What’ New with us:

It’s June and we are still working on this darn webs site stuff! Oh well, good stuff is worth waiting for. Check out the web site at www.hgoergerassoc.com or www.reverseengsales.com and don’t forget Business Architects at www.itstartswithyou.org . You will find all of our programs with information on each, personnel profiles and more to come each week as we add on to the sites.

You can also view all the past News Letters on the site and feel free to download, print off or forward the links to others on your team. Share the info!

Selling Skills for the Month:

We will continue with the Mastery of the 5 Levels of Questioning from last month. When I conduct sales training most groups agree that they only work within levels 1,2 & 3 and mostly in levels 1-2. When asked what type of obstacles they find in their market place, it generally falls into price, competition, no need and no want! Does this sound familiar?

On the other hand, once the sales person gets into the 4-5 level with their customer, these obstacles seem to disappear. Why is that?

First let’s look at how most sales people are viewed by the customer. Are they a nuisance, taking up time; are they an interruption; or are they viewed as a value added service? So already we have resistance to overcome.

We need to be different then our competition or we become just another one of those! How can we do this? By being different in the way we interact with our customers. By exploring with our customers and using the 4-5 level questions, we are different than 90% of our competitors! And guess what, it does not cost us a dime of investment!

So how do we develop these 4-5 level questions? First let’s not focus on our product, rather focus on the results of the product. Take a review of February newsletter and "Reverse Engineer" a product. This will get you focused on the results of your product instead of the product itself.

Now create open questions using how, why, what and tell me to get your customer talking about how they could use the results of your product. Write these out and keep rewriting them to get them more precise and direct. Avoid diarrhea of the mouth.

Once you have several written out, take a look at the words in the question. If there are words that still point to your product, take them out and rewrite the question again. This time focus on the customers view and what the results might do for them in a broader view. You are now in the 3^rd level and going towards the 4^th and 5^th.

Now ask yourself, “How would I find out what this customer’s values are?” Create an open question that you think might do this, and then rewrite it in several different forms. You will soon find some very strong questions you can use.

Now ask yourself, “How would I find out what motivates this customer?” Create open questions that you think might do this, and rewrite them in several different forms. You have now created questions in the 4^th and 5^th level and they have nothing to do with your product! But they do have everything to do with your customers and how they see, think and decide.

Gee, that sounds like work! Yes it is, the most valuable work a salesperson can do, developing one of the strongest tools in their tool box. Investing an hour in developing questions in the 4^th and 5^th level can significantly increase your closing ratio!! After all, what would you do with all the extra cash?

Management Skills for the Month:

Last month we talked about coaching sales people, how do we apply that to a non-sales situation? In all areas of business there are processes and systems that people follow. The key is to look at these and boil them down to the real issues that get the desired results. Once we have these “key” issues isolated in the system, we can create a picture of the skills needed to move through the system and get the results desired.

Let’s say we are in manufacturing and have some floor people that are not quite making the grade. The process they are using has several steps to making a high quality product in a set time period. We break the process down to its basic steps and ask what skills and attitudes are needed to carry out these steps. Once we have the skills isolated we can compare this to our marginal performers. Which skills do they exhibit and execute, which do they need work on? We can then examine their learning style and develop a coaching plan for each person.

With this personalized coaching plan in hand we can discuss what we see and plan to do with them. It is important that we have them buy into the needs and plan. How can we do this? See the sales skills in this and last two newsletters on questioning. We need them to verbalize the need and willingness to make the needed changes. IF we can not get their buy in, it may be career change time! Now we can implement the coaching plan and measure the progress of each person. If progress is made you can end up with a productive employee. If no progress, have a very frank discussion, revamp the coaching plan and if still no results determine if this is the right person in the right position!

This takes some good communications and people skills which come with practice or training.

Food for the Attitude:

Continuing with this “self-perception” idea, how does one determine their self-perception and change it?

First let me ask you this, does your performance tend to be the same month after month? Do you seem to be in a comfort zone that provides you a consistent performance each month?

If you’re in sales, have you had a month that looked like you were going to set a new record only to have the last week fall apart and end up at the same previous level? Have you had situations that looked like break through for you only to have something happen and bring you down to the same performance level as before?

This may be your “self-perception” ceiling holding you back. Subconsciously you see yourself at a performance level of 5 on a scale of 0-10. You begin to perform at a 6 or 7 level during the month and your “self-perception” says, “You don’t belong there”. Now the subconscious takes over and stupid things start happening to bring your performance down to a 5. Review those times that seemed like you could break through and what happened to keep you from going beyond the norm. You may find that it was self-sabotage.

If this is true, what do you do?

Your first step is to take a good look in the mirror and ask who that person looking back really is! What could this person really become? What do they want to become? Now start talking positively about that person becoming that new level of person. Continually feed that image positive affirmations and positive images of itself. For more on this read books such as “Think and Grow Rich”, anything by Wayne Dwyer, Leo Buscaglia, Norman Vincent Peal and of course Zig Ziglar.

Interesting Info for You:

“ Buddha once made an incredible statement. He said, “The less you have, the less you have to worry about.” Everyone says,”Oh yes, that’s true.” Yet we collect and we collect and we collect. We have things in our cupboards we haven’t we used in a thousand years. The dishes Aunt Matilda brought over on the Mayflower-put them out! It is an insult to the person who made them to keep them locked in cupboards. Use them-that’s what they were made for, too. Nothing is forever.”

Leo Buscaglia, Living, Loving & Learning

Till next month, It Starts With You, to make it a great day!!!

Harlan Goerger