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This month's question: "What is the length (in minutes) of your average 'face to face' sales call?" Give us your answer and we'll publish the results in next months newsletter.
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Welcome to our
premier  issue
of “You Can Always
Sell More”
Coaching Newsletter!
Welcome to this first issue of
“You Can Always Sell More” Coaching E-Newsletter! We want to help you
make more money! This monthly e-newsletter is aimed at helping you, the
experienced sales pro, to strengthen your selling “best practices” and to
increase your competitive edge.
There is also an article each
issue for the leader/manager of your sales team.
Join us
each month as we feature brief, yet condensed articles by Jim Pancero
highlighting an immediately-implementable sales idea or suggestion to help you
increase your selling skills, competitive advantage and selling success…or to
help you lead your sales team. You will also be provided with additional ideas
from other experts as well as links to great free stuff that can help you make
more money in selling.
We also
want to hear from you! What are your suggestions? Your challenges? Ideas that
can make this e-newsletter even more valuable to your daily selling efforts? You
can e-mail us at
editor@pancero.com.
For Sales Pros: You Can Always
Sell More, If You Remember
to 'Pencil Sell'
by Jim Pancero
Listen Can you increase your
persuasiveness when presenting your ideas to customers? A powerful idea that
might be of help originally came out of the 1940’s and involves “pencil
selling” as a way to get your message remembered and to help you maintain
control of your sales presentation.
“Pencil selling” simply
means using a blank pad or sheet of paper to capture your strongest points
being discussed with your customer or prospect. The pad is kept on the table
between you and your customer as you present your ideas. As you walk through
the major steps, points or ideas being presented you write down the key
words or issues you most you’re your customer or prospect to remember.
Numerous studies on idea
retention have identified a message delivered both verbally and visually is
retained multiple times longer than if it is only spoken. Having the three
to five major points being discussed written down and in front of your
customer can also help you in summarizing your suggestions as you prepare to
ask for the order or get some other type of customer commitment.
“Pencil selling” also is
a great way to help increase your control during a sales call. Bet you have
experienced this situation…You are in your sales call presenting your ideas
to a customer or prospect. In the middle of your discussion their phone
rings. And showing your importance to this client what do they do? Of course
they answer it! And then after maybe only a few minutes of talking they hang
up, turn back to you and then ask “So where were we?” If you have been
capturing your major points on paper as you have been talking then it is
easy for you to summarize by touching the paper and saying “We had talked
about these three reasons for this application working for you and we were
just about to begin discussing…”
“Pencil selling” is a
proven idea that can help you increase your persuasive presentation skills,
help improve your control over your sales call and to improve your
customer’s retention of your ideas. Could increasing your use of “pencil
selling” help you sell more this month?
For Sales Managers: "You
Can Do More to Lead Your Team, If You Start Asking 'And then what?"
by Jim
Pancero
In my sales programs I describe most sales people as being like the
“Hellarewe” bird. That’s a three foot bird living in four foot grass…who
keeps saying “Where the hell are we?” How many of your salespeople act like
“Hellarewe” birds?
But selling is a lot like the game of Chess. If you think more moves ahead
than I do you will most likely win every game. How many moves ahead are your
sales people thinking and planning in their territory?
A simple test to find out if any of your team are “Hellarewe” birds. Ask
one of your reps for an update on their best account. Because this is their
best account I’m sure they have something set-up or planned for this
important customer. As you write down what they say, ask them what they are
planning to accomplish on their next call to this account. After you have
written down their responses, then turn the page and ask “So what do you
plan to accomplish on your second call to this account?” If they give you
any response to write down then ask them your third and final question of
“And what do you plan to do or accomplish on your third call to this
account?”
How did your sales reps respond to these three questions? If your sales
rep is normal they will have a great set of answers for their first call. But
will have nothing planned, organized or even thought of for their second or
third call. The most common answer I hear when I ask this second question is
“Whatever I wasn’t able to accomplish off my first call list!”
Your job as their manager or leader is to lift them up on a regular basis
and help them see over the four foot grass (and then drop them down and let
them get their job done). How are you helping your sales team think and plan
more moves ahead?
A great coaching technique is to ask them whenever you are discussing an
account “…and then what?” When your sales rep is briefing you on an account,
wait until they are finished laying out all of their plans or challenges.
After they tell you their plans for the account (probably only their plans
for their next sales call to that account) then ask “…and then what?”
You continually asking each rep during account discussions “and then
what?” will help get your team members to start planning and strategizing more
moves ahead than they have been thinking. Could your sales team increase their
competitive edge if they started thinking and planning more moves ahead then
they have been? And if they already are, and then what?
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