I just finished reading an advance copy of Bob Burg and John David Mann’s Go Givers Sell more. As most of you who read this blog often know I’m not a huge fan of parable style books but I read The Go Giver and was a convert . . . at least in a small way. Well, Bob and John have carried on the exceptional lessons in The Go Giver and shown how to apply them to sales. In case you aren’t familiar with the five laws of the Go Giver they are:

The Law of Value: Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.

The Law of Compensation: Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.

The Law of Influence: Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other peoples’ interests first.

The Law of Authenticity: The greatest gift you have to offer is yourself. The most significant way you have of adding value to others’ lives is by honoring your own nature—by being genuine and not trying to be someone you’re not.

The Law of Receptivity: The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.

Now these are not physical laws like gravity does the book ever intend to promote that some mystical force or law controls the outcome of your sales. Bob and John have done an amazing job of showing how simple ideas which he refers to as laws can change the way you react and interact in a sales setting with your customers while providing more value and increasing sales.

Do yourself a favor and grab this short book and read it, then read it again. Bob and John are two of my favorite writers and I’ll be they become two of your favorites as well.

Today I’ll be interviewing Richard Laermer author of Punk Marketing and Full Frontal PR about How To Fame. How to fame is not about how to become the next Paris Hilton or how to do traditional PR, it is about how to be seen so you can excel. More about Richard here
and here.

DETAILS: Call Time Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010, Noon Pacific, 1:00pm Mountain,
2:00pm Central, 3:00pm Eastern.
Dial-in Number:       1-218-936-4700         
Participant Access Code     366143
*If Richard allows it, I will record the call and post at: http://www.boldapproach.com/replay but I recommend you attend live if at all possible as we will take questions live.

Fame is no longer about Paris Hilton fake-famousness. Instead it is about the way people view you minute to minute and second to second. People are always watching. Faming is about creating and maintaining a consistent image (both through actions and communications) that reinforces credibility and professionalism, and that builds confidence
in others about your ability to get the job – any job – done.

How To Fame means gaining Pragmatic Notoriety(TM)!  It is being known for all the right reasons and becoming a true go-to person. Or try this: “This is how I’m different and this is why you should know me.”

How To Fame is getting a special edge on the competition, because everyone wants to feel special but no one has taken the time to demonstrate how to be special.

How To Fame is not a fix-all. It won’t keep you from getting laid off if your company goes under. In the same vein it won’t get your girlfriend to take you back and it won’t stop the ozone from eroding. (We think not.) What it will do is show you a systematic way of
taking the challenges you face each day and turning them into opportunities by making sure that your daily activities are purposefully moving toward the goal.

Each day that you are Faming, you will be increasing the personal equity in your career and your personal life.

Remember. Life is a competition now, especially in our totally networked world, an all-access-information society created by our need to be connected.

I’ll see you on the call today!

My five year old daughter noted while we were driving that the pizza delivery person next to us was smoking in his car with the windows up and with pizzas on the seat next to him. Her response was “Dad, I never want to order pizza from that place because the pizza will taste like cigarette smoke.”

What was interesting was that I’d never considered that a pizza delivery person might smoke in the delivery vehicle (even when they use their own car) with my food. Smoking isn’t allowed in restaurants here nor in the kitchens, logic would extend that to delivery vehicles.

I reported this on my facebook page and nearly universally people agreed with my daughter, don’t order from that place. Some pointed out that the bags that keep the pizza warm are mostly sealed so not a lot of smoke would get in. Yet others recounted horror stories of tainted food (Think Dominos (in)Famous Pizza Video)

But whether or not the pizza is tainted by the smoke (and I believe it is) the bigger issue is that neither I nor my daughter (who has now told her mom, her aunt, and the neighbor) will order pizza from this particular company because PERCEPTION IS REALITY.

I recently traveled through Montana interviewing business owners and met some amazing people and I also observed people being very difficult to do business with . . . and I heard them talking about how tough it was to make money in this economy. Again, perception is reality, if I feel it is difficult to do business with you I probably won’t or at least not again. 

A big hit to your brand is most likely surmountable but the little things that you don’t notice or ignore are chipping away at the foundation of your business and will destroy it.

What is it that you are not attending to that is chipping away at your success?

Look around and fix it.

In branding yourself or your business, Perception IS reality.

Price has always been a main reason that keeps sales people from selling. At least, that’s what sales people say. Here is evidence to the contrary.

Sales people have always had a laundry list of excuses that keep them from being able to sell today. Yet, is there any excuse more infamous than the price one. “If we just lowered our price, I could sell a ton of this stuff.” Oh really? People primarily buy based on price? Well, if that’s true consider this.

If price really matters…

Everyone would buy generic drugs

No one would have cable or satellite television

The seat every fan fights for would be the last row in the stadium

Satellite radio wouldn’t have over 15 million subscribers

No one would own a Bose product

You would get your drinking water from a faucet

A Yugo would be in your driveway

Nordstroms would be empty

Everyone would shave with a single blade razor, not the Gillette Fusion
 
Starbuck’s wouldn’t have poured a single cup of coffee

The only food in your kitchen would be supermarket brand

The toilet paper in your bathroom would be single-ply sandpaper

And… You wouldn’t have any clients!

After all, someone bought from your company. Not just one person, lots of people have bought from your company. Remember this the next time you let yourself argue that you can’t sell because of price. It isn’t the price… It’s your ability to demonstrate value to prospects. And, people will pay for value. You’ve just seen evidence that they do, even in your own backyard.

Lee B. Salz is a sales management strategist who specializes in helping companies build scalable, high-performance sales organizations through hiring the right sales people, on-boarding them effectively and efficiently, and aligning their sales activity with business objectives using his sales architecture® methodology. He is the President of Sales Architects, the C.E.O. of Business Expert Webinars and author of “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager.” Lee is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board and featured columnist with Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Look for Lee’s new book in 2010 titled, “The Sales Marriage” where he shares the secrets to hiring and on-boarding the right sales people. He is a results-driven sales management consultant and a passionate, dynamic speaker. Lee can be reached at lsalz@SalesArchitects.net or 763.416.4321.

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Sales people often say they want to be managed as if they were operating their own business. And, that’s exactly how they should be managed. Yet, there is a disconnect between how sales people perceive running a business works…and real-life. A sales business plan can help bridge this gap.

During my work with clients, I’m often asked to interview their sales people as part of my sales team due diligence. One of the questions that I always ask is their desired management style from the company. The response I hear most frequently? “I want to be treated as if I were running my own business.” On the surface, this should be music to the executive team’s ears. The truth of the matter is that it is actually cause for alarm.

When sales people say they want to be treated as business operators, they mean it. Yet, their perception of running a business is not consistent with reality. They are saying they want complete autonomy to do whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it. The French expression laissez-faire describes what they really desire…hands-off management. And that’s not how successful businesses operate.

Anyone who has ever operated a business knows that running a business does not include the right to follow the path of the wind. If you operate a publicly-traded company, you have responsibility to the Chairman, the Board of Directors, and the shareholders. If you run a privately-held company, you have accountability to the bank or partners. In both instances, you also have responsibility to the employees. This doesn’t quite sound like laissez faire and running a successful business are compatible.

That said, you should treat your sales people as business operators…real business operators. After all, your company is funding their business. Your sales people have an obligation to present their plan to make that business profitable. In essence, you are the primary investor in their business.

The first step toward treating your sales people as business operators is to ask them to provide you with a business plan that shows how they will make their business successful. The plan should not be the second-coming of War and Peace, but should be thorough-enough to give the investors comfort in the plans for success.

If you provide the sales team with nothing more than the instruction to write a business plan, they will waste a lot of time trying to figure out what you want…and will still miss the mark. The best approach is to create a sales business plan template using the questions the investors have about their business strategy. The overall plan should “map back” to the revenue target you have set for the sales people. If you are asking them to generate a million dollars in revenue, the plans should clearly show how they going to achieve that target.

The plan should have five core components: 

Accounts. The accounts section is the place in the plan to list clients/prospects and their expected revenue contribution toward the million dollar target. If the sales person’s target includes both existing accounts and new ones, this section of the plan forecasts the expected performance of their portfolio and documents the new accounts that lead them to the target revenue number.
 
Prospecting. The prospecting section shows their plan to build a sales pipeline. If there are no prospects, there are no sales…so understanding their strategy to reach prospects is a key for the investors to sleep at night. This area should highlight both their pipeline development strategy and tactics.

Sales Metrics. The sales metrics section shows how their activities correspond to results (i.e., revenue). This is a statistical presentation of the sales activities that they will perform that leads them to achieve the million dollar goal. This should show their success formula that works backwards from the goal and corresponds to sales activities (i.e., how many meetings will lead to a proposal, how many proposals will lead to a sale, etc.).

Skill Development. This is area is often ignored by sales people, but should be important to the investor group. After all, if there is no commitment to continuous self-improvement, how will the business continue to grow? The plan should show what they will do to improve their skills and industry knowledge…with a time commitment.

Business Needs. The final section of the sales business plan asks what the sales people need from the company to succeed. This area of the plan provides each business operator with an opportunity to share his needs of their manager and the company. It also tells what would prevent him from achieving the million dollar goal. As an investor, you want to know about his potential roadblocks so they can be addressed.

Once the plan is created, a conference call/meeting is scheduled with the investor group (the key business stakeholders) and each sales person. During the call, the sales person presents the sales business plan and the investor group challenges it to make sure it is sound. On a quarterly basis, the sales people present an update to the plan to ensure progress is being made toward the annual million dollar goal.

Not sure how to develop your plan, send me an email for my sales business plan template. Keep in mind that you will need to adjust the template to match your business objectives.

 
Lee B. Salz is a sales management strategist who specializes in helping companies build scalable, high-performance sales organizations through hiring the right sales people, on-boarding them effectively and efficiently, and aligning their sales activities with business objectives using his sales architecture® methodology. He is the President of Sales Architects, the C.E.O. of Business Expert Webinars and author of “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager.” Lee is a columnist and member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Sales and Marketing Management and SalesforceXP magazines. He is a results-driven sales management consultant and a passionate, dynamic speaker. Lee can be reached at lsalz@SalesArchitects.net or 763.416.4321.

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