Referrals, references, connections, networking, social media: they’re all about access and leverage. You get access to the people who make things happen and are able to leverage these relationships.

I want to focus on the second part: Leverage. How do you get the most leverage during the sales process from your past successful client relationships? If you have read my materials, you know that your prospects have to overcome their fears and concerns in buying from a small company before they buy from you and not from a better-known, bigger company. References can be a tremendous asset in getting a buyer to overcome that fear, or they can be perceived as worthless commentary delivered by your buddies. So, how do you get the most out of your best client relationships?

A couple of techniques for high-impact leveraging of your references:
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Recently I was interviewed by Paul Diamond from the Vistage organization. We discussed the vast array of social media sites for salespeople and the fact that there are a lot of these sites out there, but not all of them are good. I think that Paul’s take on the topic and what he uncovered in his research is helpful. Check out his blog post on the topic on Bizmore.com.

First, let me apologize for the big gap in my blogging. I have been all over the country in the last 6 weeks with the Inc. Magazine presentation tour. We made stops in New York, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It was a fantastic experience and I met some remarkable new entrepreneurs (those “newpreneurs” I’ve been talking about). Between those travels and my client work I have not had a moment to write to you. But, I’M BACK!

Follow this link below to a video of a the presentation I gave in Seattle. I covered the 5 Best Practices of Explosive Growth Companies.

Scroll down the landing page and click on the video box at the bottom.

The presentations went very well and we had a great exchange of ideas. The Q & A is worth watching as well because I respond to some of the questions typically asked by people who want to hunt big, but are not yet sure how.

It’s good to be back. Enjoy the video.

I judged the Alibaba.com/Inc. Magazine Newpreneur(tm) of the Year semifinals in Miami last night. At the request of one of the contestants, I have emailed some feedback that I think is accurate for all of the participants and I want to share it with you. It also fits for most elevator pitches, solicitations for capital and presentations.

Contestant,

It was truly a pleasure to meet you and to spend time discussing your business last evening at the Inc./Alibaba event.

I want to share just a few thoughts about your presentation as I do with all contestants who make a request as you did.

• 90 seconds is a very short period. GET TO IT! Use the 5 M process.
  • Market. Whom are you targeting and why?
  • Message. What business problem do you solve and how will you get companies to buy from you?
  • Method. What are your go to market strategies and mechanisms?
  • Measure. What are the key milestones in your business plan?
  • Management. How will you manage growth?
• This is not a product beauty contest. It’s a business plan discussion. Focus on that.
• Focus on the money in every corner of the conversation. Unit costs, margins, overhead, capital investment, pro forma and so on.
  Answer the judges’ questions directly
• Get the word out. You need a gazillion online votes to make the finals in San Francisco. This means you need everyone you have ever met to vote for you, (and their friends and family… and then some).

You have a good idea and story and you are telling it well, so are the rest of the people who will be finalists. You have to be better than they are to take home the trophy.

I hope that this is helpful. Best wishes on all of your efforts!

Tom

I’m working with a team of sales people right now—good sales people—who have one teensy-weensy problem: follow up.

The sales process for all of us includes a large number of transactional communications. They may include coordinating a meeting, securing a key piece of information, getting approval from Procurement or Purchasing, sign-off from a superior, the review of the proposal, signing the contract and so on. Every one of these communications must be completed in order to land the deal. If you participate in the sales process, you understand that rarely have you suffered more indignity or unprofessionalism than in this cycle of unanswered, unreturned or ignored emails, voicemail messages and sent and unsigned documents.  And it’s done WILLINGLY.

I’ve watched frothy-mouthed-screaming-at-officials-soccer-moms, who when faced with following up with a prospect who agreed to an action and hasn’t done it, say “Well, I’ll just give it another week.  I don’t want to be too pushy.”

I’ve seen bar-pounding-get-me-my-beer-now-guys wait for weeks for a response on a proposal. Weeks!

What is the right amount of time to wait before following up with a prospect? Not just any prospect, but a big prospect.  I know that you don’t want to be pushy or desperate.  I get that.  But you also need to keep moving the process along. We are looking for the Goldilocks “just right” level. Here are some pointers before I give you the timing guidelines:

• Ask. My favorite approach came from a guy in Ireland pitching me some commercial real-estate. He said, “Thomas, the line between persistence and annoyance is a fine one, and I wouldn’t want to be crossing it. When should I be getting back to you so I’ll know you’ll be picking up the phone.” In every direct communication, ask when they want to have you get back to them and be specific. “Early next week” is not specific. “Tuesday at 10am” is specific.
• Set expectations. It starts with setting expectations. In voicemails, emails, face to face or by phone, never end the conversation without setting the next time. Tell them when you will be calling or sending an email, specifically.
• Be impeccable. Never miss a time or date. Not by a minute. If you are going to set the time for follow up with precision in your email or voicemail, then you have to hit it. You are creating a perception of attention detail and reliability. Just because they are not impeccable does not give you a pass not to be.
• Allow some leeway. Sometimes, my calls for appointments and follow ups are missed by the person whom I am calling. I leave this message, “I have us scheduled for a meeting today at 9am. I probably just missed you or one of your other meetings is running over. I will call back in 15 minutes to connect. I look forward to our conversation. Thanks.” Then I call back. If I don’t reach the person, my message sounds like this, “I’m sorry we didn’t get connected today, I was looking forward to our conversation. Your day may have just gotten away from you, I know that happens to me sometimes. I’ll call you back at end of day today, say 5:00pm, to reschedule this call. Thanks.”  Don’t wait for a call back or an email.  Keep pressing forward.
• Drive, don’t ride. I don’t expect that people will be calling me back. I’m driving the process, so it’s my job to drive the communication. I am always willing to be surprised in a good way with a responsive person, but my control needs dictate that I can’t be waiting.  I have to drive. How about you?
• Walk away. Like the movie title says, maybe “He’s Just Not That Into You.” At some point, continued follow up is groveling. Don’t grovel. (see Brando Don’t Audition)

If they are not responding, it means that they have moved on. I send an email or leave a voice message that sounds like this:  “I’ve been in this business a long time, and when I stop being able to connect with someone it usually means that the timing for us to work together is not good. This is my last call to you for 6 months. I’ll circle back around then to see if timing is better for us to work together. If something changes for you between now and then, please feel free to call me. “

Having said all of this, here are some guidelines for proper Hunt Big Sales Prospect Follow Up Etiquette:

Prospecting Calls

• 1st Prospecting Call- You can call or email an unresponsive person within 48 hours.
• 2nd Prospecting Call– Within 48 hours of last call
• 3rd Prospecting Call– Within 48 hours of last call
• 4th Prospecting Call– Within 72 hours of last call
• Final Prospecting Call– Within 72 hours of last call

Trade Show Follow-Up – This gets trickier depending upon the volume of contacts.

• Pre-Set Personal meeting – Within 48 hours of trade show closing.
• Good conversation on floor – Within 48 hours of trade show closing
• Passing conversation on floor – Within 72 hours of trade show closing
• Fish bowl business card – Within 7 calendar days of trade show closing
• Prospect listed in program – Do you really have time to chase someone who you never met at the show? Don’t be a psycho stalker. Let it go.

Proposals. Assuming that you are sending a requested proposal, rather than an unsolicited one, your follow-up cycle should be declared in the cover letter. It should be within 24 hours to confirm receipt and distribution if appropriate. The time should be set at that time for a full review of the proposal within 72 hours. The house goes on fire outside of 8 calendar days—you must get connection and confirmation of interest and progress within 8 calendar days or you are dead.

Contracts. Who is driving? You are. Contract cycles within clients are a misty and dark area of the sales process. Lawyers think of themselves in this process as the stewards of their company’s risk, which they probably are. Because of this, they are slow, methodical and indifferent to you. First, get an understanding from your champion how long the cycle usually takes. Cut this time by two-thirds and follow up at the one-third mark in the cycle. Work both the attorney and the champion. Your approach should always be helpful: “What areas are of the most concern in the agreement? Which parts of the agreement are we going to be able to leave the same? How can we help to work through this agreement?”

Getting the prospect’s team to move. Stuck. I hate being stuck. Usually it’s IT, but not always. The process gets tends to get bogged down while your champion of your new client is waiting for someone in his or her organization to do something. Now everybody is waiting. Your follow up here has to be vigorous and consistent but friendly. You are working within 4 hour cycles of commitments. Any time that a time or date has been missed on a commitment, you follow up within 4 hours. If they are not missing commitments, then your follow up is within 1 hour of commitment completion to thank them for completing the commitment. 20 commitments? 20 thank you’s.

Information requests. Use the same guidelines as “Getting the prospect’s team to move.”

Guidelines are not laws.  When in doubt, use your own judgment. Always remember though, YOU ARE DRIVING.

I just finished Michael Lewis’s Moneyball, an oldie but a goodie. It tells the story of the Oakland A’s and their manager Billy Beane’s fight against the Conventional Wisdom of professional baseball. Beane guided his team in a battle against the “system”—the well established conventions of what it takes to make a great baseball team (or a baseball team great)—and won. Beane understood that his team was not just a group of players, but a group of people whose individual skills are needed to orchestrate a win. The same can be said for your sales team. The sales person, sales manager, designers, engineers, operations and client services personnel all have a hand in hunting a big sale. It’s the combination of skills they bring to the table that will help accomplish the goal.

What can hunters learn from Beane and his team?

Go Against Conventional Wisdom (CW)
Let’s start with some of the “Conventional Wisdom” that organizations use when fielding their sales teams. Remember, these are the things you’ll be working against when putting together your team.

• “Our team must come from our industry.” I hear this statement 90+% of the time. This is true for some positions, but as I will discuss later, not all. This CW is limiting and can be expensive.
• “Have a set of deep contacts in the prospect base.” People like the idea of having access to large accounts via previous contacts, but with all the turnover and reorganization in the marketplace, this is not as valuable or as relevant as it once was.
• “Sales people are the most important part of the sale.” I have railed against the “rockstar” idea before. In the complex sale, one person may be the most important part of a single step, but is still, in the end, just one part of the overall team.
• Rockstar pedigree. You may be looking for players with the “big company” background, but in what way is experience from a behemoth, matrixed, highly-resourced and deeply branded company going to benefit a company like yours? In other words, how will those players’ backgrounds serve you?
• Look the part. There is a widely-held belief as to what a sales person looks, talks and “feels” like. In reality, there’s no real “look” to a great sales person. It’s his or her skill that will make the sale.

Team Building on Your Payroll (or lack thereof)
Like Beane, small and mid-size companies don’t always have big league budgets to hire the “rockstars” to play for their teams. But since we play in the big leagues, we need to figure out a strategy to win…
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At some point, we all say dumb things. It is natural and human, but for all our communication abilities, salespeople can say the darnedest things! I have compiled some classic ones below, but hope that you will add to the list with your own. Think of this as the list of things to never say if you are a salesperson.

• “It could be huge!” We have used this four-word exclamation in almost every seminar we have ever given.   However, when a salesperson says it, they’re asking for the owner to either berate them for exaggeration, or pepper them with questions. A salesperson knows that both of these reactions are  painful, and yet can’t help but say it anyway.
• “It could be the next . . .!” Like the previous statement, this statement comes jam-packed with assumptions and pixie dust. Of course, the worst of it is that the salesperson thinks that the last really big deal that was brought in looked just like this one. Now, he/she is not only subject to the wrath and ire of the boss, but also to that of all of his/her co-workers, since they’re going to have clean up the mess that “the next” creates.
• “This is going to be fairly easy … We only have to do a couple things different than usual.” Whenever the salesperson starts talking about how easy someone else’s work is going to be, she has lost the audience. It is never as easy as they think, because they don’t have to do the work.
• “We have the inside track on this one.” I know that I shouldn’t be superstitious, but I’ve found that the minute you taunt the world by declaring how good you are, or how something is definite when it isn’t, you invite trouble. Trouble usually comes in the form of the unexpected, the unanticipated, and the unstoppable. Don’t brag to the sales gods.
• “Now . . . this is full commission, right?” Any salesperson dumb enough to ask this question already knows that the answer is most likely “no.” Salespeople that worry that they won’t receive full commission are either cutting a deal that doesn’t deserve it, or working for firms that have a history of not paying.

As a lifelong salesperson, I am certain that I’ve said all of these things before. This, of course, is why they are so familiar. What assumptive phrases have you heard before from either your own mouth, or a salesperson you know?

I’m working on some big sales right now with my clients. I act as either a member of their team or as a key advisor. We’re aiming at accounts ranging from $500,000 to $100,000,000. This is a great part of my professional life. People hire me typically for one or more of three reasons:

1. They’re looking to “double their double.” They want to double the speed with which they can double the size of their company and they believe that landing large accounts is the way to do it.
2. They want a manageable and scalable approach to running their sales process, measuring it and improving their success rates.
3. They have a mega-sale that they want to land and they want me to be their adviser and coach. I play the role of “deal-doctor” for lack of a better description.

I’m doing all of this work right now for a variety of clients, but it just so happens that in the area of mega-hunts, we’re in a very busy hunting season.

Every one of these deals is different – different size, industry, competitive landscape, personality mix… You get the idea.

But there are a few things that each of these mega-hunts has in common…

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With the help of the TAS Group, Dave Stein and his company ES Research Group just completed a very interesting study–“The New Social Media: Do They Enable B2B Selling?”–which measures the top social media tools’ effectiveness in B2B selling. You can take a look at the key findings at www.esresearch.com/socialmedia (the executive summary is available here). The survey was filled out by nearly 400 sales professionals in the U.S.

For the lazy or only mildly interested, here is where they ranked in order of effectiveness:

1. Hoover’s/OneSource is the most helpful in winning B2B Sales at 54%, although 61% of those surveyed used it
2. LinkedIn is more widely used than other social media platforms, with 86% of those surveyed using it, but it helped in winning sales for 42% of those surveyed
3. Twitter is being used by almost a third of those surveyed (31%), but is only producing results for 13% (more thoughts on this later)
4. Plaxo and Facebook are being used by about half of those surveyed (50% and 48% respectively), who claim be to similar traction as with Twitter – (13% and 15% respectively)

The report’s conclusions were…

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Hi All,

It occurred to me recently that we have a TON of free sales resources scattered throughout our site. From e-books to podcasts, and webinars to essays, we’ve definitely taken this thought leadership stuff to heart. And now we’ve gone one step further and wrapped it all up nicely into one lovely package we’ve aptly named our “Resource Center.”

So now, instead of registering for every e-book or download, you will simply register once for the Resource Center (it’s still free, of course), and you’ll never have to fill out another form again. (Registration is only required for e-books, webinars and podcasts.) Your email address will become your login, although our center should recognize you if you enter from a computer that you’ve previously used to login. I’m not one to brag (which is a trait that my marketing agency cites as a fatal weakness), but it is pretty snazzy…

In all seriousness, though, I invite you to check it out and take advantage of all of our free tools, including a brand NEW e-book that we just introduced today. (I’ll write about that separately later.) “How to Get into Big Companies for Big Sales… and What to Do Once You Get There” details a variety of new challenges that big sale hunters face and then provides extensive pointers, tips and insight that will allow them to greet those challenges head on.

I would love your feedback on the new resource center and e-book, so please feel free to email me or leave a comment if you have a chance.

Now, let’s hunt!
Tom