September 2006

If you’re a salesman, you don’t have to become a philosopher. Nor do you have to be a profound thinker.

Being either one of these is a full-time job and will prevent you from doing your job … selling.

But, doing a little deep thinking will make you a better salesman, just don’t fall prey to thinking that you’re a thinker. I don’t. Ever.

The things I want you to think about are :

3) Price

Value is determined by desire. Almost entirely. At least 99.44%.

If you have a great desire for something, it becomes valuable to you.

If you don’t care for it, it has no value to you.

Price is dependent upon value. If nobody wants what you’re selling, it doesn’t really matter the price you put on it.

Some people pay large sums of money for large stones to landscape with.

Builders hate large stones and think they’re worthless.

If those same builders spent some time in deep thought, they’d find a landscape company to pay them for those same large stones AND get them hauled away for free.

What part of your business is the builder and which part is the landscaper and how do you get them in touch with one another ?

Over at SalesTeamTools.com, Brandon Hull was gracious enough to ask me to write a post every now and then.

I’m going to try to make every one of them a ” 10 Things ” kind of post and the first one is up now.

Come by and read about the 10 Things You Must Know About An Account…. Before You Make That First Sales Call.

Come over and check out Brandon’s blog and subscribe to his RSS feed. A little link love wouldn’t hurt his feelings either.

About the time the Big ’80’s started, I started eating at Wendy’s as my favorite fast-food restaurant.

I spend hours on the road every day and still use Wendy’s as my #1 choice if I have to eat on the run. I’d rather not eat on the run, but averaging 3500-4000 miles on the road per month makes it impossible to sit down for lunch every day.

Revelation time - I like vanilla. It’s simple.

I’ve always wanted a vanilla Frosty. I’ve asked them several times over the years, but never gotten a decent response.

NOW they get vanilla, about 37 or so years after they opened their first store.

Why now ?

Did Dave hate vanilla ? I hope not, ’cause I really liked Dave and all that he stood for.

It’s for sure that they never looked at any of the comment cards I filled out over the years, or this would have come a long time ago.

It’s also for sure that they didn’t ask their customers what they wanted.

Or listen when they knocked on the door with their wallets open.

Hello to the ( lack of ) marketing department.

If you sell anything to the general public and you don’t have a system in place to ask them what they’d pay for and someone smart enough to interpret the results of the campaign, send me an email and I’ll be glad to set up a campaign for you and ask your customers what they’d like to buy from you.

Then we’ll sell it to them. Simple.

Just in case you missed the post due to the Labor Day holiday and your feed reader being overwhelmed, go right now and read the best interview advice ever written.

The absolute best.

By far.

Seth rules.

Sometimes when I’m in one of our sales offices, I hear a young salesman or an inside sales rep trying to sell brick to someone building their own home.

After hearing them butcher every attempt to baffle the prospect with bull****, I ease over and jump into the fray.

I ask the prospect what they’re looking for, hoping they’re looking for something different from what everybody else has.

That’s the one I enjoy the most.

I then go into High Price Expectation mode.

To make this long story short, I tell them about what they can expect to get from a particular series of brick and then tell a story or two about people who’ve come in looking to make their home stand out from the average brick house and what they did and what they paid.

After building up their expectations, I ask them what they’d expect to pay for brick that will make theirs a one-of-a-kind home.

Without giving them time to answer, I start high, not REALLY high, but kinda high and work down from there.

” Would you expect to pay $450/per thousand for that look ? ”

” In a larger city, you might and it wouldn’t be out of line, would it ? ”

They’ll nod their head in agreement.

” Would you expect to pay $400/per thousand for a one-of-a-kind look ? ”

Again, they’ll nod in agreement.

” Our competitors might charge that, but we don’t. ”

” Because ( always use a ‘because‘, it’s the most powerful word in selling ) we have 18 locations, we have tremendous buying power, so we’re able help you achieve that look for only $375/per thousand. ”

” Since you’ll have about 30,000 brick on your house, you’ll save over $2200 and still get a one-of-a-kind look. ”

” Would you like me to put these on hold for you right now ? ”

This’ll work for you and it won’t matter if you’re selling Jaguar’s or RV’s.

Prospects are going to compare prices, so you need to be in charge of the comparisons. If you’re the one that sets the parameters, you’re in the position of power.

If you can’t sell and you made the rules, find another line of work.

All they need is for you to give them some data that will allow them to justify their purchase. Suspend their disbelief for a second or two and they can buy and not feel bad about it.

I’ve sat across from some of the meanest, ugliest, snarliest buyers this world has ever produced. I have also never apologized for the prices of the product I represent.

Why ? Because I have price pride.

Every time a buyer tries to browbeat me into lowering my prices, I have the answer to whatever scenario they throw at me.

I study hard before the sales call and that allows me to be confident while I’m there.

Do I get the order every time ? Of course not. Nobody does.

Do I get my share and a little more. I think so. As does every manufacturer that has employed my services.

What is price pride ? It’s the one thing every salesman needs to develop before he sets foot in the office of his first sales call.

Without price pride, you’re at the mercy of every buyer you sit down with.

With price pride you’re in control of the situation.

Think of it this way - you didn’t have the order when you went in, so you’ll not be any worse off if you don’t have the order when you leave. At least with price pride, you’ll have the chance to make the sale the next time, on your terms.

Price pride means you know what your product will do for the buyer. It means you know what they’re doing now, with regard to how your product will work for them.

It means you know your product inside and out.

It means you know their business inside and out.

It means you know what they’re paying now.

It means you have several ideas for how they can use your product to make their company better. Several.

If you don’t have all those answers, don’t go.

I just got in after a 13 1/2 hour day. I’ve had several really long days this week. Several.

My new RSS feed aggregator/reader thang, Feed Demon 2.0, from NewsGator is full of good stuff left over from earlier this week.

I’m tired, the freakin’ ragweed count is over 100 and my putter is broke and needs fixin’.

It hasn’t been a great week. The wife is great, as usual, and all three daughters are treasures, but outside of that, it’s not been all that.

There’s something that just ain’t right with a corporation I’ve been working with. Something’s …, uh, off. Missing. Gone. Whatever.

Then I start hitting the highlights in the RSS feeds. I’m about 50-60 in and I see The Sethmeister has a couple of posts, so I go check those out.

It’s there. It’s been there waiting for me and I couldn’t get to it. Might have made life more tolerable, but I was kept away from it and made to suffer for naught.

Compromise.

THAT’S what their problem is. Compromise.

Once they started doing it, it snowballed and became their mantra. Instead of a rarity, it’s now the accepted way.

They’re comfortable in the mediocrity. Average is their 2.0 and they like it.

I hate people that will not fight against being average.

I hate it when they give in, but not give up.

If they’d give up, they’d quit and let someone else have a shot. If they just give in, they can stay like that forever !

EEEEWWWWW !

Can you hear their battle cry -

We don’t care. Really, we don’t.

Please, do us all a favor - when you want to give in, don’t do it. Instead, give up, quit and get the hell out of the way.

If you have no sense of urgency, you have no value to the world of sales, marketing or customer service.

None. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

Thanks to The Sethmeister for showing me the answer to the riddle.