This time of the year many people are trying to get back into the swing of things after their Christmas break.  It’s about this time that many sales people begin their prospecting efforts in earnest and many people are back from leave.   It is as good a time as any to prospect.

So as it’s the New Year, I thought we could take a fresh look at some old issues.

One of the most common complaints I hear from sales people time and time again is ‘How do I get around the gate keeper?’

A Gate Keeper is the person who can prevent you from getting to the Key Decision Maker, the person who is really in a position to make the sale happen for you.  A Gate Keeper could be the receptionist or a personal assistant. Alternatively, it could be your primary contact who you are dealing with during the process and who is preventing you from having access to the people who are in the real circle of influence (i.e. the key decision maker).

The biggest mistake sales people make is taking on the mindset of trying to get past the gate keeper rather than trying to work with them.

As a sales person, your task is to determine as quickly as possible how you can work with and around the Gate Keepers so that you can ensure your message is reaching those individuals who are in a position to move the sales process forward. Influencing this person can even be as simple as developing a rapport with the receptionist and fostering your relationship with them each time you come in contact with them.

Each time I encounter one of these people (especially if they are the PA to the Key Decision Maker) I explain clearly and directly why I am wanting to speak to the Key Decision Maker and then ask the PA for their guidance and opinion as to whether what I am calling about would be something the Key Decision Maker has on their list of priorities.  In my experience they are more than happy to help and often end up making an appointment for me to meet the Key Decision Maker.

If you are having trouble getting to see the right people here is are some guidelines that might help you work with and not against the gate keepers.

Key Characteristics can include:

• Uncooperative
• Protective of Key Decision Makers
• Can be on a power trip
• Possess a lot of information about the company
• Can help you navigate through the organisation
• Can very quickly turn into coach if treated well

How To Deal With Them:

• Engage them as much as possible as early on as possible
• Ask them for their opinion
• Make them feel important
• Don’t put pressure on them
• Build meaningful relationships with them
• Don’t ignore them once you get to the Key Decision Makers

Remember Gate Keepers are people too and are often very good at their job.  Many of them are just doing what was asked of them.  They deserve our respect too.

Is there such as thing as a ‘good’ car sales story?

My husband and I recently bought two new cars over the Christmas break. We initially went in to buy one car. It wasn’t a Christmas splurge if that’s what you’re thinking – nor was anything it like the recent press on luxury cars and their owners. We wanted to go smaller and greener for all sorts of reasons I am sure you can image and one of our cars was at the end of its lease. Having done our research, the ‘make’ of our last four cars wasn’t doing enough, in our opinion, to be ‘greener’ so we decided to look elsewhere and try something different instead.

Big decision: New brand, new car, new experience.

Now I must say having bought a few cars in my time, as has my husband, and never being impressed with my car buying experiences, I did enter this car buying process with somewhat of a cynical and wary attitude at first. My husband is also and engineer, so big buying decisions do not move quickly – they must be properly analysed. I knew I was in it for the long haul.

However this time I was very pleasantly surprised – it was positive. It was very easy. It was no fuss. And it went pretty quickly. Why?

New make, new dealer, new experience. Was it the company? Was it the sales person? Was it their strategy? Was it conscious or not? I don’t know. Maybe it was one or all of those things. Whatever it was, it worked.

It was different because we were listened to, heard and understood. I was not patronised or treated like an idiot. The sales person and the business didn’t seem desperate, overbearing or too ‘features’ oriented. We weren’t rushed or pressured in any way.

And Joseph, our sales guy, just loved cars and loved selling cars. It was a joy to meet someone who clearly loved what he was doing. He shared with us that he used to be a chef and also worked in IT but his first love was cars. So he figured why not work with what he loves. So he now sells cars for a living. He had been there two years and we found out later that was one of their best sales people (no surprise to me). He was very open, friendly, real, passionate (about cars) and trustworthy. He knew that both of us where clearly involved as joint decision makers and so he set the scene accordingly. He didn’t pressure us. He gave us time to make a decision. He could see we liked to think things through and weigh everything up. He understood, consciously or not, how we liked to buy.

And he treated our children with respect, even though they were getting bored from time to time waiting for us to finish. He was funny, down to earth and real. We felt very comfortable working with him. He helped us in every way to make an informed decision. The atmosphere was relaxed. The other sales people seemed happy and engaged in their work too.

And after we bought the first car I was so grateful we didn’t have thrust upon us the ‘after sale girl’ as is so often the case with other car places. Men may find them enticing but as a woman I find the process a complete turnoff – especially if I have just made a buying decision with someone else. I am not blaming the women themselves, it’s the strategy that’s irks me. In my experience and opinion this model is not how to up- sell and cross-sell effectively (as you would have seen by my recent article on this topic in Dec 07). In most cases up selling and cross selling should be part of the actual sales process conducted by the sales person, not an after the sale is made. This was our experience with Joseph. I noticed that this car dealership didn’t have this type of ‘after sales’ approach.

After taking our new car home and reflecting on the car itself and our car buying experience, we did our numbers and worked out that we would be better off financially and environmentally if we traded in our other car as well. As it was not long off being turned over too we decided to buy a second car from Joseph and the company he represented.

Now that’s what I call good selling. So instead of catching people doing something wrong let’s catch them doing something RIGHT.

So with that I would like to thank Joseph Haddad and Brighton Mazda very much for their help. No, I am not on their pay role I just thought it was a good sales story, especially a good car sales story, worth telling.

And if you see Joseph tell him I say ‘hi’ and thanks again.

Happy New Year to you all. I wonder if you took time off over the Christmas-New Year break and, like me, had a bit of trouble letting go initially and then found yourself easing into enjoying a little time off from work commitments. It’s when I slow down that I find some of my thoughts drifting to why I got into business for myself in the first place. There is a good reason for this. You see on the 9 January 2008 my business will be 13 years old.

Around that time, 13 years ago, I wasn’t happy where I was working. I felt personally limited and professionally constrained by the ‘restricted’ corporate approach to business I was working within, especially in relation to sales, people leadership and development and wanted to see if there were different ways to do business yet still be profitable and successful. So I had a bright idea. I would start my own business never having run a business before. I didn’t know what that was going to look or feel like so … in blind ignorance I set off and started BARRETT on 9 January 1995 with $3,000 and the knowledge that I was useful, hard working and determined.

I chose ‘Improving Sales’ to be the initial focus of my business was because I was sick and tired of seeing talented, capable and motivated people going to waste in a ‘one size fits’ all approach to sales performance and people development. No one followed any logical structure when training or recruiting sales people and too many people focused on fads hoping to get a kick in revenue and profit. However they never realised any medium or long term sustainable benefits – in short their efforts to increase sales where costing them money not making them money. Something need to be done! It wasn’t good enough. The spark that fueled my fire to start BARRETT was my belief that I am a whole person and that I can (and now) challenge traditional paradigms to create success on my own terms.

And I came to realise that the manifestation of BARRETT was so much more. I wanted to see if I could create a work environment that was able to connect a bunch of talented people to produce a community for thinking and action … Where ideas, issues, innovations and the achievement of results could be blended together using a more scientific approach to achieve real and sustainable results with a genuine ROI. And where we could value our whole lives and adjust our work practices to accommodate family, health, well-being and the vagaries of life yet still be successful. I admit I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for and ’yes’ I could have done things a whole lot easier and better but I am glad that I did what I did. Because I know I am a better person for the experience Starting and leading BARRETT into the future has been like doing multiple degrees on the run in: MBA, Leadership, Marketing, IT, Accounting, Law and Psychology. You have to know and apply so many things.

If I had started BARRETT knowing what I had to learn I probably would have been too overwhelmed to start. But once again ignorance was my saving grace. It wasn’t that I couldn’t learn it – because I have. It was that there is always so much to learn and more often than not, nothing goes according to the book. All those theories – they’re just theories. In theory they work but in real life I learned you had to have a your ’chippies trailer of life’ – stocked with a few good reliable tools you could build anything with. Take a bit of this and mix it with a bit of that. Especially for SME’s. The last 13 years have been a very conscious journey of self discovery and evolution both personally and professionally. Here are some of the lessons I have learned along the way. PS The learning hasn’t stopped. I am still learning new things more than ever before and trying to master what have I already learned.

Some Lessons Learned (so far)

• Vision: Create your vision. What are you going to stand for? What do you want achieve? How are going to do it? Really examine what is driving you. Why you have taken the risk to start your own business.
• Values: Define your values and what you stand for. What is acceptable and what it not. Make that part of your daily work habits, your charter and your selection process when hiring people.
• Strategic Planning: Is your vision and mission viable? Can it make money and be self sustaining? Once you have decided to move forward build a plan. From top to bottom and back up again – Strategic to tactical. Review it on an ongoing basis not just once a year. Involve all staff in its development; make it actionable, accessible and relevant to every role in the business.
• Value Proposition: Find out what you are good at and how it best helps people solve problems; define it in language clients understand and then do it – stay focused and don’t get distracted
• Passion: Without passion you just won’t have enough energy or desire to make business success happen. Staying focused is crucial. Set goals and ‘see’ yourself achieving them.
• Health: look after yourself and make sure you take care of the whole person – exercise, diet, rest, get variety, holidays, etc. Because if you don’t then you are no use to anyone especially yourself.
• Creativity & Innovation: create something new; think outside the box; challenge prevailing views and attitudes and don’t let yourself be bullied. Read outside your area of expertise to see how others learn, lead, make decisions, function and work – look at how it may apply to you and your business.
• Structure & Foundations: have in place processes and measurements for Leadership; Strategic Planning; Human Resources; Customer & Market Focus; Process Management; Information and Analysis; Organisational Relationships; Competitive Environment; Strategic Challenges; and Business Results.
• Always run your business as if it is for sale: always have up to date financials, strategy/business plan, full pipeline of business opportunities and current work on the go.
• Mentors and Advisers: find them and use them. Learn how to ask for help in business, marketing, law, personal development, finance, leadership, etc.
• Listen to & trust your inner voice: Despite all the advice you seek, listen and trust yourself. You do know more than you think you know.
• Partners & Distributors: Don’t get intimidated by people just because they look like they know more than you do – find out what substance and content they have and make sure it isn’t just rhetoric – don’t fall for the “don’t you trust me” line especially when they want piece of you or your business.
• Mergers: Walk away if it doesn’t feel right – if their values and yours don’t align then the businesses never will
• Protect yourself: Get a good contracts and intellectual property lawyer – scrutinise everything!
• Prospecting & Sales: business development is a constant process and prospecting for work is an essential, unavoidable part of the process. It means identifying and overcoming your fears about prospecting and picking up the phone to promote yourself to the people that need to know about you.
• Visibility Management: Must be a daily discipline. Never miss a chance to get your name before current or potential clients. Involve clients in good news stories – let everyone know when good things happen. Word of mouth referrals provide unbeatable credibility and their value that can’t be overestimated.
• Marketing & PR: you don’t necessarily need a brochure but if you do produce one write it for your clients not for you; you don’t have to pay for advertising – submit articles on topics of interest to publications; speak before relevant industry groups; take a “knowledge leader” position in your area of expertise; put yourself out there.
• Employ the ‘right people’: know what work functions your company needs to operate successfully; review these on a regular basis as your markets and business change; have current job and person profiles which support selection and performance management practices.
• Retain and develop the ‘right people’: create the opportunity and space for your people to develop their own sense of self; let them see how they contribute directly to the business’ success; develop and support Employer of Choice practices. Even after adequate support and development opportunities if the person is not performing, move them out sooner not later – set objective and measurable key performance indicators and stick to them.
  
• Self Discipline: employ people with disciplined thought and disciplined action in their business and life practices.
• Money: is not THE priority, although must always be A priority. Don’t over commit and over spend when times are going well – save some money for a rainy day.
• Market challengers: look for clients who will experiment and push a few boundaries; are willing to take a risk, they are often the right ones to go for.
• Leadership & Humility: Central to management and leadership is trust, respect and openness; listen and learn from your staff, clients, mentors and guides and adjust yourself on your journey to become a proficient, effective leader; build a bridge and get over yourself – don’t let ego get in the way; follow through; don’t assume anything; be available and responsive; It is important to remember that helping others helps you.
• Communication: open door policy; consultative; inclusive; listen more than you speak; seek opinions and advice; be clear and connect with each person; follow up straight away if there is an issue, don’t leave it; remember it’s not what you say it’s what they do with what you say that is the most important thing – connect people to the common vision.
• Respect the person: having a family and running a business is never easy so make sure you create flexible work practices that allow you and your staff to continue to have a fulfilling career and a fulfilling personal life that creates an environment of health and prosperity. The key is that “it’s not a one size fits all approach”. With all this in mind it is essential that you listen to and help individuals balance their needs with the needs of the company, helping both to reach their goals.
• Theories: don’t get hooked on only one way of doing things and most theories don’t hold true in real life.
• Experimental Kit Bag: My ‘Chippies trailer of life’. Always have a full kit bag of ideas, processes, resources, etc. you can draw upon and learn how to use them when you need them in real life; take bits and pieces and apply them; trust your common sense; be prepared to make mistakes and learn from them.
• Managing setbacks: always confront and resolve issues straight away, as they only get worse when ignored. Don’t be afraid to take risks. If you fail at things always try to learn from your mistakes. Never see yourself as a ‘failure’. Listen to people but be aware of saboteurs who are jealous of your success – put their comments through the “FACT versus “EFFECT” filter to see if they are being genuine or not. When you feel things are getting tough look to your achievements versus your mistakes – weigh them up and take a realistic view not an “overachiever’s” view.
• Trust, Faith, Hope & Courage: even when things are not going the way you want them to you need to trust your vision and have faith in yourself and others that you will come through. Courage in the face of adversity – don’t forget the basics that make good business and make sure that you practice what you preach.

Along the way, and most importantly, I have also been blessed with two beautiful children and a loving partner who has supported me all the way. I also go for a walk or run everyday and am a keen practitioner of yoga and meditation. I have also somehow managed to do the odd performance in theatre and really start to evolve my painting.

And so whilst I write on Sales and will continue to do so, it is but one part of a very big picture for us all. I wish you all a very successful, prosperous, happy and peaceful new year.