credential you believe would create exciting opportunities…

They’re all sales you could close… If only you had the beliefs and habits to support you.

AND…

If you don’t close them?

You develop the habit of letting other people – other forces – control your life instead of taking the reins yourself and choosing your own direction!

Cultivating the Closing Habit

If there’s one thing that the pandemic has taken from many people, it’s that sense of control.

Robert, a successful CEO, said as much to me last week. “I used to believe and act with the confidence that if we went ahead, we could work things out. Recently, I’ve noticed that I’m saying, ‘Let’s wait and see about …’ disturbingly often. My habits have changed and so have my beliefs about what’s possible. I liked the old Robert better, and I think that there’s a new Robert inside me somewhere that would be even better than that one. Can you help me find him?”

We’ve only just started working together, but already things have started to shift – not just at work, but at home too.

In my program, Confident Conversion, we actually don’t spend very much at all talking about sales tactics. The focus is on your beliefs about yourself and your product, your positioning (and the tools to help you communicate the value you deliver), your qualifying process (so you never sell to anyone you can’t help), and several other important elements that increase your confidence and deliver results.

If you’d like to find out more, visit https://lifepuzzle.com.au/13-week-profitable-business-accelerator-program/

“Plant a tiny seed in the right spot and it will grow without coaxing.

~ B.J. Fogg

Confident, Congruent Sales in Business and Life

Sales is not just about money.

In fact, in many ways sales is hardly about money at all (see my previous blog: “The #1 Life Skill” to discover what I mean). I believe that failing to understand this important truth is one of the major reasons that many people have a visceral anti-selling response. I mean, I don’t know how many times when I tell someone, “I’m a sales trainer and speaker who helps people get more of what they want,” they just about step back with their hands up to ward me off and say with disappointment, “But you seem like such a pleasant person! I was looking forward to talking to you some more.”

The real problem most people have with selling (or at least with closing sales) is that they only know how to do it in ways that they know are not congruent with who they are and how they want to treat people. What I do, is to help people discover how to sell their ideas, plans, products, services, and dreams in a way that is comfortable and congruent with their values and goals so that they can confidently reach toward their loftiest ambitions and gain a horde of excited followers along the way.

Should I Repair, Renovate, or Re-build My Sales Process?

To some degree, the answer depends on what your current sales process looks like.

At the same time, I’m a big fan of using organic growth wherever possible… Especially when it comes to closing sales.

I remember one delightful woman who came to my Confident Closing workshop who hadn’t closed a sale in months! (Luckily, Jenna wasn’t dependent on her start-up to live or she would have starved.) On the first day, we worked through her client avatar and elevator pitch and by 1pm the next afternoon she had closed a sale for several thousand dollars just by rejigging her approach. Over the next week she closed 5 more sales – 2 had been pending for months and 3 came as referrals – just by making small changes.

As we worked together over the next few years, her pipeline grew, the channels that fed it expanded, and her sales increased in both number and value. Today, her sales process looks completely different from those first struggling efforts, but we never set out to rebuild the whole thing in one go.

The 1% Option

In many ways, sales are like habits. You can totally transform your life by starting from scratch and developing new ways of doing everything from brushing your teeth, to exercise, to food, to work… And sometimes that is forced on you by calamity or by a major change in your life. Most transformation coaches, therapists, and trainers suggest that you take more of an incremental approach if you want to create lasting change. That process lets you change one or two key things which lead to a significant outcome, and then slowly add or subtract other habits and behaviours.

I call this the 1% option – and it’s one of the most powerful concepts in many areas of life. In a sales situation (going back to Jenna, the woman I talked about earlier), this means setting sales goals that will help you build confidence along the way.

As I said, Jenna hadn’t closed a sale in months and her previous sale was $1,000 per month for 6 months. We talked about how much she wanted to charge and what her competitors were charging, but it was clear that she didn’t think she could make that jump. In the end, she decided that she could confidently ask for a setup fee of $1,100 + $1,100 per month for 6 months (meaning that her contract value jumped from $6,000 to $7,700).

Her subsequent sales over that week steadily increased in value and the last one of those 5 she closed was worth $15,000 over 6 months.

What Exponential Growth Looks Like

1% doesn’t seem a lot, does it?

Actually, it builds up quite quickly over time as an ancient Indian king discovered when he played chess with a visiting sage. The bet was that if the sage won, the king would place 1 grain of rice on the first square of the board, then double the number of grains on each subsequent square, which seemed like quite a modest wager.

However, when the king lost, he quickly realised that all the rice in the kingdom was not sufficient to pay his winnings and the sage made an agreement that the king would pay back the debt with interest to himself and his heirs.

Of course, that story represents 50% growth, and 1% growth is a lot smaller than 50%, but imagine that every week you added a 1% increase to each of the 7 key metrics of your business… In a week, you’d hardly notice anything, but in a year each metric would show substantial change and your total income and influence transformation would be dramatic – even though it had happened almost invisibly.

The Confident Closing Challenge

I run the 5-day Confident Closing Challenge regularly to help people see how easily they can dramatically increase both the frequency and value of their sales. In just 5-days, you can see the increase in confidence and optimism as sales flow in and participants realise that ‘confident,’ ‘congruent,’ and ‘sales’ really can coexist… And that the art of Confident Closing is something they can master and enjoy.

To learn more about the 5-day Confident Closing Challenge go HERE to sign up for out next challenge.

“Learning to sell effectively isn’t really about improving your income (although it does that very effectively), it’s mostly about increasing your happiness and satisfaction with your life, results, and relationships.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

What Do Life and Business Have in Common?

Maybe you’ve already guessed what I’m going to say, but let me tell you about two friends of mine…

Alison really does have everything she wants. She has a well-paid, flexible job in financial planning that is satisfying, her husband adores her, her 3 children are well-behaved and do well at school and basically her life has just the right blend of adventure and stability for her.

Matt is also married, is CFO of a major company but worries about getting overtaken in his position by younger men who seem to be moving ahead faster, an attractive wife who also works, and 2 children who never seem to be doing as well as he’d like them to do.

Both have similar backgrounds, but where Matt feels as though it’s always a struggle to get what he wants, Alison is confident that when she wants something, she’ll get it… including more money and responsibilities if and when she goes back to full-time work because she knows how to sell her ideas, skills, and products whether she’s trying to persuade her children to do homework or chores, her colleagues to pursue a specific course of action, or her husband to agree to holiday plans.

You can call it persuasion or influence – both marketing terms that put a gloss of sophistication on the subject – but really, what Alison has that makes every aspect of her life easier and Matt does not, is the ability to sell. This one skill has immense power not only to help you get what you want, but also to help other people get what they want as well.

That’s why I say that Sales is the #1 Life Skill that can make your life easier, more satisfying, and can also make the world a better place.

So let’s look at sales in a few different contexts:

Sales and Human Psychology

Psychological research tells us that people generally respond far more positively to their own ideas than to ideas that come from outside themselves, and they actively resist adopting ideas or actions that are forced on them… Even things that, in different circumstances, they might welcome (like food or exercise).

This is why prisoners sometimes go on hunger strikes or find other ways of asserting their independence. It’s why some children refuse to cooperate with teachers and parents, and it’s why some work-places have a culture of stubborn resistance to change.

Parents and teachers know that the best way to get children to cooperate enthusiastically, is to engage their interest and provide an appropriate level of challenge so that the children feel as though they are the ones deciding to commit to the project. They also know what happens when they fail to get that intrinsic commitment: every step becomes another struggle.

The art and science of successful sales in any arena involves piquing interest and creating a sense that the desire to be, do, or have any specific thing comes from within the person to whom you want to sell. After all, if you truly believe that your solution or course of action is appropriate, don’t you want other people to adopt the same perspective?

Sales @Home and in the Wider World

Here I’m talking about selling ideas and habits to your friends and family. Following are some common ideas or actions you might want them to adopt:

  • Doing homework in a timely fashion
  • Getting adequate exercise and sleep
  • Reducing the amount of alcohol or soft drink consumed
  • Making healthy snack and meal choices
  • Doing housework and cleaning up after themselves
  • Resisting bad influences
    Pursuing hobbies and interests
  • Serving other people
  • Limiting screen time
  • Developing friendships and having fun…

In any of these cases you have the option to force a pathway on others, or you can ’sell’ them the positive course of action in such a way that they feel as though they chose it themselves. If you make people do (or avoid) these things, then it’s only a matter of time before they go behind your back or openly rebel against the decree so selling creates far greater compliance and diligence and leads to better outcomes.

Sales @Work

From landing your initial role, to gaining promotions, and building your reputation and portfolio, your ability to sell your personality, skills, and experience is always a factor. You initially do this through your resume and interview, but often the person who gets the position is the one with the best sales skills, not the best technical skills.

It doesn’t matter whether you like that reality or not… But you do have a choice: you can wail about how unfair it is that you are being surpassed by people with a lesser skillset, or you can improve your sales skills and give yourself a chance to shine.

One of my clients was fed up at having her ideas ignored or passed over when she shared them, and then enthusiastically applauded when one of her colleagues put them forward. I pointed out that she could complain till the cows came home and nothing would change… OR… She could improve her sales skills so that people listened when she shared anything. She chose the latter course, and moved up the hierarchy at dizzying speed as her true capability and quality became visible.

The truth is that sales skills help you become more visible and valued and work and that brings along a host of other benefits like higher salary, more opportunities, and the satisfaction of seeing your ideas adopted.

Classic Sales Contexts

You can bludgeon someone into a single purchase, but if you want them to come back again and again and be a valuable lifelong customer, it’s better to use more subtle tactics.

Contrary to popular opinion, sales people are made not born… And that means that there is hope for everyone. I believe that anyone can learn to sell effectively, confidently, and congruently as long as they believe in the product or service they are selling to solve a prospect’s problem.

My own closing rate is over 100% (thanks to delighted clients referring me to others) even though there are times when I use my selling skills to convince a prospect not to buy. You see, desperation and ignorance are the two main reasons why people use selling techniques that make them feel uncomfortable.

  • Desperation or Neediness: is when you feel that you simply must make the sale even if you realise that it’s not the best course of action for your prospect. If that’s your sales modus operandi  then, of course you hate selling, and you hate yourself when you sell… And you should!
  • Ignorance: is when you simply don’t know how to sell effectively so you stumble around with no process or system. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but you have no idea why.

When you solve these two sales problems then suddenly your confidence grows, your sales pipeline and closing rates both increase and your job security and income increase (if you’re a member of a sales team) or your business grows in value, if you’re a business owner.

If sales is such an important skill, what are you doing to increase your mastery?

Complacency is the enemy of mastery.

  • I know enough;
  • I’ve done enough;
  • I’ve practice enough;
  • I’m good enough;

These are all the enemies of mastery. Yo-Yo Ma, the cellist, famously said, “If I miss one day’s practice, I can hear it; if I miss two days’ practice the critics can hear it; if I miss three days’ practice my audience can hear it. As a result, I do everything I can never to miss a day, and never to just go through the motions of practicing.”

Sales skill growth is a bit like that (but not quite so intense). If you don’t commit to investing time, resources, energy and money to improving your skills they grow cold. I make a point of investing every week into something that will help me improve my sales skills and hone my ability to teach others to do the same. I share these tips and learnings in my courses, challenges, and semi-weekly emails.

“When you lose sight of your objective, you discover hidden weaknesses in your systems… This can be a positive thing, but it can also be very dangerous.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

The REAL Problem with Distraction

There’s no denying that there are plenty of distractions around these days. In someways lockdowns and social distancing magnify distractions rather than eliminating them which makes it more likely that distraction will morph into mistakes.

The following story might be funny… if it wasn’t very nearly disastrous:

Angela had several sales conversations going on concurrently, each of which had multiple stakeholders and was in a different stage in her pipeline. Her company had also set up a strong lead generation system which was delivering her sales team more than 20 hot leads per week because her target market was feeling extremely vulnerable to IT security holes and wanted everything fixed yesterday. Her diary was full and she was running at full speed to take advantage of the opportunities being offered as were all the other members of the team.

On Monday she took a call from the project lead on a new client who had just signed their contract the previous week and had their on-boarding scheduled for Wednesday. The moment she picked up the phone she knew from his tone that she had a major problem brewing…

And she was correct!

“Angela, it’s Gavin here. We signed that contract in good faith last week. Today, I discovered that you have sent another, much cheaper, proposal to us. Can you explain the differences?”

Angela got the full story from Gavin, asked him to give her a couple of hours to look into things, and to send her through the two proposals, then she set up a call for later that day. It turned out that another sales rep had been talking to the same company and had also sent through a proposal for a much smaller project scope.

The sales team had been so busy that they hadn’t gone through things carefully during their daily standup and both Angela and her colleague had failed to follow the ‘Company Cross-Check’ Process that was designed to prevent this kind of incident.

During her call with Gavin, she was able to explain the differences in the two proposals’ scope satisfactorily and remind him that they had talked about the lower value project during the process of arriving at the contract they signed so that everything was resolved satisfactorily. Fortunately, they had a good relationship and plenty of trust already… But it wasn’t the way Angela wanted to start the delivery process.

Are Your Sales Systems Good Enough?

The real power of systems is that they provide support when humans are busy and distracted. The problem is that you have to follow them if you expect them to work.

Angela’s problem began when the team got busy and distracted and they set their sales management systems aside. Two of the important elements that they let slip were their daily stand-ups and their prospect cross-checks: even though Angela and her colleague were speaking to different people in the company, they could have discovered their mistake sooner and avoided any misunderstanding.

I’ve seen this kind of confusion happen even when there is only one person doing the sales. A business owner I worked with a few years ago realised that he needed to work on his systems when he provided two different quotes to a single company for the third time in a month – he was confused by the different representatives and, in the press of business, simply didn’t make the connection.

As well as setting up a simple tracking system for his sales (critical, since he wanted to hire someone for that part of the process), we refined his sales process in ways that increased each segment:

  • Lead flow increased by 5%
  • Conversion shifted from 35% to 74%
  • Average Sale value increased by 45%

… Resulting in a dramatic increase in revenue and profits.

It all came from keeping the objective front and centre – and ensuring that systems to support their process were in place.

Why Focus Affects Sales

When you’re talking about high-value projects, developing trust plays an important role in the sales process. Your product or service can be head and shoulders above those of your competitors, but if your sales process creates doubt about your level of organisation and integrity you can lose the sale.

That’s the cost of losing focus and not getting your sales process right in the eyes of your prospective customers.

But what about the cost when your sales people lose sight of the objective?

The hallmark of a well-run sales team is their laser-focus on the primary and secondary objectives of the business as well as their own personal and team goals. When you lose sight of that, there’s a strong probability that you will start to see the results at every stage of the sales process. It won’t necessarily show immediately, but 1-2% slippages compound over time and can make a big difference to your revenue and profitability.

Sales teams are particularly susceptible to this loss of focus because they are always results driven… And sometimes those results are affected by other parts of the business. This is why it is so important to have systems and processes in place to protect them from distraction and enhance their focus.

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