Track Selling Times: The Voice of the Sales Profession

Track Selling Times - September, 2001

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Track Selling Times
The Voice of the Sales Profession
Issue No.142
September 1, 2001
Published by Max Sacks International,
Home of 100% Guaranteed World Class Sales Training
Developers of the Track Selling System™.
"We Take the Mystery Out of Selling!"™
Author/Editor: Roy Chitwood, President, MSI

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In This Issue:

Feature:

Increase sales and marketing budgets to combat a slow economy

by Roy E. Chitwood, CSP, CSE

Sections:

Integrity Pays:

Consider every possible way to add value to your client relationships

by Mark Brewer

World Class Sales Management:

"Successfully aligning your sales and customer service departments"
by Pat Brown

Focus on the Professional:
"Richard Boudreau"

Book Review -
Be Quick But Don't Hurry
by Andrew Hill, John R. Wooden (Introduction)

Ask Roy: Ask Roy Chitwood
One reader asks, "Can you give a clear description of a true prospect? My boss tells me that anyone with a need for our product is a prospect, and therefore, that I should contact anyone and everyone. However, I think this philosophy leads to a waste of selling time."

Survey - Reader Survey

Newsletter Archives

"Increase sales and marketing budgets
to combat a slow economy"
by Roy E. Chitwood, CSP, CSE

In looking at the economy today versus where it was two years ago, you see a picture of deflated egos, less than stellar sales results and rampant cutbacks in sales and marketing budgets and personnel. How is this possible, when yesteryear, it seemed that so many companies were outwardly boasting of the tremendous job they were doing in their sales and marketing efforts? Many executives were claiming that not only were their products and services superior, their people knew how to market them better, too.

It's the nature of the beast that when the economy changes, different tunes are suddenly sung. So many of the people who were the supposed sales superstars have now been waived. This is because when tough economic times become the norm, companies must be able to sell rather than just fill orders. And an economy like the one we're experiencing today has a tendency of weeding out the order takers.

As I've written before, any company's future will depend more on its sales and marketing activity than any other aspect of its business. This is due to the reality that these two complimentary functions - sales and marketing - are the only two aspects of a company that directly generate revenue.

IBM seems to understand this truth. Earlier this year IBM announced that it's increasing its marketing budget 17 percent in direct response to the tough economic climate. The company is hoping to increase sales and grab ever-important market share during a time when most companies are slashing sales and marketing budgets. It's been said that a good formula for success is to see what everyone else is doing and to then do the opposite. IBM is one of the few company's that is investing in this strategy, and I applaud them.

A question worth asking is: if IBM's on the correct path - investing in sales, training and marketing resources instead of reducing each - why aren't so many others - big and small alike - doing the same? I believe the answer is that they incorrectly become disciples of a bottom line mentality.

When times get tough and sales become more difficult to come by, the management at most of these companies wage a massive cost reduction war. They spend countless hours reviewing line items on balance sheets in an attempt to find cost overruns and wasteful spending, all with the best intentions. They make drastic reductions in staff and often eliminate marketing and advertising budgets all together. In short, every decision they make is dictated by the affect each will have on the company's bottom line.

Instead of increasing the top line to make the company profitable, management at these companies decrease costs as a means to increase the bottom line. This strategy can only take a company so far as there's no way a company can make it long-term by merely cutting costs, because the ultimate in cutting costs is to close the doors entirely.

I believe the reason so many of these companies adopt this cost reduction strategy as a means to profitability is due to their senior management not being sales and marketing oriented. Instead, they're bottom line oriented since most company heads come from technical, financial, or legal backgrounds.

But some companies do understand the correlation between increasing sales and marketing budgets and increased revenue. Following a similar path to that of IBM, Toyota has just announced that it will launch the most expensive U.S. marketing campaign in its history in promoting the 2002 Camry sedan. While most major automakers are slashing budgets and only trying to maintain market share, Toyota sees an opportunity and thus isn't content with its present market share. The company is attempting to exploit its name recognition and current position by targeting the family sedan market to win new customers and possibly tap a new revenue stream.

When the economy is tough, it isn't selective or prejudice regarding the companies and industries it effects. It's just as tough on your competitors as it is on your company. And it's during this time, when most companies are cutting back, that your organization should follow the likes of IBM and Toyota. Now is the time to increase sales, training and marketing budgets ... not reduce them.

I challenge you to answer the following question honestly: "What will happen to my company a year from today if we don't increase sales, training and marketing budgets, and instead, continue with the status quo?" If the answer is, "We'll still be in business," my follow up would be, "... but you're not as successful or profitable as you could have been."

Integrity Pays:
      "Consider every possible way to
      add value to your client relationships"
      by Mark Brewer

Mark Brewer is the Vice President of Business Development for Carnegie First Employment, a division of Carnegie First Lending Service in Scottsdale, AZ. Mark has more than thirty years of sales management and business development experience. He has also been the owner of several businesses. For more information, please call Mark at (480) 429-5097 or visit www.carnegiefirst.com.

Carnegie First Lending Services provides loans for real estate throughout Arizona. Prior to joining Carnegie First I was a placement professional for senior level professionals throughout the United States. Thus, when I joined Carnegie, I was initially responsible for recruiting mid-line realtors (typically $100,000 to $1,000,000 annual income earners) to use Carnegie as their lender.

My role has now evolved to where I now work with 40 to 50 of the top realtors in the state to add value to our relationship beyond lending services. This added value ranges from providing these high producers qualified telemarketing leads to developing comprehensive business plans for individual realtors.

I figured that if we handled the agent's lender side of the business (which is very profitable), then we should give her all of the added value that we can. For example, we had a producer who turned over more than 260 homes last year, and we sent him leads and a designated benefits plan. His response was very positive.

We've developed a "menu plan" of ten value adding benefits that we can offer clients. And it's during this time that we really deepen our relationship and get to know the client as a person. We don't talk numbers with the agents when we're discussing adding value. Instead, we talk about their lives. We've learned from Track Selling that what's important to them (the client) must be important to us. So, a person may want to spend time volunteering in a poverty stricken area, or take a year sabbatical to participate in the Peace Corps. It's our obligation to help make these happen.

If you're not doing so already, I urge you to leave no stone unturned when brainstorming ways that you and your company can add value to your client relationships. For it's been my experience that exploiting any possible way to add value to these relationships can help make them stronger moving forward. And everyday, this is becoming even more important as the competition (and client choices) increases and the margin between success and failure shrinks.

Mark can be contacted at mbrewer@carnegiefirst.com.

World Class Sales Management:
      Successfully aligning your sales and
      customer service departments
      by Pat Brown

Pat Brown is the Chief Operating Officer of Business Application Software, a St. Paul, MN-based software reseller. Prior to joining BAS, Pat was the Vice President of Customer Service at Redwing Software. For more information please call (651) 633-2044 or visit www.basoftware.com.

A significant challenge any organization with salespeople and customer service people face is getting these groups on the same page so as to offer the customer a unified message. It can at times be a tenuous relationship. We've all heard the jokes of the sales department promising the moon only to learn the product won't be off the ground for some time.

So many times salespeople will promise the customer an unrealistic delivery schedule or product capability (often with the best intentions and no deception present) only to learn later that the customer tore through the customer service department due to unmet expectations. This, in turn, can create a vicious circle involving sales, customer service, research and development, and any other group significantly involved in product development or product delivery.

What we've found to be successful in generating happy customers and a positive work environment between our different groups is to manage a customer's expectations by implementing what we call "outcome management." From making absolutely certain that the product we're offering is the best fit to ensuring that the delivery will be on time. The only way to succeed in managing customer expectations is to have customer service and sales working closely together. And a good first step in making this happen is training both departments in the Track Selling System.

In our day-to-day interactions with our customers, we stress Step Two, Qualification. We want to ensure that our product is going to be appropriate. Our motto is "to serve the customer", and if we go into every engagement with that in mind, the likelihood of success is increased.

We then focus on Step Three, Agreement on Need. We've found that if we have trained people that will absolutely and clearly agree on the Agreement on Need Step with the customer, the customer satisfaction rate is almost 100 percent.

Up here in Minnesota, we have baseball team, the Minnesota Twins, who haven't had a lot of talent over the past decade, but are competing for the division title this year. The reason for the team's success, I believe, is rooted in the philosophy of manager Tom Kelly. Kelly is an excellent manager whose philosophy is to only put his players in a position to succeed. That is, he asks each individual player to only perform on his strengths and keeps him away from situations where his weaknesses are exposed.

That's a good motto for any company to follow: put your people, and your company's product or service, in a position to succeed. Only sell it if it's really in the customer's interest and perfectly meets his or her needs. Doing so will create a positive relationship for all.

Pat can be contacted at patb@basoftware.com.

Focus on the Professional -
"Richard Boudreau"

Richard Boudreau has more than 35 years experience in the industrial textile uniform industry and is currently the Western Region Manager for AmeriPride Uniform Services. Richard oversees nine plants and roughly 700 people, with a sales organization comprised of nine sales managers and approximately 45 to 50 salespeople. For more information, please call (323) 587-3941 or visit www.ameripride.org.

1. What has been your experience with the Track Selling System?

I have been in the industrial textile uniform industry since 1965 and during the late 60s, I went through a Track Selling System workshop and found it to be very helpful. As I gained experience and assumed more responsibilities throughout the 1970s, I had the opportunity to participate in many different sales training programs. However, I returned to Roy Chitwood and Max Sacks International once again because I found the Track Selling System to be more insightful than, and far superior to, any training program I had encountered. And my belief in the program is even stronger today.

2. In your opinion, what is the most helpful aspect of the Track Selling System?

Without question, it's the fact that it's simple to understand and it makes sense. The height of complexity is simplicity and the program bares this out.

As for the greatest benefit of the Track Selling System, I believe that because of its simplicity, the program is an enormous confidence builder in the sales arena. You learn that you (the salesperson) are in charge of the sales situation, yet direct this by truly focusing on the customer's needs.

3. What have been the results?

As with many disciplines, outstanding sales results are a combination of several things done well. I believe the best philosophy for any sales executive to follow is to find excellent people and provide them with excellent tools. We've done a great job in recruiting the right people, an excellent job of training by implementing the Track Selling System, and consequently, we've achieved excellent results.

Dick can be reached at richard.boudreau@ameripride.org.

Book Review -
Be Quick, But Don't Hurry
by Andrew Hill, John R. Wooden (Introduction)

This book's title summarizes one of the basic tenets legendary coach John Wooden taught his UCLA basketball teams through an unprecedented run of ten NCCA championships in twelve years during the 1960s and early '70s. Andrew Hill, a reserve player on several of those teams, however, often butted heads with Wooden, questioning the coach's authority and his decision to attend UCLA.

It wasn't until nearly 30 years later that Hill, who had become president of CBS Productions, realized the true value of Wooden's teachings, many of which he used to manage and mentor those he oversaw while climbing the ranks at CBS. Whether in basketball or business, Hill now understands that the core principles of success in either endeavor were interchangeable, and he decided to befriend Wooden again and write about his experiences.

Pulling from the tenets, principles and lessons Wooden purports in his best-selling book "Pyramid of Success," Hill shares insightful anecdotes about such lessons as: "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail" "Keep it Simple" "Teamwork is not a Preference, it's a Necessity" and "Be Quick, But Don't Hurry."

Rather than detailing quick fixes for personal and professional success, this book focuses on the effort necessary to achieve results. If you combine a strong passion and desire for success with Wooden's lessons that Hill shares, tremendous outcomes can be realized.

Ask Roy

Patricia Reid of Miami, Florida asks:

Can you give a clear description of a true prospect? My boss tells me that anyone with a need for our product is a prospect, and therefore, I should contact anyone and everyone. However, I think this philosophy leads to a waste of selling time.

Roy's Answer:

Is there a need? Does the prospect genuinely need your product or service? If the answer is yes, you have the right and the responsibility to sell. If the answer is no, the responsible action is to move on.

Who has the authority? Is the person to whom you are speaking the decision maker? If not, you're not only wasting both of your time, but are also jeopardizing a chance of making a sale with the buying power. To learn who the decision maker is, ask questions like: "What other people will be involved in the purchasing decision?" "Who else do you feel should be in this meeting?" "What is the decision-making process at your company?" Once you learn who you should be presenting to, try to schedule an appointment with this person.

Budget. Can the prospect afford to buy your product or service? Are there genuine price considerations, or is cost just an objection that must be met later on? Often, prospects balk at price when what they really mean is that one of the Five Buying Decisions hasn't been addressed to their satisfaction.

Once you have these three pieces of information, it will be very clear whether you have a suspect or a prospect. So be diligent in getting this information as soon as possible to maximize your selling time and limit your presenting time. Remember that if you don't have a qualified prospect, you're not selling. You're just presenting. "

Reader Survey

1. What do you think of Track Selling Times?
2. What else would you like to see included?
3. If you have sales questions for Roy, or know of a salesperson, sales manager or integrity story that should be featured in Track Selling Times, mail it to:

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