I Would Kill for a Hit Rate Like This One

According to the sales gods, the average close rate for a typical sales rep, across all verticals, hovers around 16%.

While this may sound like an 84% lose rate, it doesn’t compare that poorly to the performance metrics in other industries.

For example, we all know that if you hit .300 for your career, and your name is not included in the Mitchell Report, you have a reasonable shot at the baseball hall of fame, unless of course, you look like a total schmuck while testifying before Congress.

Seth Godin recently posted the following:

In a new study released in today’s Times, it turns out that the typical NY police officer only hits 34% of the time she fires a gun. Even from a distance of six feet or less, it’s 43%. Obviously, Bruce Willis is the exception.
Seth Godin's Blog Entry - Marksmanship

Now, the next time a police officer attempts to pull you over for a speeding ticket, do not get any bright ideas, this hit rate will still get them into the hall of fame.

FYI - You can’t expense bail.

Signs You're Having a Bad Sales Meeting

With "Annual Sales Meeting" Season right around the corner, we decided to put together a list of those elements that make these meetings so memorable.

Thank you for those who contributed including our friends at www.linkedin.com

Pre-Game Show

• Your boss wants to share a flight and makes you change yours to a much later one. Then on the last day, he comes in late and announces he is too depressed to carry on the meeting because his prized Corvette broke down and he has to write the IRS a check for $25K because he made too much last year. Then you try to catch an earlier flight, all to find out they are all booked. Then your flight is cancelled and you are stuck there for another day and have to take a 6:15 flight that next morning.

• The sales book that was purchased, and then paid to ship to each rep, so that they could prepare for an engaging and productive discussion during the sales meeting, hasn't been opened yet

• The meeting begins with bumper music at 90db, from Mariah Carey's late 80s hits, while the lame managers attempt to dance a Jim Carey version of hip hop

• Ignoring the lessons learned about knowledge comprehension and retention, the opening meeting is highlighted with the phrase "We have every minute planned out....." or "we have a team building event every night!"
  

• In addition to the joy of traveling around the world for 30+ hours only to arrive at a crap hotel. You are informed that you will be sharing a room with a local who is too cheap to pay for a cab ride home.

• You have been asked to watch the movie "Boiler Room" in advance of the meeting - and to be prepared with suggestions on how to implement some of the "tips" you picked up in order to improve next quarter's results.

• Entire management team dresses in drag during an opening session and attempts to sing a lame song or act out a skit.

Purgatory Factor

• You drink as much water as possible not to cure hangover, but to force restroom breaks

• The sales rep from a warm client is closest to the thermostat and has the rest of the hungover, bad coffee filled guys sweating bullets by 9:04 am.

• The wireless is mysteriously 'down' in an attempt to make people focus.
  

• Most intense discussion is around describing the rules of NFL to the British colleagues

• You bribe select customers to call your cell during the role playing exercises with some 'urgent end of year cash they have to spend'

• The VP is asking individual reps to talk about how they successfully closed business. There are more I's in the story than in roman numerals

• You have strategically mapped out exactly how you are going to execute your new job search as soon as "The Role Playing Exercises" are complete and VP of Sales allows you to go home (roughly around 8pm)....and dont forget kids "We have a hard start time tomorrow at 8am so be on time!"

• The meeting co-chair begins to doze off....

The Elephant in the Room

• The Department of Corrections could have provided higher quality food and refreshments

• A speaker opens and says “I hope I’m not going to bore you, but….” and consequently does just that with death by PowerPoint… slides full of words… which he dutifully reads to you… and if that it not bad enough he also has a monotone voice… however, it gets worse… by slide 6 you look at anything that might look vaguely interesting and notice in the bottom right of the slide the heart sinking words… “slide 6 of 122”
  

• The CEO doesn’t stick around to see the presentations given by the directors of the departments

• The host has to continuously explain how funny his jokes are.

• The company is too cheap to hire someone to present Spin Selling and simply ask one of the directors to read the book and teach it.

• The most compelling directive comes from a VP that proclaimed that in order too have an effective User Group meeting you must put out brochures so clients could take them.

After Hours

• CEO of the company gets so drunk he starts to hit on the ugliest sales reps

• Sales rep stays out too late, gets too drunk, winds up in wrong part of town, at the wrong time. Never heard from again. VPs are pissed because his absence really screws up the schedule for next team-building exercise.
  

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Great Sales Sins - Opera Singer Syndrome

When I go to my dentist, I wear an Ipod.

For the record, yes, I do consider myself clever for this innovative solution to the problem of having dental professionals practically "fisting" my mouth, while simultaneously being overwhelmed by the desire to be "chatty".

This is the typical scenario that happens in the chair:
"So Sasser, hows that golf games of yours? Whoops, holy smokes, I cant believe my whole Rolex fits in there! Wow. Hang on....we need to give you another shot for no darn good reason.....so anyway, your short game?"

The real problem is the assistant. Nice as she can be, but her lord has put her on a mission to share her life story, especially the tragic parts, with anyone in pursuit of good oral hygiene.

During a two hour session in which an old crown was being removed and a temporary put in its place, I learned the unabridged version of how her son-in-law had a series of unfortunate career turns. For the sake of screen space, here's an "abridged" version; he's a under-achiever who flunked out of welding school, impregnated her daughter, dumber than a stool sample, and couldn't find a job if it leaped up and bit him on the butt. But I'm paraphrasing.

A month later during the follow up visit to have the temporary removed and the replacement crown fitted, I wore an Ipod. An audio book loaded and I was set. The great thing about headphones, it tells the world to shut the heck up in a very direct, yet somehow polite, way.

While the plan was working flawlessly, there was one 15 second window of opportunity when one of the ear buds slipped out. As I reached up to replace it, the assistant seized the moment and screamed at me "I have three distant cousins with cancer!!!!".

A lovely woman really. Here I am, nervous as everything having more drills in my mouth that you find at Home Depot, and she needs to share this nugget with me.

Me....Me....Me......information without context or empathy is simply noise - just like an opera singer or a poorly planned sales presentation.

In that light, your favorite competitors should be your biggest ones. Especially those with the long histories, the great brands, and the customer list a mile long.

Why?

The odds are higher that in smaller deals they will not bring their "A game" to the table. A 100k deal a sales presentation their sales teams will spend the majority of the time talking about the greatness of the company, their "platform", their vision for the future, and then, in the twelfth hour, actually start talking about the reasons why the prospect met with them in the first place.

My team was competing against the big guys at a flooring manufacturer in North Georgia. We walked into a group of people who were very professional and friendly but whose body language cried "If I see one more mission statement I am going to take a swing at someone". They were viewing all vendors back to back to back. Two days, four vendors, each with half a day. We were in on the second half of second day.

We started our presentation with one slide that listed the major objectives of the project - lower costs, increased productivity, expanded branding, etc., followed by one slide each with a succinct description of how we would achieve each of the goals. We followed that with a practical demonstration, showing them what we discussed in the slides, followed by a brief overview of 3 clients with similar projects in the same industry as them.

Done - Start to Finish - 1.5 hours.

Vendor 1 took 6 hours, Vendor 2 took 5 hours, Vendor 3 took 2.5 hours and got into a fight with their technical expert.

One of the most common flaws made in presentations today is focusing so much on who you are as a company, your vision, yada, yada, yada, and you wind up burning the attention span of your prospects.

As recommended in a previous post, go through your sales pitch with a non-company person. At the end of each slide, ask yourself "Why would the prospect care?" or the shorter "So what"? If you don't have an answer remove it from your slides.

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IM Slang - Learn It Before You Use It

The advent of Internet chat has allowed virtual teams to communicate just as effectively as those in the same office.

One member of my team "Sue" had an unusual perception on the proper use of the "lol" acronym. Instead of relaying the condition of "laughing out loud" she used it as more of an end of transmission signal. Much in the same manner that CB'ers would use "10-4" or the military would use "Roger".

Me: "Hey Sue, How's it Going"

Sue: "Hey, Doing Great LOL"

Me: "How did your doctor's visit go?"

Sue: "After some tests, it was determined that I have a flesh eating virus, LOL"

Sue: "Crap, there goes my left arm, LOL"

Me: "Holy Jesus, Sue"

Sue: "Oh Yeah, the pain can not be described with mere words, LOL"

Sue: "Oh heavenly father, please take me now dear sweet lord, LOL"

While I'm not proud about it, I loved chatting with Sue.

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Long Arm of the Law

Its a true shame that law enforcement isn't involved more directly in the sales process. . .

Summertime, and a few of the sales engineers on the team were on vacation - I cover for someone in Texas, and I have a colleague from San Francisco cover the Chicago trip. Not unusual until I get a call right before my meeting.

"Hey, what's up. Where's *Dave*? We have a meeting that I flew here to cover and he's not here yet. We need to present in 20 minutes."

"I'll check."

20 minutes pass with no sign of *Dave*. *Jennifer* runs the call, no problem.

*Dave,* as it turns out, got into a mild (mild, mind you) fender-bender on the way to the call, with a woman hitting the rear bumper of his car.

*Dave* goes ballistic, screaming at the woman.

Police arrive; *Dave* continues erupting, demanding that the police "do something."

They did.

"Sir, turn around and put your hands on the hood of the car, you're under arrest."

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