The current mindfulness hype

Mindfulness is all the hype now. The focusing of attention and awareness on a moment-to-moment basis, based on the concept of mindfulness in Buddhist meditation is almost everywhere: books, newspapers, TV, radio and the Internet.

Mindfulness and sales

Mindfulness and sales have no relation whatever at first sight as:
- The goal of sales is to persuade people to buy stuff or services requiring to listen to what the potential customer is saying
- Whereas mindfulness is about yourself.
Apparently there is no relation between both.

Benefits of mindfulness for sales

However mindfulness has three benefits for sales:
- It helps to know what is being said by the potential customer. Instead of wrongly interpreting what the potential customer says, mindfulness helps the understanding of what he really is expressing.

- You will listen better to what is being said thanks to the focus and attention during meetings or telephone calls.

- When you can give the feeling you have understood the potential customer, they are more likely to buy from you.

Mindfulness in sales practice

Do all sales need to take a course in mindfulness: probably not just focus, be present – not slipping away to other events – really listen and pay attention to your potential customers. This mindfulness will increase your sales.

How ‘mindfulness’ are you in your sales ?

Successful companies preference

A salesman should give the impression business is better than the competitors or the industry as people prefer to buy from successful companies in order to be part of the success and healthy business is likely to last longer. Buying from a failing company has the risk the company can go bankrupt and no more after service.
Just give the feeling of having good business and not necessarily booming business as that might turn off some potential customers too as they doubt they will get the best price or price/quality on the market.

Show your success

A positive perception and impression requires to show success in business.
Hence your salesmen need to be dressed well, look healthy, drive a nice car when visiting the customer (but not an overly expensive car: don’t posh with your Porsche while selling) and have a decent laptop and mobile phone. The should look confident and happy because he is doing well – even if he isn’t very successful lately.

Show success with limitations

Show your success but don’t overdo it as people will start questioning how the salesmen obtain this external signs of richness resulting in:
- The salesman is making loads of money so his price is way too high
- The salesman is pretending to be successful but he isn’t
External signs of wealth or success are often illusions that hide internal mediocrity or even incompetence.

How do you show your success to your customers ?

LinkedIn platform

We all use LinkedIn for promoting ourselves in case of looking for a new job or in the hope to get a better (paid) job.
Companies use LinkedIn to create awareness.

As a salesman your presence on LinkedIn can work twice:
- For promoting yourself for a new job
- For getting the attention of potential customers

LinkedIn and selling

The question is can you sell through LinkedIn? In our view not directly as LinkedIn is a platform for business relationships and creating awareness for your company or solutions. Hence the big challenge is in generating enough interest with the potential customer and convincing him to make contact with you for further investigation and information.

LinkedIn for lead generation

So you can by participation in discussions:
- Inform and tease people about your solutions
- Show your deep knowledge about a market or an industry
- Create trust
- Invite to visit a website
- Ask the permission to send additional information personally
This is more or less a lead generation or pre-sales effort but not sales.

Only when the manager of the potential customer addresses you directly or allows to address him then you stand a good chance to start a sales cycle which will be conducted outside LinkedIn.

You cannot sell on LinkedIn but generate leads and move on to the sales cycle beyond the LinkedIn platform.

Ever tried using LinkedIn for lead generation or creating awareness?
Ever have started a successful sales through LinkedIn ?

Partners

Technology companies can’t exist without partners.
Although it is better not to grant exclusivity to partners, too many partners in one geographic region might be too much. However you should be analyzing your partner not only for the other products and solutions he carries and proposes to his potential customers and customers, you should also analyze how each partner in a region sells.

Partner sales types

- Reseller partners are likely to sell on price to buyers/purchase dept. as your products or solutions are available to many other resellers.
- Partners can sell to managers based on functions and features in order to make a difference.
- Value Added Resellers or Partners will enhance the product or solution giving an advantage over competition.
- Consulting partners are giving advice and consulting to the CxO level in companies which is quite different from the previously mentioned.

Partner – Selling

- Reseller: sell on price to purchase dept.
- Partners: sell functions and features to managers
- VAR: sell advantages to the Business Unit Manager
- Consultants: sell benefits to CxO’s

So even in one geographic region you can have several partners each having a different sales approach to potential customers.

What kind of partners do you have ?
Do you have one partner in each of these categories in your geographic regions ?

For a start you must have done your homework for knowing the explicit and implied needs of your prospect.
Secondly you should realize that they need to know the implications of their needs and problems for which you have a true and feasible solution.

In order to shorten the sales cycle you must get the sponsor and the decision maker in a meeting together. This will allow presenting your solution matching their needs while solving their problems. The sponsor should help you convincing the decision maker as he can bring relevant information or cases to your proposition.
The debate and exchange of information will significantly shorten the sales cycle.

How often did you get the sponsor and decision maker in one meeting ?

In sales you better be nice to everybody and make a good impression on all.

Formerly (many years ago) it was the decision maker who decided all. Hence he was the most important for closing your sales.

Nowadays decision makers tend to be very dependent upon their administrative assistants and staff members as well as their direct professional reports.

Apparently seemingly non-powerful or non-important people in your life or business may have great influence over powerful decision makers.
This includes administrative assistants, company geeks but also even receptionists.
Although the number of decision makers is limited, anyone can be an influencer for a decision maker. Something you just can’t tell upfront.

If a staff member or assistant feels disrespected by a salesman, she or he will probably try to sabotage the chances of getting the business.
Thus you better be nice to all.

How nice are you ?

In our small company we use Skype – even with customers as it is very efficient and cost effective because it is free.

However each time the customer has a significant size, then Skype is forbidden by their management.

Companies argue with many reasons for not allowing to use Skype:
- Security issues: we never had any security issues with Skype
- P2P punches through the company’s firewall: not good but it works fine
- Encryption: Skype is not encrypted, but neither are the mobile phones most companies use
- Free service: there is nothing wrong using a free service with high service level (without a SLA)
- Skype eats up bandwidth because it is P2P: if many employees of a company would use Skype then this becomes a cost issue.
- No SOX compliance: so SOX rules the business world and makes it less profitable
- No central logging: do you need that for just commercial calls ?

As employees like to use Skype for many good reasons, several have found a work around by using Skype on their smart phones over the provider network. Then who fools who ? Using the mobile data network has even lesser control than using the fixed company Internet connection.

So do you use Skype for your business ?
Are you allowed to use Skype for business ?

Do you really know why you are selling your products or services ?
Can you define exactly the benefits ?
What makes people buy your stuff ?

In order to know take this test:

Our target market or typical customers are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(Who are the companies buying ?)

The need for our solution is defined by _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(The manager, the business owner, the CxO, …: who do you need to address)

The validation of our solution is done by _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(The staff members who will always ask more questions but will never take the decision to buy: they need to be motivated)

The decision to purchase will be taken by _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(Manager, business owner, CxO, … : the decision maker is important to know)

Our products or services solve your problem of _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(What is the real problem your stuff solves for your customer ?)

The advantages of our solution over nearest competitors are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(Advantages sell to managers)

The tangible business benefits of the proposed solution are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The intangible business benefits of the proposed solution are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(Benefits sell to CxO’s)

The value proposition of our solution is _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(This more or less sums up previous statements)

Our references, testimonials, certifications are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(You better have these on hand as it create trust)

Complete the sentences in order to have your elevator platform or pitch.

Were you able to complete the sentences ? What would you add as questions ?

The benefits

The benefits for a company to exhibit at a trade show:
- The marketing message gets exposed
- The solutions are on display
- The partners will meet you
- New partners can be found and discussed
- Leads can be generated
- Your sales team has a terrific time: luxury hotel, food, drinks and fun increasing loyalty
- You can check upon all your competitors and see the level of interest received
- Chance to meet CxO people without an appointment
- The resulting sales pays for the investment
- The trade show showed your company is on top for both products and interest generated
- You actually close new deals on the trade show
- Improving your relationships with your customers by dining and wining
Ok – we have looked into this too positively

The disadvantages

The disadvantages for a company exhibit on a trade show:
- The high cost can be wasted almost entirely due to not resulting in sales
- The sales reps and pre-sales engineers could be doing their normal work instead
- The leads generated will never qualify
- The cost per lead is way too high due to the high expenses and the low number of leads
- Interested people you talked too have a too low level in the organization
- Too many badges have been scanned without qualification making the data worthless
- There was more interest for your hostess than your solutions
- The freebies were popular but not your solutions or products
- You have talked more to partners than potential customers
- You and your sales team missed sleep and some got a cold resulting in less productivity the week after
- Several members of your sales team managed to fish for a job with your competitors
- Several laptops or tablets or smartphones were stolen during the trade show
- Your sales team was hanging around with each other instead of addressing interested people
- Collecting freebies was more important than looking for and qualifying leads
- Your sales team is convinced your competitor is doing much better
- Your sales team was more interested in the dining and wining than convincing interested parties
- Too many nights out with existing clients resulting in no additional sales
Ok – we sometimes exaggerated but most actually has happened.

There are both benefits and disadvantages for being present and exhibit as a company on a trade show. You have to weigh the benefits and the disadvantages and come to your own conclusion.

So to be or not to be exhibiting on a trade show ?

The dumb questions

Wouldn’t you sometimes want to call your customer stupid ?
These customer that always asks stupid or dumb questions – even after having explained him everything about the product or service. He just doesn’t seem to get it but still is interested. You even think he doesn’t fully understand the solution or the purpose of the solution.

Not calling stupid

If the customer pays the invoice then it is just business.
Of course if his questions and problems generate so many interruptions and create so much work that you maybe won’t make profit on him anymore, maybe then it is time to advice him not to be a customer anymore. However you cannot call him stupid as you need him.

Can you agree that customers are never stupid if they pay the bills ?