I’m a huge fan of The Office.
Probably my favorite character from the show is Dwight Schrute, the top salesman at the Scranton branch for a paper company called Dunder-Mifflin. The reason I like him so much is that he possesses many of the sales qualities that I wish I had. He has a low need for approval and he is highly persistent. He also rarely takes no for an answer.
But one of the moments from the show that I love is when Dwight and Jim are going on a sales call together. When they meet with the prospect Jim is talking about all the wonderful perks of working with Dunder-Mifflin, but you can tell that the prospect is barely paying attention. Dwight asks if he can use the phone, dials a number and then walks through an automated message system in front of the prospect. He sets the phone down on hold as Jim continues talking.
A few minutes later the prospect stops Jim and tells him that it makes more sense to go with one of the “big guys”. Jim says, “That’s true, we can’t compete with their prices. But let me ask you, how important to you is customer service?” The prospect says, “Very important” right as an automated voice is heard from the phone still on hold that says, “Please stay on the line, your call is very important to us”. Dwight says, “That’s one of the ‘big guys’; been on hold this whole time.” Jim then dials his own company and immediately you hear “Dunder-Mifflin customer service, how can I help you?” The prospect then immediately gives them his business.
The reason I like this scenario is because the biggest barrier I run into is price. This clip encouraged me to look for ways in which we differentiate from the guys that cost less than us, and it encouraged me to look for ways to express that to prospects.
Anyone want to share how they differentiate from their competitors?
"Nothing happens until a sale is made."
That quote is so true...If nothing is ever sold, there would be nothing for a business to do. (Well, they could write some blogs I guess). But I always wondered how those companies that are just starting make their 
VERY FIRST sale. I know a lot of salesmen recommend using testimonials and references on sales calls, but what if you don’t have any yet?
Sure, sometimes family or friends will buy (hey, that’s how we suckered in our first client). Or it could be a small sale for something that’s obviously practical.
But what about companies that make expensive, complex software? Or have expensive services that are intricate and detailed? How is their first customer going to believe that their stuff works?
This is something I have struggled with since I started. Sure, we have clients now, but many of them are new, and our services take time to see results. How can I communicate to new prospects that our stuff is awesome? And don’t tell me to just tell them our stuff is awesome – I tried it, and it didn’t work. (Other techniques that don’t work are begging, pleading, bribing and threatening – just a heads up!)
And I certainly can’t just cold call people, give them a price and hope for the best because unless I'm in the mood to fill my day listening to a wide variety of creatively combined profanity, that’s a sure-fire way to get rejected. Our prices are too high without me somehow communicating the VALUE of what we do.
And I guess that’s what it comes down to. Being able to make that first sale (or ANY sale) requires you to show your prospects the value that you deliver. The easiest way to do this (so I hear) is to ask lots and lots of strong questions. You have to make them think about things they’ve never thought of before. And it’s actually pretty satisfying to hear a prospect say, “Wow, that’s a great question.” (again, so I hear)
So why do you have to ask strong, powerful questions? What this does is it allows you to establish yourself as a trusted advisor. You are digging deeper than anyone else has. You are getting this person to think about his business in a whole new way. You’ve shown that you’ve thought about his business more than he has (in certain areas at least), and he starts to see you as a resource.
If you do a really good job of this, you don’t even NEED a testimonial or reference, he'll just assume that you've got 'em.
Anyone have an experience they'd like to share of when they made their first sale in a start-up? Tell me how you did it so I can copy you.
I’m new to sales.
In fact, I’m only 3 months in at the time I am writing this blog article. But, there have been countless things that I have learned so far, and I would like to share the 3 that I have found to be the most important.
Don’t think, just do: While having this attitude can sometimes get you in trouble with the ladies, I do like to apply it during my daily phone calls. If I start thinking about the possible things that the other person might say, I tend to psych myself out.
Side note: This is really embarrassing, but I used to judge how nice or mean I thought someone would be based on their LinkedIn profile picture.
Most of my best first calls have been when I just didn’t think about the call too much before I made it. I’m not saying you I don’t research on the person first, but I’ve stopped imagining how the conversation will go because it never goes that way. When I don’t over think my call, the flow of the conversation is typically much better. However, I do like to have a goal of what I want to learn during the call, and where I want it to end. I keep that in the back of my mind now which allows me to subconsciously steer the conversation in the right direction.
Be funny: I know a lot of other guys have talked about the value of humor if you can bring it into the 
conversation, and there’s a reason for that. I developed a joke that I can use on every new person I talk to (I know what you are thinking and yes, the joke does make reference to the fact that I look like I barely made it out of puberty alive). It gets a laugh probably 90% of the time, and then the conversation is much easier.
Getting the other guy to laugh is important because it shows that you are not like every other sales guy out there. It also lowers his defenses; he now knows that he can joke around with you and he will be much more open with you (in my experience at least).
If you don’t think you’re funny, set aside some time every weekend to read comic books, humor books or watch comedians (Some of my personal favorites are Brian Regan, Kevin James, Jim Gaffigan, Kevin Hart and Jerry Seinfeld). After a while, you’ll learn comedic timing and what kind of voice fluctuations make people laugh.
Ask Questions: I know it’s probably pretty obvious how important this by now; many people have written about this as well. I’m lucky because I was never trained to do it any other way; I never try to pitch our services right off the bat during a call.
People want to know that you understand their problems before they are going to buy from you. And the only way to understand their problems is to ask questions. Lots of questions. Hundreds of questions.
It’s funny though, because even though I was trained to ask lots of questions, I still find myself occasionally doing a kind of “old school” method of sales where I am just talking endlessly about what we do. But when I do that, it feels weird; I feel strange talking that much.
Typically, people don’t really care about what it is you do. What they really want to know is if you can help them with their problem. And once again, that leads us back to asking questions.
So those are the three big ones for me right now. Does anyone have one they think tops those?
The second lesson we can all take away from Tommy Boy is about perseverance. Tommy was all excited about going on his dad’s sales trip at first. He was motivated to try to take his dad’s place and help save the company. But he quickly realized that being in sales was a lot tougher than he thought it would be. Spade’s character, Richard, was trying to get him to memorize their product’s features so he could pitch to their 
prospects. Tommy would confuse the features and blow the sale over and over again.
Sometimes sales people hit slumps where it feels like you’re back in high school trying to ask a girl to the prom, and all you keep hearing is “no”. (Wait, that was just me??) Tommy was in a bad slump. Even worse, his entire company was depending on him to make his sales or else the company would get bought out. Your company may not be relying on your sales for its survival, but your job, and certainly your income may be relying on them. Being in a slump can be a scary and discouraging time; it can be hard to come into the office because you are so down on yourself.
But being in a slump isn’t an excuse to work less. It’s an opportunity to take a look at what you’ve been doing wrong and fix it once and for all. Tommy realized that he was not being himself; he was not having fun with what he was doing. When he fixed that, he hit the road again and started crushing it in sales. Your problem could be something else entirely (personally, when I cut out all the offensive profanity during my sales calls I saw HUGE improvements), and it will be well worth the time to discover what it is and change it.
And even though you may feel like you want to work less, it is very crucial to work harder than ever during this time. Start making more cold calls to fill the pipeline, write another blog or two on the weekends, get more involved on Twitter or LinkedIn Groups, do a webinar and promote it within your target market, call old clients to ask for referrals or testimonials, read some self-improvement or sales books, do role-play exercises with friends, family and co-workers. There are many things you can be doing to get yourself out of a slump, start doing them!
Anyone want to share a time when they were struggling and what good came from it?
One of my all time favorite comedies is Tommy Boy, starring Chris Farley and David Spade, where Farley is the screw-up son of a successful auto-parts factory owner. When Farley’s dad dies of a heart attack, Farley finds himself in charge of the company and volunteers to go on his dad’s sales trip around the country. 
At first, he is a horrible salesman. He continuously takes no for an answer, he rips his own hair out, and he uses prospects’ desk toys to do demonstrations where he smashes collector model cars together and lights them on fire. Needless to say, no one will buy from him. It is only when Farley and Spade have almost given up and are eating lunch at a diner when things finally turn around. Farley convinces their waitress to serve him chicken wings even though the restaurant’s oven is off. It is only then that Farley realizes that all he needs to do to make sales is be himself and have fun.
A very smart man I know named Rick Roberge has been telling me since day one that the number one lesson in sales is to have fun. He said, “If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong”. Probably every sales person out there has put a ton of pressure on making a big sale, and when you put that kind of pressure on yourself you stop having fun. I’ve been guilty of it dozens of times, and as a result I usually lose the sale, or there is some delay on the close and I get disappointed. You get to have fun in sales when you stop putting pressure on yourself. I’ve found the best way to do this is to fill my pipeline with a lot more qualified leads so that no single sale is more important than the others.
Being able to relax and be yourself is also very important. Prospects can tell if you are nervous, even on the phone. For me, nervousness typically presents itself in the form of unfortunately-timed voice squeaks (Could be worse though, I have a friend who starts violently hiccupping when he gets butterflies). Being comfortable when talking to a prospect allows you to have a conversation and develop a friendship. This is what Tommy learns on his sales trip. And that relationship is pretty crucial when it comes to sales.
When you think about it, sales can be a pretty fun job. You get to talk to a variety of different people on a daily basis. And each different person presents a different challenge for you to overcome. I have grown more doing sales for three months than in any one-year period of my life.
So…any other Tommy Boy fans out there?