March 2007                      Published by North American Building Material Distribution Association

Archives

---

WHAT'S IN THIS ISSUE What's the Problem? Prospecting for Sales Should be Easy How to Stay One Step Ahead of Customers to Build Demand There are Hundreds of Closing Techniques - Here's Why None of Them Work Selling in Tough Times - It's About Attitude

What's the Problem? Prospecting for Sales Should be Easy by John Graham Prospecting for new business should be easy. With more than 1,250,000 Google entries on the subject, there should certainly be more than enough advice available to make anyone selling anything a great success. If that's true, then why is prospecting the most daunting task every salesperson faces? Why do they fight over leads and plead with their employers to get them more? There are more than 1,250,000 Google entries for just one reason: prospecting is incredibly difficult ––as every salesperson can attest. The Google list grows longer by the day because none of those hundreds of thousands of sure-fire, “you can't miss if you use our system” prospecting solutions don't work and salespeople keep hunting for the “silver bullet.” The prospecting nonsense is endless. Here are a few examples: “Prospecting is the easiest path to new sales,” says the president of a market research firm, who goes on to suggest these tactics: “Sales reps should focus their efforts,” determine “which SIC codes match a distributor's product mix,” and “pre-qualify the best prospects.” How do you do all that? Easy. Hire his company. Then sit back and watch the orders pour in. To read the full article, click here. Return To Top How to Stay One Step Ahead of Customers to Build Demand by Dirk Beveridge The industrial distribution landscape is more fluid than ever. In this ever-shifting world, how do you keep pace with change and ensure your sales team is staying ahead of customers' expanding needs? Step one is to ensure that your people understand the forces of change that are impacting customer operations and decisions. If your business is more interested in partnerships than parts, than here are a few considerations to help you prepare your team to better embrace the challenges ahead. No doubt, change abounds. New technologies and standards like RFID are making demanding customers even more demanding. Mergers and acquisitions are creating a new and tougher breed of competitors. National-level contracts are raising the stakes and creating new levels of vulnerability among smaller suppliers. Customer operations are moving to faraway places like China and India. And, despite many bold initiatives to bring manufactures and distributors closer together, 48% of distributors claim relations with manufacturers have worsened in the last five years. Indeed, macro issues such as these are important to understand and follow if you expect your sales and service center to grow faster than the overall market. Savvy distributors, however, conclude that we have neglected to encourage this macro understanding among our people. Sales management, which is primarily responsible for encounters with prospects and customers, must now, more than ever, focus on developing these skills. They must overtly reaffirm the values, skills and competencies required of the sales team. To read the full article, click here. Return To Top There Are Hundreds of Closing Techniques - Here's Why None of them Work by Bob Oros There are at least 100 closing techniques you can use to ask for the order. The truth is none of them work if the customer has not decided to buy. The secret is not to try too hard to close. On the other hand, DSRs should help the customer want to make the purchase. When a customer has made up his mind that he is going to buy, he buys, he does the closing. From time to time you should try to discover just how much you have accomplished in transporting the person in front of you to a state, where he sees himself using what you have to offer to his advantage. This can be done with "qualifiers" put in the form of questions such as, "How do you plan the merchandise this?" The psychology of the "close" has been so talked about by sales experts that it has frightened more sales people than it has helped. When a person has made up his mind that he is going to make the purchase, he does the closing, he buys, you don't sell him except to make it easy for them to sign an order. To read the full article, click here. Return To Top Selling in Tough Times - It's About Attitude by Tom Reilly Having started two successful businesses during recessions and having learned how to sell in a tough commodity market, I feel uniquely qualified to write on selling in tough times and tough markets. The United States government defines tough times as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. On a personal level, you know when things are tough—the market feels soft and buyers negotiate harder than when demand is greater than supply. At this time, we have a whole generation of salespeople that have only sold during great economic times. We also have veteran salespeople that may have forgotten how to sell in tough times. One out of four will fail in tough times. Seventy percent barely survive. And five percent will thrive. Which are you? You fight this battle on two fronts. One, you fight it on the streets with your knowledge and skills. Two, you fight it in your mind—your thinking and your attitude. In this article I discuss the mental side of selling in tough times. You must win this psychological battle to thrive in tough times. Attitude drives behavior. We move in the direction of our thoughts. We behave as we believe. What we feel on the inside we generally demonstrate on the outside.  To read the full article, click here. Return To Top