THe Art of Cold Calling for the Holidays.

Every Holiday, I hear about Inside Sales People saying that they shouldn’t be working the day before the Holiday – it’s a waste of time. The day before the holiday is not business as usual, so you shouldn’t treat it as business as usual.

The day before the holiday is the best time to set up conference calls for a outside sales reps. The phone call goes something like this. “Hi, Bob I know that you are really busy, my partner Steve is interested if you are in the office the day before the holiday. . . “

Many executives are in the office the morning before the holiday. They don’t have any “team meetings” that day and they are usually calling people who are from other countries who don’t have the same holiday schedule – Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving. The Executives can usually fit a half hour conference call in their schedule. Some Executives are the person who drew the short straw and have to work that day while other Executives take the day off. Remember you don’t need a ton of meetings that day, you just need one or two conference calls in the morning to make the day worth while.

If you are working with an outside Sales Reps, ask them if they will take a conference with a half -hour notice. Ask your Sales Reps if the are working the day before the Holiday, confirm the game plan. The conversation with the prospect goes like this. “Hi Bob, I see you are working today too. My partner, Steve, is working today too, he is on a call right now, but he asked me if you could talk in about 30minutes about . . .”

Alternatively, calling the day before a holiday is a great time to do research to find the right person. I make a list of all the companies where I either don’t have the name of the right person, or need to confirm the title of the right person. The receptionists still have to work. Many are very bored sitting at the switchboard which isn’t ringing. They have time to help direct you to the right person. Take the time to have a nice conversation and find out all the right people to call the week after the holiday.

Speed dial!!! Many Executive Assistants have taken the day off; however, their boss still has to work the morning. Arrange your list of contacts to speed through the prospects that have EAs who have stonewalled you every time you try to call. Gatekeepers take the day off too.

Finally, move from time zone to time zone, so that you are only calling in the morning. The Executives usually come in very early on pre-holiday mornings so that they can get out by noon. CALL EARLY and shift from time zones until 3:00PM Eastern time, which is noon Pacific Time.

At the end of the day, finish with research on the internet. Look up information on all the people/companies that you have been working on all day. You never have time during the day to do research because you are too business dialing the phone. If you are convinced you have exhausted all the prospects you know – look up prospects you don’t know.

This will give you a full and productive pre-holiday work day. If you have to work – make money.

THe Art of Beer and Cigarettes

A friend of mine was having a hard time closing inside sales calls the other day. He had been doing well for months and all of a sudden the magic was gone. His manager said “Stop pitching!” “You sound like you’re pitching!” After he sat there for a while trying to figure out what he was doing differently, I walked over and told him he needs to smoke a cigarette at his desk. Yes, this created a little shock and awe. I followed up with the comment that he is a different person on the phone than when he is on break smoking a cigarette. I asked him to try sitting on his desk and talk to the prospect like he was smoking a cigarette. Two minutes later he secured a meeting on the phone.
Now I’m not saying that you should go out and start smoking and drinking, but we all have habits about how we talk with our friends. We need to bring those habits to the phone skills. Prospects are buying your voice and manners as much has they are buying your product.
The best salespeople have the same habits whether they are talking with a friend or talking with a prospect. Most of it starts with listening. When you are at a cookout with your friends you spend a lot of time listening to your friends’ stories. We listen to a story and then either make a comment or tell a related story. For some reason we don’t transfer that ability to listening on the phone. We get the 30/300/3000 rule stuck in our head and feel like we have to close to a meeting in 300 seconds. Sometimes it goes longer. We keep cutting the prospect to the quick instead of letting them talk out what they need talk about. We would never be so rude as to cut our friend off.
So when you gather with friends over the up coming weekend holidays find your style. Are you better at standing or sitting? Are you better with a cup in your hand? Do you play with your glasses?

THe Art of Zoological Enrichment

Driving home from Seder the other day, I was listening to an NPR program about Zoos and Zoological Enrichment – the art some finding something exciting for the zoo creatures to do while they are in their enclosure.

You know what? That is no different than humans. My single friends are out living the wild life. All my married friends are living in zoological enclosures called “Married with Kids”. Those who love “Married with Kids Enclosures” have developed Enrichment programs for themselves – coaching youth sports, teaching religious classes, attending workout programs, etc. Talk shows are all about spicing up your life.

As an inside sales rep, I have an enclosure too. There are several other enclosed creatures around me. We too, seek the wildlife, but love the safety of our enclosure. Although all of us do it for the money, we crave Zoological Enrichment to keep our work life fun and exciting. I prefer the programs that allow everyone to win not just a few. Enrichment programs where only three team members can win usually have only the top 6 participating.

Before are some of my favorite Enrichment programs:

HIT YOUR MANAGER WITH WATER BALLOONS
With the heat at 85 degrees outside this is always a fun one. Meet your team goal for the day/week and you get to throw water balloons at your manager. Our winter version of this was to shoot a hockey foam ball at a net with our manager playing goalie.

BERMUDA SHORTS FRIDAY
Ok so I don’t have the legs for this one, but proper knee highs help.

STASH WEDNESDAY
OK, Ash Wednesday comes around once a year, but the several weeks leading up to it can be quite motivating.

AFTERNOON ICE CREAM
Meet your goal by noon and the manager will bring in ice ops or Ice cream sandwiches.

BRUINS DAY
With the Boston Bruins in the payoff and headed for the Stanley Cup (you heard it hear first) wear your favorite sports team. Another favorite is wearing your old High School colors.

The point is to make it light and fun. Keep cash out of it. It’s enrichment, not payment. Some of the best enrichment programs start as an innocent comment that catches on and motivates the team. So quit pacing back and forth in your cage and have a little fun.

THe Art of Aiming for the Bottom

In a down economy, it is very easy to move from being Excellent to being “Good enough”. What is a “GOAL”? Do you set your goal as the bottom of the barrel or do you set your goal as the best of the best? Or are you setting minimum goals for yourself?
Over the last couple of months, I was in a BIGGEST LOSER COMPETITION. The winner was the person with the “highest percentage weight lost”. I knew that I was one of the heaviest contestants, so I would have to lose more weight than the lightest contestant. How should I set my goal?
One goal could be – WHAT IS THE MINIMUM WEIGHT LOST I WOULD ALLOW? This is setting the goal at the bottom of the barrel. I could drive all my energy to reach for a goal that is easily attainable – the “guarantied outcome”. However, this sets you up for the minimum effort. In a twelve week competition, this could be 12 pounds. A pound week is – “at least I am losing weight every week.” I see a lot of winners who have achieved nothing. To me, joining a competition is the chance to do something extraordinary.
A second goal could have been- WHAT IS THE MOST WEIGHT I COULD LOSE? This is the goal that is just out of reach. This is the goal that would even surprise you. In my case, I have not been below 200 pounds since college – and that is back in the 80’s. Now that would be a long haul. Setting to high of a goal can lead to frustration and quitting in the middle of the game.
The third goal is setting your goal to rise and fall with the tide – BEAT THE COMPETITON! If the competition is hard, I need to step up my game and work hard. If the competition is easy, then I can slack off. In a down economy this is very common. Most sales people are looking over their shoulder to see how the other sales people in the company are doing. As long as you are in the middle of the pack, you feel safe from being fired. In a down economy, most organizations start to slack off because they come up with more and more reasons why the “Sales Pack” isn’t doing well. The goals stop being a matter of Excellence and start being – “just as long as I’m not at the bottom of the barrel”. This is very dangerous because eventually the company doesn’t make enough money to pay the fixed cost.
My recommendation is to set all three goals. Manage your expectation. By working three different goals you can keep motivated and ease frustration. People want to help people who set strong goals. People want to celebrate with people who achieve minor goals on their ways to higher goals.
I ended up taking third place in the biggest loser competition. But I was a winner, I finally broke the 200 pound barrier on the last day. I could have quit after achieving my first goal. I could have quit after it was clear I wasn’t going to win the competition. But to be able to tell people I haven’t been this trim since Hall and Oates made it records makes me a winner.

THe Art of the Business Blossom

Spring has sprung. Now is the time to come out of hiding and make your business blossom. The BUSINESS BLOSSOM is a way to find other business professionals who have the same type of prospects that you do. Most people would think that a realtor and a mortgage specialist would have the same customers in common. However, if the realtor only sells condos of less than $500,000, and the Mortgage specialist only does #1 million dollar plus mortgages they may have very few customers in common. THE BUSINESS BLOSSOM is the ability to break your prospects down to simple components which any one can decipher.

The more components you have in common, the more likely you will have prospects in common. Each component is a petal on your flower.  Don’t assume that people have the same clients you do – create a method for politely gathering the right combination of qualifiers.

At BAO, we are looking for VPs of Marketing/Sales of “techish” companies who have Sales Reps who make six-figures, who sell a product of about six-figures, who need to meet V/C class executives. There are five petals to the blossom: 1) VP of Marketing/Sales, 2) “techish” companies, 3) sales reps making six-figures, 4) product/service of about six-figures, and sell to V/C level executives.

The keys to a good BUSINESS BLOSSOM are the answers have to be easy to obtain. I had one friend who was trying to meet CFOs who had properties with over $50,000 dollar energy bills. WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Energy bills don’t come up easily in conversation; nor is it easy to ask someone what their energy bill is. Instead he came up with a derivative: I’m looking to meet the CFO of a company that owns building with five plus stories or have parking lots which can hold over 100 cars. Now that is easy to figure out.  You need to come up with petals that are easier for people to see or ask.

It is easy to ask a realtor is they sell house or condos or both.  In fact, if you ask that, they might not stop talking.  It is easy to ask a Mortgage broker, what is the high and low size of mortgages they sell.

After you create your BUSINESS BLOSSOM, you need to make sure that the people with whom you network, know exactly what you would like to do. It is a simple call and response.
Many times, I have heard financial advisors asking to meet prospects with $1,000,000 in assets. WOW that is an embarrassing question to ask. He narrowed the questions down to three easier questions. If you are talking with someone with a out of state summer home – I’d like to meet them. If you talking with a person whose whole family vacations in the Caribbean every year- I’d like to meet them. If you are talking with someone who trades in their BMW/Volvo every year- I’d like to meet them.

Just because someone does not qualify with all the petals on your blossom does not exclude them from the list of people you want to meet. At BAO, we would love to meet the Sales Rep who is making 6-figure selling a 5-figure product to C/V level executives. We’d also like to meet the CFO of a company selling 6-figure products to C/V level executives.

Finally, you may have to create two different BUSINESS BLOSSOMS if you have one product line for commercial customers and a second line for personal customers. When I worked at Eclipse Video in Cambridge, we sold video productions to small business, we also created photo montages to weddings.

Finally,  my favorite blossom was from a friend of mine named Bill.  Bill is a painter but he really wants to paint faux finishes.  Now most people would think he wants to meet, handyman, carpenters, plumbers.  But many of these professionals may not meet his ideal customer.  Bills ideal customer is a (1) female (2)VP or higher of a company, who has (3) a child who has a (4) milestone coming up in (5) three to six months  graduation, wedding, etc.  His clients are more likely to do finally do their dream high-end interior wall painting when there is a reason for a lot of relatives to come over to the house.  He is looking for the client that has the means, but may not have the time to manage the project.  So, Bill was really interested in meeting people in the high-end wedding market - Wedding planners, live wedding bands, etc.

Each of his five petals are questions that are not hard or embarrassing to ask.  And any one of the petals could be dropped out.

Have fun going through your client base and find out what they have in common and then build your own BUSINESS BLOSSOM.

THe Art of Whoooo Hoooo

I first learned the Art of Whoo Hoo in Junior High. I used to pitch baseball. I was definitely middle of the road pitcher- except, when my dad showed up and I could hear him cheering from the stands. It was worth a couple of extra strikeouts a game.

In the 80’s, a friend of mine asked me to run in the Boston Marathon, even though I had never run more then five miles in my life. The interesting thing about a marathon is that you break into a routine pretty quickly, and that routine just slows down the further you get into the race. About the halfway mark, you are about as numb as you are going to get. It is also the point where you pass Wellesley College. The entire school is cheering you on. Suddenly you have the power of the Chariots of Fire and you can do anything.

The a couple of years ago, I got an email from one of my clients saying thanks for setting him up with one of his top ten prospects. I spent the next week with renewed vigor and set up another meeting for him. The reason I bring this up, is I had been calling on these prospects for several months without much success. The difference now is that the territory had been handed over to a new sales rep, who took the time to send me a Whoo Hoo.

This past Fall it was my turn to Whoo Hoo when I adopted the Bedford High Varsity Girls Volleyball team. Many of the players I had coached years before in soccer. Although, I lost my voice, I knew that the newest way to say Whoo Hoo was to post game photos on Facebook that the girls could share. I made sure to deleted all photos that might be embarrassing for any number of reasons before posting. The games were always during rush hour traffic, so I knew a lot of parents couldn't make many games. Oh, by the way, they surprised everyone and were league champions

Take the time to send out a Whoo Hoo. What is a Whoo Hoo? An unexpected outburst of joy or glee. Some Whoo Hoos are public, some are private. Some are immediate- some are thought over and handed hours later. My dad could always be heard of the dim or cheering voices. The Wellesley girls had no idea who I was, but they were cheering on all who had made it that far. My Sales Rep could have decided that I was just doing my job and not bothered. I could have let the other parents cheer on the girls, or I could set the bar high - by the end of the season, the girls were saying, "Hello, Mr. Hoyland."

Make a point to send out two Whoo Hoos every day.

First, send out a Whoo Hoo to someone you know – whether it is family, a friend, or a co-worker. Someone does something good everyday- you need to send out an unexpected burst of joy or glee. Call up a niece or nephew when you hear that they did something astounding – they will never see it coming. When someone brings in breakfast treats, wait to the end of the day and stop by the desk and say. “you know, that was really nice what you did this morning- Whoo Hoo.”

The Second Whoo Hoo should be to someone you don’t know personally. Tell the person at the coffee shop, who makes your coffee every morning, that they deserve a Whoo Hoo. Send a thank you e-mail to a company that gave you excellent service.

Whoo Hoos are like Grandmother hugs – there are always more that can he handed out-it is one of the most renewable resources – and its very “Green friendly”.

So Dad, thanks for all the Whoo Hoos I got. Wellesley Collegians keep cheering on the Boston Marathon Runners. And Sales Reps keep sending in emails about how I’m making your life better. And BHS Volleyball, keep saying HELLO, MR. HOYLAND.

THe Art of Taking Stock

For years, my wife has been talking about making changes in our house: new kitchen, new bathroom, new flooring, new front door. New! New! New! The last couple of months the talk has changed to making improvements on the house. We need improvements to the kitchen, the bathroom, a more heat efficient front door. Suddenly, I am all ears. I’m figuring the changes are the same but for some reason I’m buying into the message she is sending. Then it dawned on me that she was talking about value instead of growth. There are two kinds of Stocks – Growth and Value. I went and took a look at the history of which stocks did better during the last decades:
Since 1982, the growth stocks have beaten value stocks during:
1982
1985
1987
1989-91
1995-99
2007
A year ago, I could sell anything that talked about growth. “Better faster” was the way to position a new product. Today, it is all about value. It doesn’t matter the cost of the service as long as the value is substantial. Value is everyplace – on the news, at the water cooler (if you still have one, because using tap water is a better value), and at the home.

The Melting Pot Restaurant down the street from me had a huge Valentine’s weekend. Not because they were the cheapest restaurant around, but because they delivered a great value for those seeking a romantic dinner.

Last year, was the year to talk about new and different summer camps for our children, this year it is about the value they receive from the camps.

Every Executive I talk to has no budget. Every executive I talked to last year had no budget. I don’t think any executive will ever have a budget. This year, we believe them. We have been so in tune with the doom and gloom, that we believe the hype about no budgets. In fact, they believe they have no budgets. BUT THEY DO. They just need to make sure that when they pitch the new service internally that they CYA. In a value marketplace, they need to hear about value.