One of my favorite sales stories is about the rep who called on a new prospect, noticed a photo on the desk and asked, “How’d you get your picture taken with John Madden?”

“That’s my wife,” the suddenly ex-prospect said.

You can ask a lot of dangerous questions in sales. For example:

“How ’bout them Yankees?” Oh, you’re a Mets fan.

“Are you familiar with our company?” Oh, you filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

“What are the company’s long-term goals?” Oh, the company’s for sale.

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All of these questions are dangerous and all were asked because somebody didn’t think about the message their question was sending. And that’s what makes a sales question different from an ordinary run-of-the-mill question.

Ordinary questions are designed for one reason only: to get information. But a good sales question has to work a lot harder. It not only must get the information you seek, but also must provide information. It must communicate to the prospect that you are curious, prepared, knowledgeable and thoughtful. Prospects will decide whether to do business with you, at least in part, based on the quality of your questions. So never ask a question in sales until you’ve considered the message that it’s sending to your buyer.

Here’s the most important thing you’ll ever need to know about discussing salary with high performers:

If the conversation is about money, you’re doomed.

The reason is that your top performers are likely to care less about money than any other employees at your company. But they care far more than others about OPPORTUNITY.

Does that mean they don’t want to earn a lot? No. They want and expect to earn more than anybody else because they deserve to. But money is low on the list of factors that will determine whether they walk out of your salary discussion with a smile on their face.

Think about it: What if you gave a nice raise to a star performer, but made it clear she’d never advance in your organization? She’d bail in a heartbeat. Top performers want more responsibility. More exposure to senior management. More chance to make an impact on your company’s market share, profitability and valuation.

Free Download: "The Manager's Guide to Draining the Drama from Annual Salary Reviews"

So here’s a quick model for your next conversation with a top performer:

• Make sure you understand exactly what their career goals are.
• Seek out ways to show alignment between those goals and the goals of the company. Try to show a direct “line of sight” between the work they do every day and the success of the company.
• Make sure the person understands that you really “get” why they are so good, and that you’re totally committed to finding ways to use their talents to advance the company’s goals.

Never forget that what stars really want is to make a difference. If they walk out of your office after a salary review feeling that the company will allow them to use their skills and abilities to the max, they’ll be smiling.

At the end of a lengthy selling cycle the prospect raises a litany of objections — one of them over price. What do you do?

An inexperienced salesperson might see the deal slipping away, panic and make a price concession, but that is a potentially fatal mistake, says sales consultant John Holland.

The reality is, a buyer sharing his risk concerns at the end of the cycle more likely means you are the vendor of choice. It’s time to stay calm. Since people only vent to those they trust, consider it as a sign you’re trusted.

Once you’ve discussed the issues, summarize the potential value, the shortcomings of their current solution, the capabilities needed, and the references you’ve provided. Then, stand firm on price and gently ask the buyer to move forward.

Free Download - ‘Price Objections: Four Secrets Prospects Will Never Tell You’

“How would you describe your relationship with your supervisor, Andy Liberto?” plaintiff’s attorney Sue Moore asked her client, Jenny Santos.

“It was OK at first, but it turned bad after he reported me to HR,” Jenny said.

“Why’d he do that?” Moore asked.

“Supposedly I didn’t work my scheduled hours for the last week in March,” Jenny said.

“Did he ask you for an explanation before going to HR?” Moore queried.

“No,” Jenny said. “That upset me. I asked why he didn’t talk to me first. He got offended and said he was the boss. After that he wouldn’t say a thing to me. It was like he was pouting.”

Defamation claim
“All right,” attorney Moore said. Turning to the judge, she said, “Now I’d like to get into the events that form the basis of this defamation lawsuit.”

“Ten days after your altercation with Andy Liberto, what happened at the company premises?” Moore asked.

“We had a false fire alarm,” Jenny said. “It was pretty disruptive, because there were three or four customer meetings going on.”

“And the next day?” Moore went on.

“The operations VP called me in,” Jenny said. “When I got to the conference room, two policemen were there with the VP. He accused me of pulling the alarm, and the police arrested me.”

“Did you pull it?” Moore asked.

“Of course not,” Jenny said. “I was on the fourth floor, far from the nearest alarm box.”

“What about the video that the VP claimed showed you in the act?” Moore asked.

“The prosecutor looked at it and dismissed the charges,” Jenny said.

“But not before the local newspapers had reported your arrest?” Moore prompted.

“Yes,” Jenny said. “They wanted to get rid of me after my run-in with Andy, and they didn’t care if they ruined my reputation.”

Did Jenny win her defamation case?

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Management Lesson
Yes, Jenny won a preliminary victory when the judge refused to throw out her lawsuit.

The judge said there was evidence to support Jenny’s allegation that false charges were made against her because of animosity resulting from the altercation with her supervisor.

Obviously, the company erred spectacularly over the fire alarm issue. But what about supervisor Andy?

His handling of Jenny’s alleged misdeeds couldn’t have been worse, and set the company up for her subsequent lawsuit.

There may be times when an employee’s misconduct is so blatant and/or dangerous that a supervisor must take action without hearing the person’s side. But these are exceptions. And a supervisor who sulks and won’t talk to an employee is behaving like a child, not a capable manager.

Cite: Ciemniecki v. Parker McCay P.A., No. 09-6450, D. N.J. , 6/7/10.

Editor’s Note: Greatest Sales are true accounts of how successful salespeople made a challenging sale despite price objections, buyer inertia, cutthroat competition and other obstacles. In this Greatest Sale, Forrest Cronia, Vice President Sales, HRS Textiles, Darlington, SC, tells how he was able to move his product out of the commodity category and create a unique advantage in a highly competitive sale.

One of my customers revealed to me that he was having serious quality issues with another supplier. “We’re going to ask for bids,” he said. “You’re welcome to try for the business.”

We didn’t make the product; we’d have to develop it from scratch. But we decided to go for it anyway. The opportunity was just too good to pass up.

Nobody had the inside track. Like us, the other two bidders would have to create the product. And, like us, they also had good relationships with the buyer.

Nor did I see any of us winning on technology. The product was a specialized air filter for the buyer’s machinery, and given the customer’s specs, we were all sure to design something pretty similar.

Time to market was critical
So how could we gain a competitive advantage over two well-qualified competitors?

It was clear from my discussions with the buyer that they needed the product quickly. It looked like time-to-delivery would be the key to creating differentiation. But again, all the bidders seemed to be in the same boat. None of us could wave a magic wand and shorten our development cycle.

Then I had an idea. My competitors could have done it. But I thought of it first: I asked our customer to help us win the business.

Unfair?
Specifically, we asked them to help us reduce our product-development cycle.

But wouldn’t that give us an unfair advantage?

I certainly hoped so. I wanted to win. And the buyer couldn’t care less about a “fair” fight among its bidders. They just wanted a solution. The sooner they could get the new product, the sooner they could solve their production problem.

A big request
I asked for a big commitment from the buyer.

Their plant was 450 miles away, and developing the air filter would require repeated trips to the customer’s plant to test our designs. With all the back-and-forth, it would take us at least three months to develop a solution. But I’d learned the company kept a spare machine for breakdowns. And I asked to borrow it.

“That’s crazy,” said the customer’s production manager. “No way.” But when I explained how that would help get his production problem solved sooner, he came around.

With the customer’s machine in our plant, we came up with a product in just three weeks. Our competitors took three months. By then, I was already selling the customer truckloads of air filters. What’s more, our close working relationship throughout this process gave us a chance to cultivate relationships with key decision makers.

We returned the machine in better shape than we’d found it. “Thanks for your help,” I said.

“No, thank you,” they told me.

We’ve successfully supplied them for two years now. Our contract runs well into six figures.

This was my greatest sale for two reasons: First, I understood that when the customer needs something bad enough, they’re willing to put their resources at your disposal to get it done.

Second, I saw that when you get the buyer involved in creating the solution, they gain ownership in the outcome. And that sense of ownership is enough to take you out of the commodity category.

Free Download - "How to Avoid the "Commodity Copout" When Faced With Price Objections"

Yet another study confirms it – women think female managers are more difficult to work for than men.

The latest survey, by the Chicago-Kent College of Law, showed that a majority of 164 legal secretaries – 159 of them women – preferred to work for male associates and partners.

Emotional?
Asked to explain their preference, secretaries said women bosses were emotional and demanding. They had “more to prove” and “put on airs.”

Results like these point out a real challenge for managers and HR professionals alike: Despite efforts to create nondiscriminatory workplaces, bias exists, and can’t be eliminated by policies, memos or even lawsuits. And pretending otherwise won’t make it go away.

Free Download: "The Manager's Guide To Preventing Discrimination Lawsuits"

The solution? Don’t sweep bias under the rug. You can’t deal with it until you acknowledge it. Yes, those are likely to lead to some challenging discussions. But ignoring these issues don’t make them disappear.

“Can you tell me why you still haven’t moved your effects out of this cubicle?” Supervisor Cap Andrews asked employee Brock Gulliver. “The new hire needs to move her stuff in.”

“All right, all right,” Brock said. “I’ll get to it after lunch.”

“Now!” Cap bellowed. “You’ve got a cubicle in your new department, and your replacement in this department has been waiting for two days for you to vacate her space. Just because you’re sore about the transfer doesn’t mean you can gum up the works.”

“I’m not feeling too well. I’ve got a headache, and I need some time to rest. I can’t do it right now,” Brock said, and walked away.

“You come back here, mister,” Cap shouted. “Otherwise you’re refusing a direct order.”

Brock kept walking and didn’t reply. He went to the parking lot, got into his truck and started off for his doctor’s office.

One of Cap’s other subordinates, Martha Jones, had witnessed the exchange. “Be careful, Cap,” she said. “You remember Brock had a heart bypass operation a couple years back.”

“I remember,” the supervisor said. “But he can’t leverage his medical history into a right to disobey orders.” Cap suspended Brock for a week. Later, Brock sued the company, claiming Cap interfered with his right to take leave under the Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Did he win?

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No, Brock didn’t win his FMLA lawsuit. The court that heard the case said he hadn’t given his supervisor, Cap, adequate notice that he had a medical condition that could be serious enough to qualify him for leave. Also, Cap couldn’t be expected to infer that Brock was having heart trouble just because he had had a bypass operation at some point in the past. So when Cap ordered Brock back to work, he wasn’t interfering with the latter’s FMLA rights.

So what constitutes adequate notice? Supervisors need to remember two key points in deciding when to offer their subordinates the necessary paperwork for FMLA leave:

1. An employee doesn’t have to specifically request FMLA leave in so many words, if the person gives the supervisor a clear idea that he or she may in fact be suffering from a serious health condition. Example: An employee says her diabetes is acting up and she can’t finish her shift.

2. Even so, an employee who merely says he or she is “sick,” or “doesn’t feel well,” hasn’t given the legally required notice of a serious health condition. You need not bring up FMLA in such cases

“I have to run this by my boss.”

“Let me think it over.”

“Call me back in a month.”

When a prospect gives you a line like that, what does it mean?

Lots of experts will say it means “no sale.” The prospect is just putting you off, and will never buy.

But it ain’t necessarily so.

Some prospects really will run it by the boss — and the boss will say yes. Some really will think things over — and decide to buy. Some know that big changes are coming soon in their organization and you’d be really smart to call them back in a month.

But others will just eat up your most precious selling resource — your time — and never buy.

Check out “How to Overcome the Stall” for FREE and learn what you can do to turn stalled prospects into engaged buyers who are eager to close the deal.

How can you sort the wheat from the chaff? Well, you could just ask, but salespeople hesitate to do that. They worry that they’ll be seen as a high-pressure arm twister or come across as desperate. But there is a way to ask that won’t scare off real buyers. It’s called the “1-to-10 Technique”.

Quite simply, ask your prospect on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being nowhere near a sale and 10 being a done deal, how close they are to buying your product. The 9s and 10s are obvious candidates, 7s and 8s will take some work but are still worth pursuing, and 5 or 6s probably aren’t worth your continued efforts.

The approach works because you’re not asking the prospect to commit to a yes or no answer. You’re simply asking for a snapshot of where things stand at the moment. But it gives you a vital piece of information — even if it’s not the answer you wanted to hear — that will allow you to prioritize your efforts and make the most of your selling time.

It’s fine to confront your reports when there’s an issue that needs airing. But it’s critically important to handle the encounter the right way. Here are five questions to ask yourself before you initiate a faceoff:

1. Does the message need to be shared for the success of the person, your team and yourself?
2. Are you prepared to approach the person in a way that encourages receptiveness, while putting aside any assumptions you may have about him or her?
3. Are you prepared to speak your truth specifically and authentically, while at the same time avoiding brutality or abrasiveness?
4. Are you prepared to tell the person how the issue affects you?
5. Are you genuinely interested in hearing the person’s perspective on the issue, even if it is very different from your own?

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You know about consultative selling. It’s an effective methodology or mindset used successfully around the globe.

The “holy grail” in consultative selling is when you act as a trusted advisor, assisting the buyer in identifying needs and offering solutions that fit their situation.

Consultative selling is a proven approach, says sales training expert Nancy Bleeke. But it’s not the ultimate. There’s a way you can achieve even better results. Consultants are still delivering something to the buyer. Collaboration is working with your buyers.

Free Download - "Connecting with Buyers: Sell More by Selling Less"

A side-by-side process
Collaborative selling is working with your buyers in a joint process to clarify needs, identify how the solution you provide benefits them and then navigate through decision-making. It’s a side-by-side process, not a head-to-head one.

This quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes says it well: “Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.”

Who knows how much more our buyer can add to the depth of how they use our product/service?

They may have ideas for application, usage and implementation that we never thought of! They want to participate in creating the solution. When they do, they get a better solution and greater ownership.

So when we can collaborate with them and jointly discover needs, wants, challenges and solutions to help them, we build a deeper relationship and a more loyal customer.

Who wants to be “told” or “pitched” information? Not many people, these days. Most people would rather be next to you exploring a topic and adding their input to the discussion.

Does this mean we don’t need to be the experts anymore?
Not at all! It means that we need to be more of an expert and prepared to:

• Ask questions that engage and involve.
• Allow time for more discussion.
• Explore with buyers how what we offer will work for them specifically.
• Adapt our communication to their style (including verbal style, decision-making style and level of involvement style).
• Share expertise and information without sales pressure.

A recent sales meeting with a long-term client illustrates the point. Within the first 10 minutes the seller found that the buyer wanted tweaks to fit her specific demands. And the buyer didn’t just want the seller to take her input and come back with a fix. She wanted to roll up her sleeves and get involved.

The buyer had erased that invisible wall between “vendor” and “purchaser.” Both were on the same team, working toward a common goal. And that’s a great place to be with your customers!

You know about probing for “pain,” to find out what’s wrong, what a prospect is not happy about, or don’t like about their current situation.

But there’s another question that should be asked before that kind of question, says sales guru Craig James: “What do you like about your current vendor/solution/situation?”

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It may seem self-defeating to ask a question that lets the prospect say something favorable about the status quo you’re trying to overturn. But here are three reasons this question makes sense:

1. It tells you what you’ll need to provide as part of any solution you will propose.
2. It builds rapport by giving your prospect an opportunity to validate his previous decisions.
3. If the buyer has stuck with their current vendor out of mere habit, the question may help them discover there isn’t all that much they like.

When enforcing standards of attire, make sure to be consistent and not pick on anyone. A supervisor in an Army medical clinic in Puerto Rico no doubt wishes he’d done that.

The supervisor had a bee in his bonnet about the attire of a female employee. (At first they were co-workers, but he was later promoted.) He claimed that her clothing was too revealing, and specifically that her skirts showed her underwear.

Free Download: "The Manager's Guide to Sexual Harassment"

Didn’t have a dress code
According to the employee, the supervisor went so far as to bring co-workers to her desk to comment on her supposedly inappropriate clothing. She said he told co-workers she dressed “like a woman of the streets.”

At one point, the supervisor formally counseled the employee over her clothing, but she replied that there was no office dress code and that she felt she dressed professionally.

A few months later, he sent her a memo reading: “On occasion the way you have dress(ed) has made me and co-workers very uncomfortable … In the workplace you… are required to stand, bend, reach above for documents and you need to be fully aware (of) clothing that reveals underwear.”

Fed up and frazzled, the employee sued for hostile work environment. And a federal appeals court said her case was strong enough to go to trial.

Lesson of the case: If you feel the way an employee dresses is inappropriate, refer to your organization’s dress code. If there isn’t a dress code, ask HR to come up with one. Don’t wing it according to your own tastes or personal standards.

Cite: Rosario v. Department of the Army, No. 08-2168, 1st Cir., 6/2/10.

So you trained a bunch of people in your company but you don’t know whether it’s paying off. How can you find out?

That’s a question asked by Donald Kirkpatrick back in the 1950s. His Ph.D. thesis was on the topic of “training evaluation.” Kirkpatrick came up with a model that’s still widely used in the training field. He isolated four levels of evaluation:

• REACTION: What did participants think of the training?
• LEARNING: What did participants learn?
• BEHAVIOR: Are participants using the learning productively on the job?
• RESULTS: Did the training produce the desired result?

The American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) did a study to determine how frequently companies used each of these levels. Here’s the bad news:

• REACTION: 96%
• LEARNING: 37%
• BEHAVIOR: 13%
• RESULTS: 3%

Which means that, say, when an employee is sent to an off-site conference, 96% of the time a manager will ask, “Did you like the training?” Only 37% of the time will the manager ask “What did you learn?” And only 13% of the time will the boss actually determine whether the learning is being applied.

No surprise, companies almost never get the result they intended.

Free Download: "Why 80% of Employee Training Doesn't Stick - And What You Can Do About It"

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. If managers provide follow up — if they INspect what they EXpect — they can achieve the results they’d hoped for.

One of the quickest ways to get good at anything is to figure out what unsuccessful people do and avoid that behavior. Here, courtesy of cold-calling guru Art Sobczak, are the most common cold-calling mistakes — the Seven Deadly Sins of Cold-Calling that kill sales in 10 seconds or less:

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1. Talking about you. Save it for mom, because prospects don’t care. They don’t care that your company is the biggest/oldest/best in the industry, or how much effort your company spent to develop this new and improved whatever. They only care about themselves. As salespeople, of course, we know it’s all about the customer. And yet this continues to be the number-one cold-calling mistake – because salespeople are just as human as prospects, and their number-one concern is – well, looking out for number one.

2. Diving into the pitch. This sin happens because salespeople are thinking about that 20-second cold-calling window. The stopwatch is ticking and they think, “I better shove in as much information as I can.” But if you don’t know the buyer’s needs, you’re just providing fodder for an objection: “We have that already. No, we don’t need that. We never expect to need that. Don’t know anyone who needs that. But hey, have a nice day.”

3. Sounding like a salesperson. ”Nine out of ten retailers lose more to employee theft than shoplifting. If I could show you a way to cut down those losses, would you be interested?” It sounds customer-focused, but it’s not. It’s just a generic approach that shows absolutely no insight into the customer. And buyers have heard it a million times before.

4. Asking for a decision too soon. “Are you available next week?” No. “Does that sound like something you’d find useful?” No. Nobody’s ready to make a decision in the first ten seconds of the call, so if you ask for a decision – any decision – the answer is likely to be no. Why invite a no?

5. Playing postal inspector. “I sent you a letter last week. Did you get it?” You don’t have to ask; nearly all the mail gets delivered. What you’re really asking is, “Did you read it and what do you think?” Again, you’re inviting rejection. It’s fine to send a letter to take the chill off a cold call. But you don’t even have to refer to it when you call.

6. Asking without a reason. “Hi. Ben Jones here with ABC Office Supply. So tell me, are you the person who buys supplies for your office?” You’ve given absolutely no reason for the prospect to share this information with you. Better: “So tell me, are you the person who buys office supplies? I don’t want to waste your time if you’re not.”

7. Human robocalls. “Good afternoon, Mr. Mispronounce Your Name Here. My name is Jim and we’re contacting people in your area to blah blah blah.” Scripts are essential for cold calling. But reading them like a fifth-grade book report is torture.

Supervisors can get in trouble during job interviews by misphrasing questions about legitimate issues. Here are four examples, along with the right ways to ask:

1. Possible disability. You see that an applicant has only one arm. You want to know if he can handle the physical demands of your job.
Wrong question: How do you lift using your one good arm? (Disability discrimination.)
Right question: This job requires lifting 40-pound boxes. Can you perform the functions of the job with or without accommodation?

2. Immigration issues. You suspect an applicant is an illegal immigrant. Her accent is that of a Mexican state known in your industry as a source of illegal migrants.
Wrong question: May I ask where you were born? (Race/national origin discrimination.)
Right question: If you’re offered this job, could you prove you have the right to work in the U.S.?

3. Name change. You see a shiny new wedding ring on an applicant’s hand. You wonder if she has a work history under a former name.
Wrong question: What is your maiden name? (Gender/marital status discrimination.)
Right question: Is there any other name we should know about to check your employment history?

4. Religious holiday issues. Your applicant is wearing a skullcap, and you assume he is an observant Jew. You aren’t sure if he will be able to work on Saturday, as required.
Wrong question: Does your religion prevent you from working Saturdays? (Religious discrimination.)
Right question: Will you be available to work Saturdays, as stated in our job ad?

Free Download: "The Manager's Guide To Preventing Discrimination Lawsuits"

When everyone else in your market is selling “solutions” and asking the same tell-me-what-you-do questions, how can you set yourself apart?

Your best opportunity to stand out from the competition lies in becoming a true consultant to the business, says sales coach Ken Valla.

It’s a “next level” approach that, in addition to setting you apart from the rest of the “solution sellers,” will:

• Position you as someone who can deliver improved efficiency, productivity and profits.
• Build stronger relationships with key decision makers throughout the organization, not just one sponsor.
• Demonstrate that you “get” what matters to company leadership.
• More clearly link your product or service offering to a concrete strategic problem affecting the company’s future success.

A deeper understanding
You already know how important it is to do your homework about a prospect. But the kind of information you really need isn’t going to come from a quick Internet search or the company’s annual report. You need to probe deeply to get the insights your competitors will miss.

Free Download - "Sales Discovery: The Five Whys Technique for Uncovering Hidden Customer Needs"

You need to learn what matters most to the executives who “own” the key business processes in the company. And that comes from asking each of them a different set of questions, focused on the customer’s core business processes. That will give you a much clearer picture of how you can help the company become more efficient and profitable.

A process conversation
You can get business process information only by talking to the right people in the right parts of the organization. That means you need to go beyond your initial internal contact or sponsor at a company, to call on “process owners.” Of course it’s more work, but the payoffs can be great.

For example, say you’re selling surgically implantable devices, such as artificial hips or knees.

You can call on orthopedic surgeons or hospital administrators. But unless you call on the CFO you may not learn that the core issue for a hospital is the high cost of inventory and the slow pace of third-party reimbursement. Would knowing that — and offering a solution to the problem (such as financing) — give you a leg up on the competition? You bet!

Here’s how to approach a process conversation:

Prepare
From your initial contact at a company — preferably an internal sponsor or champion — learn as much as you can about the other process owners you need to call on. Consider what aspects of their process might be strategically important — especially the success measures. Of course, what is most important will differ from one functional head to another.

Establish the purpose
Many of the people you contact may not have a clear idea of why they should be talking with you. Explain that you simply want to learn more about how the organization works, how you fit in, and how you might be able to improve effectiveness and profitability.

Get the lay of the land
Your first questions should be designed to help you understand the processes and how they all fit together. Key questions to ask:

• What has to go right in your operation for you to be successful?
• What’s working well for you? Are there any areas that are not going as well as you would like?
• How does your area of responsibility connect with other parts of the business?
• Who provides inputs to you? Where do your outputs go and how are they used?
• Tell me how your area adds value to the organization.

Find things to fix
Next, ask follow-up questions to uncover flaws in the processes. For example: “So exactly why are your inventory costs so high?” You learn that each surgeon orders his or her own devices directly from the manufacturer. You help centralize the ordering system and you’re everybody’s hero.

By talking to more people and asking deeper questions, you may identify all sorts of issues like these that can affect the company’s ability to meet high-level strategic goals. Often, nobody’s addressed those problems because nobody’s taken a step back to identify them or has time to fix them. When you step in with a solution, you make a substantive contribution to the overall success of your buyer’s business.

Leadership articles often focus on what good bosses do. But management guru Robert Sutton likes to stress what good bosses believe.

Have a look at these beliefs, which stress the balancing act between humility and decisiveness. Do you share them?

• I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me.
• I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.
• One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough.
• Because I wield power over others, I am at risk of acting like an insensitive jerk — and not realizing it.
• I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong — and to teach my people to do likewise.

Free Download - ‘Leadership Credibility: The Confidence Base’

Editor’s Note: Greatest Sales are true accounts of how successful salespeople made a challenging sale despite price objections, buyer inertia, cutthroat competition and other obstacles. In this Greatest Sale, Paul Cherry, managing partner of Performance Based Results in Wilmington, DE, recounts a sale that still influences how he approaches prospective buyers today.

My Greatest Sale happened many years ago. Yes, it was a big sale, but that’s not what makes it so memorable. I think about it often because it taught me something about the dangers of making assumptions.

A prospect had sent in an inquiry card, asking that we contact him. It was a hot lead, so of course, I called him immediately.

He was out of the office. I left a detailed voice mail, asking him to call me back.

A couple of days later, I hadn’t heard from him. I called him back. And got his voice mail again. A few more days went by with no callback. No real surprise there, of course. He was probably just busy.

My hot lead went cold
On my next call, I didn’t leave a message. I stayed on the phone until I could talk to a live person. After a couple of transfers, I got hold of his administrative assistant.

Who was I with? she asked. No, she wasn’t aware he’d asked us to call him. No, she didn’t know what he might have been interested in. Yes, she’d ask him to give us a call. As you can imagine, nothing came of that attempt either.

Over the next few months, it was more of the same. I lost count of the number of messages I left with the assistant and in voice mail – all with absolutely no response. What was the prospect thinking? Had he lost interest? Found another vendor? Had he decided I was too annoying?

A different approach
I had some notepaper that looked like $100 bills. I took a sheet, wrote a short message on the back, signed my name and added my phone number. Then I crumpled up the note, stuffed it into a 9 x 12 envelope and mailed it, lumps and all, to the prospect.

Gimmicky? Sure. It’s not the kind of thing I’d usually try. But that’s why I did it. It wasn’t about being cute. I just had to do something different.

It worked. “Man, you sure are persistent,” the prospect said when he called. “I like that.” I got an appointment, got the assignment, and got a great long-term client.

So what had he been thinking?
Later, after I got to know my customer better, I asked what had happened with all those messages I’d left. Had I been too annoying? Was that why he’d put me off?

“Not at all,” he said. “I meant to call you back. It’s just that other priorities got in the way. But I really did need your help. When I got your note I decided it was time to act.”

My Greatest Sale taught me two important lessons:

1. No response doesn’t mean no interest. Until you get feedback from prospects, you really don’t know what they’re thinking. They could be on the verge of saying yes.
2. If prospects want you to stop, they’ll let you know. My prospect didn’t want me to give up; he simply had his own timetable. And when he was finally ready to move forward, I was the one he called – because I was the one who’d been calling him!

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Mike is a sales rep on a mission. He’s determined to speak with Paul Smith, the CEO at Major Prospect Inc.

But Mike’s just run into a buzzsaw: Mr. Smith’s executive assistant, Greta. Let’s listen in on the conversation:

Greta: Mr. Smith’s office. This is Greta. How can I help you?

Mike: Hi Greta, I’m Mike Jones from DigiTarget. How are you today?

Greta: I’m fine, how are you?

Mike: Great. Listen, Greta, DigiTarget is a top software firm and we’ve just developed some breakthrough technology that Mr. Smith would find extremely valuable.

Greta: That’s interesting. What’s so breakthrough about your technology?

Mike: Great question, but the answer is pretty complicated. I’d appreciate having a chance to explain it to Mr. Smith. Can you put me through?

Greta: I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting. Can I take a message?

Free Download - "The Secret to Getting Past Gatekeepers"

The gate slams shut
Mike just got frozen out by a Gatekeeper. She decided that her boss, Mr. Smith, would gain nothing by talking to Mike — which means he’ll never get through. Frankly, he doesn’t deserve to. 

Gatekeepers know that the first item on their unofficial job description reads something like this: “Keep time-wasting salespeople and other losers away from your boss.” Quality gatekeepers take great pride in their ability to distinguish who’s for real and who isn’t.

Truth is, gatekeepers are a lot smarter than you are. Not about everything, maybe. But certainly about their bosses. Good gatekeepers know exactly how to sell to the boss. They know the hot buttons. The needs. The pain. And you don’t.

So why are you trying to get past gatekeepers without first tapping into that knowledge?

Gatekeepers are also smart enough to know what you’re up to. They’re not going to usher you in to the CEO’s office just because you try to bully them. But they will help you out if they think you actually might be able to help their boss.

So ask the gatekeeper for their input on how you might be able to do that. Mike, for example, might have had better luck if he’d approached Greta this way:

Mike: So, Greta, I’m sure you have a pretty good idea of your boss’s priorities.

Greta: Well, I like to think so…

Mike: Well, I don’t want to waste his time, so let me tell you what we do and see if you can help me figure out if it’s something that would interest him. We help companies like yours do a better job of tracking costs for raw materials. Is the cost of materials something that’s on Mr. Smith’s radar screen?

Greta: Not really. Purchasing is in charge of that.

Mike: I see. Well maybe you can tell me what his number-one concern is these days.

Greta: Right now? Pricing. Our competitors are all cutting prices, and we’re trying to figure out how to stay competitive.

Mike: Ouch. So let me ask: If he could reduce costs by, say, 10 percent, would that help him solve the pricing problem?

Greta: Well, it might. Let me see if he can talk to you…

Mike didn’t change what he’s selling. But Greta told him exactly how to position it. He’s not selling technology to track materials costs. He’s selling a solution to the boss’s pricing problem — which is far more likely to get his attention.

So Mike doesn’t just get past Greta. By bringing her into the conversation, he can use her knowledge to sell smarter and win her support. Not a bad day’s work.

Bob, a supervisor, and Jim, one of her direct reports, just got out of a team meeting. Jim was less than supportive of his co-workers’ efforts and openly challenged Bob in the meeting when he gave him an assignment. Let’s listen in on what they’re saying.

“Jim, what you did in that meeting just now was completely unacceptable,” Bob says.

Jim replies: “Don’t shoot the messenger, Bob. Everyone in the room knew that the new ad strategy was a terrible idea. I was the only one with the guts to say it!”

Bob replies, “That’s not the point. You were rude to the other members of the team, and now I have to rebuild everyone’s confidence that we’re on the right track. And frankly, I don’t like your attitude right now.”

“That’s not my problem,” Jim retorts, “Maybe if you weren’t such a terrible manager I wouldn’t have to point out when everyone else is screwing up.”

By now, Bob is fuming. “That’s it! I’ve had it with you. You’re fired! Clear your desk out, and then I want you out of here within the hour. Otherwise, I’m calling security.”

Free Download - "How to Terminate an Insubordinate Employee – Without Provoking a Lawsuit"

Hold it right there.

Bob just made one of the biggest mistakes he could have made in dealing with an insubordinate employee like Jim. Sure, it might’ve felt great to finally let Jim have it, especially if he’s been acting like this for a long time. The problem is, Jim recently filed an age discrimination complaint because he was passed over for a raise. Now Bob just gave Jim everything he needed to force the company into a costly lawsuit. Because no matter how he tells the story, it’s going to look like the company fired Jim because he filed the complaint.

The lesson for managers? Simple. Don’t fire anyone when you’re angry (unless there’s an immediate threat to life, health or property). Don’t write up an employee when you’re angry. Don’t dock their pay, send them home or put a memo in their record when you’re angry. Don’t take ANY adverse personnel decision when you’re angry at that person. Because there’s a good chance you’ll do it wrong.

Instead, take a deep breath, walk away, and calmly consider your next step.

And before you act on it, do one more thing: Talk to HR.

The great thing about internal candidates is you’ve had a chance to see how they work day in and day out. So you’re not likely to get snookered by an impostor who talks the talk but can’t walk the walk.

Free Download - ‘The Best Interview Questions To Smoke Out Impostors’

But even so, you need to ask internal candidates tough questions too — not because you want to see them squirm, but because success in any new job requires people to adapt and succeed outside their comfort zone.

Here are some hard-but-fair questions for internal candidates:

“Let’s look at your last performance evaluation. In what area were you most disappointed?” With an internal candidate you’ll have access to the evaluation, of course, so the purpose of the question isn’t to find out what it said. The purpose is to put the candidate on the hot seat and see how candid he is willing to be, and what/how much he has learned through adversity.

“Where do you disagree most often with your current boss? How did you handle it the last time he/she was wrong and you were right?” This suite of questions is excellent for assessing how the internal candidate balances dual imperatives -– standing up for one’s beliefs when challenged versus not creating unnecessary conflict.

“How would your current supervisor grade your ability to cope with last-minute changes without being flustered?” Again, with an internal candidate you may have the supervisor’s answer to the question. But asking it of candidates lets you check their perception against reality, and also – because the question itself is potentially flustering – to watch them perform under pressure.

Source: “96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire,” by Paul Falcone.

I once knew a guy who’d been pretty successful in the development department of a professional orchestra company. He had a professorial, upper-crust air to him, and it was easy to imagine him plying dowagers for donations over tea.

His next job was in agricultural sales. You’d think it would be a disaster. He wasn’t the type to share a chaw over a fence or get his hands dirty changing a tractor tire. But somehow it didn’t matter. Farmers loved him – soft hands, tweed jacket and all.

My blue-blood acquaintance turned out to be really good at understanding what was important to his agricultural customers. But the truth is, I never would have predicted it.

I’ve seen it go the other way, too: Friendly, down-to-earth, empathetic folks who were completely disastrous in sales. People with spectacular resumes and references who turned out to be complete duds.

Free Download - "Hiring Salespeople: How to Smoke Out Impostors Who Will Get Mediocre Results"

And try as I might, I just can’t come up with a profile of what makes a successful sales rep. The only way to know is by what they’ve done. Not what they say they’ve done. Not what’s on their resume. But what they’ve really been able to accomplish on the front lines, working one-on-one with customers.

So if you’re hiring reps, how can you tell the real thing from the impostors? One way is by asking them questions that can only be answered by someone who’s been there. Don’t settle for generalities. Ask nitty-gritty process questions: “How many cold calls did you make in a typical week? What percentage led to an appointment? What were the most common objections you encountered? How did you respond?” Real salespeople will have no problem telling you exactly what they did. Impostors will retreat into generalities, or trip over their own stories.

Can you give nonexempt employees comp time instead of cash for overtime? Savvy HR practitioners know that the answer is usually “no.”

But there is an exception that may come in handy if your pay period is more than one week. What you can do: offset the extra hours within the same pay period in which they’re earned.

Free Download - ‘FLSA Overtime Regulations: Sorting Out Exempt vs. Non-Exempt Employees’

Example: Your normal pay period covers 80 hours over two weeks, and a nonexempt employee works 45 hours in the first week. You can give him comp time off as long as he takes it in the second week and doesn’t defer it outside the pay period.

Counts as time and a half
The comp time should be figured on a time-and-a-half basis, so the person works 32.5 hours in the second week and gets 7.5 hours as paid time off. If you give the person only five hours off in the second week, or if you allow her to accrue comp time for use later, you’ll be violating the FLSA.

Sales blogger Jodi Bagwell recalls the saying: “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.” It aptly describes a C-suite sales duel in which she learned the hard way that overconfidence kills.

She’d prepared for months to win a deal and had repeated assurances from an inside coach that she was positioned to close the business.

But on the day final presentations were scheduled, her competitor showed up with two C-level executives and a multimedia presentation. By contrast, she had a six-slide cut-and-paste PowerPoint, a draft contract – and no team.

Result? No deal.

Free Download: "Sales Presentation Disasters: How to Avoid the Mistakes That Kill Your Chances to Make a Sale"

Lessons learned:

1. Keep Your Big Guns Loaded. Engage your entire team early in the process and take advantage of the expertise and experience of the people who surround you.
2. Know Your Competitors. Use what you know to neutralize their strengths and exploit their weaknesses.
3. Be Perfect. Your planning, questions, collateral, proposal, and presentation are on stage and being evaluated. Every detail and every interaction must be perfect.

I learned the “First Rule of Gift Giving” in my early twenties. It was on my second date with a girl I really liked. When I picked her up I brought her a fairly pricey mixed bouquet of flowers. As I handed it to her I expected shortness of breath or maybe a blush. But I got a frown. “I’m sorry, I should have told you,” she said. “I only like white roses.”

Okay, she was a bit too picky, which could be the reason I don’t recall a third date. But I got an important life lesson — when you give a gift, it has to be tailored to the recipient. You’ll never get the full effect of a gift — and let’s be honest, you usually have an ulterior motive for giving it — unless you know what the person truly values.

This is just as true when it comes to the non-monetary rewards we use to show our employees how much we appreciate their contributions to our companies.

Free Download - ‘The Manager's Guide to Unlocking the Power of Non-Monetary Rewards’

Here are some examples of rewards that laid an egg:

Company X bought each of its employees a beautiful compass. People gathered in hallways and joked about the clumsy attempt to win them over. “Do they think we’re lost?” one person said. Ouch.

Company Y offered tickets to baseball games to employees who worked on special projects. But several recipients didn’t like baseball. Yawn.

Company Z gave everybody a box of chocolate-covered peanuts for Christmas. Several people in the company were allergic to chocolate, peanuts, or both. Are they trying to kill us?

In each case, an attempt to do something positive resulted in indifference, confusion, and even anger. Sure, the company spent a lot of money on these gifts. But they still cheaped out — in terms of the amount of effort. It’s a lot of work to figure out what’s going to be meaningful to each recipient. That — not the price tag — is what makes a non-monetary award valuable.

photo credit: Kaz Andrew

Imagine you’re a buyer, and you’re meeting with the “Can-Do Kid.”

You know the type: Whatever you need, he can provide. The price is too high? “No problem, we’ll work with you,” he says. You need it delivered by Tuesday at 9 a.m. “Consider it done.” Does it come in hot pink? Is it carbon-neutral? Will it double my profits? “We can make that happen.”

Would you feel comfortable buying from the Can-Do Kid?

Probably not. Something is seriously out of whack. He’s either a fool or a con artist. Either way you’re likely to get burned.

The same principle holds if you’re selling. There’s nothing wrong with a gimme sale every now and then. But if your buyer is TOO easy to please, something’s wrong. It usually means you and your buyer have different expectations. And if you don’t get them aligned now, you’ll regret it later, when your buyer insists that you misled him and failed to deliver what you promised.

Free Download: "Managing Expectations with Unrealistic Customers"

So what’s the solution? You certainly don’t want to interfere with a customer who’s ready to buy. So go ahead and close the sale — but don’t let the customer walk away with unrealistic expectations. Before you leave the table, make absolutely sure that you and your buyer are in agreement on what will happen, when it will happen, and how you’ll measure success.

Everybody knows employee turnover can be costly – especially when it’s the wrong employees turning over (i.e., those you want to keep).

But you might not realize just how costly it is. HR expert William Rothwell, in his book “Effective Succession Planning,” suggests you create a worksheet to help you calculate the costs of an employee’s departure.

Here are some suggested entries:

• Temporary replacement. Include overtime, temp costs and/or additional sick/personal time because of a heavier workload.
• Manager’s time spent planning the replacement.
• Lost productivity. Figure 50% of the position’s salary for each week it is vacant.
• Lost knowledge. Calculate 50% of the quitting employee’s annual pay.
• Severance pay and/or benefits.
• Loss of customer revenue, if the employee was in a customer contact or customer support position.
• Advertising the job externally and/or posting it internally.
• Identifying and pre-screening serious candidates.
• Interviews of selected applicants.
• Filing/managing resumes and interview notes.
• Developing and validating, and/or administering pre-employment testing.
• Preparing organizational orientation materials (divide annual cost of these materials by # of new employees) and carrying out orientation.
• Reduction in productivity for employees who “show the ropes” to the new hire.
• Mistakes made by the new hire.

A final point: When valued employees leave, be sure to conduct a thorough exit interview. Finding out why a good worker decided to leave can help you prevent future attrition.

Free Download - ‘The Manager's Guide to Effective Exit Interviews’

How many times have you heard, “You’ve got to drop your price by 10% or we will have no choice but to go with your competition.”

When you hear statements like that, you’re probably in a stronger position than you’d think, says sales coach Michael Schatzki. Reason: The prospect has just told you she wants your solution.

Free Download - ‘Tough Sales Negotiations: How to Stay in Control and Get What You Deserve’

What you say next determines whether or not you close the sale and how profitable it will be. Remembering three key points can give you a real edge:

1. Don’t believe everything you see and hear. It could be a bluff. You may be the only person who has what she needs, but everything she does and says will lead you to believe that unless she gets that extra 10%, she’s going with the competition. Be skeptical. Be suspicious. Test, probe, and see what happens.
2. The side with the most information wins. Think of selling and negotiating as two sides of the same coin. Sometimes one side is face up, sometimes the other, but both are always there. This is particularly true in your earliest contacts with the buyer. The face the buyer sees is that of a salesperson demonstrating features and benefits. The hidden face is that of a negotiator probing for information that may be invaluable later.
3. Be patient. If you’re impatient in a negotiation, you’ll lose your shirt. If I’m negotiating with you and I know you’re impatient, I will hold out just a little longer, no matter how desperate I am to make a deal with you. As long as I know you’re in a hurry, I’ll wait. And if I can wait, I’ll probably win. Take the time you need, don’t rush to give in, don’t show your anxiety, stay cool and don’t panic.

Funny thing about price-fixated buyers: They’re always suspicious about hidden costs – yet they willingly ignore the biggest hidden cost of all.

“Just give me the bottom line,” they’ll tell you. “Price, shipping, taxes, everything. I don’t want any nasty surprises later on.”

Of course, those who buy primarily on price are asking for nasty surprises later on – when their “bargain” purchase fails to deliver value.

Free Download - ‘Price Objections: Four Secrets Prospects Will Never Tell You’

Who buys on price?
Price buyers often give lip service to value, of course. They just don’t want to pay more for it, says sales guru Paul Cherry. Typically, these include buyers who are:

• Those on the front lines, who just want a quick cheap fix and can’t see the bigger picture.
• Midlevel buyers who don’t have, or are unwilling to exercise, much discretion except over price issues.
• Hard-nosed buyers or purchasing types who see their own value-add in terms of how much they can knock you down. They may even downplay value, claiming, “Everything’s equal, it comes down to price.”

Put a price on low value
To sell on value, in an ideal world you would reach those enlightened decision makers who understand your value proposition. Problem is, we’re not living in that world, and you may be obliged to deal with the pure price buyers.

Don’t try to argue with them. Instead, try talking to them in their own language – by putting a price tag on low value.

No surprises
First, acknowledge their needs and concerns: “I completely understand your concerns about hidden costs and charges,” you might say. “Let’s talk about what you can expect to pay, so there are no surprises.”

Sounds good so far to a price buyer, right? Now you have an opportunity to put value on the table.

“Let’s talk about repair costs. Over the life of this product, you can expect to pay X on repairs. That’s 23% less than industry average, by the way.

“And let’s not forget replacement costs. The documented average service life for our product is 10 years, so you’ll need to budget in about 10% a year for replacement costs. Industry average is 20% a year.”

What you’re doing, of course, is a life-cycle cost analysis. You’re just reframing it as price.

Yes, you’ll end up with a higher overall “price” than your straight invoice price. But what matters is your price relative to competitors. When lowball rivals are asked to quantify the price of low quality, they won’t or can’t.

You can keep going down the list, attaching a price to:

• Service
• Delivery
• Support
• Shorter lead time
• Ease of use
• Reduced hours
• Elimination of paperwork
• Improvement of performance output.

Focus on profits, not price
Another way to change the conversation: Talk profits, not price. Companies are not really in business to save money. Otherwise they’d just shut their doors altogether. They’re in business to meet performance targets and generate profits.

That’s why framing value in terms of profits is likely to make sense even to the most budget-conscious buyers. It’s all about boosting the bottom line.

When value-selling a product or solution, lead customers to the answers to these questions:
“How will this product or solution help you:

• Minimize your risks?
• Enhance your success?
• Free up valuable time or resources?
• Eliminate headaches?
• Reduce overhead or eliminate other costs?”

For price-bound buyers, invite them to think of these benefits as “credits” or “discounts” against the total price.

Total cost of ownership
Remember, the most important ingredient in value selling is to establish factors that have a direct impact on the customer’s bottom line. If you don’t use that approach, the sales discussion will undoubtedly regress back to the price on the invoice. And that’s far from the real price that your buyer will have to pay.

Yes, you can deny someone a position because they’re obese – if you can show that a grossly overweight person won’t be able to perform the job’s essential functions.

A reminder of that point comes from a recent court case in Wyoming:

A boiler room tech at a V.A. hospital, who weighed 338 pounds, failed a physical and was demoted to a lower-paying job in housekeeping. One problem: He had to climb ladders that would support only 300 pounds. So he asked the employer to buy new ladders that would hold him.

But the employer said that wasn’t the main issue: His poor conditioning made him unable to react quickly in an emergency where a boiler might have to be shut off to prevent an explosion.

The man sued for disability discrimination. But the employer won.

Check out "ADA Accommodations: Supervisors and the Interactive Process" for FREE and arm your team with the knowledge they need to protect worker rights and avoid legal trouble.

The court noted that there wasn’t an equal-paying job that the employee could have been placed in. And even heavier-duty ladders wouldn’t have fixed his underlying fitness problem. Plus, the hospital had removed at least one other boiler-room hand who failed a physical.

Cite: Wilkerson v. Shinseki, No. 09-8027, 10th Cir., 6/2/10.

photo credit: mahalie

You’re calling on a prospect. You’ve got all kinds of ideas to help make them richer/smarter/safer/better. But before you begin, you’re cut off. “Not interested,” the prospect says. “We’re happy with our current solution.”

But what does that “happy” mean? Is it:

• Ecstatic happy, as in “We’ve searched far and wide and found the best possible supplier in the world, and we simply couldn’t imagine giving our business to anyone else” or
• Political happy, as in “Our vendor is the owner’s son-in-law and I’m not. When I need more trouble in my life, I’ll be sure to give you a call” or
• Ain’t-broke happy, as in “Our vendor is good enough, nobody’s complaining, and I don’t have the time or energy to explore alternatives.”

I suspect that darn few prospects are ecstatic-happy. Most are really telling you: “Okay, maybe I’m not perfectly happy. But change is hard … and time consuming … and extremely risky.”

That means you, dear seller, are Trouble with a capital T. You represent a threat to the status quo. No wonder that prospect wants to get you off the phone so fast.

Free Download - ‘How to Unseat an Entrenched Competitor: Selling Techniques That Work’

So what can you do? Are you really locked out?

Of course not. “Happy” buyers switch all the time. And there’s an effective strategy you can use to pry them loose from their current supplier. You can’t win just by being better than what the buyer has now. You have to make switching easy, quick and risk free.

Often salespeople pay too much attention to the “better” side of the equation and not enough to the “Trouble” side when they’re trying to get a buyer to switch. And that can actually make things worse. Because “better” means “different.” Different means change. And change means — all together now — Trouble.

So this is one time when you don’t want to stand out from the competition. Yes, you do have to be better. There must be a compelling reason to change. But you also want to show how much you’re the SAME as their current solution.

A friend in my executive forum raised a really tricky FMLA issue at our latest meeting.

Here’s what happened: His accounts payable manager unexpectedly announced that she needed 12 weeks of FMLA leave to care for her sick husband. To fill her role, the company was able to bring in the wife of a current employee who had lots of AP experience and just happened to be out of work. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the replacement quickly discovered that the AP Manager had made numerous mistakes amounting to thousands of dollars of overpayments to vendors during the current fiscal year. She went back a little farther and found similar mistakes in previous years. “What I’m seeing,” she concluded, “is a pattern of incompetence.”

So, the solution is pretty simple, right? Fire the AP manager for poor performance the day she returns from FMLA leave. Or, better still, send her a termination notice right away.

That might work out, but then again it might not. The AP Manager would very likely go to a lawyer and claim that she was terminated because she took FMLA leave. The plaintiff’s attorney would point out that prior to his client’s taking leave, there was no documented record of her poor performance. It only came to light AFTER she took the leave.

Free Download - ‘FMLA Certification: What Every Manager Needs to Know to Prevent Abuse’

You see the problem. If the AP Manager’s mistakes were egregious enough, you could probably make the case that you’d have fired her no matter what. But a good lawyer might be able to convince a judge or jury that the mistakes weren’t so egregious — “If they were such a big deal, why didn’t anybody even SEE them?” — and make it difficult to prove the firing was justified.

The problem in this case was that the Accounting department was asleep at the wheel. Nobody was paying attention to AP and documenting the shortcomings of the AP manager. That kind of negligence is a recipe for a lawsuit.

The FMLA makes it crystal clear that employers cannot punish workers for taking FMLA leave. That means you need to be very careful when you terminate, demote or cut the pay of a person who is taking, or recently took, FMLA leave. That said, you CAN assign the person to a different job, as long as it pays the same and isn’t perceived as lower-status.

Will anybody speak up in favor of employee turnover? After all, most of what we hear about turnover is that it costs a lot and hurts productivity.

But that’s not the whole story, according to talent management guru John Sullivan. He says that about one-quarter of turnover is desirable.

Don’t blame the manager
Desirable situations – where you shouldn’t blame the manager(s) and might even praise them – include the following:

• An underperformer quits. This spares the need to fire the person.
• An underperformer is terminated. This shows your performance management system is working.
• An underperformer goes to work for a competitor. It’s their loss!
• A departing employee was highly paid due to seniority but delivered no more than those earning much less. You’ve saved money and lost little.
• An employee with declining or irrelevant skills is replaced by another with increasing or more relevant skills. A net gain.
• An underperformer’s departure allows the promotion of a deserving inside candidate. This is encouraging for others who want to rise within the organization.

Free Download - ‘The Manager's Guide to Retaining Your Best Employees’

When not to worry
In addition, Sullivan says, there are times when turnover is neutral and you shouldn’t worry too much about it. This happens when:

• The job isn’t particularly hard to fill and/or has a short learning curve.
• A departing employee gives enough notice for a strong replacement to be hired and trained in timely fashion.
• An employee leaves because of major illness or something else than couldn’t be predicted or prevented.
• A top performer leaves but seems open to returning after getting valuable experience elsewhere.

photo credit: E.Yoshio

Some cold call objections can be upsetting, and throw you off your game, says sales coach Gavin Ingham. Here are four you can turn into opportunities:

1. “I’m happy with my existing supplier.” Just because they are in an existing relationship does not mean that they don’t keep their eyes open for alternatives. Doing otherwise would be foolish. Try this: “Many people who are happy with their existing suppliers find it really useful to assess our approach, using it as a benchmark to ensure that they’re getting the best possible solutions from their existing suppliers.”

Free Download - "Cold Calling: How to Nail the First 20 Seconds and Engage the Prospect"

2. “I’ve got no budget!” Budgets change depending on need. If what you offer is important enough, money will be reallocated from somewhere to pay for it. Encourage buyers to set aside the budget issue until you’ve had a conversation about their needs. Try, “At this point most of my competitors would ask you when you will have a budget and arrange to call you back then. However, I believe that business is built on relationships and I’d still like to come and see you.”

3. “Is this a sales call?” This objection is just an attempt to make you feel bad. For many salespeople this is tantamount to the client asking, “What’s this on my shoe?” Take a moment and calm yourself. Dealing with this is so simple: “Nope. I’m not selling today. Just introducing myself…”

How often have you poured your blood, sweat and tears into a deal, answered all objections, asked for the sale – and then heard words like these:

“This looks really great. Let me talk it over with the rest of the team and get back to you.”

Rest of the team? Your buyer had assured you that he was the only decision maker. You were counting on getting a signature. Now you feel that you’ve been set up. Why didn’t he tell you he wasn’t the final decision maker? Why did he lead you on? And what can you do to keep this from happening next time?

Here are seven ways to avoid last-minute surprises like these, from sales guru Ari Galper. Some or all of these steps may apply to your situation. Use them where they fit:

1. Assume there will be multiple decision makers
No one wants to make a wrong decision, to be left holding the bag and looking bad. In many cases even CEOs can’t make final decisions without getting buy-in from other executives on their team.

Even if contacts tell you they’re the only one making the decision, that’s highly unlikely, especially in larger organizations. They may say so for all kinds of reasons. They may even believe it themselves. But that doesn’t mean you should buy it.

2. Ask in different ways
Your contact says, “I’m the decision maker, and I decide if we’ll purchase your solution or not” with total confidence. Reply in an easygoing manner, “Oh, okay. So, you’re the only person who signs the agreement, and you won’t be discussing this with anyone else?”

There’s likely to be a short silence, after which you learn other decision makers are involved. Then you’ll know who you have to win over.

3. Better late than never
Even if you’ve gotten deep into the sales process and suddenly learn that other decision makers need to be involved, don’t let it throw you. Simply suggest to your contact that the two of you should get them involved now, so they won’t be caught off guard later.

4. Keep it moving
The critical task: keep the sale moving no matter what. Don’t allow it to get stalled.

Check out “How to Overcome the Stall” for FREE and learn what you can do to turn stalled prospects into engaged buyers who are eager to close the deal.

Your contact says, “I need to get hold of Mike and Julie, but they’re traveling. I’ll get back to you after they get back.” Don’t accept that delay unless you must. Simply say, “It sounds as if Mike and Julie are an important part of the process. What if we pull together a brief conference call so they can get an overview of what’s happening? That way you can avoid chasing them down and everyone can get up to speed at the same time. Does that make sense?”

The answer you get will tell you a lot about where you really stand. If you hear, “Nah, I’ll just try and get hold of them when I can and then get back to you,” she could be saying, “We aren’t really that interested.”

5. Ask your contact to arrange the conference call
If you call the other decision makers yourself, it’s a sales call. If your contact arranges the call, it’s not. Ask if he or she would be open to coordinating the call.

Asking your contact to set up the call also demonstrates that you’re not overstepping your bounds.

6. Make it an advisory call, not a sales call
If your contact agrees to the conference call, work together on an agenda. Emphasize that your purpose is to inform the others about what has happened so far, not to apply any type of sales pressure. This is important because contacts are reluctant to arrange a call if they’re afraid the salesperson will put participants on the spot and make things awkward for everyone.

Keep your promise. When you open the call, say: “The purpose of our call is to bring you up to speed on what has happened so far so you all have the information you need to think this solution through.”

7. Follow up
After the call, you need to find out the truth about where the deal stands, without putting too much pressure on your contact for a final answer.

Put it this way: “I’m just calling to see what questions the others on the call might have, since those types of calls don’t always address everyone’s issues or concerns.” This approach allows your contact to talk about where he or she stands, and you can then ask, “Where do you think we should go from here?”

Do your line managers know how and when they can discipline employees who take FMLA leave?

Obviously, you can’t reprimand or fire somebody for taking FMLA leave — and you shouldn’t want to. That’s illegal retaliation, and we hope your managers know it.

But what happens when you have to discipline folks for misconduct or poor performance — and they just happen to have taken FMLA leave recently? Can you do it? Or are you just asking for trouble?

Of course you can and should discipline these workers, just as you would any other employee in the same situation.

That said, you must be very careful how you do it.

Free Download - ‘The Top 5 FMLA Compliance Mistakes’

What you can do
According to Linda Hollinshead, an employment law attorney at Duane Morris, you can:

1. Discipline an employee for non-FMLA-related misconduct that you learn about as a result of the FMLA absence. Example: An employee takes a week of FMLA leave. During his absence, a supervisor logs on to his computer to access urgent files and finds he’s been moonlighting on company time. You can apply whatever discipline is applicable under your policy.

2. Discipline someone who is taking intermittent FMLA leave and fails to meet an agreed-upon, adjusted level of performance. Example: An employee takes leave two afternoons a week for medical treatment. You and she agree she should be able to complete two production reports a week, instead of the usual three. She repeatedly fails to submit the two reports. You can discipline her for underperforming, because this is independent of the leave. But make sure to document your adjusted performance agreement.

Here’s where it gets complicated: If an employee makes mistakes or misses deadlines as a direct result of FMLA leave, and you haven’t adjusted your expectations, you’re on very thin ice if you try to discipline the person. Example: Your employee is taking two afternoons off a week for medical treatment. But you don’t adjust her workload and you never discuss your expectations. If she starts missing deadlines, you might just have to live with it.

There’s one moment in every sale that can mean the difference between so-so sales numbers and top performance. Is it:

A. The moment you first get the prospect on the phone?
B. The moment you ask for the sale?
C. The moment after the prospect has said yes?

A is certainly a critical moment. First impressions count, and you have only 10 or 15 seconds to engage a prospect’s interest. But it’s not THE magic moment. After all, you haven’t invested much in the sale yet, so you don’t have that much to lose if you drop the ball.

How about B – asking for the sale? Well, you’ve made a big investment of your time once you reach the close, so that’s an important selling moment, to be sure. But it’s not a make-or-break moment. If you’ve done your homework and presented the buyer with a compelling value proposition, the ask itself is just one step in a larger process. If you miss the moment, you can ask again.

That leaves C – the moment after the prospect has said yes. That’s the best time to increase the value of your sale with an upsell. It’s a fleeting moment when all the stars briefly align in your favor: The customer who’s just said yes wants to do business with you, and at that moment trusts you above all of your competitors. And you have nothing to lose — even if the buyer says no, you still have your original sale.

Free Download - ‘Upselling Without Fear: How to Get More From Almost Every Sale’

Timing’s not enough. In that moment, it’s pretty hard to botch an upsell. But it can be done.

The most common reason it goes wrong: lack of planning. With so much at stake, the magic moment is no time to improvise. You have to plan the upsell before you ever close the original sale. Know exactly what kind of upgrade you will propose, and how it’s going to add value to your buyer. So when the time comes, you can move seamlessly from the handshake to the next step.

All managers got promoted at some stage in their careers. Why?

Because somebody saw they had innate leadership qualities? Probably not. They got promoted because they were top performers in a specific area. Joe the Sales Manager was a top seller, Megan the IT manager was a great programmer. Paul the managing editor proved his talent as a writer.

People get promoted because they have discovered, and developed, a “Confidence Base” in a specific area. Companies are eager to place bets on such people. They figure: “Because you’re so good at what you do, we believe you can build leadership skills on that base, and learn to get the same results through other people.”

Free Download - ‘Leadership Credibility: The Confidence Base’

Which is why one of the most important things leaders can do for employees is help them find their “Confidence Base.” Sounds simple, but it’s not. The young people who join your company — and even some who’ve been around a while — often don’t have a clue what they’re good at and what they aren’t. They need help, direction and leadership.

The payoff is huge. When your employees are doing the “right” job — that is, the one best aligned with their innate skills — they build confidence and are far more productive. They’re also happier and more likely to stick around.

If you don’t react the right way, right away, to a harassment complaint, you may not get a second chance. That’s what happened to a manager for a retail chain in South Carolina.

A female employee had complained that a male co-worker repeatedly pressed his groin against her while walking behind her. When she told him to stop, the co-worker, who was in charge of shift scheduling, assigned her to work on a Sunday — a day she was supposed to be off.

Free Download - ‘Handling Employee Complaints: What Every Manager Needs to Know’

Alone with a harasser
Fearing the harasser would show up while she was alone in the store on Sunday, the woman called a manager early Sunday morning and told him what had happened.

He told her she was overreacting and should go to work. They could talk about the situation on Monday, the manager said.

The woman’s reaction? She quit her job rather than have to be around her harasser for another day.

She then sued the company for sexual harassment. A federal district court threw her case out, but an appeals court said that was a mistake; the case was strong enough to go to trial.

Time is of the essence
Before the weekend was over, irreparable damage was done to the woman’s career, and strong grounds for her lawsuit had been established.

If an employee complains of harassment:

• Respond that you take harassment seriously and will quickly investigate,
• Get the facts from the alleged victim, harasser and any witnesses, and
• Turn over your findings to HR.

Cite: Whitten v. Fred’s Inc., No. 09-1265, 4th Cir., 4/1/10.

Time is more precious today than ever before. And chances are, your customers are feeling the pressure.

They’re likely being asked to do more with less, and are probably less eager to meet with you than they were just a year or two ago. Nowadays, getting customers to reliably make time to see you calls for a different approach, says sales coach Dave Kahle. They need to expect that they will gain some value for the time spent with you.

Build your own value
Before every sales call, when you are thinking about what you want to do, and what tools and materials you’ll need, take a moment and ask, “What is the customer going to gain out of this time he spends with me?”

Some possible answers:

• Good ideas to help him in his business or his job.
• Some ways to help her gain more business.
• Ways to distinguish himself from others.
• Ideas about how to reduce her costs.

Free Download - "Connecting with Buyers: Sell More by Selling Less"

Alternatively, you might come to the meeting armed with ways to help your customer:

• Resolve some conflict.
• Simplify processes or procedures.
• Solve some operations problem.
• Move closer to some objective.
• Feel better about himself.

If you can’t name anything the customer will gain, you can safely assume the time she spends with you in that sales call will be a waste of her time. Your relationship may be able to withstand one or two of those calls, but in the long term, wasted time will destroy a business relationship.

Always present, always ask
If you are going to bring value to every customer, every time, you’ll need to spend more time preparing to do so. That brings us to two simple rules to add value to every sales call:

1. Present something, every time.
2. Ask something, every time.

In every sales call, have something to talk about, to educate the customer on, which will be of value. Then ask a question or two that causes the customer to think about her situation in a new way. Over time, you’ll build a reputation for adding value. And that’s a great strength in the marketplace.

We’ve all been there. After countless calls, meetings and an endless amount of work, you just can’t get the customer to say “yes” and move forward.

There can be hundreds of theories and ideas as to why this happens more times than we care to admit, says sales consultant Mark Hunter. But let’s put all the theories aside and get to a solution you can use right now to determine if the customer is serious.

The real problem
As a salesperson, you’ve invested time and effort and the last thing you want to do is quit and walk away. So you tell yourself, “The prospect could be very close to saying ‘yes.’ ”

Maybe your pride doesn’t allow you to walk away. Or maybe you’re reluctant to admit that the time you spent with a prospect isn’t going to materialize into any business.

Free Download - "The Magic Question to Disqualify Non-Buyers: Selling Techniques That Work"

Here are two tests that can help you take a cold hard look at whether the prospect is truly a prospect or nothing more than a suspect in disguise:

TEST #1: Involvement
Get customers involved in the buying process. If they are not willing to be involved, then they are probably just wasting your time.

To gauge commitment, ask buyers to do something for you after you’ve left. Serious buyers will put in time and effort. Those who are just testing the waters probably won’t.

For example, next time a customer stalls you, ask him as a next step to review something. It might be a report you’re going to e-mail to him, a summary of key points from your meeting or a questionnaire about his current situation.

See what kind of input you get back. If buyers are not truly engaged, feedback is likely to be non-existent or superficial.

Their response will not only give you a sense of their level of commitment, but also gives buyers a quick “out” if they are not interested. Either way, it lets you move forward.

TEST #2: The big reveal
Another great tool to gauge how serious prospects are: Ask them to share some proprietary information.

It might be a question you ask about the strategic focus of their business, how their volumes shape up for this month, budgets, or internal processes. It can be almost anything, as long as it involves legitimate “need to know” information for you to provide a recommendation.

You will quickly learn if the customer has confidence in you. Casual buyers, or those who just want to pump you for knowledge, won’t want to share.

Real buyers, on the other hand, will recognize that this information will be critical to help you meet their needs and will give you what you ask for. (They might make you sign a nondisclosure statement. If so, that’s an excellent sign that they’re serious.)

Neither of these two techniques is 100% foolproof, of course. However, they often give you a quick read on your buyer’s true intentions. And they help keep you from convincing yourself that tire-kickers are “just about to buy.”

Most likely, your company has a very clear line about employees who physically attack co-workers: Fire them on the spot.

But what about employees who verbally threaten others? This situation may not be as clear-cut, and the behavior may not amount to a firing offense – at least for first offenders.

Five points
If you decide not to terminate someone who threatens a co-worker orally or in writing, here are five points to touch on in your written reprimand:

1. Document the wording. Get the target of the threat to tell you as exactly as possible what was said, or get a copy of a written threat. If there’s any doubt, ask the threatener for his or her version.
2. Cite chapter and verse. Refer the person to the section(s) of company policy prohibiting what they did.
3. State the offense. Make explicit that what the person said or wrote violates policy.
4. State your future expectations. Tell the person that they must never again threaten (directly or in veiled terms) or harass anyone at work. Point out that no excuses will be tolerated or exceptions made.
5. Lay out positive and negative outcomes. Let the person know you’re available to help them meet your expectations, and if they comply, no further action will be taken. But also let them know that if they engage in any further instances of the misconduct you’ve mentioned above, they may be discharged for cause.

Free Download - The Manager's Guide to Handling ‘Bad-Attitude’ Employees

And don’t forget to mention that the reprimand is being placed in their file.

Back in the day – the day being when presentations were a matter of overhead projectors or Carousel slide trays – my colleagues and I were given to understand that you couldn’t succeed in business unless you were a great presenter.

A great presenter, everyone knew, was polished — gleaming from the tips of his wingtips to the sheen of his perfectly coiffed hair. (It was almost always a “him” at the time.) A great presenter never stumbled, never said “uh,” never failed to dazzle. He had star power.

Some years later, I ran across a piece of research that forever changed how I thought about presentations.

It was a study conducted back in 1997 by David Reid of the University of Toledo and Richard Plank of Western Michigan University. They surveyed 481 buyers, asking them to think of a recent sales presentation they’d seen.

The buyers were asked to rate the skill of the presenter. And then they were asked, “Did you buy?”

Free Download: "Sales Presentation Disasters: How to Avoid the Mistakes That Kill Your Chances to Make a Sale"

Slick doesn’t sell
Turns out, the more polished the presentation, the less likely it was to result in a sale.

How could this be? It appears that buyers enjoyed the show, but considered it just that: a show. And even worse, they weren’t the star of the show; the presenter was. So they weren’t as engaged as they could have been.

More down-to-earth salespeople, by contrast, did a better job of putting the seller in the spotlight. When they did, buyers weren’t put off by a few bumps and stumbles. It made the presenter seem like a real person, who was there not to perform but to help the buyer make a good decision.

Of course, no buyer wants to sit through a poor presentation. But what makes a presentation good isn’t smoke, mirrors, dogs, ponies, bells or whistles. It’s relevance. Buyers want to the presentation to be all about them – not about you.

Command-and-Control leaders are the ones who inspire bad-boss punching bags and books like “The Boss from Hell.”

They’re easy to caricature. Hard to work for. But not all bad.

They have something that even the most enlightened boss needs — the ability to provide crystal-clear direction when the situation calls for it.

Example: If a fire broke out in your building, would lives more likely be saved by a consensus-builder or a tyrant who shouted, “Follow that exit sign and get out of here NOW!”?

In that situation, I’ll place my bets on the tyrant.

Free Download - ‘Six Management Styles You Need to Lead Effectively’

I think a lot of people under-value the Command-and-Control managerial style. Fact is, managers who can’t deploy it convincingly when it’s appropriate are missing an important item in their managerial toolkit.

The problem, of course, is that some leaders resort to the Command-and-Control style all the time, even when there’s no urgency and no need to use it. And they get their names written on bad-boss punching bags.

To be effective, no manager should ever rely on a single managerial style. We all need a full repertoire of styles, and we need to know when to use them.

A top closer is an expert at asking questions, layering those questions, and probing for more, says sales trainer Mike Brooks. These closers can do all that because they develop the ability to shut up and listen.

The best salespeople never assume they have the whole story. They wait for the prospect to finish, and then listen some more.

Free Download - "Sales Discovery: The Five Whys Technique for Uncovering Hidden Customer Needs"

Here are five statements you can begin using today that are designed to keep dialogue moving:

#1 “Tell me more”
Simple, eh? Yes, but hard to do. 80% of your competition prefers to pitch, but that’s counterproductive. “Tell me more” encourages prospects to keep sharing.

#2 “Go on”
After a prospect appears done, say, “Go on.” They’ll often continue their train of thought, revealing even more.

#3 “What happens next?”
This is a great question to use to find out more about the company’s decision-making process.

#4 “What would you ideally like to have happen?”
The question will help you discover a prospect’s buying motives.

#5 “Oh?”
This open-ended word can get your prospect to reveal much more than you might think.

There you have it. Five simple ways to keep your prospect talking. Start using them to keep yourself from butting in!

To learn more from Mike Brooks visit www.mrinsidesales.com

photo credit: Sarah G…

You already know that there’s legal danger in mandating the hiring of minorities – especially since the Supreme Court’s Ricci reverse discrimination case last year.

So how can you structure a diversity effort that both works and passes legal muster?

Employment lawyers at Littler Mendelson suggest broadening the applicant pool so minority candidates get an equal chance with others. Four ways to do this:

• Include minority newspapers and journals in your job ad mix.
• Use online job boards operated by trade organizations for women and minorities.
• Send recruiters to selected church and community events.
• If you use a recruiting or search firm, quiz its reps about their familiarity with diversity initiatives. Also ask about their pool of diverse candidates and their success in placing such people in your industry.

Free Download: "The Manager's Guide To Preventing Discrimination Lawsuits"

You’re working up an estimate for Tom, your prospect. Tom was enthusiastic about the solutions you proposed, but he reminded you several times how tight his budget is. “I just hope we can afford to do this,” he sighs.

So you’re looking at your estimate and, well, it’s not cheap. “Poor Tom’s gonna have a heart attack when he sees the price,” you think. “I better figure out how to shave off at least 10 percent before I show it to him.”

So is Tom grateful? Not really. He goes on and on and on about his poor cash flow, all he’s had to sacrifice, his poor widowed mother back home. And then he asks if you can come down, oh, 10 percent.

“But I already did!” you protest.

Free Download - ‘Tough Sales Negotiations: How to Stay in Control and Get What You Deserve’

Here’s what you get when you negotiate with yourself: nothing. You can’t win a concession because your buyer isn’t even part of the discussion. You don’t win any points with the buyer because they never had to ask for anything. And when the real negotiations start, you’re already in the hole.

That’s a true-life scenario, by the way. Except the seller ended up not negotiating with himself. Instead, he took a deep breath and quoted the first price he’d worked up.

The customer was aghast. “It’s soooo much money!” he exclaimed.

And then he said yes.

So who won? The seller and the buyer. Even though Tom’s account was small, the margins were healthy. That meant the company could afford to give Tom the top-notch service he deserved. In fact, Tom got a lot more value than he’d bargained for.

When you negotiate against yourself, nobody wins in the long run. Quote a fair price, so the buyer knows the real value you’re offering.

You know what a postmortem is: An examination to figure out why someone (or something) died.

But do you know about the “premortem” technique? According to behavioral scientist Gary Klein, it’s a great way to get your team to do devil’s advocate thinking about an upcoming project – thinking that may save it from unexpected failure.

Here’s how Klein recommends you approach a premortem. Tell the team: “Imagine we’re looking in a crystal ball, and this project has failed; it’s a fiasco. Now, everybody, take two minutes and write down all the reasons why you think it happened.”

Make them feel smart
See the benefit of this approach? Nobody wants to be the wet blanket who pooh-poohs a project. The crystal-ball approach already assumes the project failed, so nobody has to be the bad guy. Instead of discouraging people from pointing out potential problems, it tells them they’re smart to think of good reasons why a project might collapse.

“The whole dynamic changes from trying to avoid anything that might disrupt harmony to trying to surface potential problems,” Klein says.

Check out "A Four-Point Model for Leading High-Performance Teams" for FREE and give your organization’s managers the tools they need to find the best people, make the most of their talents and keep them happy and loyal.

Source: The McKinsey Quarterly.

We all know there are two kinds of harassment. But which is the trickiest for HR folks to deal with?

A. Quid-pro quo
B. Hostile environment

The answer is B. Quid-pro-quo harassment is usually pretty straightforward. The term literally means “one thing for another” and QPQ harassment generally involves a manager crossing a well-defined line — for example, promising some benefit to a specific employee in exchange for sexual favors.

But hostile environment harassment can be REALLY tricky. How, for example, do you define “hostile”? If two males are telling dirty jokes that clearly target a specific female … well, that would almost certainly create a hostile work environment.

But what if two guys are telling offensive jokes privately in the lunch room and a woman seated two tables away happens to overhear them? In today’s world, plaintiff’s lawyers could spin that into a hostile environment case.

Free Download: "The Manager's Guide to Sexual Harassment"

How do the courts wrestle with these “not-so-obvious” cases? They’ve come up with what’s called the “reasonable person test.” They ask, “Might a ‘reasonable person’ be offended by the language or behavior in question?” If the answer is yes, they’ll likely rule that hostile environment harassment has occurred.

Which, of course, begs the question: Who is a reasonable person? You? The person who complained? The guys who “didn’t mean anything” with their crude comments? In close cases, we’d suggest giving the benefit of the doubt to the person who complained — and not just to protect yourself in court. A workplace can’t be effective unless people feel safe from harassment.

You might not want to impose discipline if there was no intent to offend. But — absent any evidence that the complainant is UNreasonable — it’s best to put a stop to any such behavior going forward. After all, it’s a pretty big step for someone to actually speak up. And if one person speaks up, there’s a good chance others are feeling the same way too.

Editor’s Note: Greatest Sales are true accounts of how successful salespeople made a challenging sale despite price objections, buyer inertia, cutthroat competition and other obstacles. In this Greatest Sale, John Zielke, Regional Sales Manager, Akzo Nobel Coatings in Troy, MI, recalls an early sale that taught him a valuable lesson about the dangers of complacency:

My greatest sale came early in my career when I was selling for a small lumberyard.

I desperately wanted to do business with a local tract-home builder, but it looked hopeless. The builder already had a lumber supplier – a $100 million building materials company owned by someone in his family.

The builder was blunt. “Family is family. Besides, your company only does $7 million in sales. I buy a lot of lumber, and I don’t think you have the capacity we need.”

Free Download - ‘How to Unseat an Entrenched Competitor: Selling Techniques That Work’

Took the job they didn’t want
“I understand your concerns,” I told the builder. “Maybe we’d be better suited to a smaller project, where we could provide more personal attention.”

“Well, as a matter of fact we did just take on a remodeling job,” the builder said. “If you want to bid on it, go ahead.”

I knew my competitor was geared up to do a volume business, so I didn’t think they’d fight very hard for a high-maintenance, low-volume remodeling job. I was right.

I submitted an aggressive bid, and our competitor almost seemed relieved when we got the business. After all, we couldn’t possibly pose a threat to them, right?

For me, the real value of that small deal was the opportunity to be in daily contact with the customer and showcase our service. All of the things that made the project unappealing to the volume supplier – the constant change orders, the need to schedule and reschedule multiple small deliveries – worked in my favor.

I was in constant contact with the builder, the crew and the architect. And one day I noticed something disturbing. The builder had specified the type of framing that he used on his tract homes. But it really wasn’t suitable for this high-end, custom job.

I met with the architect and suggested some changes that would help meet the homeowner’s expectations without adding cost. The architect was impressed and adopted my ideas. Word got back to the customer. Next thing I knew, we were being treated like family too. We got invited to the office Christmas party. And the builder’s staff started seeing us as their go-to guys whenever they had problems or special requirements.

Caught them napping
I guess my competitor never took us seriously, because they just kept going about their business the same old way.

But the builder sure noticed.

One day, he told me that he was about to get started on a condo – a huge project and exactly the kind of work we wanted. He said, “I want you to bid on this job. And if you get close enough, we’ll give it to you.”

We did, and they did.

It felt great to win against a competitor who’d started out with so many advantages. It showed me that great service can trump size or connections. And this sale reminds me never to become complacent about my accounts – no matter how solid I think they are.