A healthy ego is certainly a good thing to have if you want to be a successful salesperson. Yet, some of us are simply off the chart when it comes to self importance. You might know who you are, and the rest of us can certainly spot you from a mile away. But, if you’re not quite sure if you’re the poster child of the blatantly autocratic sales approach, answer the following questions and find out for yourself.

Do you frequently catch yourself saying or thinking “It’s my way or the highway”?

Sure, you may or may not be able to use this tactic with your kids who are living under your roof. However, if you’re not giving your customers options and choices, and don’t bother to negotiate or work to meet others’ needs or wants, you’re guilty!

Guess what? This lack of flexibility translates into you being deemed “difficult” and a “jackass”. Sure, you can stick to your guns, but the people who you’re trying to sell to aren’t going to feel the need to put up with your attitude.

Do you demand that they sit through your presentation or else?

You’ve diligently developed your PowerPoint presentation, honed your speech, and have memorized every benefit and feature of what you’re selling. Of course, your audience is going to listen intently from start to finish without interruption. You don’t need to accommodate their pesky time constraints or questions. Right?

It’s time for a wake up call. Maybe you have a busy schedule, but so do those you’re selling to. Most likely, they have lots of salespeople who want them to sit through presentations just like yours. Unfortunately, there’s probably much more to their day than just listening to their vendors. Hey, give them a break. Make your presentations short and sweet, and do your best to work with their schedules.

Do You Not Really Care All That Much about What Your Customers Want?

It’s all about your needs. You have a commission, a quota, or a boss breathing down your neck. You just don’t have time to focus on what your customers want.

Whether you once cared about your customers needs and have just become jaded over time, or you’re just naturally a selfish, rude salesperson, this attitude is a surefire way to lose customers very quickly.

Sometimes, it’s hard to take a self-assessment and find out that you’ve become the jerk that everyone loves to hate. However, in these tough economic times, can you really afford to take this approach with your clients? Don’t think for a moment that your customers don’t recognize these behaviors.

The good news is that you can change for the better. The best salespeople really do care about their customers and want to do their job well by being helpful, informative, and professional. You can, too! Take the ego down a notch and roll your sleeves up to start working with them not just for yourself. You’ll be glad that you did!

Having loads of contacts, a degree from a top-notch university, and a resume that speaks volumes about your experience can undoubtedly communicate to others that you’re at the top of your game. However, they’re not the only things you need to succeed. Sometimes, it’s those little details that really shout what your personal brand is truly all about.

Far too many high-achieving professionals get clouded by their achievements and egos and forget that common courtesies still matter. In fact, when you’re successful, they matter even more. The stakes are higher and more eyes are watching. If you’re guilty of being rough around the edges with the individuals you’re doing business with, it’s time to polish your personal brand. You don’t want to be the one who loses a major account because your manners are atrocious. No, you have to be an Emily Post clone, but you do need to pay attention to these following basics:

Be Timely and Accountable

Everyone forgets to make a call every now and again. But, if you repeatedly tell others that you’re going to call them and don’t, you’ll quickly develop a reputation as someone who doesn’t follow through. If you’re having difficulty remembering who you promised to call and why, start taking notes. Send yourself reminders and make it a priority to follow up in a timely manner.

Say Thank You

In a fast-paced environment, it can be easy to neglect to say thank you to those who provide you leads, support your efforts, or give your business. Make it a point to be generous with your appreciation for others. Regardless if it’s a hand-written note, a thoughtful gift, or simply a warm “thank you” to someone who helped you, just do it and do it often!

Write Properly

Poor grammar and typos in an email, letter, proposal, sales presentation, or invoice don’t just look unprofessional, they directly reflect on your level of competency. Hey, if you can’t write a decent sentence, who is going to have the confidence that you can answer a technical question or understand the complex needs of a customer? It’s a slippery slope that you don’t want to head down. Pay attention to all of your writing. It matters! If you’ve managed to get to this level without being able to write properly, you’d be smart to invest in a class or two on business writing. You’ll be glad that you did!

Polish Your Company’s Paperwork

When you started your business, it might have been ok to write up an order on a piece of notepaper. Hopefully, your business has grown from this point, and if you haven’t already, it’s time to revamp the documents that you’re providing your prospects, vendors, and clients. Whether it’s an invoice, purchase order, or contract, your recipients will take them and you more seriously if they look professional. With the wide array of software options out there to help businesses, there simply isn’t any excuse for invoicing your customer on a piece of scratch paper.

Keep the Others in the Office in Check

While you’re responsible for your own personal brand, others can affect it, too – especially those in your office who can make or break an encounter with your business. Develop standards for how everyone deals with your contacts. Without this consistency, you’re opening up the door for someone to seriously sabotage how others view not just your office, but you, too!

One of the few positive aspects of this current recession is that there has been a flurry of new business growth. Entrepreneurial-spirited individuals, frustrated with the corporate world, are testing the waters with their new ideas, and startups are challenging large, slow-moving organizations by developing innovative products and services.

While many of these streamlined, smarter enterprises will succeed, others will fail. Why? There are many reasons for business failure. However, it’s almost always due to the lack of building a successful sales force.

Some entrepreneurs think that they are the only ones who can possibly sell. Giving over the sale of their product or service to someone else is akin to handing over their baby. Others get so immersed in day-to-day execution of their business that they simply don’t make the time for big picture projects like working on the growth of the company and building a successful sales team.

The reality is that, at some point, business owners need to spread out the sales efforts and bring in talent if they’re going to be successful. It’s not about hiring a support person who will only get the overflow sales “dregs”. Instead, it’s about hiring one or more sales superstars who share the vision of the organization and use their experience and professionalism to take the business to a higher level.

Finding those superstars can be challenging, but they’re out there. In fact, since the rash of layoffs in the last year, there has never been a better time to hire a salesperson. Many qualified professionals would jump at the chance of working with a company that is growing instead of teetering on the brink of failure. How can you build the best sales force for your specific needs? Here’s how:

Find Someone Who is Compatible with the Company Culture

Startups can be chaotic, and not everyone is cut out to work in one. Make sure that any candidate you’re considering is comfortable with multi-tasking and pitching in at a variety of levels and thrives in an environment where there might not always be a lot of structure. Oftentimes, successful “big company” salespeople are like fish out of water when they don’t have multi-layers of management and corporate structure around them. Others are ready to spread their wings in a startup. Find out their comfort level before you make the commitment of bringing them on board.

Look for Someone with Connections and Contacts

Besides having a desire to work for an up and coming company, your potential new hire will be substantially more successful if he or she has a fat Rolodex of connections and contacts. Where do you find such a person? Go out into the field and attend some industry events to see who might be interested in a new opportunity.

Don’t Micromanage the New Hire

If you’ve hired the right person, they should be able to hit the ground running without the need of being hovered over for an extended period of time. Sure, you’ll need to make sure that they’re completely up to speed on what they’ll be selling. However, once they are, it’s time to give up some of the control, and let them go out and hit the ground running.

Work on the Company and Not in It

While making sales is vital to the success of your business, you also need to devote time to working on its overall growth and direction. Successful entrepreneurs and company owners understand the need to have enough company resources so that they can be the leader and not get bogged down by the nitty-gritty of day-to-day operations.

Digging deep and drilling down to uncover mutual interests and potential business opportunities is the very essence of effective networking.

These same skills are also the key components in maximizing your existing business relationships.

The fastest new business opportunities can be recognized within your existing account base, however it requires discipline, expert probing techniques and the ability to peel back the layers and uncover areas of mutual need and potential gain.

Think about it:

Are all of your customers aware of ALL of the products and services that you can provide to them?

Do you have ALL of their business or are they giving business to your competition?

Put together your plan of action:

1. Make certain that you inform your customers about ALL of your products and services. If you already did that and more than three months have elapsed, then it is time to remind them again. It might be your primary objective but your customers have other things on their mind.
2. Do you continually probe your customers? Are there other decision-makers or influencers? Other locations, divisions, departments and subsidiaries? Do they have plans for relocation, growth or downsizing? Are there any significant business changes being planned? There are always questions to ask, data to confirm and information to be gathered. Try to learn something new on each and every contact.
3. Ask your customers what you need to do to earn more of their business. It’s a direct question and you should receive a direct response.
4. Occasionally take the time to work your customer base from the bottom up. Everyone knows all there is to know about their top accounts, but there are accounts languishing on the bottom of your database simply because you have not taken the time to learn about ALL of their needs or present ALL of your services. Can they be buying most of what they need from your competition and just using you as a secondary source.

Your best prospects are your existing customers. Just like in networking, you need to approach them appropriately, share willingly and be patient.

Business development is a process, not a quick transaction.

This is going to be fun. I’m running a free teleseminar with Laura Allen and Sydney Barrows. It’s going to be fab so please try to participate.  Email me at amiller@adrianmiller.com for the dial-in details:

Join us in a fast paced, high energy program in which we delve into the good, the bad and the ugly of sales and customer experience.

Laura, Sydney and Adrian are experienced speakers, authors and trainers with a range of hands-on experience and practical information that will help you to transform your business development, client retention AND your bottom line.

This one-hour program will include time for your questions and thoughts.

Be prepared to come away with:

–Actionable tactics to help you sell more successfully

–Learn the 4 key steps to creating a clear, concise and compelling 15SecondPitch
Having a great 15SecondPitch can help you prospect more effectively. Whether you are making new connections face to face, online or over the phone, it’s important to be able to explain, who you are and what you do. If you don’t grab their attention in the first 15 seconds, you’ll lose them for good.

–Best of class practices to build your business in a way that enables you to stand apart from the competition. Consumers are weary of generic buying experiences and more and more are seeking to have a meaningful, memorable, fun, interesting and/or exciting Experience during the selection and buying process.  Prospects and customers are hoping to have an EXPERIENCE that makes them feel pleased about making the purchase AND makes them feel good about making the purchase from YOU!

–Cost-effective and time efficient touch point management so that you can always stay on the grid.  Let’s face it, you spend a lot of time networking and developing leads and prospects. If you don’t stay on the grid through what might be a lengthy sales cycle, you cannot recognize any ROI from your selling efforts.

And more….

Do you hold on to old leads and prospects that are extremely aged, however not more viable or qualified.

Why is that?

Sales reps are loathe to shed old leads.  They hold on for what it’s worth to contacts and leads that have not shown any progress or positive indications for months and even years.

Still, these names remain in the pipeline just waiting for the day that they, well, resurrect themselves. Sometimes we even kid ourselves and believe that they have more life than they truly have. And sometimes they even keep us from being more aggressive and prospecting for brand new leads. We continue to kick these old tires while our sales results keep falling lower and lower.

Assuming that you’ve done all that you can to convert these prospects into folks that are truly interested in your product or service, then it is time to clean them out and put them into their own separate category.

I mean if you’ve screened and qualified, presented value and benefits and have been persistent and it has all been for naught, it is time to let go and move on to other names with more potential. Spend your time planting new seeds for these old, and apparently disinterested leads, are not going to move forward.

Clogging up a sales pipeline with prospects that are going nowhere is self-destructive. Be honest with yourself. Continually assess who is in your pipeline and ask yourself: what is the percentage likelihood that this prospect will close AND within what time frame.

By doing this you will have better control over your flow of prospects and their conversion to new business.

And isn’t that what you want?

The analysts are, in increasing numbers, starting to tout the end of the recession, but for most of us, it still seems quite slow out there. Even if you’re the most talented salesperson, you probably have noticed that an annoying number of your prospects are stuck in your pipeline. Ok, it’s not the most polite way to phrase this, but you could be suffering from a case of sales constipation. No, a swig of milk of magnesia isn’t going to do the job here, but there are strategies to get you moving along again. Here’s how:

Keep Filling and Replenishing Your Pipeline

You want to make sure that your pipeline is continuously being filled and replenished with qualified prospects. By always having individuals at different stages of the sales process, you’ll consistently have some that are coming through as new business.

Stay On Their Grid

The sales cycle has become much longer for almost everyone. It can be easy to drop off of a prospect’s radar if you’re not diligent about your touch-point management. Fine-tune a program that utilizes phone, email, snail mail, as well as the three I’s – invitations, introductions, and information.

Don’t Give Up

Patience is needed more than ever right now. Yes, you might feel like throwing in the towel with a prospect who seems to relish sitting on the fence and stringing you along. You might even feel like expressing your personal opinion to them about their inability to make a decision. However, keep this in mind. You will never reclaim any of your return on time if you give up. So, hang in there. You’ll be glad that you did.

Realize That It Might Not Be the Economy

The recession has become a great excuse for prospects who just don’t want to tell you that they didn’t see value in what you were offering. Find out if this is what’s causing the stall. If it is a cash flow issue, you might need to hang on a little longer. If it’s really a problem with how you presented your product or service, you might need to refine your own strategies and techniques.

Don’t fall into the trap of blaming everything on the economy. There are salespeople who are successfully acquiring new business each and every day. By following these four steps, you’ll help jumpstart your pipeline to get you back on track as the recession subsides.

We’re closing in on Q4 and, for most folks, this has been a difficult year (to say the least). As we head into this all important final quarter of 09, we should all make a vow to end the year on top.  Yes, revenues might be down and clients might be more difficult to obtain. Still, if you follow these tried and true success techniques, the end of the year might be more positive than you ever imagined.

1.  Stay Close to Your Prospects and Clients.  This can’t be reiterated enough. Spending time, money and energy developing prospects and servicing clients only to allow them to “fall off the grid” is a sure recipe for disaster. Staying close, staying relevant, staying ahead of the curve so you KNOW what to present to them and when….well, these are all strategies to keep you top of mind and considered a valuable business resource just when they are eliminating their “vendors” and other folks they consider to be dispensible.

2. Keep Current. Just when you think you know everything there is to know about your clients and prospects, there are changes and these changes can alter the very relationship you have or are striving to develop.  Rather than finding out TOO LATE about upcoming changes, be diligent about continually probing to find out what’s happening with your prospect’s or client’s company, personnel changes, business growth plans, marketing initiatives and more.

3.  Stay Visible. Now is not the time to disappear and hide from view. Review your budget for Q4 and then make certain to deploy highly synchronized sales, marketing, PR and networking initiatives. These DO NOT have to be expensive (see www.adriansnetwork.com for extremely cost-effective and results-driven networking!)

By keeping these three things in the forefront of your mind you will be able to keep pace in Q4 and end the year on a productive note. Yes, revenues might be down but your productivity must stay up so that you can be strong and viable when the economy turns around.

The best time to start is now.

When you go to pick out a new puppy you often look for certain attributes.

How cute are they? (Quite subjective of course.)

How active?  How friendly, how they interact with their little puppy friends.

All of these qualities are important; it’s how you base your selection.

Okay then, what criteria do your prospects use when they are selecting your product or service?

Knowledge and expertise?

Appearance?

Price?

Location?

Years in business?

Personality and how you interact with your/their staff?

Knowing what criteria are most important can help you to sell more effectively.

And how do you learn what’s important? You ask.

We all hate to hear “no” but honestly, isn’t hearing a straightforward “no” better than, well, not hearing anything at all?

A definite no. Not a stall. Not a maybe. Just a no based upon a valid and definitive reason.

Frankly, at this point in the difficult economic climate in which we are mired, a no seems almost a relief.

A no allows me to move on.

A no doesn’t clutter my sales funnel. I mean, I might reconnect with my no in a few months but right now, frankly speaking, it is a no.

A no allows me the opportunity to learn how and what I need to do better to get to a yes (a maybe doesn’t really help me with that at all.)

A no can be educational and informative. A maybe is just frustrating.

I learn from my no’s. How to better present value, overcome obstacles or perhaps select my prospects a tad more carefully.

Of course I would rather hear a yes but in this age of  frozen funnels, the no’s are okay.