Managing Introverts in Sales

Managing Introverts in Sales

According to a recent survey more than one thirds of the world population are Introverts. Managing them in sales quite is tough; don’t be surprised by looking at the world’s top introvert prominent leaders.

People recharge themselves by being silent and need periods of solitude in order to be creative and productive. Mostly these employees prefer to eat alone, be quiet at team meetings and avoid gossip completely, but when you are in a problem they are the one’s who can come up with a great idea.
While managing Introverts you would need to give them time to think and gather their thoughts and the chances of getting great ideas are more. Take feedback at regular intervals when you have given them adequate time to think through it. Ensure that you provide them with adequate space for them to come up with appropriate solutions. Silence is really a big thing because he is already coming up with a plan.
In the era of virtual communication leverage social media usage is maximum with introverts, freedom to express ideas and writing out a response is more appealing to introverts.
Give them the time and support them to present their ideas and while recruiting charismatic extroverts don’t neglect the quite one’s to help you grow strategically.
These important tips for managing introverts aren't a to belittle or to pamper to help bring out the best, whose talents and strengths can greatly benefit organizations and help businesses grow.
Happy Selling !

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Inside sales – Introverts

Inside sales – Introverts

All through it is mostly perceived that sales people should have an extrovert personality and the ability to display resilience attitude amongst others. We also try to include MBTI (Myers Briggs type indicator) assessment while interviewing candidates. However a little latitude is provided when you working at Inside sales, Personally I look at these qualities where a candidate takes time out to read and educate himself or stuck with the rigmarole, if the candidate takes time out to come up with creative solutions, you may not be eager or lack enthusiasm to stand up or volunteer proactively and wait for people to take your opinion and send cues to focus on your thoughts and attention inwardly.

I like hiring introverts because they are someone who enjoys reflecting on their thoughts and avoid unnecessary social chit chat. The only challenge is that you will not be a conversation starter and people may perceive you as someone superior these areas have to be honed. You would need to reveal your thoughts and feelings by being true to your personality and not seem antisocial.
You could also look at my other article "managing introverts in sales".
Happy Selling!

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The wolf of Wall Street is asking you …. “Sell me this pen”.

The wolf of Wall Street is asking you …. “Sell me this pen”.

Since the inception of my sales career at every sales interview it is the most used common question which was asked “Sell me this pen” I used to start bragging about the features and then relate why this pen was an advantage to buy over others and then move to how it is going to benefit to the customer. Now Sales is not like writing a line of code managing a balance sheet or knowing an answer to a particular questio, Sales is mostly about the resilience factor. Your ability to handle every objection and combat it with an appropriate solution and still there are many customers who will not buy.

My Irish sales trainer Noirin told me that she did not want to use the pen to write, she wants to place it in the fancy coffee mug on the office table. The importance of profiling is very essential but sometimes curtails the liberty of the customer to choose. There have been quite a few cases where the customers get confused “ This happens when you try to sell Once a friend tried to sell a $500 K Big data solution and just because there was pressure to up sell the add on’s he ended up confusing and losing the sale.
I also heard a few sales people use strategy called convince, confuse or cheat. Convincing is fine but the other two horrific words confuse and cheat is a definite NO. This strategy is never good for you or the company, because the post sales division is going to be face challenges and it would be an unpleasant experience and may result in big losses/ legal penalties for companies.
So when you sell it is not just about features, advantages and benefits but also assure him about post sales, Always pressurizing for a budget would also not be ideal and if you find resistance don’t push them. Most of the men I know don’t plan budget they just go buy for the features or specific quality.
Hence I would say that the priority is not just about handling objections and answering standard rebuttals but to understand that and not every customer is the same, Listen carefully, look out for cues to relate and questioning skilfully and again look out for cues and create an analysis and read out what he stated by constantly assuring him what he said he wanted and you bundle it together and send him a quote. This model will help you reach your quota and improve customer satisfaction which can guarantee referral business as bonus.
You may read my other articles like "The sales mantra".
Happy Selling!

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Inside sales- communications skills at conference calls

Inside sales- communications skills at conference calls

“A man is seldom better than his conversation”- anonymous. It is imperative that communication plays a vital role in the functioning of an Inside sales team. The most important asset which we rely on is conference calls and hence it is essential that we use variety of communication techniques to both understand and be understood.

Communication is the process of sending and receiving information through speaking, writing, visual images and body language and at conference calls you can eliminate body language. The objectives to conduct a conference calls is to essentially change behaviour, to get action, to ensure understanding, to pursue and exchange of information. When you have six people talking in a two people conversation the efforts are only 70% and often it is misunderstood, misinterpreted, rejected, distorted or not heard.

The most common errors on a call would be to help finish other sentences, preparing an answer before the question is completed, multitasking while on a call, presuming meaning based on the orator, and talking on behalf of others. Mostly these days with the work from home option being available the attention paid on the conference calls is relatively less.

Ensure you join in a three to five minutes before the call starts, don’t start chatting with others until everyone joins, once you join in the call state your name and introduction if required, ensure you use the mute button and switch off or keep your mobile phones on silent.

Hence the best way to be prepared for conference calls is to have a pen and paper handy so you can stick to the outlined agenda, ensure you choose a location where you are not distracted and can focus on the subject, I recommend you to not stay away from your monitor unless you have to view the relevant business presentation because if you are then the chances are that you could respond to some email/instant message/review reports irrelevant to the subject and multi task. First essential factor is listening effectively, understand it completely before speaking, speak to be understood and seek understanding before proceeding further and most importantly repeat.

Please ensure you never, ever put on hold this is the most miserable experience on a conference call. Do not play with paper, move chairs or tap your pen or any distracting noises on the call.

Please view other articles like "story telling - a sales art"!


Happy Selling!

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Inside sales Infrastructure

Inside sales Infrastructure

If you planning to start an inside sales team the below infrastructure is a must, Inside sales today holds critical aspect in the revenue generation process for a company. Though we have various text book definitions we simply can comprehend it as partial marketing and partial sales.
And While you are planning for a new inside sales team you would need to look at these critical factors as they are vital infrastructure for conducting it,

a) High Speed Internet access
b) Premium telephone lines
c) Access to social networking sites
d) Active social networking promotions
e) Groups
f) Blogging
g) Website visitors

To generate revenues you would need to certain essential factors, first you would need a high speed internet access and your company should not block social networking sites like facebook, twitter and especially linked in, You would need to get some premium access if you perform your search faster, You would then also need a very good profile which is appealing and interesting to your potential clients. You should have access to various research reports like gartner, forrester, delloite etc . and these have to be published constantly.

You may want to see other articles like inside sales planning and sales beginners.
Happy Selling !

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Is Sales a science or an art – An argument with an interviewer?

Is Sales a science or an art – An argument with an interviewer?

It has been quite an intriguing experience when my education credentials and sales certifications were discarded in the first few seconds of the interview,He was a senior sales director of a $ 7 billion enterprise. He stated sales is actually an inbuilt talent, an art being street smart, not something which could be learnt a science. Oh My God ! now how do I contradict this?

Things prevailing on my mind at that moment.
a)Is the interviewed looking at resilience factor, so I combat with all logical conclusions and not give up without a strong fight?
b)The Interviewer with a strong background of 15+ yrs of  field sales experience must genuinely have resistance to this  idea, The advent of Inside sales are now shaping the future of organizations, So the question now is that should I subvert his ideas and experience and relate how productive this new process..

c)Or am I wasting my time as the hiring manager, my potential boss as anticipated is like senior sales leaders who would use insurmountable pressure tactics on you to deliver targets without any logical reasoning. Is it truly worth taking that risk…. Having said that I am not afraid of taking risks but not at the cost of my health. (That week, I was mourning the death of my mom’s younger brother aged 52 and we lost him due to extreme stress followed by a heart attack ).

I want to live a longer and a healthier life, Sometimes you have to evaluate is it worth the pain!

The above thoughts  flashed on my mind …Time was running out ...I quickly came back to my senses and explained him vividly the how sales has changed over time, Using a common phrase “Nobody likes being sold to” we now need to avoid hard knocks , cold calls and using fancy scripts which would depict the sales greed in the tone.
The way forward is about looking for mutually beneficial partnerships, prospecting approach, adequate research on the potential clients, business through referrals.

Most important is effective marketing, story boarding, pitching our case studies and testimonials and how we helped solve the problem by avoiding technical jargon. Eventually I was not selected probably for other reasons.

However this experience had a lasting impression on me,  I was always clear as a Sales person it was important for me to focus on understanding from the client’s perspective.

Client is investing time so the first thing that would attract is the what is he benefiting, and what kind of advantages it has followed by features and your company padding.

The recent economic times was celebrating Flip kart’s journey to $1 billion, it never spoke about how it made life easy for users to purchase on line….. Cash on delivery, buying process is reduced to a very few steps etc.

 Amazon did not fail to realize the potential of Indian market but it failed to realize the problem in its e commerce portal…. Ease of doing business, user experience, and security.

When companies talk about their financial success does it not mean that they have robbed us to make that wealth, Have they offered any significant difference to pay that premium, This paradigm shift is very important for us to focus, before we evaluate to sell our product to potential client it is important how does the our solution suffice the needs of the client, have we identified what would we offer significantly different.

If you find someone over achieving his target by five to ten times then there is definite not potential integrity issue you would need to battle up as a leader.
GE, Toyota, Motorola and other companies have been using six sigma and various other tools to improve quality, I recommend you should use the same energies to improve sales quality by adopting scientifically proven statistical sales techniques which guarantees predictable revenues.

I am writing this to assert that a sales is a definite science and you would need to master it by researching deeply from a client’s perspective. Question skilfully and listen patiently.
Not the other way around.
You could also look at my article "how to deal with sales pressure".

Happy Selling !

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