Salespeople | The Barefoot Spirit

Put More Money in the Bank by Treating Salespeople Right!

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 17:00:08 +0000

Salespeople have been given a bad name. It is depicted in The Music Man, the musical decrying the manipulating tactics of a salesman selling horns in a town where no one needed them. It’s portrayed in old movies like Used Cars, where unsuspecting folks are tricked into buying wrecks. And it is in our minds when the phone rings and the caller has trouble pronouncing our names.

We have an entire generation that shuns sales and salespeople. They’ve even created a negative term to describe any approach to trying to convince another person to buy as “salesy.” It’s like the sales process itself is somehow bad or distasteful.

Maybe when we were kids, we overheard our parents complaining at the un-welcomed knock at the door, “Oh it’s that salesperson again. They‘re always trying to sell me something! They just won’t leave me alone!”

Fast-forward 20 years and those kids are now adults trying to start their own business. But they bring with them a prejudice that will actually hurt their business and cost them plenty!

We’re not going to sit here and say, “Nothing happens until the sale is made.” We’re not even going to say, “Everybody’s paycheck is a result of sales.” True as these statements may be, were going to focus on another reason to treat salespeople right.

The salesperson doesn’t just knock on the door of your business. They knock on the doors of your competitors’ businesses. While you are stuck in your office, warehouse, or production facility working to grow your business, they are outside, moving around, constantly surveying the market and keeping tabs on your competition. In other words, they know tons that you need to know!

If you keep them waiting for an hour because you think they are trying to get over on you, or worse, you want to send them a message about how you feel about salespeople altogether, you’re missing a giant opportunity to get the information you need to improve your odds of success.

When you hustle them in and out, cut them off, or treat them like second-class citizens, they’re not going to share what they know. In fact, they’ll want to make the visit as short as possible so they can share what they know with your enlightened competitors.

Why would a poorly treated salesperson let you in on an overstock situation that his boss was suffering that could benefit you with lower prices, free warehousing, and extended terms for the goods you need? They will save that offer for your competitors.

When we started Barefoot Wines, we really didn’t know what we were doing. We depended on the salespeople who knocked on our door to give us the insights they had about the changing dynamics of the marketplace and the strategies of our competitors. We didn’t keep them waiting. We didn’t treat them with disrespect. On the contrary, we invited them in like family members we hadn’t seen in a long time. We introduced them around the office. We took them to lunch.

It was a small investment for what we got in return. They walked us through complicated logistics, cash flow, and inventory and compliance challenges. They told us what our competition was up to. They turned us on to the best possible ways we could acquire the products we needed at the lowest possible costs. They were a Godsend!

They told us that we were their favorite sales call. They said they looked forward to seeing us succeed and they lived up to those words with Intel and discounts we could have never achieved otherwise.

So, the next time you hear that salesperson knocking on your door, that just might be the sound of opportunity knocking. It was for us, and with the right attitude, it can be for you!

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Does Your Company Have a Customer Intel Department?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 17:00:17 +0000

In most large companies, the customer service department is strictly for complaint resolution. Companies usually relegate customer service to the bottom of the corporate structure pyramid because they’re seen as some kind of a clerical call center. They’re the ones who answer the 800 number complaints and comments. And they’re the ones who are expected to solve customer problems “down” at their level.

In the top-down structure of the classic pyramid company, production and marketing have a higher status than sales and customer service. Products are pushed down to the salespeople to sell. And if any complaints try to come back up, you guessed it, they are kept down by the customer service people.

Some companies actually rate their customer service people by how few complaints escalate up to management. We think this limited view of the customer service is not only unfair, but it’s unprofitable, wasteful, and ultimately unwise.

Why? Because this view of customer service ignores the fact that, except for your salespeople, your customer service people are the only ones in your company who talk directly to your customer every day. They know what your customers like …and hate about your company’s products. They know about your competition. They hear daily suggestions about how to improve your products. They know when and where your products are out of stock. And they are the ones who can turn your complainers into advocates.

In fact, we don’t call it “Customer Service.” We call it “Customer Intel.”

The Two-Division Company

A popular keynote we present for large companies that want to engage and empower their people with the entrepreneurial spirit is “The Two Division Company.” The two divisions are Sales (which includes Customer Service) and Sales Support (everybody else from the CEO to the receptionist).

Customer Service – Resolve Issues, Win Back Customers & Get Feedback

A customer can only give you two things: their money and their feedback. The feedback is extremely valuable. That’s because it is the information you need to keep your goods and services relevant, stay on top of your distribution system, and stay ahead of your competition. In other words, it’s the information you need to stay in business!

Unlike the focus groups and market studies that the marketing people spend thousands on, the information your customer service people get is unfettered, unbiased, and timely. And it comes from folks who care enough about your company to call and complain. Many are brand advocates seeking resolution for their favorite brand, the brand they’ve told their friends and neighbors to buy. Now that brand let them down. If they can get resolution they won’t feel obligated to go back and tell everyone they know about the problems they ran into. Instead, they will celebrate the problems and the solutions as validation for their continued advocacy.

Once their problem has been resolved, they can provide vital information you need like: Where did they buy it? Was it in stock? How long have they been a customer? Have they been satisfied with it in the past? What suggestions do they have to improve your products, marketing, and service? Will they recommend your brand to others?

Formal Lines of Communication Focusing on Sales & the Customer

If you don’t have it already, we recommend that you at least establish formal lines of communication between sales and customer service on the one hand, and production, marketing, and management, on the other. By focusing on sales and the customer, instead of divisions of labor, specialization, and chains of command, some of those complaints and suggestions can find their way back up into the company structure where they belong to keep your products relevant and competitive.

Why not start today by renaming your customer service department, “Customer Intel” and benefit from what they hear from your customers? They can do much, much more than complaint resolution.

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Whatever Business You Think You’re In, You’re in The Personnel Management Business

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 10 May 2018 17:00:55 +0000

We recently had the pleasure of spending the day with 65 MBA students from Nanyang University in Singapore. 25% of the class were part-time students who were already running their own businesses. They asked most of the questions because they obviously had the most immediate concerns.

One question that was particularly telling was, “How do you to get the most out of your employees?”

We’ve given many talks and worked with many companies on this issue, plus we have our own experience building the Barefoot Wine Brand. We had virtually no turnover during the last several years before we were acquired. These were also the same years that the brand made leaps and bounds in the marketplace and overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Most of those solutions came from our own people.

“What was the most important thing that made the difference?” they asked.

We told them to “overkill on orientation.” First, your employees have to know where the money comes from and how it gets to them.

Don’t just show your new employee the bathroom, the coffee room, and their go-to person. Take orientation to a whole new level driven by two concepts:

You can move wet cement with the trowel, but when it hardens, you’ll need a jackhammer. Your people will create their own ideas of how things should be done if you don’t provide them early and often with your way of doing business. Their preconceived misconceptions are at the root of most engagement issues.
Most people can instantly grasp an image yet struggle over dialogue and written text. Use graphic simplicity to present seemingly complex ideas in pictures, charts, and process maps that are easy to understand.

Use these concepts by presenting them on day one with two such infographics:

“The Money Map”.This is like a treasure map that shows the employees how the funds to pay their salary, bonuses, and benefits come into your company. It graphically demonstrates every transaction that must occur between the ultimate end-user and all the players and stakeholders your company must satisfy in order to pass those funds up the chain, step-by-step, to your company. It shows how each player must cover his overhead, make a profit, and purchase your products and services.

The money map not only shows new employees where the money comes from, but it shows them the bigger picture. For one thing ,it eliminates the idea that the employer is some kind of a sugar daddy and clearly demonstrates how dependent the employee’s income is on the performance of the company.

By demonstrating all the key relationships, the employee begins to clearly see how they can fit in and how they can make a difference. It’s hard to engage people when they don’t understand the wider business process at play. In fact, they will make their own assumptions about the nature of things. Over time, these misconceptions will harden, and ultimately you as their employer, will need that jackhammer.

“The Two-Division Company”.Unlike the typical pyramid structure organization chart with many layers and silos indicating status divisions of labor and chain of command, we gave them a very simple organization chart with only four boxes stacked vertically.

The top box was labeled “The Customer”. The next box was labeled “Sales”. Below that was a box labeled “Sales Support”. The final box was labeled “Not Employed Here!” So, in our company, everybody who is not in Sales was in Sales Support. That included most of our employees.

This gave everybody the message that we should be listening closely to what the salespeople and the customer service people had to say about the customer and the marketplace. After all, they were the only people in the company that were in direct contact with the customer and marketplace every day. And as they learned from the money map, that is where their salary came from.

This form of orientation quickly and clearly shows your new employees how they are positioned to make a difference before they develop entrenched and counterproductive misconceptions. If they don’t get these simple concepts early on, it will be much more difficult to engage them in problem solving, innovation, and disrupting initiatives. But when they have a firm foundation and understand how it all works, they will not only be engaged, they will be empowered!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Is your Startup Doomed by Your VC’s Quarterly Reports?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 18:00:37 +0000

You must be getting a little nervous! It’s June 25^th and the pressure is on. Your chances to effect the data for the Q2 Report is wrapping up in just a few days! How will you make the numbers you promise your VC? Will you load up your new buyer with more than she needs and more than you can service? Will you have to fudge the numbers …again?

Of course, your VC has a right to quarterly reports. They want to keep track of their investment. If you’re not performing as agreed, they want to know right away. They want to cut their losses, which means you could lose your financing if you don’t make the numbers. Are you getting a little more nervous?

You know if you push your salespeople too hard it will take away from next quarter’s numbers. You know that if you load up your buyers you may lose them due to lack of service. And you know your reputation will be hurt if you don’t service what you sell. In fact, you may not have even fully realize the true cost of sales until you got several months away from that extravagant launch party. The reality of your business is just beginning to settle in. Now you know at least part of what you don’t know. But it’s too late and the report is due!

Just since you started, you have learned a ton. It’s stuff they didn’t teach you in college. It’s stuff that you wish you had known about. It’s stuff that requires actually experience.

You thought your VC knew more about your business than you. You thought they’d warn you. You thought they would be an enabling “partner”. You thought your business plan was validated because your VC funded it.

But no! You are on your own! And now it’s clear that your VC doesn’t really care. He’s spread out his risk like a gambler playing the odds. He’s bet on 10 to 20 start ups like yours, hoping for that one unicorn. Your business is just one roll of the dice. Will you make your numbers and stay in the game or will you crap out?

You are quickly approaching a no-win situation where if you make the numbers, you could lose your business. If you don’t make the numbers, you will lose your investor, and then your business.

The Department of Commerce says that 9 out of 10 businesses fail. That’s why most VC’s play the odds. But the same Department of Commerce also reports that businesses that make it to 2 years are more likely to make it to 5, and those that make it 5, to are more likely to make it to 10.

Having been through it from ideation to monetization, we understand why. In the first 2 years, we found out our cash flow plan was more important than our business plan. As time went on, we began to respect the cost of sales, which generally increased directly with growth. That’s why we created The Barefoot Startup, a more sensitive approach to starting and growing a business. It’s more grounded than bootstrap. It’s being in touch with the environment.

Just like being barefoot, the Barefoot Startup directs you to learn to walk before you run. It directs you to be more sensitive to the terrain so you don’t fall down. It shows you how to be more flexible so you can make quick adjustments, thoughtful pivots, and remain light on your feet.

Don’t let quarterly reports hurt your chances. Starting a business is challenging enough. Discover and use your hidden resources. Outsource everything but accounting, sales, and quality control. Create revenue earlier with the relatively small, low-hanging fruit. In other words, reduce you need for capital right from the start, and you may not have to play the VC game at all. Ironically most VC’s are shying away from pre-revenue startups anyway. Demonstrating revenue proves your concept, but more importantly, provides a priceless business education. VC’s will line up to expand a proven concept and you will be in a much better bargaining position!

The credo of The Barefoot Startup is simple: Start small. Make your mistakes in a small place. Get your act together before you take your show on the road. And don’t scale to fail …or make your quarterly numbers! By keeping your (bare) feet on the ground and building a solid foundation, your chances of success will increase, and your need for outside capital will decrease!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Pyramids Are for Dead Pharaohs – Entrepreneur

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 23:03:44 +0000

First published on Entrepreneur.com on 7/22/2017

Like most startups, we started out undercapitalized. The only “office” we could afford was our laundry room. We had extra space there because we couldn’t afford a washer and a dryer. Our first desk was an old door we supported on two sawhorses. We were scrambling for sales, every day, just to stay in business. There were only two of us, but there was no question in anyone’s mind that without sales we were finished, and then there would be no Barefoot Wine!

As we began to grow we hired people who specialized in production, accounting, marketing and administration. We moved into larger offices and even hired a sales force that worked throughout the country. The salespeople were “outside” while the office and production people were “inside.”

That’s when we began to see our little company slowly but surely succumb to the pyramid corporate structure. Each division established its hegemony. People began to compare themselves to other professionals in other companies in terms of salary and best practices. Before long, our flat two-person company looked like a pyramid. Eventually, the organization chart became a constant status reminder with various levels and impenetrable silos.

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Small Business Creates the Most Jobs and Does Most of the Training

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 11 May 2017 17:00:22 +0000

Last week was National Small Business Week. Every year at this time the North Florida Small Business Development Center at the University of North Florida celebrates with an awards luncheon singling out small business owners in their region who are outstanding. This year was their 25^th anniversary and we were honored to be their keynote speakers.

Earlier in the day, they asked us to present a workshop to their VIP members and supporters. These folks were already successful, so we had to give them something special that would help them, hopefully, in a unique way.

We shared one of our favorite business principles, which is “Make Mistakes W-R-I-T-E,” (not just right)! We had plenty of experience in making mistakes; so much in fact that we got good at it. We actually developed a process for making mistakes that greatly improved our company and caused our acquirer to remark, “Wow! This is the best documented company we’ve ever seen!”

It all starts with giving your people permission to make mistakes. They are going to make mistakes whether you give them permission or not, but without permission, they are going to deny the mistake, cover it up, or blame others. They prefer to think it never happened, and go off to the next thing.

You can’t blame them. They’ve been programmed since grade school not to make mistakes. After all, a mistake would get you marked down, give you a lower grade, and could go on your record.

Yet, by giving your people permission to make mistakes w-r-i-t-e, you encourage the improvement of your documents and your very way of doing business. How? By asking your people to identify all the documents that need to be changed, clarified, or created to make the mistake less likely to happen again. Something written must be created, changed or improved. It may involve policies, procedures, checklists, sign off sheets, or even clauses in contracts.

The next step is circulating the new document to get everyone’s sign off of understanding. Then, and this is an important part, thanking the person publicly for improving your business!

Now, everyone knows that you celebrate mistakes – when they are used to refine your business process and ultimately help with training, communication, and profitability.

Sure, you have to apologize and make any one hurt by the mistake whole again. But when you show a customer or a vendor that you are changing written materials to prevent a reoccurrence, they are more likely to not only forgive you, but give you more credibility. They saw you in action. Remember, people judge you by how well you handle a mistake. So, why not do it really well?

And what about those outside vendors, that salesperson, or that difficult customer? Surely, many of the mistakes are their fault, right? We say, “Aim, don’t blame!” When you blame the other guy, you disempower yourself. Rather, take action and clean up you own backyard. What can you do to make the mistake less likely to happen again?

We once had an executive who commented on our unrelenting campaign to tweak, write, and rewrite our documents in the face of any mistake. He complained, “You guys are trying to make everything idiot proof!” We responded, “No, we are trying to make it idiot resistant!” to which he responded, “But even now, as we speak, they’re building a better idiot!”

So, the best way to stay ahead of the “improved idiots” out there is to make mistakes write, and build your business on the back of your mistakes – like we did!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Don’t Block Good Ideas from Getting to You!

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 18:00:36 +0000

Often the best ideas to solve problems, cut costs, and improve sales come from your own people – but they never get to you. Why? Because you have inadvertently allowed your company’s structure to prevent them from doing so.

Employees, vendors, and customers are loaded with good ideas to help you succeed. But are you willing to listen? If you think you know more about your product than anyone else, or that accepting ideas from others is somehow implying that you, the product creator, don’t have all the answers, you may be losing out on a goldmine.

This mindset is counterproductive to improvement. You may be making a statement, but losing a deposit.

You may think, “Oh, that’s not me. I want every good idea I can get my hands on!” But you may have permitted subtle roadblocks that effectively block those good ideas. If you unintentionally allow your company to grow into a “know-it-all,” top-down structure, you are blocking good ideas from getting to you and your decision-makers.

When we are helping a company with positive suggestion to improve their product or service, we often hear, “Nobody ever told me that before,” to which we respond, “Well, you can’t say that anymore!” But now we know two things about this company: first, “good” ideas do not flow easily; and second, they believe customers only complain and never offer useful suggestions.

It is easy to see how this happens. Production is charged with taking raw materials and developing them into products, which they hand down to Marketing. Then, Marketing develops plans to sell the products and hands them down to Sales. Then, Sales is charged with executing those plans. And then, if there are any dissatisfied customers, they go to Customer Service who is charged with resolving their complaints.

This is the classic pyramid structure. We say, “Pyramids are for dead pharaohs – don’t bury your good ideas under one!”

To remove the roads blocks that prevent good ideas from getting through a top-down structure start with a bottom-up philosophy and let it percolate into every level in your company structure.

Start by putting the customer on top. Every company says they put the customer on top. But to do this in practice requires turning that pyramid upside down.

Every call from your customers is a golden opportunity to get good ideas. So, change Customer Service from “complaint resolution” to “customer intell.” Create a formal upward path of communication that regularly allows those ideas to get to your production and marketing people.

Salespeople become more than the folks who execute the marketing plans. They get customer feedback, they witness market dynamics, and they see competitors’ strategies. Sales must be encouraged to collect and pass on this critical info to marketing and production.

Well-meaning Compliance, HR, and even 1^st and 2^nd line Managers can discourage and even stop good ideas coming from your own people. Good ideas wane when not acted upon quickly. To speed up the process, ask you compliance people to identify parameters inside of which staff suggestions can get fast-tracked. Then, actively encourage suggestions, followed by written memos of appreciation to those with the best ideas. Copy the entire team. This acknowledgement gives your people more appreciation for what that person did, and they will all know that if they do the same, they too will also get acknowledgement. This encourages them to be engaged and creative.

Your customers, employees, and vendors have valuable suggestions that can help you succeed – if you only let them. Get out of the way and let ideas flow!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Base Compensation on Sales, Growth, and Profitability

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 17:00:21 +0000

Brian Tracy once said that most employee behavioral problems are caused by compensation systems. In short, you get what you pay for. Nowhere is this more critical than in how you compensate your sales team. For years we paid our salespeople a commission based on sales alone. Much later we realized that our compensation plan was incomplete. We had to find a way to also reward for growth and profits!

Growth is the key to survival for any new startup. But be careful. Your sales team will do exactly what you pay them to do! If you pay by the hour, then you are giving them the message that you pay for attendance. They will put in the time but not necessarily do the job you need them to do. The alternatives require some serious thought: If you pay a guaranteed flat rate plus commission, how big is the guarantee? What is the commission based on? And what are the levels and how are they set? Can these levels be achieved at any cost, because if they can, your sales team will spend as much as necessary to make sales, thereby reducing your overall profitability.

So you need a system that rewards for sales, growth and profitability.

This may sound simple, but it’s not. Your salespeople must be provided with last year’s sales figures. They have to be aware of the cost of sales. And they should understand the cost of goods of each of the products your company sells. Although they have no control over the cost of goods, they can increase profitability by offering discounts on products that have a lower cost of goods, rather than discount products that have a higher cost of goods.

We built our system over a period of years of trial and error. First, all sides had to agree on the term, what was being measured, when, and why. We started by providing a small base salary that would basically cover their bills.

Every territory was different and had to be treated differently when analyzing sales. In each, we used the sales for each month last year and the cost of those sales per case. That became our baseline to compare to this month’s sales figures. We then determined profitability per case in that territory.

But some argued it wasn’t fair because of special market dynamics that created one-time anomalies. So we calculated a 3-month average, using the previous month, the same month, plus the following month of the previous year. This became our new baseline for sales this month this year.

Now we needed a plan that would reward for growth, which was sales greater than the baseline. We paid commission on each case sold that exceeded last year’s 3-month baseline.

Then, if in any given month, sales exceeded the baseline by a pre-agreed upon amount, say 25%, the commission would double on all cases back to the baseline. And if sales exceeded the baseline by 50%, all cases over the baseline were worth 3 times as much in commissions.

So the same case could be worth one, two, or three times the commission if the salesperson hit the various plateaus. Our salespeople naturally would push for the next highest plateau every month!

We also kept a close eye on their cost of sales and would reward them for savings in this area, or penalize them for increased costs. This kept them mindful of the costs and use of marketing materials, sales trips, distributors’ incentives and other costs required to make sales. Our sales staff became very resourceful and frugal!

Finally we were paying for sales, growth and profitability. Within two years of implementing this plan, we became one of the fastest growing wine brands in the country. It was well worth the effort! Now, with the proper compensation plan in effect, you too can watch your sales, growth, and profitability soar!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Standing on Ceremony Can Lose the Sale

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 17:00:57 +0000

Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose the sale. Why? Because the buyers simply don’t like you or your approach. Sometimes in an effort to be professional we can be read as mechanical, sterile, and heartless.

Sure, it’s a thin line between too much information and not providing enough to gain credibility. But there comes a time in every sales process when you have to show enough of your true self to be considered authentic and sincere by the purchasing party. Buyers want to identify at some level with the folks who are selling them. They want to know something that they have in common with the seller. It helps them justify the purchase. It helps them gain a feeling of trust.

Seasoned salespeople know from experience just how much is enough and how much is too much. First of all you have to be relatively confident with yourself and your product. Some people have issues with becoming personable at all. They think they can hide behind ceremonious form to avoid any kind of personal exposure. But their prospect may feel uncomfortable and ultimately see the form itself as tedious and they soon lose interest. This is what’s wrong with form letters and standard approaches.

Some people think that being mysterious will somehow lure others in and make them want to know more. We have found this approach tends to be read as insincere and somewhat devious. Prospects who don’t even know you now are faced with an added barrier to open communication – mystery. They wonder what your true motives are. We have found that they not only don’t want to discover the mystery, but they want to get away from those who try to use this or any other kind dramatic tactics.

The winning approach is to find something you have in common with your prospect before you ever go into your pitch. You’ll be glad you did because in the process you will learn how your prospect communicates and what their priorities are. This will help you immensely to craft a tailored approach for each of the unique prospects you meet.

We did business over the years with many Japanese colleagues and buyers. In their business culture, it is considered rude to pitch before some commonality has been established. It was not unusual for us to spend the first entire session talking about, you guessed it, the weather. After that it was sports or favorite movies.

Today, when we cold-call a prospect for a speaking event we like to set it up on Skype or some other video conferencing service so we can see each other. That increases the human touch right there. Then we usually ask them about the weather they are having and share ours. We also have learned enough about them and their company previously to comment favorably on some current event that effected them, like, “Congratulations on that recent merger,” or “You guys are really making a difference with your new program.”

Keep the conversation light to establish engagement, humor and trust. Remember their judgment about you takes place in the first 20 seconds and thereafter tends only to validate that initial impression. So take the time to establish friendly relations first. People want to cooperate with people they like. It’s as simple as that. So do they like you? What have you done to make yourself believable, likable, and friendly? We have found that initially folks must “buy” you before they will ever consider buying your product or service. First make friends; then make the sale!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Build Your Business using Guiding Principles – Part 3

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 03:13:30 +0000

The salespeople who call on your business have much more to offer than the products and services they represent. They are a gold mine of information and are in a position to significantly help your business.

In this series, we have examined the guiding principles that were instrumental to our success in the belief that they will be valuable to you in your business as well. The questions we ask put you in the other guy’s shoes to help you discover how your basic attitudes and philosophies affect your important decisions and ultimately your success. Here is our third question:

3. How would you like selling to yourself? If you were a salesperson and had two clients, one who treated you with respect and dignity, and another who viewed you as a necessary evil, which one would get preferential treatment? If one client held the view that all salespeople were hucksters and tricksters, would you offer them the special deals? Or would you be more likely to tell the client who treated you with respect, the most economical ways to buy your products? If you knew significant market information affecting your industry or your customer’s business, which client would you share it with? If you could extend terms, reduce interest rates or avoid holding fees, who would you tell first, the client that took you on time, was glad to see you, and treated you like a strategic partner? Or the one who kept you waiting with the “it’s just another salesperson trying to sell me something, and they can wait,” attitude? When you look at relationships through the salesperson’s eyes, you realize how much they influence behavior. Why not treat salespeople like partners and get the edge?

We always treated our vendors and their salespeople as if they were part of our staff. We saw them as valuable allies who could significantly influence our bottom line. Here are four reasons why we wanted to be their favorite client:

Deals: The salesperson who calls on you may have special pocket deals. These are not on the price sheet but are given to the salesperson to help close new customers or gain larger orders. Often the supplier or vendor will have a close-out at a very attractive price. Give your salesperson a reason to offer these to you first!

Terms: Vendor salespersons are your advocates for better terms with their companies. Their recommendations can make all the difference, and their endorsement means they stand behind you. They know the process and can give you insights on how to maneuver successfully. When you give them respect, they will share what they know and go to bat for you!

Information: We are often too busy running our businesses to gather the latest news in our industries. Sometimes we are blindsided by a competitor’s move, a new opportunity, or a change in the laws or business practices. Your vendor’s salespeople know all about it! It is part of their job to stay on top of the ever-changing marketplace, making them a major source of information for your company.

Special Accommodations: Occasionally you will be offered an opportunity that you can’t take advantage of due to lack of supplies or terms. Your vendor’ salesperson can help, especially when it means more income for their company. Many times our vendors provided us with incredible opportunities to help us grow. They knew we would be loyal and beholding. Why? Because their salespeople were treated well by us and our staff. We made them feel important and part of our team.

Next time we will further reveal your basic guiding business principles by asking the last of the four questions, “Would you buy from yourself?”

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