The more waves a customer generates, the more breaks there are at the point: inside sales or salesman.
Your sales people are just riding those waves.

Customers that make the most noise get the most attention.
On the one hand there are the ones that make a lot of noise, but once your resolve their issues, they become your most loyal allies, recommending others to your products or services.

Then there are the ones that continuously communicate with you or complain or just attract attention all the time. They are never fully satisfied with anything and probably never will be (for some people this is part of their character). Maybe they shouldn’t have been sold your solution? A CEO I used to work with called these ‘the kindergarten clients’.

Although these customers get the most attention, they are often not  the most profitable ones, especially as you have to spend time and effort to satisfy them with answers and care. Time that could be spend attracting more customers of the easy, satisfied kind instead.

At the same time you might be neglecting your better customers.
Customers that are satisfied with your business, that  place their orders and pay on time. Customers that are probably much more profitable than the very demanding ones.

A customer should receive the amount of attention that he deserves in relation to the profit generated and in relation to your other customers.
The only way to find out is to keep track of the profitability by customer and the amounts of time spend handling him or her. Often there are no standard tools within the company to do this, but just tracking the time spent in a textfile or spreadsheet for a week can be a real eye opener, giving enough evidence that the customer might be a waste of time. More often than not you will find that these cry-babies shut up without leaving when you stop giving them attention (just like real cry-babies).

Instead of trying to satisfy the noisy customers, wouldn’t you rather nurture the ones you don’t hear about? Or even use that time to attract more customers of the easier kind?

How many noisy customers do you need to to offset losing an easy customer?
If you only had noisy customers, how many would you be able to handle before they start leaving for not getting enough attention?
Don’t forget to nurture your easy customers!

Salesmen work hard by concentrating on their products and customers. They mainly see the next lead, the next potential customer, the next deal.

They are digging up new leads, pushing aside objections and convincing buyers in order to reach their targets.
Things need to get done, actions taken, emails replied to, calls answered – all in function of getting deals closed and bringing in revenue, all in the here and now.

The sales hurdles

During their sales journey they will encounter hurdles and dead ends that make them stop dead in their sales cycle.
A possible problem is they often don’t have a complete market overview and only notice those hurdles that are right in front of them.
As these hurdles are their #1 roadblock at that moment they will blow up their importance and present them to their Sales Manager. If the Sales manager is in need for Sales revenue (which one isn’t?) he sure will expose the problems his Sales team is facing to company management.

Sales hurdles as a market shift indicator

The hurdle or problem encountered by each Sales man might be an indication of something bigger, but in order to define a trend or a market shift a more distant approach is needed.

This is where marketing or product marketing should be ahead of the Sales team. Even before any hurdle or bump in the sales cycle, marketing or product marketing should have remarked the trend or market shift and informed company management about it. They might have even started to prepare new products or solutions in order to anticipate the upcoming market shift.
If the Salesman hits the bump it’s probably too late.

The Salesmen should be on the ground, in the trenches, whereas marketing or Product marketing should be hovering over the market in order to spot trends and market shifts in advance so they can at least warn and try to prepare the salesmen.

Does your marketing team anticipate market shifts and guides the salesmen?
Or… does this only happen in an ideal world?

Even if the customer asks for a certain product or service, qualify the customer and then decide if you should sell or not.

If there is no fit – no good qualification – it is probably the best not to sell and explain clearly to the customer eager to buy the reasons why. Be honest and stay positive.

Someone sold her the dress - bad!

The reasons not to sell are in order to avoid:
- Bad word of mouth
- Bad press – bad blog posts – bad tweets on Twitter
- Unsatisfied clients that will never buy anything else from you
- Missing selling to their peers or relations
- Wasting time of both companies
- High after sales service costs

Not selling will build your credibility and it is your chance to become a trusted advisor and not just a commissioner.

Will you sell if no fit?

E-commerce: consumer

Consumer goods have been available on the Internet since the early beginnings of the Internet: e-Commerce was all the hype during the Internet Bubble. The website were and are about consumer goods and consumer web services (in many cases related to the action of buying consumer goods).

Online selling Internet BtoB services

Since a few years during the Web 2.0 era a new breed of e-Commerce sites have emerged: web services for businesses.

Previously all business to business services required a physical presence of a sales rep. or even a sales team in order to sell.
As the Internet has infiltrated business and web services are being promoted and provided over the Internet without human interaction or interference this change of trend just has happened.
In order to enable selling business to business the web services have become specialized or specific services with a minimum of functions and features.
Instead of promoting a complex ERP system with (too) many functions and functionalities (for buyers to fully grasp) solutions with only one or two business processes are being offered: CRM, collaboration, invoicing, lead generation or cash management.

The process of marketing and sales can be completely automated as:
- The marketing message is less complex due to the limited number of business functions
- Marketing is done using the Internet presence: website, advertising, blogs, reviews, and email campaigns (spam)
- Companies are identified while visiting the website
- Selling is limited to answering emails and providing a sign-up page with a payment scheme.
No man to man interaction required except for the email conversations.

Online marketing

As the current method of getting a solution for a problem in a business is mainly started by a search on the Internet, the Internet presence is most important.
The online marketing consists of:
- The website with content related to the problems the business service solves.
- The well positioned advertising of companies
- The social media marketing – even for BtoB
- The email campaigns

All the online content has become more important for the decision than any other marketing channel for attracting interested parties which are the potential customers. They will visit the website if the vendor throughout the entire buying process.

In order to attract Internet buyer-searchers the content and multiple presences on the Internet are king.
Both Outbound and Inbound marketing have theirs place. However there is a bias or preference towards Inbound Marketing as:
- Inbound marketing is always active instead of the on/off functionality of Outbound marketing.
- Inbound marketing has a broader reach.

Selling by a salesman is not really required for these web service providers.
The persuasion by the content and the presence on the Internet have become more important for engaging the potential customers.

No death of a Salesman for complex solutions

For solutions offering just one or two business services or functions the death of a Salesman is near.
However in all cases with greater complexity of the solution provided the greater need for human interaction by salesmen: discussions, interactions and meetings.
If the service is too complex the Internet is not yet convincing enough.
Still all decision makers and buyers will visit the website of the vendor during the entire sales process.

The online B2B Sales currently is only feasible for relatively simple and straightforward solutions and services limiting to one or 2 business processes only.
The question is how far the bar will be raised: up to what level of complexity people in business will buy without human interaction?

Currently most companies are still selling the traditional way.
The question is how long will this traditional selling last as the Internet has become ubiquitous and will move up the ladder of complexity of business services offered?

Has your BtoB sales already been affected by the Internet?
Will the Internet kill the salesman?

When the potential customer has an objection, then most sales reps start to feel bad or uncertain: the stress for failure increases.

Even if you can formulate an answer correctly or refute the objection, then chances are:
- You talk too much and initiate a complete different conversation.
- A second objection is brought to the table.

This is exactly what you don’t want in both cases:
- The lost conversation without a direction
- Even more objections.

Take your time with objections

Most people will try to formulate an answer or refute the objection as fast as possible. Instead of replying it is better to take your time by asking him to explain what he exactly means. Hear him out.
The clarification or the restatement of the objection can contain already part of the answer.
When listening to his exposé you have a second chance to understand the objection and to look for answers.

Then rephrase the objection: if you have it wrong you will be corrected and probably more information is contained in the correction.

Moreover people will always tell too much. In order to explain they will reveal more information and reasons of the objection or even the origin of the objection: a director, a previous experience, a similar case of a colleague.
The more they explain what is holding them back to buy the better you know what to do or answer and turn around the objection into an advantage.

The objection discussion

Chances are the objection is getting discussed by the managers of the potential customers amongst them. You don’t have to participate but to correct or acknowledge facts or figures that are mentioned during their discussion. This will certainly work if your advocate is amongst them as he will know:
- The situation better from the inside.
- Where the objection is coming from.

In case there is no discussion and you have no direct answer then you need to get the interest back to the benefits and advantages of your product or solution.
The best is to acknowledge the objection and immediately ask how fine the benefits or advantages fit with the problem or need of the company.

The battlefield of objections

The best salesmen consider objections as the battle field.
The sooner they find out about them the better as they then know what lies ahead of them. By knowing the objections they can build a strategy.
You have a strategy and in control instead of being rushed and driven out of the deal by the customer.

Once you have a strategy you have an advantage over your competitors who might still be clueless.

Maybe objections are not that bad after all if you know how to handle them.
The objection can become the fuel for selling.
The sooner you know the objections the better.
The more the potential customer talks the more chance to win as they always will tell too much.

Turning objections into sales takes time to learn, but the rewards will be high.

How do you handle objections?
Have you ever turned objections into a sale?

When the officer or manager your are dealing with for the next purchase constantly refers to the past using:
- I remember when …
- We used to …
- Formerly the …
- Things used to be better then …
- When we …
- Those were the days …
It is clear he is living with the past as his memories seem to be more important than the current facts and events that are happening.

The Account manager

If you are in the business of recurrent sales as an account manager then there is little to worry about as it is unlikely the person wants any change.
Especially because not changing suppliers as that includes a departure from the past and a risk.
In this case stick with the officer or manager and carry him further with his memories.
Just keep an eye on possible competitors that present new solutions to other officers and managers you are not related to or dealing with.

The Sales hunter

On the other hand if you are proposing a new method or solution that more or less implies a radical change from the past, then you need to start doubting if you are addressing the right person to defend and sell your new solution in this company.
Probably not.
Someone who lives too much in the past is unlikely to favorable for any change.

There are 2 cases:
- Your competitor is pushing a radical change and he can not live with it
- Your competitor still presents the well known and proven solution.

Competitor pushes a new solution
In case your competitor is pushing the new solution, then it could be better to propose the conservative solution again.
However be careful as your company might be classified as outdated whenever there is a change taking place in this company.

You present a new solution
In case you are pushing the new solution; it is very unlikely your officer or manager is going to buy.
Then you need to get into contact with a different officer or manager.
This requires your imagination and sales skills as you need to:
- Identify an alternative officer or manager
- Getting into contact with him
- Make appointments for meeting(s)
- Assure he is in favor of change
And at the same time taking care to bypass the original contact without upsetting him.

Are the decision makers of your customers living in the past or the future?

Remember “All In The Family” TV Show

Although the grass seems always greener on the other side:
- The products when needed: get commissions as one can sell
- Better customers: not complaining or just easier
- More revenue: more commissions
- Higher margins: higher commissions
- Recurring customers: continuous commissions
- Growing customers: increasing commissions
More commission means a better life for the Salesman.

In sales you need to treat your current customer as if he was the greener one.
He needs to feel as important as if he was the most important customer.

Problem: limited capacity of caring

Caring for your customer takes time and effort.
When you aim to give all your customers the feeling of their importance then you will be out of capacity before you know it.
There for the need to create and give the feeling of their importance, still managing your time between your different accounts. That is hassling of your capacities.

Time management: leads versus customers

Typically management and sales people will dedicate more time to new leads and potential customers mainly because:
- They could hold more potential
- All people like the idea of new and fresh
- To boldly go where no man has gone before is more challenging

However nurturing your customers is much more profitable and will be much more rewarding: those people have already decided for your products before thus they are likely to choose them again.
Instead the Salesman and the Sales Manager both pay more attention to the leads.
It is better to care for what you have than what you could have.

Managing your time and effort between the exciting new leads and the old known customers is hard to do.

Still you need to give the customer the impression that they are the most important whether they are small or big, old or new, recurrent or potential which requires time management.
In all cases you have to show interest for their messages and information as your primary aim is listening in order to react and anticipate when needed.

Take care for the customer you have and who is talking to you and balance your time between customers and running behind potential customers with the most likely reward in mind.

What is most important to you: a customer or a new lead?

The trend spotters and the marketing guru’s promised the social media marketing revolution.
As a result every brand:
- Needed to have a Facebook page (or a MySpace page in 2006)
- Was editing and publishing a blog about their brand (that nobody interested)
- Was posting Tweets on Twitter like a spammer (amongst all the automated spam)
- Was writing comments on blog posts like a parasite.

Probably the contrarian is true: the social media marketing revolution has become an evolution instead.

The change in social media

- People have moved from MySpace to FaceBook, probably in order to move to the next online space soon.
- The explosive growth of Twitter is slowing down as the marketing impact of Oprah has weaned off.
   See Sysomos study: More than 50% of all updates are published using tools, other than Twitter.com
- More and more blog are no longer updated.
- Many blogs contain the content of another blog and are just redistributing.

A blog post is a lot of work and posting frequently then a blog becomes real work.
A micro blog post is fast and short, still it doesn’t catch on: hardly anybody on Twitter tweets.
Some people do comment on blogs, but these are a minority and mostly the same people.
Maybe the reason for this is because creating content requires inspiration, effort and creativity.

Rapster Miley Cyrus says Goodbye to Twitter because she started ‘living for moments’ and wanted to start ‘living for people’ instead:

Passive people instead of participation in social media

Ever more people watch YouTube, however passively.
That’s not social media as social media requires interaction and participation: YouTube, Seesmic, Vimeo, DailyMotion, Viddler all have become a broadcast system like TV has been since ever.

Content is probably still king, but the number of successful or influential sources will become limited.

Instead of creating new content, people are lazy and just share content (Bookmark or ReTweet) by clicking a button next to the original content. The lesser the effort required, the higher the likelihood of getting propagated over the Internet.

Social media will continue to exist especially for specific interest groups but instead of an explosive revolution that changes the world overnight, there will be a slow evolution.

It will take several decennia before social media will be used throughout all layers of the industrialized world.

Social media killed the journalist

Journalism and news media will never be the same again as anyone from anywhere in the world can get attention using the Internet: the decline of newspapers and magazines.

Isn’t it strange that gossip magazines seem to survive over all the serious information sources? Is this related to the type of people reading these gossip magazines?

However as many are shouting or crying for your attention, they will need to be shouting the right keywords on the right moment. As many are shouting every now and then a few some will get the demanded attention.

What is the chance the message from your company will be ever heard amongst all the shouting?

Interruptive advertising is dying

If social media has achieved one thing, it is the interruptive advertising marketing has become an unsustainable model. People will turn away from the online advertising just like nearly everybody zaps away during TV-commercials.
Interruptive advertising is dying a sure death.

This causes a new problem as good old advertising has become hardly effective.
What should businesses use in order to announce products and solutions?
How should they get any attention?

There is no evolution without revolution

Probably we are currently seeing the typical hype curve where we just passed the hype and are now descending before the masses start to pick up the trend.

As the hype cycle is over the top, social media is here to stay and to grow by more general adaptation by most layers of the population.
Still irrevocable damage has been done to journalism, newspapers and magazines together to the interruption advertising which has ruled for so many years.

Slowly brands will adapt to the evolution that social media marketing has to offer with new rules:
As the rules of the game are known, the windows of opportunity have log been closed.

How is your company using Social media effectively?
What has been cancelled or is no longer being updated? The company blog, the Facebook page, Twitter ?
What is being used? Advertising or Social media?
How does your company achieve to be heard by potential customers?

Do click on the ReTweet button (at the top) or share this by bookmarking (below) – Thanks in advance

If you need to increase your visibility of your company, products or solutions at no cost then a press release is on of the best solutions.

Benefits of a Press Release:
- The search engines will index it – improving the SEO of your website
- Journalists might read it and re-use if it contains interesting news or information
- Potential customers can be reached
- Long lasting impact: can be found and retrieved from months to years later

Read the many tips you can find on the Internet and the write an interesting press release containing:
- a title: between 80 and 150 characters (best 80 characters)
- a summary: up to 200 to 250 characters long
- a message body: starting with location date
- a company summary

Keep at hand:
- Company address
- Telephone number

The cost is in the time you need to register for each of these web services and all the copy / paste you need to do. Don’t under estimate the time this will demand, especially the first time.

PageRank: the importance Google gives to the website.
Alexa rank: the lower the rank – the more people visit the website.

PR - Alexa
8 – 258  Scribd.com
7 – 2,611  Betanews.com
6 – 1,118  Docstoc.com
6 – 1,794  Prlog.org
6 – 27,142  PitchEngine
6 – 29,333  Directionsmag.com
5 – 1,987  Free-press-release.com
5 – 6,962  Pressreleasepoint.com
5 – 11,274  Pr.com
5 – 18,678  Pressbox.co.uk
5 – 21,729  Clickpress.com
5 - 25,307  Openpr.com
5 – 25,938  PR-USA
5 – 27,734  Freepressrelease.com.au
5 – 45,375  Ukprwire.com
5 – 46,609  Sbwire.com
5 – 713,443  Mediapitch.ning.com
4 – 8,354  Pr-inside.com
4 – 9,647  1888pressrelease.com
4 – 11,477  Transworldnews.com
4 – 16,245  24-7pressrelease.com
4 – 17,376  Bignews.biz
4 – 24,513  Freepressreleases.co.uk
4 – 25,307  Openpr.com
4 – 25,333  Pressmethod.com
4 – 26,961  Free-press-release-center.info
4 – 48,186  Usprwire.com
4 – 51,712  Free-news-release.com
4 – 61,789  Malebits.com
4 – 78,862  Przoom.com
4 – 86,008  Prfree.com
3 – 6,112  Ideamarketers.com
3 – 17,846  I-newswire.com
3 – 24,963  Live-pr.com
3 – 26,184  Pressexposure.com
3 – 27,594  Prurgent.com
3 – 29,964  Information-online.com
3 – 30,573  Theopenpress.com
3 - 35,270  Mediasyndicate.com
3 – 48,527  Pressabout.com
3 – 84,557  Prcompass.com
3 – 171,663  Newsreelnetwork.com
3 – 994,358  Media-press-release.com
2 – 27,255  Seenation.com
2 – 28,425  Newdesignworld.com
2 – 37,739  Pressreleasecirculation.com
2 – 43,603  Prwindow.com
2 – 45,095  Postafreepressrelease.com
2 – 135,614  Publicitywires.com
2 – 338,310  Free-news-distribution.com
2 – 429,492  Buzznewzz.com
1 – 27,453  Newsalbum.com
1 – 1,092,018  Pressbot.org
0 - 1,986  Free-press-release.com
0 - 2,608  Betanews.com
0 – 17,859  Bignews.biz
0 – 23,510  Businessportal24.com
0 – 35,715  Techprspider.com
0 – 45,523  Prfocus.com
0 – 48,023  Prmac.com
0 – 51,602  Exactrelease.com
0 – 62,091  Bizeurope.com
0 – 80,786  Ezpress.info
0 – 86,008  Prfree.com
0 – 189,012  Pressreleaseforum.com
0 – 195,376  Pressbox.com

Some web services (like PRLog) will generate a pdf version. Save it for use with Scribd.

How many press releases did you publish lately?

We all know what the housewives in ‘Desperate Housewives‘ encounter and react in different situations, but this is nothing what salesmen will do when they get desperate:
- for a lead
- for closing a deal
- for a reorder

Salesmen need to get sales in order to get paid in order to pay their bills.

The life of a housewife goes on without any doubt.
The life of a salesman more or less stops when he has no leads, no deals from new customers or no new orders from existing customers come in.

In their being desperate Salesmen will do anything:
- Call whatever possible customer
- Steal customers from colleagues
- Make appointments that will not generate an order
- Visit customers without a proper appointment
- Visit customers without a real reason for them
- Promise additional features or solutions that cannot be realized
- Invite customers to lunch even if they are not present in the funnel

Still these desperate attempts will hardly work as the salesman will start looking less confident.
Being desperate is the worst that can happen for a salesman as he starts doubting about himself: his skills, his personality, his communication capabilities, his (14) virtues.

One thing housewives and salesmen have in common: they will keep up the appearances until the end (whatever the end is).
However that will not solve the problem for the salesmen. They have to decide and take the course of their future in their own hands: change products, change geography or change company / business.

How desperate have you been in your career?