Are you a sales representative for a small business that sells in the B2B environment, but doesn’t have the luxury of a strong brand, huge marketing budgets or a 100+ year history of success to label your company a “least-risk” vendor? If you are, you’re not alone, but I have good news for you.

Perhaps you even said something like “XYZ Company, one of the largest organizations we compete with, has locked that enormous account up so it’s not worth my time to chase it.” I know I have – but I was all wrong and let me tell you why it’s definitely worth going after large accounts within your target markets (as well as government entities, if appropriate):

• Larger, longer-term contracts make your cash flow and revenue more predictable.
• Fewer, but more valuable, contracts enable you to construct a stable business built on true core competencies.
• Your overhead is often lower when you are strategic about the accounts you pursue. A new contract will benefit from the systems and personnel dedicated to an existing agreement. Depending on your margin structure, supporting a large account may cost as much as supporting a smaller one.
• Enterprise-wide growth can be tremendous. A piece of business with one unit or division of a large company can lead to opportunities in other areas of the organization you may not even target initially.
• There’s huge potential for referral-based business. A recommendation from an executive at a giant corporation is worth its weight in gold!

Now, based on these 5 points, I urge you to take a careful look at your 2010 sales strategy and commit yourself and your sales team to developing a plan to open at least one large account for every seven smaller ones. Find out how you can win those larger accounts by reading my latest book, Playing Bigger Than You Are; it outlines strategies you can use to sell to corporate giants. To learn more and find out where you can order your book, visit: www.PlayingBiggerThanYouAre.com.

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It’s no secret that Social Networking is at the center of Web 2.0. In fact, if you don’t watch it, social networking can become addictive, not to mention time-consuming! Every day I’m surprised at the number of old friends and non-business contacts whom I’ve completely forgotten about and who have re-entered my life by asking to “Friend” me on Facebook.com. Couple that with taking the time to examine and respond to all of the discussions going on within the LinkedIn groups I’m a member of and my day can slip away before I know it.

At any rate, from the standpoint of using social networking with the intent of growing your business, there are many ways to leverage the increasing number of social networking sites. I really want this blog post to focus on Facebook.com, though.

LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc. are great tools to use to connect to prospects and clients within a business context; however, I personally believe that Facebook is most appropriately used within the context of the user’s personal life. It’s a way to connect with old friends, let people know what you’re up to and really to share what’s going on in your personal life.

Here’s an analogy to consider: trying to “Friend” a client on Facebook might be something like inviting yourself to that client’s weekend backyard BBQ! There’s a place and time for business and a place and time for outside interests and I don’t think that showing up at your client’s house on the weekend to try to sell your products or services is the right venue for business to happen.

My advice: save your attempts at growing your professional network for LinkedIn and other professionally-oriented social networking sites and DON’T try to “Friend” your clients on Facebook.

Thank you to the people who responded to the question above. All great insights. Congratulations to the winner, Rick Thomas! We will be sending you a copy of “How To Sell At Margins Higher Than Your Competitors,” by Bill Brooks & Larry Steinmetz.

The image above is a very simple representation of the timeless sales truth that buyers – when they are able to see the true value of a product or service to themselves or their organization – will pay full price or fee (within reason, of course). And if they don’t have the budget, it’s been my experience that they will work as hard as they need to in order to find the money.

As simple as the image above is, I think it serves as a fun reminder that the more value sales professionals create in the mind of their prospects or customers, the less the chance of price becoming an issue will be.

One of the comments below by CL Meyer comes directly from a concept we teach in our High IMPACT Selling® Sales Training courses: The Value Formula.

The Value Formula simply states:

Value is created when the perceived benefits outweigh the perceived price or emotional cost of committing to your product or service.

The key for you and your sales team is always to remember this: the value we believe our products or services bring is meaningless within the sales interaction. Until we can uncover the needs (and more importantly the wants) of the buyer, we simply cannot build the value that is so essential to avoiding price objections. Always remember this: in the absence of value, all sales interactions will degenerate into an issue of price. Good selling!

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What sales strategy do you see?

Post comments explaining how this image represents value. (Use "Leave a Reply" box to post a comment.)

The person with the best comment by Thursday, August 20th wins a copy of the popular book “How To Sell At Margins Higher Than Your Competitors,” by Bill Brooks & Larry Steinmetz.

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The answer is – unfortunately – never!

Selling in today’s marketplace can be a 7-days-a-week endeavor involving travel, late planes and/or long drives covering a territory. All of this translates into plain and simple hard work. So, when we get a little time off – whether it’s taking a few well-deserved days of vacation or simply enjoying a weekend – we’re “off the clock” (is there such a thing in sales today?) and we can totally relax, right?

Nope! Wrong!

And that’s what this post is about: a very simple – yet often forgotten – concept.

Here it is: regardless of whether you’re out of town on vacation or you’re simply buzzing around town on the weekend running errands with your family, it’s absolutely critical that you conduct yourself as professionally out in public as you would if you were face-to-face with one of your biggest clients.

Here’s why: you never know who you may run into in your off-work activities. It’s far too easy to slip into “relaxation mode” away from the office and out of the suit, and frankly, become oblivious about what your professional image needs to be.

This isn’t to say that we all don’t behave in an absolutely stellar fashion when we’re away from work. I would submit to you, though, that it’s easy to slip into a less formal mode when we’re in our comfort zone. Make sure you stay vigilant; I ran into one of my key clients in Lowe’s just the other day!

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Recently, a colleague of mine sent me a link to a blog post that I found quite intriguing. You may too. The concept behind the post is that the strongest B2B salespeople treat sales presentations like the most successful trial lawyers treat a trial.

At first, I was skeptical and didn’t really see how this concept made any sense; however, as I read the post, it started to come together for me. The basis of the post was that salespeople – much like good trial lawyers – must take the complex facts (in the case of salespeople, features and benefits) and make them simple for their audience.

One of the most compelling quotes from the post that ties into this assertion says, “Despite all the high-level sales training being jammed into our heads, we’d still have to learn to translate complex features and benefits into a simple language that everyone could understand.”

This hits home and rings perfectly with our philosophy: street-smart, simple and usable sales training doesn’t need to be high-level theory and complex models. It needs to be easily implementable! There are many out there that believe that the more complex a sales process methodology, the better. My position is that if it’s too complex, it’s not going to be used!

Don’t get me wrong…this post isn’t meant to “plug” our IMPACT Selling methodology. Instead, it’s designed to get you thinking about where you stand regarding complex vs. simple sales processes. You make the call based on your beliefs. However, before you do, check out the blog post:

http://www.simplenomics.com/sales-presentations-like-trial-lawyer/

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The other day I received an email from a business associate of mine. His company, Sequential Selling, is a reseller of many of our products and programs in Canada. He had just attended a seminar which highlighted recent research detailing the reasons for customer loyalty, as well as the percentages associated with each reason (by the way – 53% of study respondents said “ease of buying experience” is a primary factor in their decision to stay with a vendor).

At any rate, the cool thing about the email he sent me is that it had text content touching on some of the information he felt was important to share, as well as a link at the bottom which he referenced as his “jing” on the topic. At that point I had no idea what a “jing” was! The link took me to a screen capture program which allowed my colleague to “talk” me through some of the slides and graphs from the program he attended. In other words, Jing is a free open-source screen capture program that allows you to share information with someone via email. The recipient can then review your email, as well as your comments, at his or her convenience.

While the uses of this tool are many, here are a couple of ideas that come to mind:

• Sharing visual and audio information with a client via email without having to schedule a conference call.
• Sending information to a prospect with embedded audio which he or she may find useful and which will position you as a valuable resource
• For use as an information delivery tool, especially if you’re in the information or consulting business

While I know that screen capture software is nothing new, I thought I’d share this particular program with you because this version is free up to a certain data amount.

To learn more about Jing, you should check it out at http://www.jingproject.com/.

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For savvy salespeople, personal prospecting means implementing a personal marketing plan. It’s not cold calling. With that in mind, I wanted to share an idea that really isn’t brand-new but may be something worth thinking about when looking for buyers in today’s ever-toughening economic situation.
With buyers becoming harder and harder to find, the time may be right for you to reach out to organizations you may have previously viewed as possible competitors and try to establish some sort of collaborative relationship.

You’re probably thinking “What in the world is he talking about?”

What I’m saying here is that you may want to sit down and think hard about organizations that are parallel to your industry; organizations that sell products and services that complement (and could sometimes potentially compete against) what it is you sell. Then, reach out to these organizations and create a cross-referral agreement.

A perfect example in our world is something that ties in with one of the business services we sell here at The Brooks Group: personal assessments for hiring.

Many times in the past, when we’ve advised a client that a potential hire was not going to be a fit for their environment, they’ve asked us if we knew of any reputable recruiters. In the past, we had to admit that we really couldn’t recommend a solid placement firm (and we frankly didn’t want to, as many of them offer assessments of their own). However, one of our salespeople recently built a relationship with a proven placement agency and created a solid cross-referral agreement. Now, when asked if we can recommend a recruiter to one of our assessment clients, we say “absolutely!” And on the other side of the coin, we are finding that our recruiter advocate is sending assessment business to us.

In conclusion, if you can think of complementary businesses (or a product or service that you don’t currently offer, but can refer someone to) — reach out to that organization yourself and develop a relationship! In short, competition is good. However, cooperation is great when we’re all working as hard as we can to find qualified buyers!

The other day, as I was looking through some of my late father, Bill Brooks’, old books. I noticed a copy of Frank Bettger’s classic, “How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling.” Now, I had heard of this book many, many times throughout my life as I’ve sat through our IMPACT Selling® sales training programs, but to be honest… I had never read it before.

For years this book has been referenced in the introductory portion of the High IMPACT Sales Training program because the line we recite, “Show people what they want most, and they will move heaven and earth to get it” is taken from Bettger.

At any rate, now that I’ve framed this up for you, I’ll get to the point. I’ve begun to read this book, and the first chapter is all about enthusiasm and how this one simple concept helped the author – Bettger – increase his income by 700% in ten days. I’m not going to go into detail here about how and in what context Frank did it, but as I read it, it occurred to me that if we all embrace enthusiasm in our everyday selling endeavors, we’re going to be happier, more successful and – if this is important to you – wealthier.

Ever since I was very young, I remember my Dad coming home at night and writing. Whether he was authoring a book, working on his business plan or writing articles on his pet subject (sales and personal development) to submit to various publications, he was always working up until he went to sleep… sometimes in the chair with his work on his lap.

I also remember asking him so many times, “WHY CAN’T YOU STOP WORKING???” And it’s not that we didn’t spend time together or anything like that… it was just that he was – I thought at the time – obsessed with work.

Now, I understand; he was enthusiastic about his life’s work, and enthusiasm breeds a commitment to whatever you do, whether it’s for a living or for a hobby. As Mr. Bettger says in his now 60-year-old book, , “I know this: When I force myself to act enthusiastic, I soon feel enthusiastic.”

I’ll leave you with this thought: Right now, there aren’t many things we can control. The economy is in a recession (some call it a depression) and business is harder to find than it has been since 2001. However, if you can dig deep inside and force yourself to be enthusiastic about what you’re doing (even if you really don’t feel like it), you’ll have more energy, work harder and ultimately rise to the top to overcome your daily selling challenges!

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[ratings]

Can't it be hard to get appointments with prospects? We've all had the experience of leaving phone messages, or networking at events, for prospects we are fairly sure are good ones. I can't give you the magic tool that will make every prospect call back - or accept your next call - but I can make a suggestion that will improve your odds significantly.

When you call a prospect, what goes through his or her mind?

• Who are you?
• What do you represent?
• What's in it for me?

To answer these questions effectively - and quickly - use a Direct Value Statement. What's a Direct Value Statement? It's a fast summary of what value you bring to customers who are like the prospect you're hoping to sell to. It can be used in a voice mail, face-to-face, or over the phone.

Here's an example: "My name is Will Brooks, with The Brooks Group. We assist our customers in the long-term healthcare industry to build their sales cultures and grow census. We do this by providing customized sales and sales management training reinforced with practical, real-world coaching."

See how it works?

My name is ____________________________, with __________________________.

We assist our customers in the _________________________ industry

to __________________________________________________________________.

We do this by _________________________________________________________.

You should practice and practice your Direct Value Statement in your own words so that it flows easily and naturally for you when you need it - whether you're telephone prospecting, networking at an event, or just meeting a stranger at a party.