Monday, September 26, 2016

Exceptional Selling


Selling. What is it, and how do you do it? Good question. Tough question!

Instead of trying to answer that question, over the next two weeks I am going to pass along my notes from Jeff Thull's excellent book Exceptional Selling.

Part one of my notes:

There is a great tendency to leap before we listen. pxi

Authentic and compelling customer conversations are the key. pxi

The best salespeople are integrator – they orchestrate all the pieces needed to solve customers' problems in novel and intriguing ways. pxii

Jeff proposes that we become expert conversationalists and raise the bar of professional excellence. We should become so good. pxii

Most sales books tell us to become better listeners. They're right, of course, but the idea of being a good listener seriously oversimplifies what we need to be doing in successful business conversations. pxiii

Our customers have to have to willing to talk to us as equals. pxiii

Ah-ha” moments (are what we are shooting for) pxv

This is not a shallow interview that presumes the first hint of a problem justifies the solution, but one that gets deep into symptoms, causes, and consequences. pxv

A client-in perspective. pxvi

There is no “close” required. pxvi

Sales professionals who are exceptional conversationalists as well as exceptional diagnosticians are like chess masters. They know the patterns of the board, the strategies of the game, and they know where they are, where they're going, and their options at every instant. This not only takes innate talent, it also takes systems, skills, and discipline and, of course, a serious amount of practice. pxvii

(Thull's father was a salesman who worked with architects) pxix

A methodology that can be replicated to produce very profitable results. pxx

Enhance the clarity, relevancy, credibility, and trust. pxxi

Our conditioning, along with traditional selling lore, promotes an adversarial style of communication. pxxi

The goal is exceptional selling systems, skills, and disciplines to manage exceptional conversations for exceptional results for both you and your customers. pxxiii

This book is about creating conversations that achieve relevancy, credibility, and respect between individuals, no matter what the context. pxxiv

This book shows you how to be more efficient and more effective, but they aren't any shortcuts to exceptional sales results. pxxiv

The challenge is recognizing all of the potential avenues of self-sabotage and developing the skills and disciplines that put us in control of our actions and the entire selling process. p3

Every viable sale you lose represents a failure to communicate. You can look at this as a substantial communication challenge or a great opportunity. p5

Record your next face-to-face or phone conversation and listen to yourself afterwards. Put yourself in your customer's place. p6

Diagnosis is about observable symptoms of problems and the parameters of solutions. p7

Communication is a challenge that is entirely within our control. p8

It can turn your results around or notch them up to the next level of professionalism. p8

Style in the sense I'm using it here is an expression of our mind-set, our stance, and out approach to our relationships with customers. p9

Your ability to constructively attract and engage a customer in a relevant dialogue requires a conversation style as well as substantive content. p10
(It is all about quality dialogue/conversations, not campaigns)

You may be sabotaging your own career. p11

There is nothing more important, nor harder to master, than to get this mind-set right. p13

Sometimes the parent is a critical parent, that part of us that tends to tell, preach, and enforce … The adult is the ideal state. p14

(Often) salespeople unwittingly play the parent (or the police or professor) p16

(Timothy Wilson is a psychologist at the University of Virginia, wrote a book titled Strangers to Ourselves, and talks about the “adaptive unconscious”) p17

Stress can drop you back into quickly reacting versus thoughtful patterns of response. p18

A flawed emphasis on two elements of conversational sales training: presentation and persuasion. p19

The worst presentations are answers to questions that haven't been asked. p20

Ask yourself these questions: Do your customers know the true cost of the absence of the solutions you sell? Do they even know if they are experiencing the problems that your solutions are designed to resolve or the risks they are exposed to if they don't buy that solution? p20

The solutions we sell are often more confusing to customers than the problems we solve. p21

(You want to tie your offer to their business, it is about relevancy)

Persuasion alienates customers … They are going to see you as a “lecturing professor.” p23

How often have you been pressured to buy a product that wasn't right for your needs, been sold a product or service that didn't live up to the hype, fallen prey to the bait-and-switch ploy, had to be rude to end a sales call, taken a survey that is just a come-on for a sales pitch? p26

Children, students, and criminals. Is that how you see your customers? (You do not want to be a lecturing professor but it is possible to be an inspiring professor) p27

The good news is that with that strong, negative image, it is very easy to differentiate ourselves … when customers begin a conversation with negative expectations and then realize that those thoughts were not justified in your case, it accelerates the credibility-building process and engenders trust. p28


We need to be professionally involved and emotionally detached in our conversations with customers. p29

Think confident instead of passionate, think of the doctor role model. p30

Stop presenting and start connecting … Stop persuading and start collaborating. p30

The “V” word is overused. p32 (he is talking about the word value)

What is my incentive to change? … Show me how this dream will become reality and give me the confidence to invest in your solution. p32

In the quest to differentiate our companies in the customer's eyes and to win complex sales, the more we focus on value, and the more we all sound the same. It's a substantive communication challenge that most sales professionals are failing to meet. p33

We have no idea if our value has relevance with this customer. p33

Value propositions evolved into value cliches … indistinguishable from one another. p35

We are all guilty of over-presenting generic value. p36

Rightly or wrongly, customers dismiss value propositions as empty words. p37

Some customers are going to buy (from your generic value propositions) But these sales are going to be problematic, and you'll also be working much harder than is necessary … They have received little or no help interpreting the value. p38

You must help the customer connect the dots … Your primary responsibility is to make it relevant. p39

The value gap is the chasm that exists between what value sellers believe they provide to their customers and what customers are willing to pay for. p40

(The top sales professionals) are experts at creating relevant and credible conversations … Once you know how to translate value, you are on your way to regular and predictable success in sales … When a value translation is done properly, the pieces of the customer's puzzle come together and you get the credit. p41

Reorganize your value data into the value triad: sources of value, uses of value, and absence of value. p42

(Sources of value) they are the product and service attributes that you've probably been presenting all along. p43

(Uses of value) In what way will they be able to use the value you provide or require the value you provide? p44

(Absence of value) Because most salespeople spend some much time focusing on the value they can create for customers, they rarely consider this concept. p44

When we make initial contact with prospective customers, one of our very first tasks is to verify that these generic absences of value actually exist. p45

How valuable is penicillin to a person who has no infection? p45

Leverage the capabilities, requirements, and absence of value through the interplay of two variable factors: positioning and perspective. p46

(Performance has more value/profit than process, which has more than a product – he calls it a Value Spectrum)

Each individual's situation determines what is of value to him or her personally. p47

Most value propositions are not designed for presentation directly to customers … It's a preliminary hypothesis (a value assumption) p48

The agreement is that there will be a mutual contribution of resources to investigate to what degree the hypothesis holds true … You are willing for the hypothesis to be true or not true. p49

The first step in validation connects directly to the one area that has the greatest power to compel customers to act – the absence of value, of the problem/opportunity. p49

This lifecycle of value (Value Proposition, Value Assumption, Value Required, Value Expected, Value Achieved) is the track that the most successful sales professionals follow as they translate value. p50

If value doesn't exist for either the customer or the seller, the checkpoints along the track ensure that you will quickly discover that fact and be able to move to a more viable opportunity. p51

(The foundation of a successful salesperson's mind-set is) an intense focus on bringing value to their clients. p53

Changing your mind-set is truly the foundation for credible conversations and exceptional sales success … Once you “get your mind right,” the mechanics will make sense and the words will flow naturally. p54

A pause suggests you are listening and considering your customer's words … Silence is a sign of wisdom. p55

Our ability to execute in sales is rooted in the mind-set and skill. p55

The more effective we become as a decision process guide, the more likely customers are to support our efforts. p55

This creates a cycle of sales success that reinforces itself. (Relevance creates Credibility creates Trust creates Access creates Insight create more Relevance and on and on) p56

The communication mind-set that best supports our ability to create success for our customers is summed up in the concept of Value Diagnosis (it's Diagnostic Selling, and it is) the antithesis of a presentation mind-set. p56

Diagnosis is more effective than presentation because: p57
It is always focused on the customer.
It is about the observable symptoms of problems and the parameters of solutions, not blame.
It engages the customer as a collaborative partner.
It promotes ownership.
It differentiates you from your competition.


Sunday, September 25, 2016

Excellence Embodied



Being from southern California, naturally, I am a fan of the Dodgers.

For Dodgers fans, and for all baseball fans, today was a big day. Today was the last home game for announcer Vin Scully. Ol' Red as we might call him.

If you strive for excellence, you need to know about Vin. The man is soon to be 89 years young, and has been calling Dodgers games since they were in Brooklyn.

For the past 67 years, Vincent Edward Scully has been the voice of the Dodgers. So, what are we to make of this? I believe the answer is excellence. Pure excellence.

You see, Scully is what came to be known as a "Simulcaster." Meaning, he would call the games, simultaneously, for both radio and television.

Being used to the radio, Vin would tell stories like you could not believe. Of course, the stories worked just as well on TV. Truly entertaining stuff!

I remember warm summer evenings, as I was growing up, listening to Vin call the game from Chavez Ravine. If you get a chance, I highly recommend you find a playback to listen to. Absolutely marvelous.

Hats off to you, Mr. Scully.


Monday, September 19, 2016

Value Creation


Over the last three weeks I have given you advice from four billionaires. And, all four of them made their money through entrepreneurship.

So, what is entrepreneurship? As I have written about before, the only purpose of a business is to create a customer. Therefore, the two entrepreneurial functions are: innovation and sales.

To put it more simply, entrepreneurship is about the exchange of value. The exchange is the selling, and the value is the innovation.

Next week I will do a post about selling. This week let us talk a little about innovation.

Innovation is all about the creation of value.

Peter Drucker said the following about innovation, It is the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth...Until then, every plant is a weed and every mineral is just another rock.”

Not much more than a century ago, neither mineral oil seeping out of the ground nor bauxite, the ore of aluminum, were resources. They were nuisances; both render the soil infertile. The penicillin mold was a pest, not a resource. Bacteriologists went to great lengths to protect their bacterial cultures against contamination by it. Then in the 1920s, a London doctor, Alexander Fleming, realized that this 'pest' was exactly the bacterial killer bacteriologists were looking for–and the penicillin mold became a valuable resource.”

Think about Xerox, for example. As you can probably appreciate, photocopying is a very technologically advanced process. But, actually, what made Xerox successful was not really the complex technology.

The main contributor to Xerox's success was a pricing innovation. This may seem weird but, the way you price things can be an innovation. Remember innovation is about creating valuable things.

As it applies to Xerox, lots of people would like to photocopy documents. However, very few people make enough copies to get value from an entire machine. If you had to buy an entire photocopying machine, would you? Of course not. So, allowing people to pay per copy represents real value. People do it all the time.

At LegalShield, one of our main innovations is a pricing innovation as well. Instead of forcing people to pay $200-300 per hour, to speak with an attorney, LegalShield provides people with attorneys for less than a dollar a day. It is real value and people love it!

As you can see, innovation is not about what you want to produce. Innovation is about what people want to buy. Innovation is not creativity. Innovation is the commercialization of creativity. If sufficient numbers of people do not want to buy your products, or services, you will not succeed as an innovator. Which means you will not succeed as an entrepreneur.

Having said that, hopefully you can see how your sales and marketing efforts can influence the success of your innovations. Two examples would be IBM and Microsoft. Neither IBM nor Microsoft produce technologically superior products. The two succeed because they are excellent selling organizations.

But, I am getting ahead of myself. For now, simply remember that innovation is all about the creation of things valuable.


Monday, September 12, 2016

The Trifecta




Over the last two weeks I have given you advice from billionaires. So, I figured, what the hell. Why not go for the hat trick?

This week's billionaire (entrepreneur) is Mark Cuban. I recently heard Cuban say, “There is nothing glamorous about being an entrepreneur. It is a grind. And, I grind, baby. I grind.”

This is important because so many people want to be Robert Mondavi. They want to sit on their chateau and sip Pinot. Sounds very sexy, I must agree. Too bad it ain't reality. You probably have a better chance of winning the lottery.

In the past, I have written about Anders Ericsson's 10,000 hour rule. Stated simply, achieving the glamorous life is anything but glamorous.

Felix Dennis is another example (pictured below.) In many ways Felix achieved the glamorous life. The end of his life was spent drinking wine and writing poetry (which was his true passion.)

The way Dennis achieved a glamorous life of passion was also through entrepreneurship. He spent about 40 years building a publishing empire. When asked if he was passionate about the publishing business, Dennis did not hesitate to say, “No.”

One strong piece of advice, which Dennis had for entrepreneurs, “Forget glamorous.”

Entrepreneurship is not about glamour, it is about value. Giving people the things they value. Because, for every Robert Mondavi, I can show you numerous Wayne Huizenga's. Dude made about a billion in the garbage business!

I am not telling you to get into waste disposal. I certainly wouldn't. What I am saying is what Mark Cuban said, “There is nothing glamorous about being an entrepreneur. It is a grind.” So, be prepared to grind.



Monday, September 5, 2016

Advice from another Billionaire

(that is Mort on the right)

I do not know about you, but, I do not worship at the altar of money. I like money, but it is not my master.

The reason I have been talking about billionaires is not money. The reason is excellence. Like most people, I admire excellence. And, I study it quite often.

As we all know Cleveland, Ohio is a city that has seen tough times. However, it is a proud city. And, Cleveland is proud to be the home of Morton Mandel.

Mort was born in 1921, one year after his mother had fled war torn Europe, with $1.50 in her pocket. Being that the Mandel family is Jewish, they saw much persecution in their native Poland.

Mort's upbringing was rough, to say the least. In addition to having to flee Poland, Mandel's father developed multiple sclerosis, in his mid-thirties, and eventually became completely bedridden.

Even from these very modest beginnings, Mandel became a self-made billionaire. And, in 2013 he published his business memoirs. The book is titled It’s All About Who You Hire, How They Lead...and Other Essential Advice from a Self-Made Leader.

In 1945, along with his two brothers, Joe and Jack, Mort started a company called Premier Industrial Corporation. Premier was the company that would eventually make the brothers billionaires.

As the name of his book suggests, Mort believes recruiting is the most important task of an entrepreneur. In the beginning of the book he says, “If you asked me to sum up everything I know in the fewest words, I would do it in just four: ‘It’s all about who.’ All my adult life I’ve been completely devoted to hiring and keeping extraordinary people.”

Mandel continues, “I don’t settle. I will spend weeks, months, even years recruiting, sifting through available people to find the extraordinary. The dream of every leader should be to have the right person in the right job at the right time. It’s a very challenging goal. Only recently, I waited four years to hire the person I wanted to succeed me as head of the Mandel Foundation.”

So, how do you do it? How do you become a good recruiter? Well, just as Peter Drucker taught Stephen Covey, we want to begin with the end in mind. As a matter of fact, Mort's book contains a chapter titled, “What I Learned from Peter Drucker.”

When recruiting, beginning with the end in mind means thinking through any given job. What is the job meant to accomplish? What are results? And, what strengths and abilities would a person need to achieve those results? Then, you want to look at a number of people for each position.

Recruiting is a tough job. Which is why it is wise to always be recruiting.  On this point Mandel agrees with last week's billionaire, John Doerr. Talking to Fast Company magazine, Doerr once said, “Your biggest challenge will be building a great team.”

Let me leave you with one more important insight from Mort's book. You may ask yourself, what attributes does Morton Mandel look for? The answer is, Mort looks for the following five things, in this order:
1. Intellectual firepower
2. Values
3. Passion
4. Worth ethic
5. Experience