Trumped up not your selling style ?

Some folk believe that “Telling is selling.” Others on the other hand argue that selling cannot purely a one-way process of communication like a drill sergeant shouting orders across the parade ground. Selling cannot be solely a  dated “challenger sale” battering ram.

Certainly the Trump style may not sit comfortably in your own make up. However let’s look at its strengths and weaknesses. Whether you are pro or anti Donald Trump put that aside a moment and let's examine the pros and cons of the style.

Trumped Up Selling Style :

A  communicator who clearly states what (s) he his/ hers organisation, their products and services can offer the customer ( voter).

Businesslike and focused – Commercially savvy 

Some of his supporters believe in their man who has run a business successfully and so can "fix" America's finances. Others like his blunt, straight-talking style.

Some may consider the style more akin to a bull dozer that flattens all before them. The strengths of the style are communicating direct and clear messages.
  e.g.  Campaign slogan "Make America great again." 
There’e too much PC talk.

Trumps selling effort has focused on five clear messages

• The USA Economy -  a man with credible Business track record A touch of the Ross Perot about him
• The voice of Anti-Immigration cause -
• Name recognition – celebrity status. from the Apprentice TV show. 
• WYSIWYG ( what you see is what you get) 25% of the respondents said it's "extremely important" that a candidate stand up for his or her beliefs in the face of criticism support Mr Trump. Mr Bush was a distant second at 11%.
• The 'silent majority' , the ‘fed up’ crowd, Much like the UK conservative Party who were swept to power by the 'shy tory' vote which was not picked up by the pollsters. Mr Trump We're tired of being pushed around, kicked around, and acting and being led by stupid people."  Contrary to certain beliefs not all buyers want a 'relationship'.

This selling style tells it as it is ( at least from the salesperson’s point of view!). 

Despite Mr Trump's controversial comments on Mexican immigrants and Sen. John McCain's war-hero status.

He was still top of NBC News Survey Monkey Poll  taken after the debate with his comments about Fox News anchor Megan Kelly  with  23 %. Senator Ted Cruz was next on the list with 13 %. In the debate Mr Trump was voted 2^nd with  18%   to former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina at 22%.

Double or Quits Gambler:

And far from backing down after the outcry his comments have provoked, he tends tp amplify them - or "doubling down" doubling the wager to use the jargon - and that will left the other nine co-debaters shuffling uneasily at their podiums.

Rubbishing the competition – does it work ? Can it harm?

Mr. Trump has rubbished the competition, and publicly criticised former colleagues for example

•  "I just realized that if you listen to Carly Fiorina for more than ten minutes straight, you develop a massive headache. She has zero chance!" Trump tweeted.

• Jeb Bush's gaffe over women's health funding last week, saying he "came out horribly" and that the comment about overfunding -- which Bush said was meant to reference Planned Parenthood -- "will go down to haunt him and be the same as Romney's '47%.'"

• Of blogger Erick Erickson's decision to revoke Trump's invitation to the weekend's conservative RedState Gathering, Trump said last Sunday: "This guy's a loser. He's backed so many candidates who have lost."

 Such a selling style equips you to negotiate robustly and close strongly.

Where such a style may be found wanting is in poor building of human relations, particularly with those whose views they disagree with. 
They are likely to pounce on protagonists' words and not listen. They are likely to argue as their default tactic.. They are likely to attack anyone who challenges or criticises them

Having looked at the strengths and weaknesses of the Trump selling style let us now look at how it relates to Professional Selling.

To understand your full responsibility  as a professional salesperson you need to look at your job from three different viewpoints:

1. Your customer’s viewpoint
2. Your company’s viewpoint
3. Your own viewpoint

Today’s professional sales executive needs to merge many roles and satisfy many needs.

1.       Your Client’s viewpoint

To be fully successful in opening, building, maintaining and servicing an account there are four different styles upon which to draw, depending on the business situation that you face at any one time.  These are:

Diplomat:  a friendly representative who relates well to other people.

Bulldozer: a persuasive communicator who clearly communicates what his organisation can offer. Not afraid to challenge buyers.

Administrator: an efficient organiser who makes things happen as they should.

Consultative Seller: a business adviser who helps to identify and satisfy needs and analyse and solve problems.


Related Links



Selling skills audit

5 steps to take now in your selling after the Brexit vote

Well  the Brexit tube of toothpaste has been squeezed.  The Leave camp won.

 I was disappointed by my nation’s decision to leave the EU.

However I am a democrat and I have to accept as a member of the minority to bow to the decision of the majority of my nation

.

Now for the consequences

What’s done is done.

There is little point in trying to poke the toothpaste back into the tube.

As salespeople we have to regularly accept such similar defeats – we know as the song lyric goes that we must ‘pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and start all over again.’

  For example we may disagree with decisions by our management, decisions by the ‘marketing’  on strategic direction,  production’s refusal to produce a ‘special’, finance’s  final say on margins ( or discounts)  etc. But we have to comply or else internal business anarchy takes place.

We are used, in other words, to accepting the minority position of Sales at power broking board level. ( The tension between serving the share holder , investors, stake holder etc versus the external customers)

The time for us to lick our wounds ( Remain) or gloat on our battle won ( Leave) is OVER

.

Let’s not dwell on Brexit but rather concentrate on staying competitive.

Our country is shell shocked in the aftermath of the EU referendum. We are grappling with the new reality .

However unpredictable the future may be, the worst thing to do now is dwell on the result on the referendum vote.

 Much like the pointless moaning about England’s soccer team being knocked out of the European Cup  in France  ( Congratulations  and well played to the Iceland team by the way) the English FA has now to look to the future ,plan for it and take action to the new tasks. The fans need to get over it now too. So likewise must we sales in the post referendum era.

The real risk is that the warnings of economic decline and predictions of the diminished role for the UK in the world and other doom mongering become self fulfilling prophecies.

Yet we should be in no doubt the consequences of this vote is a real game changer. So here are some initial suggestions

1. Time to keep calm – not to panic.

2. Think

3. Review

4. Communicate now with your customers and prospects- if you have not already

5. Avoid lack lustre treading water type messages of ‘no change here’, “ wait and see” but rather communicate positively how you will be:-

• more competitive,
• more flexible,
• more creative,
• more dynamic
• more entrepreneurial
• and more proactive.

Re-assure your customers that unlike certain Brexit politicians ( as it currently appears) we in selling do have a plan B  !   – we know the importance of contingency and how to support our clients in both good , tough  and uncertain times.

Whether the UK’s Brexit decision turns out to be a Pyrrhic victory for the Leave camp or a real one that is for the political historians to argue over, our role in Sales is to work to be part of the solution not part of the problem.

Whichever way you voted , now is the time to take up the strain again – and as sales and marketing profession it’s what we all will be doing.

Good selling in this ever changing world of new opportunities

Related Links

Minding your own business Leave or Remain

Clocks go back to GMT Good or Bad for selling ?

Monday Morning Farnham Town Hall Clock not yet adjusted
( Ignore the yellow date and time on photo,
I have not yet found out how to correct the time on my
new Vivitar vivi cam S126

As soon as President Xi Jinping of China departed the UK last Friday after his top drawer state visit ,we might spare a thought for the staff of the Royal Collection who will spend over 50 hours adjusting over 1000 clocks spread across the official residences of The Queen this weekend.

In more modest homes we are reminded by our Government to put our clocks back for Sunday When the clocks go back, the UK is on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Plaque in South Street

A son of Farnham, Surrey one William Willett introduced the idea of British Summer Time, also known as Daylight Saving Time,in 1907. 

After some commercial experience, he entered his father's building business, Willett Building Services.

Between them they created a reputation for "Willett built" quality houses in choice parts of London and the south, including Chelsea and Hove, including Derwent House. 

He lived most of his life in Chislehurst, Kent, where, it is said, after riding his horse in Petts Wood near his home early one summer morning and noticing how many blinds were still down, the idea for daylight saving time first occurred to him.

He wanted to prevent people from wasting valuable hours of light during summer mornings.

He published a pamphlet called 'The Waste of Daylight' in a bid to get people out of bed earlier by changing the UK nation’s clocks.

Willett proposed that the clocks should be advanced by 80 minutes in four incremental steps during April and reversed the same way during September.

Willett then spent the rest of his life trying to convince people his scheme was a good one.

 Sadly, he died of the flu in 1915 at the age of 58; a year before Germany adopted his clock-changing plan on April 30, 1916 when the clocks were set forward at 11 pm.

Britain followed suit a month later on May 21.

Farnham Town Hall Clock

By then Britain and Germany had been fighting each other in the First World War (1914-18), 

Supporters for the proposal argued that such a scheme could reduce domestic coal consumption and increase the supplies available for manufacturing and the war effort and a system that could take pressure off the economy was worth giving a go.

The Summer Time Act of 1916 was quickly passed by Parliament and the first day of British Summer Time, 21 May 1916, was widely reported in the press.

The Home Office put out special posters telling people how to reset their clocks to GMT, and national newspapers also gave advice.

The idea was not a new one, however. In 1895 an entomologist in New Zealand, George Vernon Hudson, came up with the idea to the Wellington Philosophical Society outlining a daylight saving scheme which was trialled successfully down-under in 1927.

Debates concerning Daylight saving continue to the present day. It can be traced back to standardised time which was introduced with the expansion of the railways in the 1840s.

Supporters of moving the clocks backwards and forwards argue that it saves energy, promotes outdoor leisure activity in the evening in summer, and is therefore good for physical and psychological health, reduces crime and is good for business.

Retailers much prefer the transition to DST than the transition to GMT. For them, having one less hour of sun in the evening translates into fewer people going shopping after work, which in turn means less business.

SDST

The Royal Society for the prevention of Accidents, RoSPA is pushing for the UK to adopt a Single/Double Summer Time (SDST) system, which would see the time move one hour ahead throughout the year. Under these plans, the UK would operate under GMT+1 in winter, and GMT+2 in the summer.

“A change to SDST would reduce CO2 pollution by at least 447,000 tonnes each year, increase working-day overlap with Europe and stock-markets in Asia, and allow an extended tourism season, boosting the sector by an estimated £3 billion. Not to mention the extra hours of daylight that we will all have to enjoy the outdoors.” 

Moving the clocks permanently forward by an hour would also bring the UK in line with Central European Time, which means Britain would work during the same business hours as other European cities.

My trusty Lightbox to fight off the SAD during the UK winter

My answers are inadequate

To those demanding day and date

And ever set a tiny shock

Through strangers asking what's o'clock;

Whose days are spent in whittling rhyme-

What's time to her, or she to Time?

-Dorothy Parker

Related Links

When do the clocks change ? UK Government site

 For more informationon RoSPA campaign for lighter evenings

Selling a disincentive -It's in the bag 5p please - #Selling Bags to reduce their usage

This Monday is a rather special day for Selling in the English high street.

Buying and Selling tends to take place in a free-ish market environment. But today through an enforced selling price by the Department for Food and Rural Affairs , Selling is trying to be used to change commercial behaviour.

According to Keep Britain Tidy, 11.4% of places surveyed in England showed evidence of littered single-use plastic bags.

In a world concerned about plastic packaging waste , Business is being challenged to redesign, produce and sell its products. This requires us to re-think how we use and consume products, and re-define what is possible through re-use and recycling.

This new law is trying to change the behaviour of the buyer by stopping the seller offering free carrier bags.

The Single Use Carrier Bags Charges (England) Order 2015 comes into force today 5th October.

The order requires sellers who employ more than 250 people to charge 5p for a "single use carrier bag" which is less than 70 microns (0.07mm) thick.

Though there are plenty of exceptions to the rule, such as for medicines, raw meat and razor blades,we're  having to pay for bags and it will be a major change for most English shoppers.

Offering free plastic bags has been a low-cost way to encourage custom for some years.

Former bag behaviour 'back in the day'

Before the era of the free plastic bag, customers brought their own shopping bags. There might be paper bags provided for some items, but people didn't expect to be furnished with bags as a matter of course.

There is a reference to a carrier bag in a 1907 catalogue from the department store " Army and Navy" .

 "The 'Sensible' carrier bag with strings is the only paper bag with a firm bottom, and capable of carrying wet fruit, pastry etc, without bursting the bag."
 

This Paper bag dates back to the 1960s
 Fruiterer and Greengrocer Hone's was founded in 1911

Current plastic bag for Hone's Customers 

Celloplast patented a "bag with handle of weldable plastic material" in the US in 1965.

 By the mid-1970s JC Penney and other American department stores, were using plastic bags for purchases, and the first polyethylene bags appeared in supermarkets across the country soon after.

By the 1980s the bags had reached British supermarkets and their use grew in use quickly. Marks and Spencer had a plastic carrier for clothes by 1973.

The free plastic bag rapidly became contentious. 

British supermarket shoppers used 8.5 billion free plastic bags in 2014, according to *Wrap, a recycling charity - though this was down from 2006, when figures were first collated, when more than 12 billion were used.

In England the average person goes through nearly 12 thin-gauge bags (made of plastic or paper) per month, while in Wales, where there has been a 5p charge per plastic bag since 2011, shoppers use just two bags per person per month. 

Before the introduction of the charge, they used 10. 

 Shoppers in Northern Island have seen a similar drop-off in bag use since they introduced a charge in April 2013, from nearly nine to fewer than two thin gauge bags used per person per month.

The reason is explained by some academics that when there is an economic disincentive involved, consumers tend not to use a product.



'It ain't necessarily so'

The introduction of the charge represents a change in approach towards shoppers, led by the government. Previously, the option to buy Bags for Life (at a small cost) was supposed to encourage virtue from the general public.

But  figures from *Wrap suggest that - with 439 million of these tougher bags issued in 2014 alone - they are still not "for Life".

So our supermarkets have been preparing for  today in different ways. Tesco has been offering shoppers free Bags for Life in the run-up to the changeover to try and ease the transition.

From the highest fashion boutique to the most humble pound shop, stores will have to charge customers expecting to carry home their purchases in plastic bags thinner than 70 microns thick with handles.

With 80% of clothes shoppers saying they use brand new carrier bags when buying items, and similarly high proportions at other shops, it will be a sea change for both sales staff and shoppers alike.

Pound shops could surely have a problem. They will have to ensure they have enough change for customers who now need to spend £5.05, rather than a flat £5, for a five-item shop with a bag that previously would have been free.

A survey conducted  by Wrap last year, 40% of respondents said that the charge would encourage them to use Bags for Life more often –

though 39% said that "it would make no difference" to their shopping behaviour.

 (This figure did include those who have already shunned plastic bags.)

 According to Professor Poortinga, a professor of environmental psychology at Cardiff University, whenever charges have been introduced, bag usage has dropped between 50 and 90%.

But the charge may be addressing the wrong issue, believes Sukhi Poonia of PAFA, the Packaging and Films Association. 

"We as an industry have put our hands up and said it's an issue - plastic bags are getting chucked into the sea. But our stance is that we're never going to get better behaviour until there's tougher enforcement on littering."

Related Links

Department for Environment ,Food and Rural Affairs

WRAP recycling charity

Keep Britain Tidy

#Steakgate Selling or negotiating your pay Beware the Ides of March Caesar was not indispensable

Everybody is a salesperson- well maybe not all the time.

 But when you start work you have to sell yourself at interview,

 renew that sale at appraisal time 

  and in pay negotiations... well you get the point. 

Most of us don’t go about as publicly as the  BBC Top Gear TV presenters.

The brouhaha over Jeremy Clarkson and the BBC means for those who wanted to watch Top Gear on Sunday 15^th  are offered at 8 pm  programme about the Red Arrows " Inside the bubble".

( In view of Lewis Hamilton  F1 victory in Australia I think a considerable number probably want to watch the highlights of the race from Melbourne's Albert Park !)  

'The Indispensable Man '
in my little black notebook copied sometime in the last century !

One of the issues is whether a very well-paid presenter will carry on fronting Top Gear for the BBC or a similar show about cars for competitors ITV, Sky or even Netflix.

Allegedly the  contracts of Messrs Clarkson , May and Hammond are due for renewal in a matter of weeks.

 Their public forthcoming appearances in Stavanger , Norway have been sold out and  will go ahead and not be cancelled.

On  social media  more than 840,000+ have signed a petition demanding Jeremy Clarkson keeps his job after he was suspended by the BBC following the “fracas”. 

That may have some effect on upping the ante. The risk will be bigger but so could be the rewards.

 Whether it is the personalities of the talent in front of the cameras, the production managers, the British Broadcasting  Corporation big wigs , part of the negotiation discussion is the question of ‘indispensability of talent’   whether front or behind the camera.

Common sense tells us no one is completely Indispensable.

Here is some wisdom I hand copied into my little black paper notebook back in the day. 

The Indispensable man

by Saxon White Kessinger

Sometime when you’re feeling important.

Sometime when your ego’s in bloom

Sometime when you take it for granted

You’re the best equipped man in the room.

Some time when you feel your going

Would leave an un-fillable hole.

Just follow these simple instructions

And see how they humble your soul.

Take a a bucket and fill it with water

Put your hands in it up to your wrists

Pull them out – and the hole that remains

Is a measure of how you’ll be missed.

You may splash all you please when  you enter

You may stir up the all the waters galore

But stop- and you’ll find in a minute

That it looks just the same as before

The moral of this is quite simple

You must do the best you can-

Be proud of yourself, but remember

There is no indispensable man.

3 tips to help you remember clients' and prospects' names in Selling

UK Shadow chancellor, Ed Balls had an embarrassing moment this week when his memory failed him on live television when being challenged to name business supporters who are  supporting Labour in this election.

I guess we have all had lapses of memory with names but to professional salespeople remembering names, particularly clients' names is a useful skill.

Our client's name matters. They don't like it misspelled.
They dislike it being mispronounced. They are not always keen for us to use their first name straight away.

When we are face to face ,one on one we can write it down but there are those tricky occasions where we can meet or be introduced to a group of people. This can occur at exhibitions , seminars, conferences or networking events where you can meet a number of new people in a group in a matter of seconds.

3Tips to help you remember client names

Here are some ways to help with recalling a name. The specialists who work in this area warn us not to confuse our lack of perception with a lack of memory.



A short pencil is better than a short memory

1. Concentrate right at the start
2. Listen
3. Focus your attention
4. Repeat back their name to them to check you have got it right
5. Use their name in a question e.g." What do you do David ? "
6. Link tag their name in conversation with others in the group  e.g. "As John was saying earlier..."


Offering your business card to encourage them to give their also allows you to read their name.

Again using their name in a question can help lock it into your memory. e.g." Where did you study for your BSc ?" or "What was the topic of your dissertation ?" or "I don't recognise those initials Phil what do they stand for?"


Related Links

Five stages of networking - getting their name right

Look , Learn and rapid networking

Personalise your offer by using the client's name

Scientific Attributes can help Selling - learning from the scientific mind-set Davos 2015

At Davos 2015 the president of Imperial College Alice Gast postulated that there was pressure from business in the application of sound business practices to universities and other public services.

 This resonates in the UK with the next General Election on the horizon.

For example :-Which parties care for and manage best the National Health service NHS ?

But business practice is also being applied to institutions such as the established Church of England whose  current Archbishop of Canterbury ( a former Oil Executive) and has commissioned a report on the Church written by Lord Green ( a former Chief executive of HSBC bank and McKinsey consultant.)

Professor Gast said that she wanted to turn the tables and suggest that a scientific mind-set can inform and benefit the decision-making process outside of the laboratory.

 She also argued that by adopting the mind-set of a scientist this could help all of us approach a changing world.

“We should embed a scientific mindset into business culture”

As a distinguished scientist herself and  co-author of “Physical Chemistry of Surfaces “ a classic textbook on colloid and surface phenomena, and she has presented named lectures at several of the nation's leading research institutions she is worth listening to.

For myself, whose first degree study in Chemistry with Business undertaken some 45 years ago I have a vested interest in what she had to say.

 How can the scientific mindset help our Selling?

Because selling involves a delicious mixture of the logical and emotional, science can contribute.

I thought it might be interesting to look at the professor’s presentation to Davos and from the perspective of selling .

What would adopting a scientific mindset in this way mean in the sales arena?

Let's consider her three scientific attributes  but to “Selling”

1.  Sceptical curiosity

2.  Collaborative competitiveness

3.  Confidence in the case of the unknown

1. Sceptical curiosity

 Scientists need to be sceptical. Like their colleagues in selling, and they also must innovate. As they innovate, scientists strike a careful balance between curiosity, intuition and scepticism. For those practising selling these three aspects are a daily work.

Salespeople need to be curious how else will we find out the needs and wants of our client ?.

 We need to tune  into our gut instinct and what we have learned from experience but also not believe everything we are told. ( Customers like salespeople can exaggerate things and because we are all human, sometimes even lie !)

Science is driven forwards by curiosity, and it is guided by intuition and prior knowledge, but techniques such as external and internal peer reviews and randomized control trials are also embedded in their way of thinking to avoid blind optimism and bias.




An executive from Nestle Corporation speaking at

the International conference of Tack International

an example of Gast's Sceptical curiosity in action

 - letting your customer speak to your sales team -

 genuine LIVE  Voice of the customer !

How we apply apply it in selling :

 In your organisation, invite sceptics and non-experts in.

Some already invite themselves in of course, most disciplines have an opinion about sales ( not always complimentary ).



But taking the gist of Professor Gast’s suggestion inviting customers , buyers etc into to speak to your sales meetings can be  enormously helpful in selling and servicing your clients better.

 Ensure that certain sales initiatives are checked by someone outside your team, even outside your organisation or industry.

2. Collaborative competitiveness

 The best scientists readily compete and collaborate with one another.

 ISMM
Successful Selling Conference Professor Gast's
 "collaborative competitiveness in action  .
 

Someone in a different field or organisation could have the key to unlocking the problem they are working on.

When the problems get tough, scientists want to build the best team, even if the partner is a fierce competitor.

Prof Gast illustrated the point

 "At one time, collaboration and data sharing were the purview of “big science”, such as the scientists at CERN. Now we see new collaborations all the time when it is opportune to bring together diverse teams such as at the Crick Institute or in complex areas such as climate change or public health for an ageing population."

How we might apply it to selling :

Look at those sales problems and opportunities in your business or organisation that cannot be solved in isolation.

Prof Gast suggested at Davos areas such as cyber security, global political and economic forces, or significant technological requirements, all benefit from collaboration across the industry and across sectors.  These are also relevant to many in Selling along with PESTLE  factors from the marketing model.

When corporations come together, as they do at Davos, they can make important things happen. Bringing together industry, government and higher education can be even more powerful.

Similarly  when sales professionals attend their institutions like the CIM or ISMM or IOD they can make important things happen. They enable to bring together industry, government and higher education  and can be even more powerful.

Sales people should collaborate like a scientist. Some do of course but more should.

3. Confidence in the face of uncertainty and the unknown.



Valuable Insight in unknown and uncertain business world
 Download for free Buyers' views of Salespeople 2012

In selling we have become aware of our modern  business world by the acronym VUCA ( Volatile Uncertain Complex and Ambiguous)

 The scientist’s business is the unknown.

 Where something is unknown, it is an opportunity to be pursued rather than avoided.

This requires the ability to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty, which most people find difficult.

In  a scientific experiment, a lack of correlation moves science forward as much as a positive correlation.




VUCA Volatility ,Uncertainty,
 Complexity and Ambiguity
Photo of Slide from Impact International

No information is ever complete.

Scientists are comfortable with moving forward purposefully when faced with incomplete or problematic data sets.

How  might apply it in Selling ? :

Break down problems into smaller hypotheses to be tested. ( An elephant can only beat eaten in bite-sized pieces)

A complex sales situation e.g.  preparing for a pitch at a  competitive “beauty parade”  where buyer’s have deliberately not fully revealed all the information either as negotiating ploy, or because they don’t know themselves  but are  using your pitch to help them discover the more about the nature of the issue.

To quote Prof. Gast

"Evaluate probabilities and the interrelation between factors affecting probability and move forward armed with that imperfect knowledge. " 

This all sounds so similar to the  challenging world of sales forecasting , pipeline management and assessing the risk ( or doing it anyway !)

Like the scientists , professional salespeople need  to build a team that can deal with uncertainty and ambiguity by sharing their understanding and gaining confidence.

Good Selling  and Good "Sciencing" ! 

Related Links

Lessons from Davos 2015 on Sales Leadership

Sales Process # notatDavos by Little Bogdan