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Archives: 2008

Dec 31, 2008 0

N: Selling Shoptalk

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Negative Close
Put the potential customer off-guard by saying why they would not go ahead.

Negotiation
An art and science! Once the potential customer has got over the emotional decision to buy, you discuss on what terms they will take your offering. You need to know how to handle negotiating Currencies.

Negotiation Close
Testing commitment by introducing Negotiation tactics early.

NLP
Neuro-Linguistic Programming. A psychological-based technique that enables you to ‘read the minds’ of potential customers by understanding how they think. An almost religious following with some good uses, with the core being do people see, hear or feel their surroundings? 

Nod
As in ‘Got The Nod’. This means the prospect has told you that you are likely to get the order. Beware, of course. Just because you are in the box seat at that particular moment in time, it does not necessarily follow the business is in the bag! Getting The Nod though, is a great sign, as when someone wants to buy from you, they tend to like making your day and tell you sneakily beforehand. 

Numbers Game
Throw enough mud at the wall and some will stick. The old ‘Activity=Sales’ syndrome re-visited. The more people you contact the buyers you will find.

Dec 31, 2008 0

O: Sales Parlance

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Objection Not a negative thing! A statement or question from a potential customer that you must address before continuing successfully.

Objection Log A list of Objections and how they were handled. 

Obvious Close Asking for the order straight out. No gloss applied. 

Offering The product and service you sell for a living.

One-to-One Marketing Sometimes called The New Marketing or Relationship Marketing, One-to-One Marketing is changing the way firms view their operations by making you aim to deal with every single customer as individually as possible. 

Opinion Leadership Word Of Mouth. In the sense that if you are generating great word-of-mouth about yourself (or product or whatever), then you are forming a good opinion in the big wide world, hence ‘leading opinion’. 

OTE On Target Earnings or Opportunity To Earn. What a prospective employer claims you’ll pick up for doing your numbers. Be careful, as a whole bunch of unscrupulous bosses lead interviewees up the garden path about this in lunar landscape times of recruitment difficulty.

Outside Another term used to describe Fieldreps.

Dec 31, 2008 0

P: Selling Phrases

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PA Personal Assistant. Your best friend inside a potential customer. Can be a shield, or maybe a Gatekeeper, but always someone you have to earn the right with and they can make things happen for you. 
Passion The single biggest most important quality I believe a salesrep must posses to succeed. 
Patch The turf you tread that all your business must come from. Can be geographic or not.
Pay Plan The agreement between you and your employer that determines what extra you earn over and above your Basic Salary when you bring home business.
Phone Phobia Not wanting to make those calls to find the buyers. Dial Now! 
Pipeline Related to Funnel, more describing the overall amount of potential business you have on the horizon rather than breaking it down. The larger the better. 
Pitch The forms of words you use to describe how wonderful your offering is. 
Pledge When you put your neck on the line and commit to your boss you will bring a specific deal in. 
Political Map A method of visualising who supports your proposal or not, and to what extent. Used mainly to bear influence in your absence within your potential customer. 
Politics The most destructive corporate force known to man. Where people are privately following their own interest agendas that usually do not fit with what is best for their company. 
Preparation Call Rather than jump in with both feet it can often be a great idea get some ammo beforehand with this type of phone call.
Presentation Where you stand up and talk to an audience of potential customers. 
Price Objection “I’m not paying that!” “It’s too much!”. Gibbons from Borneo have been trained to deal with these! 
Pronoia The other side of paranoia, apparently. And salesreps suffer from it in droves. It is where a positive spin is put on everything. 
Proof Statement Part of a pitch that offers evidence as to how good your offering actually is shown to be. Better to make it into a Metric.
Proposals The formal Documentation that sets out why the potential customer should buy and on what terms. 
Prospect The potential customer. Usually one that has engaged in some kind of serious investigation into buying from you.
Prospecting The act of finding prospects. Predominantly telephone based.
Puppy-Dog Close As in, once the child has seen the puppy, you’ve got to have it! Also known as an Evaluation Close. Suggesting to customers they have something for a trial period, “on eval”.

Dec 31, 2008 0

Q: Sales Phraseology

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Qualification Call
Determining whether or not the name in front of you is worthy of further attention. 

Qualify Out
Winner salesreps constantly think of removing people from their Forecasts, rather than clinging on to them in vain hope. To Qualify Out is to make your excuses and leave the bid process with a particular potential customer. 

Quota
A salesrep’s Target; what must be sold and what you are ultimately judged against.

Quote
A less formal Proposal, briefly outlining your offering and its overall package.

Dec 31, 2008 0

R: Sales Patter

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Rank Selling See Level Selling. 
Rapport To ‘talk the same language’ as your potential prospect. Identify common ground. You need to Establish Rapport as early as possible. 
Rate Of Return An accounting term that refers to the percentage of extra money that will come to the potential customer’s coffers. You will also hear Internal Rate Of Return, which focuses on when the initial outlay will have been paid off. They can also have some measure of taking into account the value of money, as value lessens (depreciates) over time to determine, as part of a Discounted Cash Flow.
Recommender Similar to an Influencer, but possibly with more clout. You may have to secure this person’s backing to gain the go-ahead.
Reference(s) Names you can reel off that are happily enjoying greater sunshine because of you or you offering. 
Reference Letter Interesting concept here. Can you get your customer to write on one sheet of their letterhead just how fantastic you have been for them? If you can such a document is dynamite. Once received, never produce until the potential customer has the pen in their hand at the order ceremony. I really mean that. 
Referral A name someone, usually an existing customer, gives you that you can go and introduce yourself to that could take your offering. Cultivate the creation of such leads as a priority. 
Relationship Once you have Established Rapport with a potential customer, you need to get round to their side of the table. Do things for each other that progress your cause. People buy from people is one of the oldest adages. You need to have a good working relationship for this to occur. 
Repeatable Sales Process Everyone needs to strive to identify this for themselves. What common threads link all your successful Campaigns together? Learn them and replicate them. 
Return What the potential customer can expect to see come back after shelling out for your amazing offering.
Return On Investment A Return that also focuses on the extra that comes back, over and above the initial outlay.
ROI Return On Investment.

Dec 31, 2008 0

S: Sales Speech

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Sales Cycle The procedures and steps you have taken and will take on a particular deal. Include such as Initial Meeting, Board Presentation and so on. 
Sand-Bagging Not always advisable, it is the practice whereby salesreps give themselves a little protection for the next sales period by holding back with an order (or ‘dead cert’ if there is such a thing!) from the current one. 
Sell-Wide Call Often part of Value Selling, it is a phone call where you discuss business with someone not ordinarily associated with input into this particular decision. 
Serial Buyer Does anyone trip up salesreps more than this person? A Negotiating Buyer that gives you a beating by knocking off Currencies one by one from the unprepared salesrep until you virtually lose money on the deal. This is bad. 
SFA Sales Force Automation. Using technology to make salesreps’ lives easier. Most (nearly all) SFA projects fail dismally because they are not managed or ‘owned’ by the salereps (a typical IT story, you might think…) and because the benefits they are really after can never come from the system being implemented. Contact Management software is the most common form of SFA project. What a disgrace the salesforce is at the back of the corporate queue for such essential treatment… 
SFW So What? The question that a potential customer will be asking themselves after a salesrep has bundled through an explanation. Ask yourself the same thing and you may have to remind yourself to speak in WIIFM. 
Shortlist When people seriously look to buy something, they endeavour to create a choice of 2 or 3 companies that can definitely supply the final solution. They probably started off with many more, but whittle this list down to such a Shortlist. By the time it is created, the eventual supplier is actually probably already determined. 
Silent Close See Closing Silence. 
Sitting-Duck Close Where you tee-up a potential customer for the ultimate ‘yes’ by rattling off a string of simple to answer, no brainer, indisputable ‘yes’ questions immediately before the final big one. 
Sizzle As in “sell the sizzle, not the sausage”. Many connotations here. The main ones are forget features, it’s all about benefits, and don’t get bogged down with the minutiae, it’s all about the bigger picture. 
Smokestacking Keep your eyes peeled for names on your travels. New offices, industrial estates and vehicles you pass can be invaluable sources of new Suspects. 
SOR Statement Of Requirements. Usually a pre-cursor to the dreaded ITT. Your job is to determine who influenced its creation and modify the points and weightings to suit you in the final ITT. 
Spin Two Things. First, the angle you put on a story to show why it means good things from a potential customer perspective. And Second, is (an acronym) from the initial letters of Situation-Problem-Implication-Need that is a widely used questioning technique. 
Sponsor Better than a Coach, but a touch short of a fully fledged Champion. A Sponsor can grant you a licence to roam unimpeded around their organisation, setting up key meetings and trumpeting your cause. Need to actively work with you rather than cheer you own from the sidelines to become a Champion. 
Steering Group Another body set up within a potential customer’s organisation to make purchase decisions. The difference with this one is that they probably have to make Board Presentations to get their ideas passed. 
Suspects Less than a Prospect, there is no real commencement of activity with such a name yet, but early qualification signs are promising.
Switch-Sell The practise of offering an alternative product, that performs the same task, when asked for by a customer. Typically, the Switch helps keep that customer longer, as you are saving them money, although typically, the vendor can make more profit on the product, as the most common Switch involves premium-brand to own-label substitution. 
SWOT Analysis Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats. The first and possibly only decision-making and strategy management tool a salesrep ever uses. Draw a big cross on a sheet of paper and write in bullet points. Strengths and Weaknesses refer to ‘internal’ forces within the company, Opportunities and Threats ‘external’ ones in the wider marketplace.

Dec 31, 2008 0

T: Selling Talk

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Tag-On Close These are the little words at the end of a sentence that encourage a natural ‘yes’ response, aren’t they? 

Target A salesrep’s total amount of business they must bring in.

Telesales Picking up the phone and looking for business. The majority of salesreps start off here. 

Territory A salesrep’s personal area from which all their business must hail. 

Testimonials Marketeers produce these. Lovingly crafted they can be most potent arrows in your quiver. They are novel-esque stories of how a specific customer was re-born after the shining white light of signing your order occurred. Full of pictures and quotes, we like these a lot.

The MAN Money-Authority-Need. The Man is the person (boy or girl obviously) whom you need to speak to. They have all three of the aforementioned qualities as far as your proposition goes.

Time Traps Things that can happen during the working day that prevent you from concentrating on activities that actually make you money.

Time-Line Where the primary focus of your sales strategy is to follow an agreed sequence of events with your potential customer that stretches way beyond the act of signing up. 

Timetable Part of the Time-Line, the putting together of such events. 

TOPMAN Timings-Opportunity-Process-Money-Authority-Need. A method of Qualification ensuring you are covering all the angles. 

TQS Total Quality Sales. A Tom Siebel inspired approach detailing the ultimate goal salesforces should try to reach. Not Total Quality Management tweaked for a sales bias. Advocates technology to make salesreps more effective rather than the old focus of efficiency. 

Trial Close Yuk! Asking if you’ll win the business if certain things happen, or if something wasn’t an issue. Avoid please, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Trivialise The Difference Where you take Minimising The Difference a step further to show how crazy the potential customer is to think that is an issue. 

Ts and Cs Terms and Conditions. The legal basis upon which two parties enter into an agreement. 

Tyre-Kicker Someone who is not serious about being a potential customer. Weed out such time wasters.

Dec 31, 2008 0

U: Selling Tongue

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Up-Sell
The practise of proposing more of the same product when a customer asks for it. Typically used in the form of an additional enticement, such as a purchase economy of scale in the shape of a bulk-buying discount - “take an extra one and I’ll give you ten percent off overall”.

Urgency
What you create to bring forward the decision in your favour. Until the ink is dry and the money in your pocket a customer is not a customer. The sooner you gain commitment the better. 

Urgency Close
Usually in the context of the deal turning less attractive if sign-up does not take place this very instance. Bit pants really. 

USP
Unique Sales/Selling Proposition/Point. What distinguishes your offering from others that no-one else can provide?

Dec 31, 2008 0

V: Selling Vocabulary

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Value Selling
Shift emphasis of your pitch from what the offering actually does, to the monetary amount it will actually produce for the eventual customer. 

Virtual Territory
In vogue ever since Virtual Reality technology became less exciting than the Internet, it is where you calculate the value of a territory and use that as a basis for handing Patches out. You need to determine how much business can come from the chosen Area. 

Visionaries
A term used in the context of a Marketing theory applied to Technology firms, that there are four types of buyers: Innovators, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards. Visionaries are the first to take up a new offering, but as they only constitute a small proportion of the total marketplace (estimated at 7½%) you need to work out how to “Cross The Chasm” and start to bring Pragmatists aboard. (Conservatives and Sceptics make up the other half of the population). 

Voicemail
When people are not available you can leave a message by phone. What you need to look out for are companies with a cloaking Voicemail culture. These are bad.

Dec 31, 2008 0

W: Sales Vernacular

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Wallowing

Many different applications, typically where a point comes up, and rather than resolve any issue straight away, you linger on why it is important or what is bad about it. The beginnings of Empathy here. 

War Story
Ever heard someone tell you in ten minutes a vaguely witty conversation from the field that actually only took two minutes?! We should all gather War Stories, as they’re the tales of things that happened on our travels that we’ll sit down and tell the grand-kids! 

WIIFM
What’s In It For Me? When you say anything to a potential customer you should be putting yourself in their shoes and asking exactly this question. They only understand things when they are said in this language. 

WIN
Worst-Intermediate-Nirvana. A Negotiation tool that lets you plan what you can and cannot give away. 

Winner
Anyone who visits Winner-Net and beats their Targets as a result! 

Winning Lines There are certain pivotal parts to any conversation or pitch where a salesrep says something great that changes the course of that transaction. These are Winning Lines and should be recorded and used over and over again.

Win-Win
A concept regularly lauded as essential for the long term well-being of commercial relationships. Mainly comes up with reference to Negotiation on Winner-Net. A deal that does not provide a Win-Win for all concerned is not good. For more on this, the chief proponent came to worldwide prominence as part of the Total Quality Management phase around the late eighties, between the search for Competitive Advantage and the strive for Business Process Re-engineering. He was W Edwards Deming who, rejected by American industrialists, took his ideas to Japan after WW2 and changed the world. The Win-Win philosophy is one of his 14 commandments.

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