Tools Of The Trade
by Gill E. Wagner
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14 Tools Of The Trade From paper to pen to state-of-the-art software, you can’t reach the highest levels of success unless you leverage the tools of the trade.
I’m all for using state-of-the-art tools to create efficiencies, but not if the price is lost sales. So, as you work toward becoming the top business producer at your company, don’t fall into the “technology paralysis” trap, where you spend all your time figuring out new gadgets and none of your time selling. The trick to avoiding technology paralysis is to allocate an exact number of hours per day or week that you’ll invest on tool evaluation, setup and testing – and never exceed that time allocation. Sales Appointment Tools Pad Of Paper And Pen In Chapter 7, Getting Organized, I discussed “analysis paralysis” – where you spend all your time planning and none of your time actually implementing the plan. Countless times, I’ve watched with amazement as salespeople at client companies spent hours, days, weeks and months setting up and implementing the latest “timesaving” technology, while the top business producer at the company closed deal after deal with a pad of paper and pen. Calculator Since calculators are tools of logic, let’s consider the facts:
My personal digital assistant (PDA) has a calculator, and so does my cell phone. But if they didn’t, I’d have a handheld calculator with me at all times. When it comes to selling, besides paper and pen, a calculator is about the most important tool for sealing a deal for the largest amount possible. Collateral Material At an absolute minimum, you should have business cards, letterhead, printed envelopes and note cards or thank-you cards in your marketing toolkit. Use brochures, catalogs, portfolios, PowerPoint® presentations or anything else if you must, but remember that salespeople who rely on collateral material to close the sale rarely do, so use them sparingly at best. Dress Code You should follow three rules when deciding on what you should wear to your sales appointments and client meetings:
Just as with everything else in your marketing plan, consistency is the key to establishing your image and reputation with your prospects and clients. Office Environment Private Area It’s hard for most people to get “think work” done when they’re surrounded with distractions. So whatever your office surroundings, find a way to separate yourself from the crowd whenever you’re creating cold-call offers, writing your cold-letters or brainstorming in any way. If you absolutely can’t get away from the masses at work, consider going to a highly public environment, such as a coffeehouse or restaurant. While the noise actually may be louder there, I find that others around me are basically concentrating on their own conversations, which allows me to remain “alone” in the crowd. Another option, of course, is a library. Speaking of privacy, prospects don’t like hearing lots of background noise when they’re talking to salespeople on the phone. So if you work from home and have kids, dogs or cats, find a way to separate yourself from their noises and interruptions before you get on the phone. If you must, set your phone to go directly into voice-mail, and call people back when you can arrange quiet time. (The same goes for office environments, only coworkers’ talking is not as disturbing to prospects as dogs’ barking.) Full-Spectrum Lighting When my partner and I started our company in 1996, I set up my office in my basement, which I had finished a few years earlier. The area is actually very bright – I painted the walls white, installed a teal carpet and built in indirect fluorescent lighting. But after about three months, I noticed a pattern: Every day around 2 p.m., regardless of what I was doing, I began to feel anxious and agitated, and by 5 or 6 p.m., I was totally drained. And I had constant eyestrain. I grew up in construction and have been working 14-hour days for most of my life, so this was quite strange for me. I decided to look into the problem by doing some research on the Internet, where I stumbled across an article about how lighting can change your mood and eliminate eyestrain. After considerable research, I decided to try full-spectrum lights instead of the standard fluorescent bulbs I had installed. While the blue-white light seemed weird the first morning, my mood improved immediately, and my eyes felt much better. So much better, in fact, that if I had to replace all 16 bulbs right now, I’d spend as much as it takes. I know there is a lot of marketing superfluff out there regarding the best lighting for an office environment, but this old boy will never work in any environment that doesn’t have full-spectrum lighting. Locating Your Mouse – Ergonomic Tip Look at your keyboard configuration. Unless you’re on a laptop, the alphabet keys are on the left two-thirds of the keyboard. Just to their right are the arrow keys, along with the directional keys, and just right of that is the number keypad. And if your configuration is like most people’s, just to the right of your entire keyboard is your mouse pad and mouse. Sit upright at your keyboard with your hands in the touch-typing position – index fingers on the “F” and “J.” Now, without moving your torso at all, slowly move your right hand until it’s resting on the mouse. Did you notice that, as soon as your hand passed over the number keypad, you felt a twinge in your shoulder? That’s because your right hand had to travel 15 to 18 inches before it reached the middle of your mouse pad. Now, put your mouse on the left side of your keyboard, and repeat the exercise using your left hand. No twinge, right? That’s because your left hand had to move only about 9 inches, which is still within your natural comfort range. For those of you saying, “But I’m right-handed,” consider this: If you spend a lot of time at your computer, and have shoulder, neck or back pain, make this change, and I bet within four hours you’ll be handling the mouse just as well with your left hand as you did with your right, and within days your pain will be gone. In case you’re wondering – when I “moved operations” to my left side, I didn’t reverse my mouse buttons; I left-click and right-click the same as before. In fact, I use two fingers for the left-click and one for the right-click, which has eliminated the wrist pain I was having from using only one finger for each button when my mouse was on my right side. File Cabinet – The Paper Trail I wouldn’t say I’m the worst when it comes to organizing my space, but I’d never say I’m the best either. Cindy, however, is great at organizing space, and, when she noticed my papers were starting to pile up, she offered to help. (Remember when Grant Mazmanian said, “Guys like you always marry girls like her”? Evidently, we need them!) The result was a paper filing system that solved my lost-paper problem. Picture a legal-sized file drawer with 43 hanging folders. The first 31 folders are red, and are labeled “1” through “31.” The last 12 folders are green, and are labeled “January” through “December.” Whenever I’m holding a piece of paper that I must find later, it goes in one of two places:
Every morning, as my computer boots, I open my drawer, look in that day’s folder and put everything it contains on my desk, so I can deal with it appropriately. And on the first day of every month, I open that month’s folder and distribute everything it contains across the red folders labeled “1” to “31.” As for those of you who can’t find time to put anything into any kind of filing system, allot the last 15 minutes of every day – perhaps while your computer is shutting down – to file whatever you can. Even those 15 minutes will make a difference and give you the jump-start you need for the next day. These methods work for me; if you just can’t get yourself organized, consider hiring it done. Paperwork is still an essential part of the sales process, and you have to be able to deal with it effectively to achieve success at selling. Telecommunications Telephones It goes without saying that you must have a phone, and in this day and age, a mobile phone, too. But remember your customers’ and prospects’ frustration tolerances when selecting your telephone configuration and services:
Headset When I communicate, I “speak” with my hands as well as my voice. So, I found that a primary benefit of using a headset was my ability to stand, move around and use my hands. It actually helps me be a better communicator. Even if you aren’t as animated as I am, I recommend you try a headset if you spend a lot of time on the phone – especially if you’re cold-calling every day – because it will free your hands for other things, and save you from the neck kink that comes from shouldering your handset for hours on end. A rule of thumb I use when selecting a headset is that less is more – the fewer the features, the clearer the sound. So, when making your choice, don’t hesitate to try the cheaper models. I’ve been using a $50 Plantronics headset for many years and have had no problems with clarity. As for choosing between wired and wireless, I haven’t found a wireless headset that didn’t occasionally have static, so I opted for a long cord instead. Telephone-Conferencing And Videoconferencing Because most of us sell nationally or internationally, and because travel is so expensive, technicians are improving telephone-, video- and web-conferencing, and these technologies are getting less and less expensive. In fact, some companies offer free minimal services to market their broader services, so consider leveraging these wherever you can. For instance, at the time of this writing, FreeConference.com is offering free conference calling for groups of 25 people or fewer. Calls are limited to three hours, and individuals must pay their own long-distance charges, but the quality is great. And you can’t beat the price. Take baby steps as you explore these tools – you don’t want to cost yourself a sale by screwing up with new technology. Electronics Fax Machine Simple is better when it comes to fax machines, unless you have unique needs. The only two features that are must-haves for me are plain paper – standard-size computer paper, instead of rolls of traditional slick paper – and a multi-sheet feed for outbound faxes. Printer Purchase the fastest and highest-quality laser and inkjet printers you can afford, because they can produce high-quality marketing material quickly, which opens the door to new ideas. In 2000, I used my high-quality inkjet printer to launch a newsletter marketing campaign for three months. The newsletter itself was four pages, printed front and back on 11” x 17” paper and folded once. During that three months, I printed 500 copies each of three different newsletters and secured a half-dozen new clients, including a full-year training and coaching engagement with the sales team at a Fortune 500 company. My costs for buying the printer and producing the 1,500 newsletters were less than if I had paid to have the newsletters professionally printed. Computer Get the fastest computer you can afford, and upgrade whenever you can afford to upgrade. To avoid suffering with a dog-slow system like mine, don’t make the same mistakes I made and get locked into such a high rate of transitional pain that you refuse to invest the time to switch.
And be certain to have your computer and monitor on a battery-backup system, so you have time to shut them down in the event of a power outage. Personal Digital Assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA) is nothing more than a handheld computer containing, at a minimum, your contact database and your calendar – Palm is a well-known PDA brand. At the time of this writing, companies have only recently developed PDAs that are also telephones and cameras. Of course, technology changes rapidly, so telling you in this book what’s available would be silly. I can tell you, however, that PDAs are a great tool for solving one of the biggest failings most salespeople have – making a commitment and then not following through. Software Contact-Management Software Your database is your lifeline to achieving success at selling, so you must maintain a complete and accurate database of prospects, clients, colleagues, strategic partners, vendors – and anyone else who can help you reach your goals. As for selecting your contact-management (sometimes referred to as customer-relationship-management) software, I truly hope you weren’t expecting me to tell you what works best, because I’ve never seen a system – canned, homegrown or Internet-based – that comes anywhere close to doing what salespeople really need it to do. But many systems offer these critical features that you should also have:
I use a homegrown system created in Microsoft Access, in combination with Microsoft Outlook, for my e-mail and calendar. It’s clunky in common ways, but slick in complicated ways. So the time I invest manually doing some of the common stuff is compensated when it comes to my mass-marketing efforts. Some day I’ll find a company willing to invest about a million bucks to create a sales-management software system written specifically to make salespeople lightning fast – and I’ll turn that company’s sales team into the most efficient and effective team on the planet. (Hey, a guy can dream.) Backup And Restore Nothing is worse than working on a document or database for hours, days or weeks, and then losing what you created. I’m no expert in backup software, but I am expert enough to know that few pains are greater to a salesperson than to lose his or her contact database, electronic calendar, document templates, contracts, e-mail correspondence and host of marketing material to a computer crash. So whatever you do, devise some method for backing up your data, and then test the restore process to be sure it works. For your critical data, such as current client projects or your book, add an additional level of backup. In addition to my normal backup routines, I created a password-protected folder on my website and have been publishing these book chapters to it about five times per day. Even with all my backup systems, however, I accidentally deleted an entire chapter; luckily, I had it on paper and could retype it. Portable Document Format Files The ability to turn your electronic documents into a portable document format (PDF) file is essential for every salesperson. We live in a get-it-to-me-yesterday world, so you must be capable of turning your newsletters, presentations and other marketing material, not to mention your proposals and contracts, into electronic files that you can attach to an e-mail and send on the spot. (While Adobe Acrobat is the dominant software for producing PDF files, CutePDF is an open-source product that is free and works wonderfully well. In fact, the PDF files used in this article were created using CutePDF. ) Document Creation Tools Here is a list of the basic software used to create the most common documents used for selling and marketing:
The Microsoft Office suite has all these tools, and they are also available in open-source – which is free. (Open-source is a recently exploding software and programming environment that is worth exploring. And you certainly can’t beat the price.) The Internet Internet Access Buy the highest-speed Internet access you can afford, and try to get “always on” access. If the best you can do is your computer modem, then be sure you get a plan that won’t disconnect you every 30 minutes and make you redial. I use cable access with the highest available download speeds. Before I had it installed, I was paying for two dedicated phone lines and two dial-up accounts, at about $80 per month. By having a computer network technician set up a small network, so my computer and my wife’s could both access the same network connection, I was able to get rid of both phone lines and both dial-up accounts when I switched to cable. Now I have always-on access to the Internet at much faster speeds – all for a lower price. Unless it’s simply not possible, use your company’s domain name as the second part of your e-mail address – right after the @ symbol; for instance, Name@CompanyName.com. That way, every time your prospects see an e-mail from you, they’ll see the company’s name as well. If you’re having fun with your elevator speech, such as “I’m the Sign Lady,” then continue the fun by using something like SignLady@CompanyName.com as your e-mail address. (It’s consistency that causes things to be remembered, so put “Sign Lady” on your business cards too, if your boss will let you.) Spam Filters I’ve had the same primary e-mail address since March 2000, so I’m in just about every spam database there is. Only this morning I learned that I could refinance my house to create extra cash, triple that cash with an inside tip about the stock market, get a date with a hot chick who doesn’t care that I’m married, and keep her happy by getting Viagra® off the Internet – and I learned all that just by reading the subject lines of the 256 spam messages that I received since I shut down my computer last night. Unfortunately for me, I’m in the sales profession. So whenever I turn on a spam filter, some of my clients’ and prospects’ e-mails end up in my Delete file, because we’re discussing sales, selling, guarantees, discounts, and so forth. As a result, I have to manually delete about 250 spam messages each morning, and am getting to the point where I have to change my address (at the expense of also having to change all my collateral materials). Still, I’m told by others that spam filters work well for them, so check out this technology. Two additional things, before I move on:
I suppose spam is like death and taxes – there’s no way to avoid it. Auto-Responder Most website-hosting providers include auto-responder technology when you sign up to have your site hosted. This tool responds to e-mail inquiries automatically. If you’ve ever gotten an “I’m on vacation” response from someone you e-mailed, then you’ve seen what an auto-responder can do. I occasionally use an auto-responder for special promotions, especially when I expect a large response or when I’ll be unavailable right after the promotion kicked off. I also use one when I change e-mail addresses, in an attempt to cut down on the spam I receive. I set up my new e-mail address and announce it to my contact list. Then, after a few weeks, I set up an auto-responder on the old address that says, “I’ve changed my e-mail address, because I was getting hundreds of spam messages every day. Please change your records to NewAddress@HonestSelling.com, so I don’t miss any of your mail.” I know that may seem silly, because, in effect, I’m giving my new address to the many people who spam me. But since so few of the return addresses on spam messages are valid, it isn’t a problem. Redirector Website-hosting providers also often provide e-mail redirectors that allow you to use temporary e-mail addresses. For instance, I recently bought some Nike running shoes on-line. So I set up a temporary redirector – called Nike@HonestSelling.com – so that any message I received from Nike at that address would be redirected to my real e-mail address. That way, as soon as I got my shoes and didn’t need to be contacted by Nike for any reason, I was able to delete the redirector and not take the chance that my actual e-mail address got added to yet another list. If you place a “Contact Us” e-mail address on your website, it’s a good idea to use a redirector instead of your real e-mail address, because any e-mail address posted on a website will eventually end up in every spam database on the planet. So whenever you start getting spam sent to the address listed on the site, you can simply change the redirector without having to change your actual e-mail address. List Server A list server is an on-line tool that allows you to hold group discussions via e-mail, and several providers allow you to use their services for free. You set up the group, and people subscribe. When a subscriber sends an e-mail to the group address, a copy of that e-mail is sent to every subscriber – even the person who sent it. I use list servers for client projects all the time, because it makes the conversations public among those who subscribe – everyone on the project team sees what everyone else is doing and saying. I find that type of openness helps get projects done faster and better, because, when people make commitments, they must live up to them or suffer the consequences. It also greatly improves the team’s communication about the project. Website If you’re determined to create your personal brand, than you should consider creating your own website and putting your opinions out there for the world to see. Either figure out how to create a website on your own, or hire a web developer – the expense is well worth the exposure you’ll get when you do it right. Mail Merge A great way to personalize hundreds of e-mail messages (those requested by clients and prospects, not spam), cold-letters, labels and envelopes, without having to write them individually, is to use the mail-merge feature. Whatever word-processing software, contact-management software and e-mail software you choose, make sure you can create a single document and merge it with your database. For example, suppose you are creating a cold-letter using Microsoft Word as the word-processing software and Outlook as the contact-management and e-mail software, and suppose I am one of your prospects. You would create your letter as if you were going to print a single copy. But instead of inserting my contact information manually, you would use mail-merge (see the Tools/Mail Merge menu item in Word) to insert my information into your letter. Once your letter is set up, the address block and salutation would look like the following before- and after-merge examples:
By using mail-merge, you can then merge your letter to the selected prospects in your Outlook contacts file and produce a single, customized letter for each prospect. For e-mail, of course, you wouldn’t use the inside address fields. But you can still use the «First_Name» field to start every e-mail with “Dear [Name],” and create hundreds of customized e-mail messages addressed to individuals. The [Your Name Here] Sales System: Tools Obviously, in addition to the tools I’ve mentioned here, there are thousands of others you might use to become the best salesperson possible. But the most powerful tools in your arsenal will always be the pad of paper and pen. < TOC Previous Chapter Next Chapter > Tired of reading on-line? Buy the book. (All profits support the HSPA’s mission.) |
