The name of the sales game is, “buy-in” and you being interesting and valuable enough so that your customers seek-you-out.

In a perfect world salespeople will much rather spend their valuable time working with in-bound opportunities as opposed to chasing them. But just because someone has made contact with you doesn’t necessarily make them the perfect opportunity.

People that seek-you-out are more likely to demonstrate deceptive behaviour regarding your offering. If you have read my new book, The Naked Salesman, or attended one of my sales training programs you would have heard me speak about the damaging effects that “crazy customers” impart on salespeople and businesses. These are people who pretend to be customers but, in fact, never will be. They dissolve time and distract you from giving attention and affection to your “real” and most valuable customers.

“Crazy customers” are most commonly created by pushy salespeople and also by customers (deceptively) seeking free information and using it for their own purposes.  

When I get an in-bound enquiry, I’m always enthusiastic to qualify the customer’s relevance and authenticity. Many salespeople start ringing the cash register (Ka-ching!) as soon as someone calls them, believing by virtue of the customer initiating contact, they must be genuine. This is not always the case; in fact, there are perils in following this approach.

The internet has been the greatest incubator of “crazy customers” the world has ever seen. Anyone insane or of sound mind, genuinely interested or not—can get online and fire enquiry forms at will. This could be at 2am on Monday or 4.30pm on Friday afternoon when they have nothing else better to do. Treat these types of enquiries with suspicion and manoeuvre them accordingly via your sales process. If you dont have a process, best you create one.

The bottom line is not all enquiries are genuine, so you need an effective qualification process that doesn’t alienate potential “genuine” customers. The first place to start is establishing who your customers (really are) this can be achieved by drilling into your client base and identifying the profile of your most valuable customers i.e. industry, size, internal champions, spend, ongoing revenue, referrals, reputation benefits, etc.

You then know if someone contacts you who fits your profile you can feel reasonably confident you are talking with the right person and you can proceed accordingly. Conversely, if the person doesn’t fit, you can then employ a different approach, perhaps faster and less intensive.

Give the “crazies” free, indeed valuable information, but dont tip them. And most certainly dont let them distract you from your “real”, most valuable clients as they should be the foundations your business is built on.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan, Founder BOOM! Sales

This week Aussie model and aspiring social worker, Jesinta Campbell was decorated with the second runners-up sash in the prestigious Miss Universe pageant.

She also won the award for ‘Miss Congeniality’ for her sense of humour and warm personality. Good on her! I’ll admit, when I heard Jesinta had been recognised for her personality; I was more impressed by that, than her third place in the pageant. The fact her personality shone so brightly, in my mind, makes her more attractive and more interesting.

In “sales”, all things being equal—personality wins! To stand out in a cold, crowded and competitive market you can differentiate by showing your personality and inviting your customers in, rather than telling them what door they should walk through. In the process you offer contrast that gives them choice—either the same or you?

When you play the ‘same game’, you become boring and mundane and your customers will walk straight past. Moreover, if they stop, you dont have a way of proving you’re any different to anyone else, so the relationship defaults to price. Enter price comparison at your own risk.

Granted, you may very well be boring; that’s always relative. Be that as it may, you still need to bring more of yourself to what you do. You dont have to be overtly gregarious to be personable, you can bring more personality to the way you do things or come up with unique and interesting ways to present ideas and encapsulate your value in different ways.

If you choose to dilute your personality in a blatant attempt to be all things to all people— you start playing the ‘same game’. This game becomes the graveyard for inauthentic people, who choose the road most travelled, rather than ‘baring all’ and showing the world who they really are and what’s truly important to them.

Actions to bring more personality to the ‘same game’:

• Never underestimate the power of humour – laughing is living!
• Share things about you that give people a real sense of who you are
• Be vulnerable by showing your scars and being real
• Stop selling and start listening and engaging people in a meaningful way
• People are drawn to positive energy, so be positive!
• Be conscious of your energy and how it impacts others
• Be genuinely interested in the best interests of others
• Follow a career that allows you to be yourself and stay true, always.

Most salespeople get the cold shoulder from customers everyday in different ways. “Brrrrrrrrrrrrr… It’s bloody cold in here!” When you ‘bare all’ for your customers, you may get cold sometimes, but it sure beats the heck out of freezing all the time! 

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan, Founder of BOOM! Sales

French scientist, Louis Pasteur once famously said, “Chance favours the prepared mind.” And a century or so on, his worlds still ring true.

When you are stressed, time poor, under pressure, and running around late all the time — chances are you are not preparing perfectly and your results will always reflect this. I recommend taking a measured approach by simplifying and slowing things down where and whenever possible.

In some cases less is more, but when it comes to preparation more is indeed more. People often prepare inadequately because they are pressed for time and some believe preparation is a luxury preferring simply to ‘wing it’ and hope for the best. This approach not only breeds incompetence it does little to build confidence.  

Preparation isn’t a luxury — it’s mandatory. If you are time poor this may be a symptom of poor preparation. And if you are selling in a clinical and repetitive manner, then keep pushing the boundaries for ways to improve the way you sell. Be better! More efficient, compelling, valuable, influential and passionate! Perfect preparation is paramount to perfect performance.

How you prepare for each meeting will determine the outcome. When you’re pitching to win-business it’s highly likely you are saying the same thing in the same way as your competitors.  Sure, personality, value and benefits, come into play, but you can differentiate yourself by demonstrating how much thought and effort you put into each opportunity. This demonstrates you genuinely care about creating the right outcome for the customer. It also shows you value the opportunity and take your own time and their seriously.

Just make sure you’re engaging the right customers in the right conversation. Time wasters are the enemy, so believe in and stick to your process, always.

Tips to develop Perfect Preparation habits:

• Set a verbal agenda with clear outcomes for each meeting to achieve;
• Slow things down when and wherever possible and sell at your pace;
• Dont commit to meaningless meetings because you feel you have to;  
• Role-play meeting scenarios in your head the night before in bed, or in the car or plane before your meeting;
• Role-play your past unsuccessful meetings and future important meetings with peers to refine and collaborate on best practices;
• Research your clients and go into each meeting armed with at least three key thought provoking questions;
• Take printouts of their website and competitors and highlight key areas that are relevant for the meeting discussion;
• Create a simple and quick tool to measure the effectiveness of each meeting and look always for ways to improve;

How you prepare is up to you, just remember, ‘Chance favours the prepared! And perfect performance is a product of perfect preparation.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan, Founder BOOM! Sales

One of the most powerful skills you can develop is your ability to listen.

You may have heard me say, “The best way to be interesting is to be interested. The reason this principle is essential is because it makes your customers feel important. This feeling is so powerful it will help your customers filter through your competitors to find and connect with you.

We have all met people who are poor listeners, and we judge them as being either ignorant or arrogant. And fair enough some of you may say. But just because someone doesn’t listen intently to you, doesn’t necessarily suggest they are not interested in you. It could simply mean they absorb information in a different way.

Put simply, human beings learn via three key styles:

1. Auditory: enjoy listening to learn, ie. radio, iPod or someone speaking to them;
2. Visual: prefer to learn by seeing things mapped out in pictures or diagrams;
3. Kinaesthetic: touch and feeling, prefer to play with things to learn.

The first step to understand how to communicate to others is to know your own learning style. In my case it’s all three, but predominantly, kinaesthetic.

Never buy me something from IKEA, I won’t ever read the instructions and then spend the next three days frustrated playing around trying to build something that should have taken an hour. But I enjoy it.

Understanding how you absorb information is important because this gives you an insight into how others take in your information. When I sell I employ a combination of communication styles to encapsulate all three learning preferences. I also have methods for learning about my clients prior to a meeting and importantly during so I can adapt my style accordingly to focus more on the predominant learning style.

To learn about your customers’ styles you need to ask them questions and then really listen to their responses and gauge their reactions. 55% of their response will be via their body language, 35% tonality and 10% words. So what they say can be very different to what they actually mean. Their body language and tone will help you understand what’s really being said.

For example, half way through a verbal pitch (auditory) if you see your customer’s eyes glazing over then change your approach, stop the conversation and move to a whiteboard or pad and start mapping out your ideas (visual) so they can see them. If that fails, then offer to give them an opportunity to play with your ideas (kinaesthetic) somehow.

What and how you do it is up to you, just don’t make the mistake of delivering one communication technique to varying learning styles. Remember, words are meaningless without emotions and your relationships won’t be meaningful until you start really listening.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan, Founder BOOM! Sales

Trent Leyshan, will be braving the elements at 12pm Friday 13th of August 2010 to promote his new book, The Naked Salesman!

Wearing only his socks and jocks on a soap box, Trent will be spruiking his book outside Angus and Robertson cnr Collins and Queen Streets Melbourne.

Also $50,000 worth of giveaways for sales and business people! One show only! Be there at 12pom sharp so not to miss out!

I was talking with my Father who told me the story a friend shared with him recently. His mate John had been training at a local gym for a couple of months.

A few days after New Year’s Day John went to gym and couldn’t find a car park. He approached a gym manager to address his concerns about the gym being so busy. The manager responded in an ironic tone, “Don’t worry, there will be plenty of car parks in a couple of weeks, just you wait and see.”

The manager’s point was that most people who declare a New Year’s resolution to lose weight and get fit — don’t stick at it. In fact, they stick all of about two to three weeks on average and then they’re gone, resigned to the murky backwaters of procrastination once again. It’s common knowledge that gyms make most of their money from patrons not showing up. So remember that next time you sign-up, because you may be better served saving your hard earned money.

It’s one thing to set a goal, quite the other to stick it out and see it through! The best way to set goals is to commit to small and realistic goals and then truly commit to seeing them through. This builds confidence to then enable you to increase the size and importance of your goals accordingly. Many people ambitiously set ‘Big Fat Hairy Audacious Gaols’ (BFHAG’s) and then wonder why they never achieve them. I’m all for climbing mountains but do so with a prepared mindset.

Another effective way to set a goal is to apply my 2.2 Rule. Work out the best possible time to achieve a goal and then multiple the time by 2.2. This will provide you with a more realistic time for achievement by factoring in the extra time required for things you didn’t plan for (usually considerable)  that leads to de-motivation and ultimately quitting.

If something is important to you, you will fight for it! If it’s not important, you won’t. Case closed. Partners who ache for their spouse to change their bad habits or people wanting to give up vices will always find frustration, unless there is sufficient buy-in to warrant a change in behaviour. Tony Robbins advocates attaching pain to things to create leverage, I don’t think changing behaviour is about pain, I believe it’s about discipline and focusing on the things that matter most to you.

Some people believe they are not disciplined. I say that’s a cop it. Discipline is easy, overcoming cancer is difficult. The bottom line is, if you really want something then have a crack and fight for it. If it’s not important enough to you— then simply retreat back to the lounge and watch your big screen TV.

I have gone a bit hard on you in this blog, I know, because I believe in you, the rest now is up to you. And don’t forget the old cliché; if first you don’t succeed then try, try again!

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan, Founder BOOM! Sales

Telling is not selling, because the conversation only flows one way — from your lips into the other person’s ear and out the other. Telling fails to provide your customer with an opportunity to buy-in to the conversation.

Moreover, the salesperson hasn’t taken the time to acknowledge who the customer really is and what they need or really want, if anything at all. In essence, the salesperson is only communicating to the customer’s stated need, which is usually the tip of the iceberg.

You will never see who they really are until the customer trusts who you are. In the early stages of your relationship the customers doesn’t possess enough confidence in you to reveal too much about who they really are, so it’s up to you to help them. This is best achieved by engaging the customer in meaningful conversations and making what’s important to them important to you.

A ‘telling’ conversation is about you, not the customer. It’s about what you want — to sell something and get paid. The customer is the means to your end.

Have you ever been out for coffee with someone you just met and all they did was talk about themselves the entire time? How did this person make you feel? Were you excited to meet with them again? I bet you left the exchange feeling somewhat drained of energy and totally disinterested in this person. Salespeople, like acquaintances, are much the same.

Every customer has three simple words blazoned on their forehead: I AM IMPORTANT!

Selling should always be about first seeking to understand and then to be understood. It’s also the art of exploring and understanding what’s beneath the surface and really driving the customer’s needs or desires.

Understanding what’s most important to your customers is not as hard as you may first think. It’s simply a matter of asking them. But you must then try to hear and feel what they’re really saying. Ask questions and genuinely listen to your customer’s response, before hijacking the conversation and launching into your sales spiel! Pause before you respond and actually think about your response before pulling the cord and ripping into telling them what you think they need.

When you believe in yourself you don’t need to boast about how good or big you are. You don’t really have anything to prove — it’s there for all to see. So shut up and listen to your customers! Make them feel important. You will be amazed at what you will learn from them and where it will take both of you.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan, Founder BOOM! Sales

How do you stay motivated? Motivation comes from within and can be boiled down to one simple definition: Focus.

What you focus on establishes your reality and your perception of what you focus on determines your experience.

In Victor Frankl’s disturbing yet fascinating book, Mans Search for Meaning, he tells of his experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp in World War II, namely, how he and some of the other prisoners defied the odds and survived this ordeal mentally and emotionally.

One of their methods for survival was to focus on things they enjoyed back in the real world, such as pretending to eat their favourite foods while they starved or endured eating muck not fit for animals.

Most prisoners who survived death and torture would eventually go insane ― not capable of enduring such a traumatic ordeal. Frankl and others despite their environment chose to see their reality differently and as a result they kept their sanity intact. I highly recommend reading Frankl’s book, it’s a graphic account, but the message will certainly put life into perspective for you.

Frankl’s story is one of extreme adversity, yet in our world many people are easily seduced into apathy by experiences that pale in significance, such as; an arrogant manager, selfish team mates, demanding customers, market forces, or cash flow issues. In any case, your stresses are real to you, but to someone else (…pift!) it’s insignificant and not worth worrying about.

I love the story about the fly and the lion… When a fly buzzes around us for a period of time it’s easy to get annoyed by it. We become so frustrated by the fly’s incessant attempts to land on us we may even yell and lash-out or try to squash it. Yet when we spot a lion approaching slowly and calculatingly in the distance ― our focus quickly shifts to the lion and the fly will cease to exist even though it’s still buzzing around us.

Yes, business is tough and it can be a grind some days, but if you’re grinding every day for months on end, something has to give. What will give first is your energy, then your motivation, and last but not least is your health. Ignore any of these signs at your own peril.

Tips to stay motivated:

• Stay healthy, eat well, drink plenty of water and exercise regularly (This is critical)
• Focus on things you can influence; instead of worrying about issues you cant
• If you are grinding too hard, take a break and indeed regular breaks
• Do more of what you enjoy and less of getting bogged down in things you don’t
• Associate with positive people, so you can feed off each other
• Dont judge negative people; it’s their choice, so respect it
• It’s ok to be de-motivated from time to time, it’s more than likely just a sign

You can either choose to see your current situation differently or you can change your current situation by doing something completely different.  Alternatively, you can do nothing and stay in your current state, but don’t whinge about it. It’s up to you.

Just remember, when you start relying on external forces for motivation, this is usually a sign that you’re focusing on the wrong things or you’re simply tired and need a break. In fact, I think there are cheap flights on Virgin at the moment, so why don’t you motivate yourself ― go on, you deserve it!

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan, Founder BOOM! Sales

Working with a good mentor is one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself in business.

Being able to share your fears and frustrations, desires and aspirations with someone you trust and respect in a safe environment, is invaluable. I only have one rule when it comes to working with a mentor: choose them wisely!

Over the years I’ve had several mentors; some good and others not so. The mentors, that haven’t contributed value have always been wolves in sheep’s clothing. I met a couple of wolves early in my career that not only gave me bad advice, but when the going got tough, they got going!  Demonstrating they were in it for wrong reasons.

No matter what you’ve been through or will go through in future, I guarantee someone else has gone there before you. A good mentor has been there and will also help you navigate murky fogs and trouble waters and offer practical advice to help you get towards your destination.

A mentor can be utilised to develop most areas in business, particularly ones that aren’t your strong suits, i.e. finances, leadership, entrepreneurialism, motivation or sales, to name a few.

You dont have to catch-up with your mentor in person every week, you can meet via phone or Skype once a month or whatever works for you both.  Or it can be an ad hoc basis for areas you need help with on the fly.  Just remember a good mentor is in demand so dont abuse their generosity or time. And always offer to help them in some way in return, if you can.

What’s in it for the mentor?

Most successful people get a buzz from sharing their vital lessons and wisdom with others. Perhaps you remind them of a younger version of themself?  Maybe they just like you and share your values? You would be surprised at how many good and willing mentors are out there that never get asked for help. So ask! You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Where do you find a good mentor?

They’re all around us. It could be a client? A friend of a friend? Perhaps a father in law? Maybe your Sister? Someone you respect and trust? Or possibly it’s a person who is where you want to be in life? For me personally good mentors have always materialised through people that I know and trust, making them a safer bet.

Always be wary of wolves in sheep’s clothing and false prophets. Working with a mentor that you dont know very well can be fraught with danger, so proceed slowly and cautiously. The same principle applies if your mentor is charging for their time.

In my experience many successful mentors are older, but that’s not always the case. And not all successful people are good mentors; that will depend on their natural instinct for coaching.

Working with a mentor shouldn’t cost you more than a coffee or lunch here and there… but if you find a good one ― your small investment could pay off big time!  

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan, Founder BOOM! Sales

In business if you aren’t contributing to the lives of others, you’re either simply doing nothing or taking from them.

Many people think “selling” is the art of getting what I want. This is only partly true. The real movers and shakers in sales understand how contribution serves them and others. 

We all know people in life who take, so as we get older and wiser ― we don’t associate with these people for too long. Perhaps if we are really honest with ourselves we take more than give sometimes too. And this is easy to do, particularly when we get desperate.

Over the years, I’ve been desperate more than once, so I can speak from experience ― when we get desperate we approach things from a place of need ― which isn’t a nice place to play, nor is it an attractive way to be viewed by other people.   

When we are needywe think we dont have much choice other than to take. But we do have a choice.  When you dont have much, this is the best time to give. Give more passion! More energy! More love. More value. Think More. Do more! Not less.

Contributing to a team can be boiled down to a simple definition:  Always going the extra mile! Do the little things that add value beyond the norm. It doesn’t need to cost you money or drain your energy, just do something small and make it a big habit.

A tap on the back. A smile or cheeky wink. A thank you. Share a joke. Make an effort.  Be positive to be around. Be interested. Ask questions and really listen. It’s not hard. The little things over time add up to a lot making contribution a lot easier than you think.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan, Founder BOOM! Sales