After over 4300 shows in 25 years, Oprah’s final show aired recently where she mentioned that of more than 30,000 people she has interviewed, they all had one thing in common; the need to be validated.  Oprah claims that the common three questions they needed answered were:

‘Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say matter to you?’

I propose that these questions are at the heart of 21st Century selling – the principle of exchange of value.  How well a salesperson validates their clients and prospects through skills such as listening, questioning and verifying are key to their success.  How good does it feel when someone really listens to you and understands you?  Just great!

Usually in sales, training or coaching mode I find myself doing the bulk of the validating. The other day however, was an exception. I received a delightful surprise from a guest after speaking about High Impact Selling at a Women’s Network Australia luncheon. Sandy McDonald, a specialist in social media, sent me the following article validating me and the Barrett message. Here’s her take on ‘everybody lives by selling something’.

Sandy writes “What do the words selling, or sales, or sales person conjure up for you?  Is your first thought negative?  Do you shy away from it?  Or do you imagine a poor person somewhere in Asia who has to earn a living trying to sell you something you neither need nor wish to be disturbed by, as you eat your dinner?

What if I was to tell you, as I was told today, that ‘everybody lives by selling something’?  It took a while to realise just how profound this statement is.

Sue Barrett, of Barrett, is among many other things, a sales expert.  She was the guest speaker at a Women’s Network Australia lunch today.  ‘Everybody lives by selling something’ is her business slogan.

When I first read it on the screen behind the lectern, it slid away from my eyes, or maybe my eyes slid away from it.  The notion of selling causes me anxiety, you see.  But after Sue had finished speaking, I reread it and its meaning had been entirely transformed.

The principle of fair exchange and value
It would appear I do sell.  All the time.  In fact, I am selling now.  Writing this post, sending it to you, dispersing it through my social networks, commenting on forums. All that activity is about selling.

I had thought I was creating relationships, building trust, earning the right to have a dialogue, listening, giving you something of value in exchange for an opportunity to be of service to you.

As I understood it from Sue, that is selling.

She started out by explaining that there had been more changes in the last ten years than in the last hundred.  She said in the next 100, the changes would equate to the previous 1,000 years.

She posited the theory that we make the same number of decisions in one day, as a person in the 14th century might make in their lifetime.

Our lives and how we live them have become complex.  So it figures that our business offers are no longer simple. Just before the presentation, I had been discussing the role of blogging to both inform and educate your community over time, about how you can help.  Few businesses can restrict that successfully now to the once trusty old DL flyer.

Sue continued with a brief history of how selling has changed since the end of World War II.  Then you produced products and had a monologue with your customer.  While product features and then their benefits became a focus in later decades, today we stand “at the centre of a dialogue where you exchange something of value.”

What they are buying today, she explained, is your capability, your experience and your ability to facilitate a service for them.

“We don’t just sell with our heads anymore, we sell with our hearts,” she said.

It was fascinating to hear her describe the buyers’ journey today.  She explained that buyers are actually creating their buying journey before they approach you. They have investigated your offer through social media.

In light of this, she asked, “how are you managing your message?”  How does your vision and your purpose fundamentally change their lives?

The Yin and Yang of Selling
It was a women’s networking luncheon (which didn’t preclude men), but of the 70 attendees, only one was a man.

Nonetheless, Sue was not pandering to her audience when she described women as excellent sales people.  She said the elite performers she had interviewed who were women, all displayed the same attributes:  Able to engage in self appraisal, self aware, open to being reflective, good at orchestrating resources, able to facilitate opportunity to do the best for their clients, good at aligning customers and suppliers and capable of consultative problem solving.

Effective selling, she explained is getting a balance between all of that and the more masculine approach to ‘getting out there’.

Trust
Finally, she discussed with us what a client might want from us: to deal with a professional, to expect to be helped, to have business acumen, to display conceptual thinking.

In a previous business life, we were exposed to tools to measure team engagement.  One of these was a trust monitor.  It involved measuring your interactions with others and theirs with yours, on a scale of 0-10, against transparency, inclusivity, competence and authenticity.

As Sue spoke about the need to listen to all your stakeholders, customers, employers, investors, suppliers, prospects, influencers, she went on to say that you have to be genuine, authentic and to connect on a holistic level. Exactly how you would benchmark your interactions with others against the values of the trust monitor.

And before this epiphany, I had not thought that building trust, understanding and empathy were all about selling as it is manifest today.”

When you truly believe in something and you take risks to put it out into the world, nothing beats having someone endorse your sentiments.  There is something incredibly powerful about being validated. I encourage you all to truly see, hear and understand another person – it can make all the difference.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, MD of www.barrett.com.au

It didn’t surprise me one little bit when I read an article in the Australian Financial Review on 9 June 2011, titled ‘Big Banks deluded about small business’.  The article surmises that the vast majority of small business bankers are nothing more than product floggers trying to sell a product rather than providing consultation expertise to their SME clients, on their specific needs and working with them to get the best out of their business banking relationships.

Most disturbing is the bank’s illusion of their customers’ satisfaction with the service they’re receiving. The reality is of course entirely the opposite. Are the banks deluded about what they think they do for small business in Australia?

The answer is ‘Yes,’ if the research by Ian Freeman, of the business Non Executive Management, is anything to go by.  His research highlights the chasm between what banks think and the reality with their customers.

From a SME’s perspective desirable attributes of a business banker include:

1. understanding and supporting my business when help is required
2. being readily available
3. Providing sound and constructive banking advice
4. Interest in a long term relationship
5. Understanding of key growth drivers of my business and ability and willingness to tailor products and services accordingly

The banks claim agreement with these attributes but their actual deliverables are very different.   For instance, banks thought 80 per cent of SMEs would agree with the first statement; ‘understanding and supporting my business when help is required’, when in reality the figure is less than 30 per cent.

These figures are backed by Ernst & Partners and research states that to engender loyalty the figure needs to be 90%+.

Worse still is that when SMEs were asked if the business bankers ‘Provide sounds constructive banking advice’ and ‘Understand the key growth drivers of the business and tailors products and services accordingly’ less than three per cent of SME’s agreed, yet the banks thought that 75% would agree.

Roy Morgan Research states the area of poorest performance across the banks is in understanding SMEs’ industry and poor knowledge of their business.

I’ve had experience working with business bankers and developing their consultative selling skills and sales capabilities. However, my work has been with corporates and with the upper end of SME business bankers, where investing in more professional business and sales practices is mainly supported, yet these same skills and capabilities are also needed at the small business end of the market where business are more vulnerable and in need of expert guidance and advice.

Many of the business bankers I have worked with are business savvy, experienced and able to work in a more consultative manner with their business clients.  For small business banking roles however, recruitment is mainly limited to young graduates with little business experience and often far less aware about how businesses are run.  Many are under-skilled or in a weaker position to offer real advice and experience about how to run and manage a business which makes me wonder why banks think they are doing the right thing by their small business clients.

Freeman’s research also finds that the small business banking sector is too ‘income’ focused while SME’s are ‘outcomes’ focused.  The banks think that because companies bought their products they were happy and loyal yet in reality many SMEs have nowhere else to go to have to buy their products and loyalty is not common place.  Simply because SMEs have no other choice than to buy their products from the banks does not necessarily mean they are happy with their service or loyal to the bank.

Worst of all, one of the banks performed a 10 week trial where their small business bankers were asked to genuinely model the ideal attributes listed above and find out what their clients really need rather than talk about product. Even though the result found the bank would boost sales by 94 per cent by working this way and customers were much happier with the approach, the bank in question abandoned the trial and went back to what they always did.

With 95 per cent of all businesses in Australia in the SME category, don’t we deserve better than this?  Banks would do well to rethink their strategy in serving the small business sector and transform their small business bankers from product floggers to consultative business practitioners. SMEs will thrive and grow from a consultative approach with bankers who know how to understand a client’s needs and business strategy, work with ambiguity and business complexity and facilitate access to the right business banking products and advice.  We would then see what a difference this could make to our business community and success.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, MD of www.barrett.com.au

‘Should I sell and distribute my own products or another company’s products?’  This is the question I really needed to answer back in 1995 and should have answered by 1999 however, it took me a further two years to understand what I really needed to do if I was to achieve my goals and fulfill my ambitions.

When I launched my consulting business in 1995 I had no actual product to speak of, other than myself.  I didn’t know much about the world of distributorships nor did I know how long it would take to build my own product portfolio.  In hindsight I had many lessons to learn. Lessons about being a product distributor, lessons about being a product manufacturer, and lessons about trying to do both at the same time.

Back to 1995 with no tangible product of my own to speak of but with the intention of building my own product range, I was approached by the SPQ*Gold assessment creators who asked me if I would like to become a distributor of their product.  As a new business it seemed an offer too good to refuse, especially as I had experience using their assessment before.  I knew that this product was a quality product and would give me a competitive edge. I also felt that it would give me the revenue boost I needed to get further more quickly and buy me some time to build my own product content.   So I signed the distributor license even though it favoured the product manufacturer more than it favoured me.

Because Barrett did such a great job distributing and selling SPQ*Gold we were approached by other assessment providers to sell their products too. So in and around 1998 I was faced with the opportunity of being specialist in assessments and becoming a distribution business.  It seemed attractive because money was coming in, and we knew a lot about assessments which our clients and sub-distributors valued. Yet something didn’t feel right for me. While everything seemed to be going well I revisited business goals i.e. the desire to build my own product and brand. I then looked at my distribution arrangements and agreements and realised I was trying to be both and it wasn’t working.  The demands of being a distributor had certain obligations while the demands of being a product developer had other requirements.  I then had another realization.  I could be both.   I also realised that in my haste to sign those distribution agreements I hadn’t protected my future earnings because at any time these product suppliers could come in and take over my distribution channels and I would be left with nothing.

What would I have to show for my efforts if I went the way of distribution or product development?  While harder in the short term and less profitable I chose the path of product development.

The challenge of productising knowledge

Like many consultants before me, my challenge has been to productise my knowledge, processes and experience, making them tangible, salable and able to be transferred and taught by others.  My experience in doing this has proved to be a very time consuming and difficult task, although well worthwhile.  Many consultants before me and many since have achieved this and captured their wisdom in the form of books. In 1995 there was no such thing as online learning, blogs, apps and other ways to capture content so I began building my own product content in the form of sales programs and sales management training programs which then expanded into things like Australia’s very first Sales & Service Competency dictionary (2006), Sales Recruitment Kits (2006), Sales Performance Management System (2007) and many more products since.  Now Barrett has an IP assets register with over 200 product items. However this has taken me 16 years to build and refine into salable and commercially functional products.

I still use other people’s assessments but not as a distributor.  I use them to supplement my work but not BE my work.  As it turns out in 2006 one of those assessment companies did what I predicted; they came in and took over mine and other licensed distributors territory.  It was a bitter pill to swallow. I’m glad I trusted my instincts and began building my own product portfolio because if I hadn’t, Barrett would not be the business it is today. I would have been left empty handed with nothing to show for my 11 years of hard work.  It may not be fair but in business things like this happen every day. So what lessons can we learn from this?

Some questions to consider and lessons learnt

• Being a Distributor: If you’re selling and distributing other companies’ products make sure you check your licensing agreements and contracts. Also check the type of people you are dealing with and make sure you know what you are getting yourself into.   Some questions to consider about distribution licenses and arrangements:

o   Does the licensing arrangement allow the product owner to come in take over your licensing and sublicensing arrangements without warning?

o   Can they secure your client base off the back of your hard work with no compensation?

o   Are they set up so they can access your client data base?  If so, can they make direct contact with your clients to try to win them over?

o   Does the distribution license fairly balance your needs with their needs?

o   Can they guarantee supply and quality?

o   Are they open to new ideas and suggestions and are they willing to work with you in your market space?

o   Are they open, consistent and easy to deal with or difficult, inconsistent and secretive?

o   Is pricing clear and easy to work with or overly complicated or subject to change without notice?

o   Is the product supplier competing directly with you in the market place?

These are some of the questions I wish I knew to ask when I first went into distribution arrangements.

• Building your own product: don’t underestimate the time it takes to build new product, especially in the knowledge space.

o   Create an IP assets register from the start and make sure you keep a log of all the products, ideas, and processes you develop.  I wish I had done this from the start as it’s much harder later on to recall everything and document it.  Truth be known I probably have 500+ items that could be on my IP assets register.

o   Create employment contracts that ensure you protect your IP.  I did do this from the start and this has been worthwhile.  They can’t protect you completely but set the expectation with employees from the start.

o   Be wary of constantly innovating – you have to get something to market and it will never be perfect.  Develop different versions as you upgrade just like they do with software.

o   Know how your product can be made to work across various applications i.e. online, physical product, publications, apps, etc.  You need to learn a lot about how products can be made in different formats especially in the consulting and learning space.

o   Know that it will take some time for your product to get traction and become a standard or benchmark. This is especially true if you’re up against international brands. They may not be as good as yours but have the cache or brand presence.

These are some of the lessons I have learned and I am sure there are experts who can advise you more than I can in this space.  However if you do want to make your own product from scratch you really need to believe in what you are doing and remember that it takes about 15 or more years to be an overnight sensation and excellence doesn’t happen by chance.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, MD of www.barrett.com.au

One of the biggest issues for sales people is knowing the right questions to ask customers.

In our experience many people complain of not knowing how to structure questions, or knowing what type to ask and when to ask them.  In fact, we have found that many people are often caught wanting in the questioning department and suffer from what we call ‘amnesia questionitis’.

Why is this so?  Why are so many people paralysed when it comes to the vital skill of questioning?

If you have been around any children aged from 3-6 years old you will know that they do not suffer from ‘amnesia questionitis’.

In fact they never stop asking questions.  It has been shown that asking questions and seeking answers comes naturally to all of us and as children we excell in this area.   They also excel at listening too.  The two skills go hand in hand.

Everyone is born curious to some extent that is how we find out about the world.  As children we want to know how things work, why this happens, where things come from, etc.  Children will keep asking until they get a satisfactory answer.

Only the other night my eldest son asked me if I was ever afraid of the dark.  It was a great question because it showed me a number of things about my 11 year old son:

1.    He still had the desire to know about things and felt safe and confident to ask me
2.    He clearly wanted to talk about this now
3.    He wanted to understand why this happens and was he the only one it happened to

As we explored the topic he realised that most people feel or have felt afraid of the dark at some stage and that it is quite normal.  I shared with him how I felt and what I used to do about it. He also came to his own conclusion that it was his imagination that was making him feel afraid at times and that he could control that too if he wanted and how funny it was that you could let your mind trick you.  We had a great chat and it was easy and enlightening.

I have lost count of all the questions my children have asked me to date, but I love this quality about my children.  By them asking me so many different questions I have learned so much about them, myself and the world we live in. For instance I have been able to answer questions I didn’t get answers to when I was little but had been on my mind since I was 6 or 7.  I want to point out that I don’t always answer all of my children’s questions, I have also taught them how to answer question for themselves through reasoning skills and self inquiry.  When we can’t answer something the saying in our family is ‘Google is your friend’.  My mother laughs every time I tell her about my children’s questioning abilities because she says ‘that sounds exactly like you’.

You have probably gathered by now, especially those who have been reading my articles for some time or those how know from my work that I never stop asking questions.  It is a life skill that I cherish dearly.  It has opened up so many doors for me and made me a much better person for doing so.

So it saddens me when I meet people who feel they are unable to ask questions or do not know where to start or feel they need to be given permission to do so.

What happened to their natural ability to ask questions?   It seems that as we grow up, many of us seem to lose the desire to ask questions.  Maybe it was because we lost some of initial curiosity because we get caught up in the day to day grind and just want to rest.

Maybe we have been taught to not question.  Often times at school we were taught to receive the ‘right’ answer rather than to question it.  Although I, personally seemed to ignore this one at my peril sometimes.

Maybe some children were never listened too and instead ignored so they never had their questions answered so they eventually gave up.Others of us became self conscious, wanting to fit and so didn’t question the prevailing paradigms of the time or situation.  Or we did not want to appear stupid if we as a ‘dumb’ question.  Again I, ignored these too.

I find when we facilitate workshops that I have to state to the participants that there is no such thing as a dumb question and you should question things.  I encourage them to test assumptions, work things through, ask ‘why?’ and ‘how?’, etc. I inform them that I am not there to tell them what to think but to show them how to think.

When prospecting or selling I often say to people ‘What is the worst thing you will hear if you ask someone for a sale or an appointment?’  a ‘No’.  Big deal.  At least you know.  The worst thing is not asking at all because then you will never know.

Asking questions implies that you are using ‘thinking’ as a skill.    Thinking requires effort.  As Henry Ford said ‘Thinking is the hardest job going around that is why most people don’t do it.’

Maybe people are lazy and just don’t care.  But I don’t think so.  Why would we get so many requests about how to ask good questions?  Yes there is skill in knowing what questions to ask,  when and how to ask them – for instance we have a workshop solely dedicated to this topic.

However, the purpose of this piece is not to go into what questions to ask but why are so we many of us lacking in this area?

There is a big risk of not asking questions

When we don’t ask questions we are at risk of accepting what we are told is true.  This can then lead to all sorts of issues such as:

• being told something is true when it is not
• making assumptions and being caught out taking the wrong approach
• being misled and losing out as a result
• acting unwisely and causing harm to yourself or others
• giving people what they don’t need
• creating more problems than there were before

We need to bring back our 6 year olds – in a slightly more professional form of course and find and reignite our natural talent for questioning again because:

As Arlene Harder stated:

“When we are able to push ourselves beyond what we assume we know and what others tell us is true, and when we explore whether or not the opinions of others make sense to us, we can see the world with new eyes.

The more we are willing to go beyond easy answers, the more likely it is that we will find common ground with others. Also, knowing that others are asking the same questions we are asking, even though they may arrive at a different conclusion, connects us all in a new way.”

Effective questioning is a vital life skill that should be cherished and exercised on a very regular basis.  It affects every aspect of our lives on professional and personal levels.

Questioning does not tell you what to think it shows you how to think.

So ask yourself the question: “how do you encourage effective questioning in yourself and your team?’

Remember: Everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett is Founder & Managing Director of BARRETT