Keith Rosen’s Executive Sales Coaching Blog on Selling, Leadership, Management » Sales Management

About 25 years ago, I read my first book on selling. It was, The Secrets of Closing the Sale. Like many sales and business professionals, this was the first book that I was ever exposed to which focused on the subject and the art of selling. 25 years later, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down and meeting with the master of selling and personal development, the often imitated but never duplicated, Zig Ziglar.

Now, if you’re in sales or a self help junkie, you know who Zig Ziglar is. (If not, you’re either someone who hasn’t truly invested in your career and embraced lifelong learning by continually investing in your development, you’re fairly new to the selling profession or are just starting out, or you’ve been living under a rock for far too long.) Zig (he prefers to be called Zig over Mr. Ziglar) is truly an American Legend, an icon in the world of personal and professional growth and one of my personal heroes. (The conversation I had with him further cemented why this is still true today). Zig has shared the platform with many distinguished Americans such as Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush and has authored over two dozen books on personal growth and success, family, sales and leadership that have touched the lives of millions of people across the world.

Zig has an appeal that transcends barriers of age, culture, industry and occupation. Since 1970, he has traveled over five million miles across the world delivering powerful life improvement messages, cultivating the energy of change.

Zig Ziglar’s corporation is built upon the same philosophy he expounds to his audiences – hard work, common sense, fairness, commitment and integrity.

In his autobiography, Zig offers a candid and inspiring account of his transformation from a “too small, poor boy from Yazoo City, Mississippi,” to one of the world’s most highly regarded motivational experts. At the heart of his story are his many heroes who modeled solid values such as faith in God, commitment to hard work, compassion for others, common sense, integrity, and a sense of humor.

“Wow! What an amazing experience. What did he teach you that was new?” This is the first reaction I would typically hear from people when first telling them I had spent an afternoon with Zig and time at his headquarters. So, what impact did Zig leave on me that I have taken to heart? What profound, new and valuable message was I able to walk away with from my meeting with this highly acclaimed guru and though leader?

Before I answer that, (no, I won’t make you wait until my next blog post) here are just a few of the things that Zig and I casually chatted about. (Our conversation was videoed and I will be posting the video to share with you in the very near future.)

• How the selling profession and the profile of a salesperson changed and evolved since the time he authored, The Secrets of Closing the Sale, 25 years ago.
• What salespeople need to do today to ensure their success in this new marketplace.
• What leaders need to be more mindful of if they want to ensure the success of their organization.
• The people who have impacted his life the most.
• Zig’s definition of integrity.
• A message for the younger generation out there, who are working hard at trying to build a successful career and a family.
• His legacy.
• What parents need to do to be more accountable around raising children with stronger, more meaningful values.
• How people actually go about developing or upgrading their attitude.

I was fortunate to gain the perspective of such a worldly man grounded in the values that matter. You would even think that it would be a bit of a challenge to retain all of the gems Zig shared with me. Conversely it wasn’t. It was surprisingly, yet reassuringly very simple. You see, the ultimate epiphany I had, the priceless message that Zig delivered, was grounded in the core principles that are and have always been right in front of us.

Zig reinforced what really mattered most; the basics. Yes, that’s right. The basics that we so often gloss over, neglect, take for granted and assume we already have in place. The very basics that are paradoxically, still the undeniable and timeless secret to success and designing a life worth living.

The basics of truth, being your word, living a life of integrity, honoring your core values and your commitments, honesty, family, faith in yourself and helping your fellow man and woman selflessly and graciously. Yes, the basics that our society seems to have an unyielding tendency to put aside and dismiss in search of the latest and greatest, the next “Big Thing” or the flavor of the month. We have fooled ourselves into thinking there is some other secret out there that would help us get what we want most and propel us to where we want to be, both in our home life and at our work life.

We are hiding behind the guise of “What’s next” without honoring the core, fundamental beliefs and values that make us all worthwhile human beings. As we immerse ourselves in our own thinking, as we get distracted and challenged by the upsets and problems at work, as we continue to allow the media to erode our thinking and our heart-centered priorities as well as sensationalize our deepest fears and insecurities, we move farther and farther away from the person we truly want to be, and then with a shock, we turn around and notice that the person we have become, is not the person we want to model, especially for our children.

Our integrity has now been compromised, and we wonder why we continually feel, “off,” out of sorts, or out of balance with ourselves, regardless of how much more money we make or what other possessions or successes we amass. We can’t understand why personal satisfaction, our self worth, sense of fulfillment and our peace of mind continually escapes us and our grasp, and becomes more and more elusive.

To reinforce Zig’s message, I’m reminded of a conversation I had with his son. When talking with Tom Ziglar, the CEO of Ziglar, Inc., he shared with me so many wonderful stories about his dad. During one of our conversations, he shared with me one of his dad’s quotes which was, “How much better would world be if people cared as much about their responsibilities as they do their rights.” With the level of greed and American Entitlement that has plagued our society, which has only come into our direct line of vision due to our challenging marketplace and the media continually reporting on the failure of so many large institutions and organizations, this message is so timely today, more than ever before.

Zig’s message touches the heart, soul and spirit of everyone he interacts with, especially those who work with him. It was during my video shoot later that day, as I was filming some new training and coaching insights, when someone else in Zig’s office shared another story that is yet another testament to Zig’s character and being a man who lives by his word and walks his talk. I was told that, throughout all of the years Zig has traveled the word, before every seminar or presentation he ever delivered, even as they’re introducing him and calling him on to the stage, he would always make it a point to pick up the phone and call his wife, just to tell her he loves her.

What a better place our world would be if every man and woman would call their spouse or significant other on their way to work, just to say, “I love you.” To this day, Zig cherishes his wife and the relationship he has with her (the Redhead, as he lovingly refers to her in his books). He keeps her on the pedestal that she so rightfully deserves to be on. Again, what would our world be like if we followed in Zig’s footprints, doing the things that really matter most.

When it was time to conclude our conversation, one of the final questions I asked Zig was, “I’m not sure if you’ve been following the numbers on your book sales and where they rank in terms of popularity. So I took the liberty of seeing how The Secrets of Closing the Sale has been doing on Amazon. Currently, your book holds the following rankings regarding how popular they are in specific categories. In the category of sales and selling, your book is rated number 15. Now, here’s what I found interesting. Under the category of spirituality, your book is holding strong at number 3. Now, I know you’re a very spiritual man. And regardless of your faith, how do you explain this? What’s the connection between success at selling and spirituality?”

To that question, Zig smiled and responded with a resonating message that reinforced why the holistic approach to professional development will always be the most effective and long lasting. That was, while skill, talent and what you do is important, it is the essence of a person, your character and who you are that matters most.

At 82 years of age, he still has that spark, that twinkle in his eye, that presence he naturally exudes from a man who we can all use as a model of what it means to be not just remarkable, but to be human; that’s the Zig we know and love.

I don’t know if there are too many authentic heroes like Zig left in the world, and I know he’s still one of mine. And as I look on my desk at the gift that my children had given me just the other day (an early Fathers Day present), I’m reminded why I do what I do and what gets me out of bed each day. My five year olds (twins) came back from school and in their youthful exuberance, handed me a picture frame they had made with the cutest picture of each of them wearing a suit and tie that their teaches had dressed them in. On the top of the frame it said, “When I grow Up I want To Be Just Like My Daddy.” How important our role is as parents, our most significant role we will ever have. That message was a happy reminder of how important it is for me to follow in the footprints of success that my hero has left behind for all of us to travel on.

I am profoundly and deeply appreciative of my time with Zig and of the gifts that he has shared with the world.

And to Mr. Zig Ziglar I say, I am grateful for the contribution you have made to me, as well as the impact that you have had on all of us throughout the years. Keep shining.

Listen to the full podcast here.

Sure, we can’t control many of the things going on in the economy. However, what managers and business owners can control is how they go about realigning their thinking and efforts around how they are continually developing their people, which begins with how these managers develop themselves into the leaders they can be in this new age.

It’s evident that many organizations have lost sight of the primary objective of management and leadership, which is simply this: To make your people more valuable.

There are several issues at work that inhibit the manager’s ability to get their people to be more accountable around their goals.

1. Is there a consequence to their actions or non-actions? And that consequence can come from you (i.e. the affect on their salary, position, job, bonus, satisfaction, peace of mind and so on) or from a personal cost they would feel themselves by not changing.




2. Building off number one above, it’s all about how you position this conversation around accountability. This is always a tough job for managers, because most of the time, they get on their soapbox and preach the consequences to their team. This often sounds like: “You can be more successful if….” or “You can make more money if only you would …...” or “If you don’t turn this around you’re going to (be out of a job, get fired, fail, and so on).”

This falls on deaf ears because for someone to truly internalize this message and make it real for them, they must hear the consequence in their own words, through their own voice and arrive at the consequence on their own. They need to recognize it, say it and declare ownership around it.

And the only way to do this is by asking them better consequential questions. In this podcast, I’ll share with you the steps you can take to coach people to become more accountable around their job and their goals, and the questions you can use to achieve this critical objective. (Oh, and did I mention that by following this process, you no longer have to be positioned as the bad guy!)

Listen to the full podcast here.

The result is the process. A timely paradox and critical mind shift that every salesperson and manager must make if they want to transcend the mediocre performance they may be experiencing today.

Even before you can engage in the type of sales benchmarking activities that I wrote about the other day, (you can find that blog post here) or even take the time to refine your selling skills, you will come head to head with resistance to selling by the numbers if this change in attitude around how we approach selling is not fully embraced beforehand.

I was reminded how important this was during a seminar I delivered last week in NYC. At the end of the seminar, one manager raised his hand and posed this question to me. He said, “Our sales cycle has changed dramatically. Our salespeople can no longer make a call and take an order. Our product offering has been modified and as a result, the average cost of our product has increased, which has all contributed to a longer sales cycle. However, my salespeople are still reluctant to change. They’re still stuck in that transactional way of selling. They’re getting more frustrated and discouraged because sales aren’t happening fast enough, all because they’re unsure how to manage this longer selling cycle. I’ve told them many times over, that our sales cycle is no longer the way it used to be, and we need to be more patient with the process and more consultative with our customers. I’ve explained to them over and over again, that we need to modify and re-engineer our selling process in response to these new challenges, the changes we’re up against and how our customers make a purchasing decision and buy from us. What else can I do?”

As this sales manager was explaining his challenge, I was thinking to myself how important it is today, more than ever, to become process driven. Without this change in our thinking, salespeople will be unable to honor the process needed to convert more conversations into sales, let alone build out a more robust process and selling strategy that will enable them to do so. As such, the eternal conflict between our tactical strategy and our thinking will continue to rage on.
I have a detailed article on this very subject that you can find here. The original title of this article was WARNING! Goals May Be Hazardous To Your Success. Are They Sabotaging Your Selling Efforts?

As my colleague Dr. Tony Alessandra explains in the following statistics, “It’s amazing how many times success can be assured by attending to the basics of the job.” For example, in a study of 257 Fortune 500 companies, the following was found:

17% do not determine an approximate duration for each sales call.
23% do not use a computer to assist in time and territory management.
28% do not set profit objectives for their accounts.
37% do not use prescribed routing patterns in covering territories.
46% do not look at their use of time in any organized way.
49% do not determine the economical number of calls for each account.
49% do not use prepared sales presentations.
70% do not use call schedules.
75% do not have a system for classifying customers according to sales potential.
76% do not set sales objectives for their accounts.
81% do not use a call report system.

So, the question is: How can you assure your future success by eliminating these oversights?”

The fact is, companies will fail to invest the time in order to eliminate these process oriented oversights and embed these necessary changes into their process if the sales culture is too focused on getting to the result by forging ahead in an attempt to close more sales. Managers can continually push their people to become more mindful of these numbers, however, it’s the process driven questions managers need to be more sensitive to rather than the result driven questions that managers obsess over that continue to perpetuate this toxic way of thinking. Those questions sound like, “Are you hitting your numbers? How many follow-up calls did you make today? How much good volume did you book this month? How many leads did you run this week?” While important, these questions only focus on half of the equation. What is missing is the “How,” that is, the questions that focus on the process the salesperson needs to engage in to achieve the desired end result.

Managers need to stop coaching to the result and start coaching to the process, instead.

Become more mindful of the process that will drive the results you seek. Without the change in your result driven attitude that’s keeping you stuck in the first place, all efforts to better manage your selling strategy by a numeric formula are certain to be short lived.

For salespeople and sales leaders, the fundamental shift in our attitude that needs to occur is this; move away from being so result driven and instead, become more process driven.

We must honor this paradox and break free of the limiting thinking that confines us to the current level of performance we’re experiencing. If we truly want to excel today, realize the result is truly the process.

Here’s more on this paradox.

Stop. Just stop for the next several minutes that it’s going to take you to read this. Okay, now take a breath. Get off the treadmill for a moment and ask yourself these questions. Yes, these questions are that important. So important, in fact, that they could change your entire perspective around what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and how much you really need to be doing in order to generate the worthwhile results you’re looking for.

Because the truth is, you just may be running so fast in an attempt to catch up on your sales numbers, that you didn’t recognize the blinders you’ve developed which are obstructing your view of the fuller picture; the landscape you’re trying to farm and manage when it comes to selling and driving the right sales activity. Here are those questions you need to ask yourself (and your sales team).

“With all the effort I’m putting forth in an attempt to generate more prospects and selling opportunities, following up and retaining existing clients to ensure that I’m bringing in as much business as possible:”

• Am I acutely aware of the activities and benchmarked proven practices (both the activities and the dialogue/message I need to communicate) that I need to engage in daily that would secure my success?
• Am I measuring the numbers and the results of my efforts and allowing these statistical data points to be the driving force behind my sales activities?
• Do I know how much cold calling and prospecting activity is actually enough (emails, voice mails, live calls/connections, letters, and so on) and when to call it quits and move on when attempting to convert a contact into a qualified prospect?
• Do I know how many calls/contacts I need to make each day, each week and how often I need to follow up with a qualified prospect in order to earn their business or move them to the next stage of my sales process? (And have I even defined those specific steps in my sales process to begin with?)
• Am I holding myself accountable when it comes to engaging in the right activities in the most efficient way possible through the effective use of a daily routine?
• When calling on or meeting with prospects, do I have a clear set of outlined objectives that I need to accomplish on every call and during each meeting, especially when delivering a presentation?
• Have I identified the lifetime value of each client or account in order to classify customers according to their sales potential? (What’s the economic impact of the time you invest?)
• Do I have a detailed strategy for each of my clients to ensure that I’m maximizing every conceivable up selling and cross selling opportunity?
• Am I fully leveraging the power and potential of my CRM solution for prospect, client as well as territory management? Do you have a call report system?
• Do I have the right questions that provide me with the critical intel I need in order to qualify each person as a viable prospect so that I can most effectively determine where my limited and precious time is best invested?

And to clarify further when it comes to the type of questions you need to be asking each prospect, this isn’t limited to Selling 101 – Uncovering a Need. I’m also referring to understanding how they buy, how they make decisions, the internal workings of the company, the people and egos involved, the process they are going to go through when they hang up the phone with you or end the meeting and then attempt to solve the problem or find a new solution on their own using the resources or venders they currently have, the concerns or roadblocks that you could encounter down the road that would stall or destroy the potential for a sale, the timely and relevant issues that are going on internally, the overall mood of the company and its leaders, and so on. (Hint: Low closing percentages = misalignment in who you should be presenting to and following up with in the first place.)

If you don’t have the answers to these crucial questions, you’re robbing yourself of the opportunity to enjoy the certainty and peace of mind that comes from utilizing a formulaic approach to selling. After all, if you define it, you can then refine it. So, if you’re ever wondering why you or other salespeople fall into what’s known as a ‘sales slump,’ here’s the main cause of that. They aren’t honoring their sales process by the numbers and as such, those who continue to ‘wing it’ as their overall selling strategy are destined to experience the ups and downs in performance and in their stress level, as well as the waning sense of satisfaction and confidence that’s sure to follow in its wake when this amount of ambiguity and uncertainly is present.

I’ve decided (and many of my clients and readers are on board with this as well, so I hope you’ll join us) that it’s no longer as tough as it was out there. That’s right. Strip away what you hear in the media, and look objectively at what you can control; this one telltale sign that something in your selling formula needs to be developed, modified or redefined:

If there are people in your organization, even in your industry or profession who are currently performing like rock stars, that should provide you with one very critical insight. That is, it can be done because it is currently being done by someone else!

Of course it is going to remain “tough out there” if you don’t have your defined best practices, data points and numeric formula to help support your selling efforts. After all, it’s one thing to up your game and work on developing and refining your selling skills as well as your sales management skills. However, to complement this so that you have a comprehensive solution to better performance, you need to have your finger on the pulse of the numbers that will drive your activities in the first place as you exercise your newfound selling and leadership strategies and newly developed competencies. Use these questions I’ve posed to help uncover the gaps in your data pool that in turn, will help refine your overall approach to how you prospect and sell and the measurable effort that’s required for you to do so successfully.

Here’s a very clear insight into one example of some general statistical information about the selling profession that will help you begin the process of fine tuning and developing your own data driven solution to increasing your sales.

48% of salespeople never follow up with a prospect.
25% of salespeople make a second contact and stop.
12% of salespeople only make three contacts and stop.
Only 10% of salespeople make more than three contacts.

Now, get this:
2% of sales are made on the first contact.
3% of sales are made on the second contact.
5% of sales are made on the third contact.
10% of sales are made on the fourth contact.
But 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact.

Now, these numbers may change depending upon your selling cycle, geographic location, the dollar amount of your deliverable, target audience as well as the service or product you’re selling but the essence of this message still remains in tact. That is, do you have your own set of data available which you have used as the cornerstone to constructing your prospecting and selling strategy? If not, it’s the same as getting into your car and saying to yourself before embarking on a trip, “Okay, I need to get to a specific destination, but I’m not exactly sure which direction to travel nor how long it’s going to take me to get there.”

It’s no longer about simply ‘doing more’ but about doing more of what’s right. In our new marketplace, going out in the field and just doing more of what you did yesterday would be the same as trying to sell VCR’s, pagers and CD’s today. (Even my youngest asked me the other day, “Dad, what’s a CD?”). Your product has changed over the years and while your selling and management strategy needs to evolve as well, this evolution must be guided by the numeric benchmarks in order to see the full, panoramic picture of the truth that surrounds your current situation. This will eliminate the costly oversights I’ve detailed earlier and ensure your future success.

We all need to be reminded of this universal law, “We resist what we need to learn the most.” And interestingly, while salespeople and sales managers are more inclined to take the reactionary, visceral attitude, “Lets just get out there and make it happen,” we need to pull back the reigns before engaging in blind sales activities and instead, start with doing what is often perceived as the more mundane, often boring task of benchmarking the right practices and then measuring their effectiveness by the numbers before embarking on these activities. Empirical data will provide the blueprint you need to succeed as well as the certainty, confidence and conviction necessary for a healthy sales mind and attitude.

After all, the greatest rainmakers realize the importance of checking the weather first so they know where the best locations are to make it rain, and have the tools to do so.

Note: If you’re looking for a great tool to help develop your prospecting formula and the measurable efforts needed to achieve your sales goals, check out my Prospecting Calculator here and enjoy the confidence and certainty you’ll experience when you prospect by the numbers.

Here’s the link to the Prospecting Calculator.

Click here for more information about this event and expo.

For those of you who can attend, I’ll be speaking at The New York Incentive, Rewards and Recognition Expo next Tuesday, May 12 at 11am EST in New York City. The show will be located at the Hilton New York Hotel, 1335 Ave. of the Americas, NYC. Additionally, join the industry leaders in management and marketing, including the Human Capital Institute, marketing gurus Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, and 1 to1® magazine, who are joining forces to create a special education program on Enterprise Engagement. A unique combination of speakers representing all aspects of the emerging field of engagement will also be in attendance, delivering a variety of programs.

Hours:
Tuesday, May 12, 9:00am-5:00pm
Wednesday, May 13, 9:00am-3:00pm

Here’s the description of my program.

11:00-11:50pm
Take Charge of Your Sales and Your Sales Team
To drive positive, measurable change and keep their competitive edge, managers must learn how to quickly and effectively coach, motivate and retain their top producers while turning around the underperformers. Develop the discipline you need to engage, inspire and coach your salespeople into sales champions. Join Keith Rosen, author of the award winning, Coaching Salespeople Into Sales Champions, as he shares with you how to build and manage a world class, high performing sales team. Presented by Ziglar, Inc., www.CanDoGO.com and the Motivation Professionals Association.

Here are some additional benefits of attending this expo:
• Learn about cost-effective, results-based marketing and managing programs to increase sales, productivity and quality.

• Take advantage of customer, distribution partner, sales, and employee engagement strategies that drive performance without the upfront cost and lack of accountability of traditional marketing and management strategies.

• Learn how properly structured engagement, recognition, and incentive strategies can increase your sales, customer retention and referrals, quality and productivity.
• Get you more measurable costs for much lower upfront costs and greater accountability than traditional marketing and performance strategies.

Because The New York Incentive, Rewards and Recognition Expo offers such a unique opportunity to meet face-to-face with so many desirable brands, attendance is limited strictly to business management involved with planning and recommending incentive, promotion, rewards or recognition programs for their companies or clients.

Click here for more information about this event and expo.

Click here to listen to and view this webinar.

If you missed last week’s blockbuster webinar, The Sales Leadership Imperative, you can now access the recording immediately and listen to this 45 minute discussion I had with Jonathan Farrington. We focused on the most pressing questions that sales managers and sales leaders are faced with today.

Here are the questions we responded to:

1. The burning question today is, what can managers do to get their people motivated and performing at the level they need to be at consistently while still having time to focus on their other priorities?




2. Why do so many potentially good sales managers fail?




3. Managers struggle most when dealing with an underperformer and making the determination about whether to support them, do nothing or let them go. How long should you stick with a salesperson who has potential, but doesn’t produce?




4. If you had to identify just six key metrics that sales managers should use to benchmark their sales team’s performance, what would they be?




5. If coaching is the missing discipline amongst managers and sales leaders today, then why do so many coaching initiatives fail within organizations?




6. What do you think, are great sales leaders born or made? What are the characteristics of the very best?




7. What are some of the inherent challenges/barriers for management who are looking to make the shift and truly coach their sales team?

Most sales professionals, in practically every industry sector are struggling to meet sales quotas. The reality is, there are still plenty of opportunities to better retain existing clients and acquire new ones but the rules of engagement have changed.

Sales leaders, who have recognized these changes, are re-educating themselves and their sales teams by adopting a totally new approach to selling as well as leading their team and as such, are forming a new type of sales culture. To drive positive, measurable change and keep their competitive edge, managers must learn how to quickly and effectively coach, motivate and retain their top producers while turning around the underperformers.

So, if you’re a sales manager or even if you’re not a sales manager but need to get your team producing and selling more today, you can access this recording here.

Click here to listen to and view this webinar.

“I know how to interview. I’ve been doing it for years.” I hear this from practically every manager or HR executive I’ve ever had the privilege of coaching or training. And today, when speaking to one of my favorite clients, a VP of HR, this statement was echoed once again.

And it’s not like these managers or those responsible for making a hiring decision are doing it all wrong. Many are quite good at interviewing people, finding the right candidates and screening out the ones that just don’t fit. I’ve just observed over the years some key areas that many people are missing the mark on when conducting an interview and determining who the best candidate for the position truly is.

Especially when it comes to topgrading and rebuilding your sales team, getting the right candidate in the right position in the most expedient way possible is more critical than ever. The cost of not doing so can be severe. And this cost is compounded when companies onboard the wrong person. Just pick up any newspaper and read about another company closing their doors or missing their sales goals to exemplify how much of a priority this is today for any organization.

Below, I’ve listed some very key questions in order to reduce mis-hires and bring on the right people. If asked and asked correctly, these questions will reduce mis-hires by about 80% or more. Yes, that’s how powerful these questions can be. I would strongly suggest weaving these questions into your interviewing process. And keep in mind, most of these questions will apply to any position. Notice that I’ve also broken down these questions by category, as well as some additional categories that you can use to build out further interviewing questions.

Granted, you may already be using some of these questions during an interview. And keep in mind, this list can be built out even further. However, it’s the collective use of all the questions that are going to have the deeper, more positive impact when choosing the right hire.

Moving beyond simply the questions that you could ask, what other things are you doing to ensure you make the best hiring decision? Keep in mind, the interviewing process is multi-dimensional. To build off this, lets look at how you manage or facilitate a simulation or a role play. Many interviewers ask questions like, “How would you handle this if you were in this situation” or “Tell me what steps you would take before calling on a key account” or even “Walk me through a strategy you would use to build your pipeline.”

While these are all great questions, they are still falling short of one critical element. That is, the language this candidate would be using to facilitate the type of conversation described in these simulations. To go deeper in determining this person’s acumen or ability, it’s critical you’re able to evaluate how they communicate, as well as their overall communication strategy that would be embedded in each of these situations I’ve described in the prior questions.

The most successful salespeople realize that sales, just like leadership and coaching, is truly a language and a way of communicating. Therefore, it’s imperative you uncover not only how they think strategically and the processes they may use but how effective this person could be when you send them out to connect with your new and existing customers. Anyone can talk a good game regarding processes and approach from the hundred foot viewpoint. But how they deliver the message in a variety of different situations is something that can’t be faked during an interview.

When these questions and the simulation exercise are used correctly, you’ll find that the need to topgrade your sales team will diminish because you’ve fixed the breakdown in your overall hiring and retention strategy; the broken component that exists in your system and where it all starts, your interviewing process.

Interviewing Questions:

Work History:
1. What were your responsibilities in your last position?
2. We all make mistakes. What would you say were a couple of the mistakes or failures you experienced in your last job?
3. If you could go back in time and fix that, what would you do differently?
4. What would you prior supervisor say if asked what your strengths and weaknesses were?
5. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced and were able to overcome?
6. What were your successes? What are you most proud of? How did you achieve that?
7. What circumstances contributed to your leaving?
8. What was your supervisors name and title? Where is that person now?
9. Would your boss hire you back? Why?
10. What were his or her strengths and weaker points from your perspective?
11. Would you be willing to arrange for us to talk with him or her?

Next Position:
1. What criteria are most important to you in your next job?
2. Describe your ideal position?
3. How close does this opportunity fit your ideal position?

Excellence and Development:
1. How to you better your best?
2. How do you raise the bar on yourself and others around you?
3. How do you develop yourself and your skills?
4. How important is it to you to be the best at what you do?
5. How do you assure that happens?
6. How do/did you keep your edge in such a competitive environment/marketplace?

Accountability:
1. What does personal accountability mean to you?
2. What areas in your life/career are you most accountable? Least?
3. Give me an example of how becoming more accountable has contributed to your success?
4. Where do you feel you need to become more accountable (in an area in your life or career)?

Decision Making and Problem Solving:
1. How do you solve problems?
2. How do you go about making decisions?
3. Give me one problem or challenge you had and walk me through how you solved it using that model.
4. How do you go about making a career decision? What factors do you measure? Your approach?
5. What were a couple of the most difficult or challenging decisions you’ve made recently?
6. What are a couple of the best and worst decisions you’ve made over the last year or so?

Creativity and Solution Development:
1. How creative are you?
2. How important is creativity in relation to your overall selling approach and strategy?
3. Can you provide an example how you were creative in your last position that led to solving a problem or closing a sale?

Integrity:
1. What are some of the values you have that you refuse to compromise?
2. Describe a situation where you were pressured or challenged to compromise your integrity and what you felt was best and right? How did you handle it?

Self Discipline, Time Management and Organization:
1. How do you go about organizing your schedule and your day?
2. Do you live by a set of best practices? How? What are they? (in selling, organization, etc.)
3. When was the last time you missed a significant deadline? What happened?
4. Everyone procrastinates at one point or another. Can you share the kind of things that you have a tendency to procrastinate?
5. How much guidance and supervision do you feel you need?

Self Management/State/Stress:
1. What stresses you out?
2. What do you when that happens?
3. How do you eliminate it? How do you handle it?

Openness and Self Awareness:
1. What were the most difficult criticisms for you to hear and accept?

Resourcefulness:
1. What actions would you feel you would need to take during the first few weeks here in your new position if you were to join our organization?
2. What obstacles did you face during your present/last position and how did you handle those?
3. What would you be mindful of needing to do and the resources and training you would need to secure your success here?

Tactical Sales Oriented Questions to Recruit at a Deeper Level:
You can find these questions and more on my prior blog post here:

1. What was the average size of each sale? (Dollar amount, cost of goods/services sold.)


2. What type of appointments were you scheduling when prospecting or cold calling? What was the goal here?


3. Where the appointments on site/face to face with each prospect or via the phone?


4. When actually closing a sale, did you actually sell over the phone or did you have to meet each prospect in person?


5. Did you sell a product, a service or both? (Describe how you sold each product and why there was a different approach.)


6. Did you handle the entire sales process from start to finish, including the deliverable? (Was there an account executive who you worked with, was it a team oriented approach to selling, were you only responsible for certain aspects of the sale?)


7. Describe to me the products or services you’ve sold? (Complicated or simple?)


8. Did you sell something that had an online component? Was it strictly a service? (Where they selling the tangible or the intangible?)


9. Was your product/service a “nice to have,” a “want to have” (luxury, added benefit) or a
   need to have?” (Was it a necessity, i.e. gasoline, telecom, office supplies, utilities, mobile phones, insurance, etc.)


10. What do you consider ‘prospecting’ and ‘cold calling’ to be? How do you feel about having to engage in this activity? (We’re looking to uncover how they think and feel about prospecting; their perception of it.)


11. What type of prospecting and cold calling did you do? How much cold calling did you do each day/week? (Number of calls made.) How many calls did you have to make to (get an appointment, close a sale, uncover a new prospect, etc.)?


12. Please share with me what your typical approach would be when cold calling. (Describe not only your process but exactly what you said when you were making a cold call.)


13. Who was your target audience/prospect? (B2b, b2c, C level executives, business owners, sole practitioners, were you dealing with only one decision maker or did you have to coordinate with several decision makers, influencers, committees, board members, etc.)


14. When were you calling on them? (Time, day, frequency of calls, etc.)


15. What was the average size of the company you called on?


16. What markets did you focus on? (Type of company, industry, vertical, etc.)


17. How did you get your leads/uncover your prospects? Where the cold calls you made totally cold or were you getting them from another source and then following up with them? (These would be warmer leads from trade shows, web inquiries, referrals, call-ins, direct mail and marketing efforts, etc.)


18. What were the concerns or objections that you typically encountered with your prospects? (What stalled your sales efforts?)


19. How long was your average sales cycle? (From the time you connected with a qualified prospect up until the time when you converted that prospect into a client.)


20. Were you selling based on a bidding process, RFP’s, etc.?

Simulations and Role Plays:
1. If you had to make a call to a prospect who you have never spoken to, what would be the steps you would take before making that call?
2. What would that cold call sound like?
3. If you were following up with a customer to explore and uncover additional selling opportunities, what would your approach sound like?
4. Lets say you just delivered the final product/service to your new customer. They called you the next day with a major problem. They were frustrated and irate. Lets say I’m the customer in this situation. How would you facilitate that conversation? What would that dialogue sound like?
5. There’s a prospect you’ve been calling on for months. They’re finally ready to make a decision to buy and you just found out that there are two more venders now involved in this bid for their business. What would be your strategy to position yourself as the vender of choice? (What would you say, questions asked, etc.)
6. How many times do you call on a prospect before putting them on your do not call list? How do you determine that? What would your approach be? Why?
7. You’re about to visit a new potential client for the first time. What preliminary work would you do? How would you craft your presentation and set the expectations of the meeting? (What would your presentation sound like?)
8. You’ve been handed a client list of approximately 100 accounts to call on. You’ve noticed after several months, their monthly spending with you has slowly diminished. How would you handle this? What would you say?

Additional Topics That Require Further Questioning:

• Persuasion
• Communication
• Presentation
• Assertiveness
• Team player
• Conflict management
• Motivation and passion
• Tenacity, commitment, perseverance
• Education

Important webinar below for any business owner, executive and sales manager who’s top priority is to retain customers and bring in more business and more sales today.

I know it’s last minute but I just got the blessing to be able to offer my webinar scheduled tomorrow at 1pm EST to you and I’M ABLE TO WAIVE THE COST OF REGISTRATION! That’s right. No fee for you to attend so come as my guest! All you have to do is sign up and log in and enjoy a very timely webinar that is a must for any sales leader and manager. (And if you’re a salesperson, send this to your manager!)

Finally, make sure you’re also following all my latest announcements and posts on Twitter at twitter.com/keithrosen. This 45 minute webinar is for any business owner, executive and sales manager who’s top priority is to bring in more business and more sales today by getting their sales team to perform now.

The Sales Leadership Imperative! Webinar for Sales Managers Who Need To Get Their Sales Team Selling More Today

DATE: Thursday, April 23, 2009
TIME: 1:00 PM - 1:45 PM Eastern Standard Time
LOCATION: Your Phone or Computer – Live Webinar!

Presented by: Jonathan Farrington & Keith Rosen
Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now here.

For more information or to register click here.

NOTE: Following registration please ignore the redirect page AND the fees, as it will ask you to pay $60.00 and I am offering you this AT NO COST. Just register and that’s it!

FACT: There has never been a more critical time for sales managers to impact sales and lead from the front.
FACT: The majority of sales managers are simply not equipped with the right skills and tools to do so.

Most sales professionals, in practically every industry sector are struggling to meet sales quotas. And as some look ahead, there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel. The reality is, there are still plenty of opportunities to better retain existing clients and acquire new ones but the rules of engagement have changed – possibly forever.

Sales leaders, who have recognized these changes, are re-educating themselves and their sales teams by adopting a totally new approach to selling as well as leading their team and as such, are forming a new type of sales culture. To drive positive, measurable change and keep their competitive edge, managers must learn how to quickly and effectively coach, motivate and retain their top producers while turning around the underperformers.

Join me and Jonathan Farrington, one of the foremost sales team development experts in the world – for this hard-hitting session. This event has been created specifically for sales leaders who have 100% commitment to doing whatever it takes to elevate their sales team to a whole new level so they can start selling more today.

We will highlight how you can:
• Leverage your personal strengths as well as the hidden talents of your team
• Utilize a proven coaching model to impact performance immediately.
• Engage in daily revenue-generating activities and stop doing the things you shouldn’t be doing in the first place
• Master the language of leaders, to get people into action without resistance
• Develop the infallible confidence of a true champion to model what you want your people to achieve
• Recruit, retain and motivate your top producers and turnaround underperformers
• Turnaround or terminate an underperformer in less than 30 days.

For more information or to register click here.

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now here.

NOTE: Following registration please ignore the redirect page AND the fees, as it will ask you to pay $60.00 and I am offering you this AT NO COST. Just register and that’s it!

Important webinar below for any business owner, executive and sales manager who’s top priority is to retain customers and bring in more business and more sales today.

The Sales Leadership Imperative! Webinar for Sales Managers Who Need To Get Their Sales Team Selling More Today

DATE: Thursday, April 23, 2009
TIME: 1:00 PM - 1:45 PM Eastern Standard Time
LOCATION: Your Phone or Computer – Live Webinar!

Presented by: Jonathan Farrington & Keith Rosen
Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now here.

For more information or to register click here.

FACT: There has never been a more critical time for sales managers to impact sales and lead from the front.
FACT: The majority of sales managers are simply not equipped with the right skills and tools to do so.

Most sales professionals, in practically every industry sector are struggling to meet sales quotas. And as some look ahead, there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel. The reality is, there are still plenty of opportunities to better retain existing clients and acquire new ones but the rules of engagement have changed – possibly forever.

Sales leaders, who have recognized these changes, are re-educating themselves and their sales teams by adopting a totally new approach to selling as well as leading their team and as such, are forming a new type of sales culture. To drive positive, measurable change and keep their competitive edge, managers must learn how to quickly and effectively coach, motivate and retain their top producers while turning around the underperformers.

Join me and Jonathan Farrington, one of the foremost sales team development experts in the world – for this hard-hitting session. This event has been created specifically for sales leaders who have 100% commitment to doing whatever it takes to elevate their sales team to a whole new level so they can start selling more today.

We will highlight how you can:
• Leverage your personal strengths as well as the hidden talents of your team
• Utilize a proven coaching model to impact performance immediately.
• Engage in daily revenue-generating activities and stop doing the things you shouldn’t be doing in the first place
• Master the language of leaders, to get people into action without resistance
• Develop the infallible confidence of a true champion to model what you want your people to achieve
• Recruit, retain and motivate your top producers and turnaround underperformers
• Turnaround or terminate an underperformer in less than 30 days.

For more information or to register click here.

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now here.

In CanDoGo’s latest post, I found a useful tip that my friend and colleague, Tony Parinello wrote that stands out above the crowd as a selling strategy to adopt that works exceptionally well. Here’s the excerpt from Tony, followed by some more tools you can use when you run into the all too familiar price objection.

When VITO Objects to the Price – By Tony Parinello

“Your price is too high.”

Whenever you’re calling on a Very Important Top Officer, you’re bound to run into some first-call objections. Let’s say you place a telephone call, and when the prospect picks up, you launch into your opening statement and you get interrupted with something that sounds like this:

“I’ve seen your solutions before. Your price is simply too high for our budgets.”

Don’t respond with: “We offer specials. This month, it’s 10 percent of list,” or “What would you consider a fair discount?” or “How much would we have to lower it to get your business?” or “I can talk to my manager and see if we can offer a lower price.”

Instead, I want you to respond with: “Ms. Importanta, could you please define price?”

Don’t be surprised if VITO responds with: “Price is what I pay. It’s what’s on the invoice!”

Be prepared to answer with all of the services you don’t typically charge for and be prepared to put a price tag on all of them, including pre-sales studies, evaluations and other services that are valuable to the prospect and would be costly if they were to hire a consultant or industry expert to perform.

So what have we learned? Here are a few valuable nuggets to walk away with.

First, we’ve learned that it’s our assumptions around the sales process that often sabotage our selling efforts right from the start. In other words, “Your price is too high” can mean several different things depending upon who is sharing this perceived objection with you. After all, what exactly does, “Your price is too high” even mean? Certainly something different to each customer, depending on their point of view.

Unfortunately, the majority of salespeople make the costly assumption that the dollar figure they quoted for the service or product offered is what is really in question. And this can be the farthest thing from the truth. Yet, salespeople will continue to forge ahead and react accordingly, based upon the presumption, their honest belief that it’s the price that is getting in the way of earning their business and if they drop their price, offer some discount or “better deal,” they’ll earn a new customer.

Isn’t it amazing that a salesperson can conduct a one way conversation in their own head and come up with a solution to a customer’s objection without even involving the customer! Yes, salespeople can be incredibly creative, even to the point where it costs us sales.

Fact: Dropping the price before validating and isolating the core roadblock(s) to making a purchasing decision often results in diluting your value, damaging your credibility and ultimately losing the sale rather than winning it.

Here are some healthier responses to this common objection, “Your price is too high” that would serve you better than the typical reactionary and adversarial posture salespeople take in an attempt to defend their price. Besides, if this is the selling environment you create, where it’s ‘you vs. the customer,’ we all know who’s going to win in the end.

The next time you hear, “Your price is too high” respond with the following questions. You’ll be amazed at how much more useful intel you can collect just by going a few layers deeper with more powerful and tactical questioning.

• “How high is too high?”


• “Is it the price or the financing terms/monthly installment?”


• “Is it the price or the value/R.O.I. you think you’re going to realize that concerns you?”


• “Are you referring to the price or the budget you’ve allocated for this project?”


• “Compared to what? What are you comparing it to?”


• “I’m sure you have a good reason to feel this way. May I ask what that is?”


• (If comparing to a lower price.) “Before we explore why you feel my price is too high, why do you think the other prices you received are so low?”

After using these questions to respond to this objection rather than react with an adversarial statement, notice how often the real objection that’s getting in the way of moving forward actually comes down to price. Probably only about 15% of the time, instead of what you initially perceived to be much higher. Since the real objection is often several layers deep, it’s going to be the right, pinpoint questions that deliver the relevant information you need so that you can offer a solution that’s going to fit best.

In my next blog, I’ll unpack the second learning point worth integrating into your selling approach. That is, how, exactly, do you build value?