At a deeper level its all about first impressions and that means so much more that just what you wear.  It comes down to your grooming, i.e hair, nails, shoes, teeth and then even further into your breath, the watch, the pen the sales compendium (laptop, iPad, flip charts etc).  We really only get one chance to make a first impression so here are my notes on minimising any problems here.

Men, its really simple, go find the most successful sales person in your field and find out what they are wearing.  Its probably a good indication of what you should be wearing.  I was asked by one of my coaches starting out in a country town what he should wear.  I asked him to go see what the top Accountant and top Lawyer were wearing.  To his surprise they both chose to wear a tie and suit!

Your suit should be at least A$1000 in value.  It should be dry cleaned regularly to avoid becoming shiny and hung up after each use.  Make sure its not too flashy, dark colours work best, avoid light grays / browns or heavy pin stripes.  Sports coats, blazers and non matching jackets are out.  So too are double breasted suits, pleats in the front of your pants and baggy or ill fitting suits OUT….

We then get to shoes – this is a big one!  When selling a professional service you have to spend money on your shoes!!  Rubber soled shoes will kill you.  I suggest a min of A$300 per pair, they will last you a long time if looked after.  That means a regular polish, shoe trees, and a re sole every 2000 miles!!

The watch and pen are the same.  Never walk in with your digital watch and plastic pen.  Go invest in a Mont Blanc pen and a half decent watch.  Whether you like it or not, people are judging your appearance and no matter how good you are some people will make a decision based upon what you look like – so make sure you can be liked when people look at you.

The tie – again Italian silk usually does the trick.  If you are wearing a tie that was thrown in as a sweetener at the point of sale – best to use this a a toy for your cat to chase!  Again, you are investing good money here to make more of it for yourself or your company.

Sox, make sure they match, are black and stay up.  Avoid logos, bright colours, writing etc.  My trick is to throw out all socks and go buy 10 pairs of exactly the same sox.  That means I can be guaranteed of finding a pair straight off and when I get dressed even in the dark I am sure I will match.

Shirts.  Keep them simple!, Here are some basic rules.  NO SHORT SLEEVES PLEASE!  White, light blue, slight stripes – checks are all OK.  Throw out all shirts with worn collars or cuffs.  Be conservative with the choice of collar.  French cuffs are in right now with classy cuff links.

Personal grooming comes down to common sense.  Nails clean and cut short.  DO NOT BITE YOUR NAILS!!! Hair, short and sharp.  No comb overs, no long hair, not too much product (gel), watch out for dandruff, just right!  Watch out for nose hair, ear hair and long eye brows.  This can be a shocker after the age of 40!!  You have to keep on top of it.  Female decision makers will see this a mile off.

Accessories, these include man bangles, rings, visible piercings, brief case, laptop, iPad and compendium.  The less the better!! Again, spend money on being professional….

Remember, make sure you have someone look over your style and be prepared to shed the old stuff that doesn’t work and INVEST in your appearance.  Find a style consultant who works your industry.

You only get one chance to make a first impression.

So, two types of sales people, the Hunter and the Farmer, which one are you? The two are about as opposite as night and day! Think about it this way, would you rather answer inbound sales enquiries or go out and talk to people to generate your own enquiries?? Farmers wait for the phone to ring, work in call centres, wait for the fax machine to ring and catch the order before it hits the floor, work in retail where clients walk in or, become client relationship managers.

Hunters usually fend for themselves, generate their own leads, have networks that go where they go, knock on doors, master the phone and email communication tools, ignore rejection and are able to keep plowing on no matter what.

So we have two different animals here….

You get to make your mind up. Clearly the rewards are in proportion to the amount of work / risk that you take. Hunters generally get paid 3 times what Farmers earn!

Of course there are the cross breeds and these are people who have a client base assigned to them and are required to not only manage revenues from that base but also drive new opportunities within the base.

Rem plans reflect the three roles and this is the interesting part. When I recruit Hunters, I offer them three remuneration structures. 1. Comm only 2. A Small base and good comms 3. A high base and low comms. The rem plan options are presented and which ever they choose tells me straight away which of the three they are within themselves. In other words, who they see themselves as. This gets to the answer right off the bat. If someone joins my business as a hunter and chooses the high base/low comms option, this tells me I will have to manager their activity daily until they reach target.

So, which are you? Which are you recruiting? Do your rem plans reflect the role?

I would like to hear your feedback on this issue. If you are employed or employing either way let me have your comments on what works for you.

Here’s what I say when this old gem comes up.

“Well Mr prospect, here’s the funny thing about Christmas.  You are usually rushed off your feet delivering, serving or just coping with the silly season so you have no time but the cash flow is great.  When thing quieten down mid Jan you have lots of time on your hands and the cash dries up, so really there never is a good time to get started”.

When I talk to retailers around this time they are genuinely busy.  I ask them what would happen if we could lift their average $$ sales during the busiest time of the year?  Most times I can justify the investment with that one strategy alone.  With the manufacturing crowd, it’s the best time to plan for the next year while the factory is closed and your pre-Christmas deliveries are complete.

Either way you have to be able to let your clients know that Christmas comes and goes, so too does Thanksgiving, Easter, school holidays, tax time…..  Clients will always find a way to delay the sales process, your job as a professional sales person is to help your client know that whatever it is you are selling will benefit them RIGHT NOW!!!!  Don’t let people off the hook, its your job to control the sales process not theirs.

Recognise that there is always going to be a delay mechanism and make sure you have a comeback or a strong reason as to why they should be buying your product or service right now, otherwise they turn into the dreaded “BEBACK!!

Post me your tough objections and I’ll give you the answers..

Happy closing season.

Aside from con men and compulsive liars, most people become uncomfortable when telling a lie and transmit their deceitful behaviour through their body language. While they may sound convincing, their gestures speak louder than their words. Consequently, they reveal their deceit non-verbally. While it’s not always easy to spot deceptive behaviour, there are many subtle yet discernible clues to the trained eye.

Body language is a mixture of movement, posture and tone of voice. Studies show that nonverbal communication has a much greater impact and reliability than the spoken word. Therefore, if a person’s words are in-congruent with his or her body language gestures, you would be wise to rely on the body language as a more accurate reflection of their true feelings. During the selling process it’s important to remember that body language is not a one-way street. While you’re evaluating your prospect’s body language for signs of honesty and credibility, he or she is subconsciously observing and reacting to your gestures as well.
Some People Can’t Handle the Truth: The truth sometimes hurts and few business or personal relationships could survive the harsh reality of total honesty. While honesty is certainly the best policy, the truth is , that in our day-to-day encounters, it’s not always diplomatic or socially acceptable to be completely honest. To spare the feelings of others, we have learned the usefulness of telling half-truths, fibs and white lies.

During the selling process, some people have difficulty saying “no” and will actually tell you that they are interested in order to avoid potential conflict. As the pressure of making a decision builds, prospects will frequently use half-truths or lies to either stall or disengage from the selling sequence. While their words say “yes,” their body language indicates “no.” By being able to recognise the inconsistency between your prospect’s words and his or her gestures, it is often possible to flush out their concerns, overcome their objections and make the sale.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil: Eye, nose and mouth movement, along with hand gestures, are the four major nonverbal cues typically associated with lying. The statue of the Three Wise Monkeys accurately depicts the primary hand-to-face gestures associated with deceit. When a person is doubtful or lying, they’ll often use their fingers to block their mouth as if they were filtering their words. This hand- to-mouth gesture is commonly referred to as “speak no evil.” The second hand gesture associated with deceit is called “see no evil,” and it occurs when a person rubs or touches his or her eye(s). The third hand gesture “hear no evil” is displayed when a person covers or drills a finger into his or her ear(s).

If people use one of these gestures while they’re talking, it indicates that they are being deceitful. On the other hand, if they are displaying one of these gestures while someone else is talking it indicates that they doubt the truthfulness of what is being said. These three gestures should be considered red flags. When you encounter one of these gestures during your presentation, it is a good idea to gently probe the subject matter with open-ended questions to encourage your prospect to voice his or her concern.
In addition to the three hand-to-face gestures, eye movement is another reliable indication of deceit. It’s normal for a person to look up to his or her left when thinking about the past and up to the right when thinking about the future. If you ask a person a question from his or her past and they look up to their right, they’re making up a response. Law enforcement personnel and customs agents are trained to routinely monitor eye movement during interviews.

Micro Gestures: According to Paul Ekman, professor of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, two of the most common micro gestures that are associated with deceit are the nose wrinkle and the mouth curl. The nose wrinkle is the same gesture that occurs naturally when you smell something offensive. The other facial micro gesture is a slight downward curl of the corners of the mouth. Even liars who make a conscious effort to suppress all of their major body gestures, will still transmit micro gestures. People sometimes lie, but their body language always tells the truth!
Learn to read the signs and you’ll sign more clients….

Thanks to Vic C from ActionCOACH for this info…



I am often asked about the state of the economy as I travel around and present to business owners, I always respond with the same story, one I heard from John McGrath, the real estate mogul from Sydney.  He tells a great story of the time he was invited over to the USA to be the Keynote speaker at a huge Real Estate conference.  The night before the conference got underway they had a social event for attendees and John wanted to mix and mingle with attendees to get a feel for the market before his address the very next day.

He introduced himself to a small gathering of agents and asked – how’s business in your town?  One vocal chap piped up and began to tell him a huge sob story that he lives and works in a town where the main employer was a steel mill and it was in the process of closing down.  No-one had any money and it was doom and gloom for real estate.  He promptly moved across the other side of the huge hall and found another small group and introduced himself.

To his surprise a woman answered his question and she came from the exact same town – imagine!!  He prepared himself for the 5 min onslaught of how tough things were and was pleasantly surprised.  She mentioned again that the steel mill was closing down, however this is where things started to be different.  She said things had never been better, people had large redundancy cheques to spend, they had all the time in the world to look at open homes and sales were very strong.  Interesting – same town totally different outlook!!!

This is my point.  Others may tell you that the picture doesn’t look so good, what are you doing about it? what is your outlook? what are you doing to take advantage of the situation?  What is on your control and how can you do things to turn things around??

There always two stories – which one do you want to be telling??

The hardest working sales guys and gals get real good at some of the old Tom Hopkins objection handling techniques like, apart from the price, is there anything else stopping you going ahead today? They have a repertoire of objection handling responses up their sleeves to turn the sales situation around in their favour. To me this is the old style sales process and things have moved on since the 70′s, 80′s and 90′s where these tactics may well have worked.

Modern sales is not about painting someone into a corner, it’s about following a process whereby people understand what is about to happen, are kept in the process and comfortable with the process right from the “get go”. I have blogged previously about Intention statements and making sure that your prospect is clear about the process. Your process (sales system or scripts) then need to be designed to overcome and deal with all the objections possible.

What I mean is, firstly you need to sit with your team and list out all the objections possible. Your sales team have been dealing with these for years and will be able to recite them straight off the cuff. Then go about building your sales process such that you proactively deal with each objection. If you deal with these up front then the decision at the end is real simple. In other words your close rate will increase as you are no longer dealing with objections at the end, you have covered them right the way through the presentation.

So, get to it, start looking at all the objections you get and then build them into your sales process…..

In doing so I have come to the conclusion that although their sheds are nice looking, their web sites are full of great pics – they have no idea how to sell and have all, without exception, made one of the worst mistakes possible in sales.

So far I have 4 quotes on my home office desk, they all have their elevation drawings, a list of specifications, a comprehensive list of inclusions and exclusions etc.  What I have noticed is that they are not easy to read and have been set out to look like a spec sheet for a builder rather than a quote for a layman.  These quotes have all been sitting on my desk for over 4 weeks and – NOT ONE FOLLOW UP CALL!!!!!!!

How stupid is that?  Not one of them has bothered to call me to ask if I have any questions, would I like some help, would I like to clarify anything, WOULD I LIKE TO GO AHEAD???? This stuns me every time.  Our economy is sluggish at best right now, you would think they had the wherewithal to pick up the damned phone and talk to me!

Now in many situations the “office girl” answered the phone and went through a series of logical questions.  I’m not being sexist here, this is a classic mistake that small businesses make, put the receptionist on the phone so I can go out and do the work, what they do not realise is that she is not equipped to SELL on the phone, a skill set she was not employed I am sure.  These logical questions are designed so they can put out a quote to “cover” themselves on all the issues important to them, not me, the one buying. I was not asked about the compelling reason for wanting the shed, do you have a budget in mind, have you seen a shed you like, time frame, etc…..  They just answered my questions and sent me through the quote.

So, promise me this one thing, if you are selling and you have to put out a quote – DON’T.  Send out a plan of action, a series of events and time frames that are required to happen, who is responsible for doing what, how the plan will be managed, and oh, by the way, in order to do all this it will be $XXXX.

Here is an example.

Dear Si, thanks for giving us the opportunity to provide you with a brand new triple garage for you and your growing family.  We want to be able to give you the best solution for the whole Harris clan and to that end have sent you our plan of action to make this happen to meet your time frame.

Now, if price were the only thing worth considering when selecting your shed builder then you probably won’t work with us.  Here are the top seven reasons why our clients build sheds with us.  (List them, such as an on time guarantee, keeping the site clean and tidy, keeping you informed, project management….)  List your time frames step by step showing who is responsible for doing what during the job and then give them the price…..

Let your prospect see why they should deal with you and then the “price” objection starts to fade away to its rightful spot in the decision-making process – about fourth most important….

Most important of all – FOLLOW UP!!!!  Call them 2 – 3 days after the quote goes out, find out who else is in the mix, have they sent through their quote yet, talk through the differences, answer questions, temperature check…. You may as well, because no-one else will bother!!!

Questions is – do you generate the lead yourself or outsource it to someone else?

My plain and simple answer is this – do it yourself first, find out how hard it is, find out how to overcome objections, write simple scripts for every situation, develop simple ways to get through gatekeepers, have strong openings, powerful questions etc….

Once you have mastered this then and only then can you outsource this primary function. Get good at it whether it be cold calling in person or on the phone, following a direct mail piece, or a seminar attendee. I mastered the phone such that I could generate 2 qualified leads per hour. 21 calls to get to 2 people who were willing to see me face to face. When I bought on my first telemarketer I set the KPI at 1 lead per hour. I had the scripts, I could train each telemarketer effectively and efficiently.

Of course my conversion rate dropped to start, however I was able to get to three times more appointments in a given week as I was not having to spend so much time on the phone qualifying!!!

For me, the most effective short-term strategy for generating leads is still the phone unless you have mastered or started down the track of social media and this will be the subject of a subsequent post on this blog.

Feel free to add comments below, I am limiting the number of comments to just 25 and will add a summary of the best points here on lead generation.

The intention statement is critical to the entire sales process, it outlines what is to take place in the time you have both set aside so that the prospect is clear and it helps to reduce any anxiety that the prospect may have around sales or any fear of a pressure sales environment.   The intention statement is broken into four sections,

1. Ask permission to outline the session
2. Outline the session
3. Two options to reduce pressure
4. OK to proceed.

So here is the intention statement I use in my diagnostic process.

[Name], is it OK if I outline how we want to invest our time together today?  Great, first I would like to ask you a bunch of questions about your business to get to know in more detail the base that you are working from, we will cover any goals you might have, the direction you are heading, the team you have here  …  .  I will also get to some of the frustrations you may have in the business.

Once I have a much better understanding of these issues I will take you through a quick presentation of what it is we do, how we work with clients, the things we cover, the programs we offer and so on.

Now at the end of this presentation you will be left in one of two places.

Either this is a great idea and you want to get started straight away, and my advice would be that if you see something you like grab it and let’s get going… or this is not for you for what ever reason and I will let you know at this point that this program is not right for everyone so it is OK if it is not right for you.

So is it OK if we go through this morning like that.

By setting the picture up front, I don’t let them “think about it” as an option.

Are you letting people off the hook?

Just 2 weeks after the op, so many things had changed, his hearing was improving, his sight was sharpening, his taste was returning and his overall wellbeing was vastly improved.  What he had not realised that for 3 and a half years since he was first diagnosed, his body was slowly shutting down, in fact it was so slow that he had hardly noticed.  This is what I call imperceptible drift.

It was not until he had the new lease of life that he really noticed just how far he had drifted from “normal” operations.

So what does this have to do with business?  Ill tell you what: your business has an imperceptible drift, it is drifting and you don’t see it as you are living with it each and every day.  Slowly slowly, your business drifts, your invoicing, your customer service, your quality, your staff attitudes and so much more.  Now it may not be that your business is actually drifting from its standards but something else might be drifting and you might not be noticing.  Your competitors improving or offering new services or service levels, the market shifting ie.e going more online, the economy and interest rates are just a few examples.

What I find as a Coach when I first approach a new client is that, almost without fail, the business owner has an inflated view of his / her business and the way it is performing.  Benchmarks to me are historical only a numerical view of how others are doing, they do not measure the intangible service offerings.  We give an outsiders view of how the business is going compared with dozens of other industry types.

DOES YOUR BUSINESS NEED A HEART TRANSPLANT? Or are you going to be a donor?

Do you need an outsiders view how just how well you are doing?  What would a major transplant do for your business?

By the way, my friend is doing awesome, the new heart is going strong and he improves daily.  Looks like he will last a whole lot more winters thanks of course to the donor!!!