The Smoking Salesperson - If You Are Going Do It - Make Sure to Do This!

We all know top salespeople usually work hard and play hard. We waste a lot of our money, have a poor diet, don't work out enough, and a bunch of our group are smokers. Hey, I'm not here to tell you what to do and what not to do on your personal time. I'm far too much of a Libertarian when it comes to what decisions you make for your own life to do that. There are also enough people out there to beat you up if you are puffing on cigarettes anyway.

What I would suggest, however, is that you don't ever do this in front of prospects or customers. This is a given and I'm sure most of you know that. If you are doing this, please stop right away!

That doesn't go far enough, however. You need to conceal the odor as much as possible, too. The last thing you want to do is offend a potential prospect because you smell like you stepped out of Studio 54 on a winter night in 1982.

Let's keep this simple. There are three things you will need to keep in your car or office (this was a recommendation given to me by a buddy of mine that he uses). Hand sanitizer, gum, and some body spray that smells good should do the trick. Wash your hands, chew the gum, and make sure to throw on a couple of sprays (please don't overdo this step). This should drown out most of the smoke smell and keep parties that might be offended from noticing.

Would it be easier to quit and not have to go through this? Probably, but let's face it - I know this isn't going to happen for a large portion of salespeople. If you are going to smoke, at least make sure not to let your habit destroy your income. Isn't it better to make a little extra effort in order to keep from losing a sale?

Sales Management 2.0

Sales Management 2.0 is quickly becoming the #1 website for sales management professionals and those seeking to go into sales management in their careers. Brad Trnavsky has also done a wonderful job of creating a space where a number of voices can be heard dealing with the issues facing the sales management community. I think of Sales Management 2.0 as sort of a ground zero "think tank" for sales management strategies and ideas.

Brad has recently posted a new article, “What is Sales Management 2.0?”. For those of you who have not visited his site, I would highly encourage you to start with this recent article. Regardless of your career goals, Sales Management 2.0 should certainly be a stop on your route to sales success.

Do You Really Know What is Desired in the Marketplace?

Anyone who knows me well understands that I am a huge AC/DC fan. The band just seems to keep on churning out the hits as the years go by. I was kind of surprised to read how successful their new album (Black Ice) has been, however.

It was just a couple weeks ago that I was bragging to a group of friends about how I had not purchased any new music since 2005 (yeah, that must mean I am getting old). Perhaps I was just stuck in the 80's or 90's, but I think it was something else. The marketplace wasn't producing any music that I liked enough to go out & purchase.

Nothing against Rap, Country, or R&B, it just isn't my kind of music. Hey, I'm proud of it, I'm just more of a hard rock kind of guy. AC/DC fits in very well with what I like.

That being said, I must not be alone! The Black Ice album has debuted #1 in 29 different countries, including #1 on the US Billboard 200. It is not just the over 30 crowd embracing this album, either. I have been encouraged to learn just how many generational lines AC/DC has crossed. Black Ice is well on its way to becoming the #1 selling mainstream hard rock album of all time - in an age in which rock music is supposed to be declining.

My point here is simple - don't believe for a second that your company alone knows what is desired in the marketplace. We should all be thankful of this of this fact as well. Because the big companies get it wrong so of often, the opportunities for independent minded salespeople and small business owners will always be present.

I guess I am going to have to break my own pledge as well, and move the date in which I bought new music for the last time to December of 2008.

Buying Versus Selling Made Easy For Salespeople

I often find that prospective customers would rather buy than to be put through some sort of sales process. Don't get me wrong, some situations require a little "push" to get the job done and put a sale on the board. A salesperson, however, should not have to continually fight an uphill battle with every prospect on "what's your best price" and "I am happy with my current vendor".

When these questions arise it is obvious that the salesperson has not taken the time make sure he or she is credible in the prospect's eyes. In short, the prospect has no perceived value in dealing with you when these questions come hurling at you like darts.

When selling is done correctly, buying should take place without any push from the salesperson. If the prospect has been qualified, the salesperson has taken the time to show third-party proof to enhance credibility, and the proposal is profit-justified, a sale should take place with no closing skills of any sort. If the prospect is qualified and believes in you, they will certainly believe your proposal and the money, time, or productivity you are putting back in their pocket.

Will I Have to Cold Call for the Rest of My Sales Career?

Will you have to cold call for the rest of your sales career? While I might have said yes to this statement five years ago, I'm not so sure anymore. As a moved in my sales career over to becoming a top producer, I found myself struggling to remember the last time I actually made a 100% pure cold call.

Make no mistake about it, every salesperson starting out needs to be able to cold call with some success. After all, the biggest reason why most people get out of the sales profession is their lead generation is inadequate. Therefore by default, they simply do not have enough prospects to sell to. This leads a salesperson down the path to either a loss of job or not enough income to justify staying in the sales profession.

After you have survived in sales for a few years, however, the monotony of cold calling will start to burn you out. It is awful hard to be seen as an expert salesperson by so many of your customers and then have to pick up the phone to cold call (in other words, to make hundreds of cold calls to people who don't want to speak with you).

Garbage in = Garbage out (usually). I don't care how strong your desire or attitude is - it is very hard to displace all of the negativity that comes with cold calling. This is especially true when so many alternative lead generation options are available. Amazingly, I still know a lot of salespeople who use this as their primary or only way to obtain leads.

Most alternative lead generation activities take time and a lot of effort before they become effective. If cold calling is your primary way of obtaining new customers, I'm certainly not advocating that you stop this tomorrow. What you need to do instead is to start building and developing other lead generation methods to replace your cold calling activities over time.

When you move from being a mediocre salesperson to a top producing salesperson, you will find that your biggest problem is not filling your lead bucket but rather having the time to get to everyone who is in the bucket. The happy trouble of having too many people who are eager to do business with you (only for you to turn them down due to time constraints or lack of qualifications) should be your #1 goal. When this happens, you simply won't have the time to cold call. Listen up as this is important, because you don't stop cold calling because you don't like it - you only stop cold calling when you don't have the time because your lead bucket is overflowing.

So the short answer to the question in my book would be - no- you probably won't have to continue cold calling for the rest of your sales career. This will only become true, however, if you take the time to learn & develop alternative lead generation methods. At the same time, you don't want to paint yourself in a corner with believing it will never become plausible for the need to cold call in the future, either. If your alternative lead generation activities dry up or become inadequate for whatever reason, you must be prepared to cold call your way back to being a sales success.

Sales Bloggers Union

Last week, I was fortunate enough to be voted in and accepted as a contributing member of the Sales Bloggers Union. The Sales Bloggers Union is comprised of various sales experts from a variety of backgrounds. When you are looking for a diversity of expert opinion on the overall sales experience, I cannot imagine a better resource that exists on the web.

The Sales Bloggers Union website will feature a new topic every two weeks in which all contributing members will have a written submission that will be posted. In the current cycle, the topic is negotiations. Please make sure to check out my first article which was just published today - The Top Five Items a Salesperson Needs to Know Before Heading into Negotiations.

There were several people I would like to thank who where instrumental in getting me involved and "up to speed" as a contributing member of the group:

-Brad Trnavsky of Sales Management 2.0, who has always been willing to help me out without asking for anything in return. You planted this seed with me for this group a while back.

-Skip Anderson of Selling to Consumers, who took the time to speak with me on what was involved in being a contributing member and who helped me get "up and running".

-Nesh Thompson of Symvolli, who has also been instrumental in getting me up to speed and involved on the website.

I would also like to thank the other contributing members of the Sales Bloggers Union for allowing me to be involved with the group:

-Ian Brodie of Sales Excellence

-Tim Rohrer of Sales Loudmouth

-Tibor Shanto of The Pipeline

-Colin Wilson of The Entrepreneurial Salesman Blog

and last but not least...

-Karl Goldfield of Sales Training by Karl Goldfield

Thanks again to all of you and I look forward to offering all of our readers quality sales advice that will make a difference in their lives. I would also like to encourage my readers not only to be regular visitors to the Sales Bloggers Union, but also to the individual websites of each contributing member. May all of your sales be great ones!