Do you please your boss and your company by keeping your morality hostage in favour of getting the deal in? Are your sales techniques in line with what you would expect and appreciate as a customer?

Some individuals have no problem with lying or cheating when it comes to sales. Take this story on Watchdog on the BBC.

While this moronic individual is in double glazing sales, professional sales people telling professional lies and cheating others are just as commonplace now. In fact, double glazing probably now has the least unscrupulous sales people given the spotlight that has been firmly fixed on the industry for a number of years. Your friendly banker, accountant or customer service representative is just as likely to sell you into something that you don’t want. Scripts are getting smarter and true reasons for the call are more hidden.

A few of the arguments for ethical selling:
1. You have less to remember if you are always saying the truth
2. You will have to deal with more customers with post-purchase unrest if you sell unethically
3. If you don’t sell ethically you will have that horrible little feeling in the pit of your stomach that can only be quenched with alcohol.

One of our ongoing ethical sales training assignments is with the Association of International Property Professionals. Founded in 2006, the AIPP aims to clean up the international property scene. This means that consumers have extra reassurance when they buy a property in Belarus when they buy off an AIPP member.

The AIPP approached us to present a 4 hour session on ethics and we designed this, a workshop that aimed to motivate and inspire agents to do the right thing. We didn’t want it to be a moralistic finger pointing exercise, and over 18 months the feedback suggests we got it right – lots of interactivity and ways to apply it to your world.

So what constitutes ethical sales training?

Well the crux of ethical sales is a bit of a variation of the old biblical favourite “Do onto others as you would have others do unto you.” The sales version therefore is “Sell unto others as you would be sold to”.

There are three things you really have to know/do to sell ethically:

a. A great starting point is consultation, where you show an interest in customers by asking questions and listening intently. This is a nice and ethical way to make clients feel loved.
b. Buyer collaboration – even better, where you sit on the (virtual or real) side of the customers desk and work on problems together. Hard to be unethical when sitting on the right side of the desk. To collaborate effectively you need to be empathetic and inclusive. “How can we go about solving this particular problem?” would be
c. Buyer facilitation – this is the top territory in ethical and productive sales really work, according to experts on Wikipedia. You are now the “go-to” sales person and confidant who is relied on

Naturally, if you would like some training that helps you to focus on developing or refreshing an ethical (yet really effective) sales culture give us a call on 08700635485.

Sometimes sales success is about connecting with someone on a human level and being interested enough to find out what your potential prospect wants, needs and desires. Most people are benefit seekers – the “good” - first and foremost. This also implies that for every benefit sought there is an opposite “bad”.

What is a “good” or a “bad” depends upon two things:

1. Our perception of what is “good” and “bad” and
2. Whether we have it or do not have it

Using these two basic factors we can begin to draw up a basic understanding of human benefit seeking behaviours.

Protection: If people have a “good” they want to keep it.

Relief: If people have a “bad” they want to get rid of it.

Acquisition: If people don’t have not a “good” they want to get it

Prevention: If people don’t have a “bad” they want to avoid it

The thing is, we as humans tend to have all four going on at the same time. It is up to the skilled seller to try and appeal to the parts relevant to the prospect.

Here’s a tip: pair two elements together for added punch i.e – acquisition and relief, or, protection and prevention. Advertisers and marketers manage it quite well. Think of all of the adverts for products like Night Nurse, Lemsip and Anvil. They generally stress the pain of the current ‘illness’ and then show a process of acquisition of their product which leads to the relief of the pain.

So how do we appeal to the four categories?

Protection:

Most products or services that appeal to protection are sold as a means to protect our possessions. One of the first things we did when we set up Natural Training in 2004 was to invest in online data storage. We needed our precious sales training materials and upcoming product ideas, such as our Negotiation Training ,so we chose a product called Carbonite that spoke to us both in terms of strength (protective name and imagery) and ease (relief). Was it worth it?

You bet. Three weeks after finalising the system our server crashed with the loss of all data.

That also raises another interesting question which I will answer in a later blog post about the perceived value of ‘intangible purchases’

Your tasks:

a. Watch how others do it: When you are watching the telly hone your skills to work out which quadrant the ads are in and look out for protection ads using words like:

keep, save, protect, maintain, take care of, safeguard, own, retain, hold, support, sustain, uphold, endure and last longer.

b. If relevant to your product or service, give it a try! You don’t have to over-egg the pudding, just try adding some extra thoughts and feelings that relate to the need all of us have to protect ourselves, our things and those around us!

If you want to know how to appeal to relief, acquisition and prevention then look out for my next blog posts.

See if you can weave one or more of these into your next presentation!

(My favourite is definitely number 67).

1 Discombobulate
2 Conker
3 Crevice
4 Akimbo
5 Spigot
6 Tumescent
7 Spool
8 Stegophilist
9 Tmesis
10 Papoose
11 Indolent
12 Behoove
13 Concatenation
14 Caboodle
15 Herbage
16 Kerfuffle
17 Unitard
18 Rambunctious
19 Collops
20 Lambent
21 Truculent
22 Cheroot
23 Slew
24 Cudgel
25 Susurrus
26 Scamper
27 Plinth
28 Kiosk
29 Mollusc
30 Baulk
31 Unctuous
32 Crux
33 Stultify
34 Kazoo
35 Somnambulist
36 Threnody
37 Teleost
38 Soporific
39 Finagle
40 Trounce
41 Rhythm
42 Hoodwink
43 Palimpsest
44 Behemoth
45 Flange
46 Funicular
47 Flap
48 Denude
49 Persiflage
50 Nibble
51 Fo’c’s’le
52 Frippery
53 Moot
54 Scintillate
55 Uppity
56 Serendipity
57 Spatula
58 Crapulent
59 Spatchcock
60 Dollop
61 Palpate
62 Ooze
63 Farrago
64 Strumpet
65 Flummox
66 Kagoul
67 Brouhaha
68 Phantasmagoria
69 Badinage
70 Plimsoll
71 Desuetude
72 Pupiparous
73 Ukulele
74 Jamboree
75 Punnet
76 Crepuscular
77 Poltroon
78 Cleat
79 Haberdashery
80 Flabbergast
81 Foible
82 Ludic
83 Supine
84 Bumptious
85 Syzygy
86 Oleaginous
87 Hoglet
88 Lobster
89 Costermonger
90 Bibulous
91 Rootle
92 Jonquil
93 Smidgeon
94 Lissom
95 Burlap
96 Blimp
97 Lackadaisical
98 Ptarmigan
99 Husk
100 Skedaddle

Recruiting sales people can be fraught with danger. The main reason for this is that they worked out what you want to hear and are pretty good at selling themselves. Others may have two or three things going for them and you make allowances, hoping that training and experience will plug the skills or behavioural gaps.

One of our trainers Fred told me of a simple and effective way of potential recruits into your sales team. It is the KASH profile. KASH stands for Knowledge, Attitude, Skills and Habits. If you use this as a recruitment guide, designing questions for each part, then you will increase your chances of hiring the right person for the sales role.

Knowledge: some industry knowledge, or hopefully product knowledge is essential. A great question in this category is simply: “What do you know about us?” If the sales person hasn’t researched your website then it is a sure guide that they won’t demonstrate this behaviour when prospecting.

Attitude: Sales people tend to have a strong desire to succeed. The good ones are competitive. They may view themselves as the underdog - the streetfighter who relies on guile and hard work to match it with the “university set”. They see sales as the quickest way to reach their income goals, and will often picture themselves surrounded by luxury. I like sales people to want large amounts of money, so a good question is “What are your income goals for the next 1, 3, and 5 years?”. The ideal answer is a big number, but not so big that they haven’t given thought to how they might achieve it. Other good attitudinal indicators can be aound time management, commission, when they were last in a competitive situation and how positive they are about your product or industry.

Skills: The core skills needed for great sales people are questioning, listening, clear messaging and writing. So test these during your interview. For example, if they waffle and take too long to find the point in their job interview then chances are they will do that on the phone to prospective clients. If you mention an aspect of a job (maybe a small list of things) and they can’t relay those back to you later in the interview, then maybe their listening skills aren’t great. But the best question is simply this: “What skills do you have that make you great at selling?” A great indicator of their writing ability is of course how they put together their CV.

Habits: Great habits or behaviours for sales people tend to be around how they structure and plan their days, their experience and desire to cold call, their sales results and their priorities. The best sales people don’t want to get caught up in non-productive activities, so they will be interested in your systems and how you clear paths for them to spend more time selling.

You can also use the KASH profile for reviews of your current team. There are specific training activities to boost all four of these areas - just ask us if you need a hand or some suggestions.

There are some common threads with the great storytellers I know, in corporate and personal life:

a. Storytellers usually have some sort of basic structure. Structure is something audiences know well in their subconscious. Think of the opposite of structure: it is a bit like watching a confusing movie that never seems to go anywhere. At the very least all good stories should have a start, middle and end. You can add transitions (sometimes called bridging) to each section to maintain the flow, which pleases audiences greatly.

b. Storytellers all have a confident, assured delivery. Great eye contact, a calm measured pace and relaxed posture all help.

c. Storytellers can all think on their feet, to freshen stories up. Sometimes it’s the “ad libbing” that really brings a story to life. This is especially true when it comes to involving the audience along the way. A nod to audience members (”John you will relate to this bit”) can work wonders for audience attention.

d. Humour plays a strong part. It seems the ability to laugh at yourself is a safe and simple way to give the audience a laugh.

e. It seems that great storytellers have an in-built filing system in their memory that they are able to call upon readily for relevant stories. If you imagine that your memory is a search engine, then you can assign key words to each story for easy recall.

f. Although they may not admit it, great storytellers will run through a story out loud or think it through in detail before first telling it. It is this practice that makes the story work.

Some of these above common threads are easier to learn than others. The bottom line is that the story must have relevance to the subject matter. Sometimes stories really don’t hit the mark in terms of proving a point or supporting the presentation, and that’s why they fall flat.

Interested in your feedback or any further thoughts.

We have seen about 4000 presentations in the past three years. Here are the top six reasons why they tend not to have the impact they need, in reverse order:

6. Worshipping at the altar of PowerPoint

Too many people stare at PowerPoint rather than maintaining eye contact, and therefore diaglogue, with the audience.

Recently we trained a global logistics company in presentation skills. There was one problem common to everyone: their presentations all suffered because of their use of PowerPoint. They were stilted in speech, turned their back on the audience and let the screen take over the presentation.

We banned the use of PowerPoint in the second day of the training and by the end the audience was receiving lots of eye contact and we felt the presenter was actually establishing a connection with us. Most of the people vowed that they will greatly reduce their dependence on PowerPoint. We’re not calling for the abolishment of PowerPoint (yet), just its correct use. Seth Godin has an excellent PDF called Really Bad PowerPoint - you can get it for free here

5. Too many features, not enough benefits

Whether explaining something to a group, selling a product or producing a project update, most presentations are feature-heavy. “And another thing, and another thing…”. Benefits are much better than features as they make your presentation personally relevant for the audience. For example: A new HR Intranet is a feature, but the benefit of this is that each employee will save up to a day a year by not relying on paper based HR applications and forms.

4. Not enough examples

Examples are a brilliant way to help your audience understand and buy into your message or vision. The problem is when we present we tend to either forget or undervalue examples. There are always room for more. For example recently I heard a presentation from a key account manager at http://www.totaljobs.com/ talking about the various packages they offer employers. The presentation wasn’t bad, but was devoid of examples, and as such didn’t give the audience anything to sink their teeth into. The newly revised presentation loaded with examples was brilliant.

3. Talking about yourself

Sorry if I’m the first to let you know this, but audiences are typically bored by: the history of your company, how many locations you have, your structure, too much about why you are different, too much background to various projects - and anything else that doesn’t benefit them. If you must mention this sort of stuff, make it a minor part of your presentation or keep it for a handout/question time. Talk about the audience more and yourself less.

2. Drawing attention to your mistakes

If you make a mistake, the probability is the audience didn’t notice it. The probability becomes a certainty however when you draw attention to it. Just move on. No need to apologise, particularly about “hopeless technology, it always lets you down doesn’t it?” (yawn).

1. Cheesy company phrases

You deliver on your brand promise, your people are your greatest asset, you have value-add solutions, you’re an agent of change (possibly a pioneer) and you are looking for synergies given that you are largely mission-driven.

Leave out the cheese and tell us what you really mean! Bring some personality to your presentation. For example, if people really are your greatest asset, then tell us about what makes them great: “Rachel personally drove to Manchester one night to help a client prepare their financial statements” says a lot more about your people.

Way back in OMP #6 I talked about the importance of a transferable presentation message. Today I would like to touch upon something a bit similar: the concept of usable presentations.

Usability is a bit of a buzzword in internet and technology. It describes the target market’s comfort level about finding the information they need without getting lost, confused or frustrated. The concept of usability inspired today’s OMP because I find that sometimes we don’t make our presentations very usable for our audience. In other words, if the audience can’t put the information you give them to good use, they are likely to switch off and forget all about it.

How do you ensure your presentations are usable?

1) Work on your messaging
Good communicators cut down messages to bare bones. They strip out the fat and leave bite sized portions of mental protein. By cutting away excess words, you give your audience maximum chance of remembering your messages, and passing them on in a useable way to others.

In 2006 some journalists at a press conference asked Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco’s CEO, about the secret of Tesco’s success. “It’s frighteningly simple”, said Sir Terry. “Staff keep satisfying customers. Customers keep coming back.”

Sir Terry could probably have spent two hours answering that question, such is the man’s knowledge of the organisation. But he made his message usable for the audience - in this case journalists who needed a simple grab for the nightly news. And the message made over 70 financial publications, so it worked.

2) Ask the audience
Ask the following to the audience prior to the presentation: “How can I ensure that my presentation is as useful as possible for everyone present today?”

3) Simple steps
People respond well to simple steps and accessible plans. Make your presentation usable by spelling out the 1-5 simple things that the audience has to act upon.

Having a presentation that not only comes across well, but can be used by the audience, will be your key to presentation success.

From time to time I see an outstanding presentation, and I want to share one with you today. It’s by a bloke called Lawrence Lessig. To view it, click here and choose the flash presentation: you can continue reading while it loads.

Why does this presentation stand out from the rest? There are two reasons:

1. Lessig gives us a lesson in PowerPoint

Lessig doesn’t simply put word lists up on the screen like many of us tend to do. Instead he makes the screen jump to life by highlighting key thoughts and words and mixing them up with relevant graphics. A really tasty and interesting way to present on PowerPoint.

2. Lessig presents a winning argument

He calls it the “refrain”. Others might call it an agenda. I like to think of it as an argument. When a presentation lacks an argument it lacks impact. When a strong argument is presented, backed up by irrefutable evidence, you have a persuasive, winning presentation.

The big problem out there with a lot of presentations is that they appear to the listener to be a loosely bundled collection of facts (features). Which is why audiences tend to drift in and out.

Before your next presentation, try and find your argument. Before collecting all the usual data ask yourself what you think of the problem or situation in front of you. What do you truly believe? Why should the audience do what you want them to do?

When you are competing for time, money, audience attention, new business or other resources it isn’t a matter of “best collection of facts win”. It is a case of “the strongest argument wins”.

Strong arguments win hearts, elections and business. For your next presentation try elbowing your way out of the world of bland and dry facts, and instead run with a strong, thought provoking argument.

Yet, sales doesn’t have to be complicated. It is in fact simple - when you get the basics right.

It is said that most concepts in life can be broken down into two simple steps. For example, the two steps to boxing is:

1) Hit, and
2) Avoid getting hit.

From there it’s simply a matter of doing those two basics better than anyone else. The same goes for sales. Here are the two simple steps:

1) Gather valuable information
2) Solve a problem

If you do those two things better than anyone else on the prospect’s radar, you will win the business.

Let’s have a closer look at how you go about doing this:

1. Gather valuable information
There are two types of information you can gather on a client:

a. Information in the public domain

Sales peak performers will take the time to research key facts about a company that will help them to understand what the company is up to. The main areas of a website we recommend are company reports (if a public company - particularly the exec summary at the front); the about us page; a blog if they have one and most importantly their people page.

If you can get an understanding of the person you are about to call (try googling their name) then that is the best information you can get. You might even find your dad is at the same rowing club! Don’t forget Dale Carnegie’s famous words “There is no sound as sweet to another person as their own name.”

b. Information not in the public domain

While public domain information is useful, its use is diminished by the fact that your competitors will also have access to it. A better way to gather information is via strategic questioning skills. Questioning skills are highly undervalued by most salespeople - yet they are simply the most important skill a sales person can have.

What do you think of someone who asks you a stupid question? (No need to answer that out loud). Now what do you think of someone who asks you a professional, intelligent question? Society rates very highly people who are able to ask intelligent questions. Look to the world of UK entertainment (Michael Parkinson), journalism (Jeremy Paxman) and psychology (Paul Britton) if you are in any doubt about this.

The better we can get at asking professional, credible questions the more prospective clients will value us, appreciate that we are not calling from a call centre and give us their time more readily.

In order to build your skills, try some training - all of our sales workshops have a strong questioning focus.

2. Solve a problem
We all have business problems. Here are mine: we need to put up a whiteboard and can’t find the time, we need at least one more dedicated telesales person and can’t afford the time to interview, I need a new colour printer but don’t trust the printer market anymore after being let down a few times; I need to completely re-write our website but can’t find the time to write a good brief to give an web designer; and I find it hard to find the time to keep my blog up to date.

You have your own problems. So do your prospects. Everyone does. The key to selling (after you have gathered the right information) is to solve problems. This means articulating the solution in exact terms that are going to thrill (not just mildly please) the prospect. It also means focusing just on their specific problem, and not talking about all the other wonderful ways you can help them one day in the future (prospects don’t like that, they want to go on a date before getting married).

Steps to solving a problem:

1. Recap in strong, spoken words their situation. Paraphrase if you want, but try not to lose meaning, or twist things your way. This shows great active listening skills.

2. Focusing just on their one single problem work out the best way to solve it using your resources. If you can’t, source another supplier who can. It will only take 10 minutes but your prospect will love you for it.

3. Present your solution to them without waffling. Don’t confuse the sale like so many sales people do every day. Your prospect doesn’t necessarily need to hear how global you are, or your wonderful account management model. Your job is to clear paths and make it simple to say “yes”. Tip: If there are more than 3 things for them to do to get to “yes” then you need to simplify it. Many sales can be lost because of the complicated process to get the account under way.

Again we run workshops that help with this. Our spoken presentation skills workshops are all about focusing on your key messages and articulating them to the client with the aim of great clarity and creating understanding.

Conclusion
Sales doesn’t have to be complicated. You will absolutely make more sales if you focus on being the best you can be at gathering information and solving problems. Continually working on these basic yet crucial two steps will ensure a brilliant selling career.

Selling is considered a reasonably complex area and everyone seems to have different opinions on what makes a successful salesperson. A search with the keyword “sales” in the books section on Amazon this morning revealed 18, 234 titles dedicated to the subject. That’s a lot of analysis and advice to soak up.

During our workshops we break down the barriers to successful selling, bringing it down to a few simple concepts. The message is always the same: if you get the basics right then you’re 90% of the way there. The secret therefore is getting the basics right.

One of the sales basics is understanding buyer behaviour. It seems to make sense - how can we sell if we don’t understand how our target market buys? Yet it is surprising how few salespeople really examine their buyers - how they act and respond, how much thinking time they like, how they source their information and what’s involved in making a decision.

Quite often I find there’s a disconnect between the salesperson’s own buyer behaviour and that of their market. For example recently during a workshop I asked a frustrated salesman (”David”) whether he had made any major purchases lately, and if so to tell me what happened.

David said that he he had recently purchased a new laptop and from his initial desire to delivery it took exactly 70 days. During that time he researched the products, sourced different quotes, popped into Dixons for a demo, and asked a few friends about what they thought about three of his top choices. One of his friends turned out to be a bit of a laptop geek, and he received impartial, valuable advice that he appreciated. After that he checked his bank balance and put it on hold for nearly a month, received a bonus towards the end of the next month, did another search, found the same model cheaper, then purchased it.

Then we analysed how David sold his services (catering solutions for schools). He established a shortlist of schools in his catchment area, picked up the phone, booked a meeting, pitched his company and then called every week for the next few months expecting a decision. He admitted to sometimes pressurising his market, giving them strict time periods or they would miss out. He also admitted that he never really provides any more information to them than his company credentials.

Therein lies the disconnect. David was expecting others to buy in a different way to how he enjoyed buying.

The biblical golden rule in life is probably “do unto others as they would do unto you”. The sales twist to that is to “sell unto others as you would be sold to.”

Appreciating this and truly understanding how your market buys is one of the keys to sales success.