We have nothing scheduled at the moment.

The next likely talks will be in mid-to-late February. If you want to catch one, watch for an email notification in one of your newsletters from us or any updates via twitter. You can subscribe to our email newsletter here.

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We had really great seats (that’s the 212 wristband on Coach Beamer)…

Maybe they were inspired by this year’s NY Jets…

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If you know a coach or athletic director who might like to present this to their players, please forward this to them. They can pick up a copy of the slides and the script at http://www.GiveMore.com/cross. If they’d like to show this narrated version to a group of players, they can purchase it here.

We also have versions for high schools, colleges, and companies/organizations.

Get the Cross the Line™ Wristband

(Read the original essay here.)

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If you know a professor or dean who might like to present this to their students, please forward this to them. They can pick up a copy of the slides and the script at http://www.GiveMore.com/cross. If they’d like to show this narrated version to a group of students, they can purchase it here.

We also have versions for high schools, coaches, and companies/organizations.

Get the Cross the Line™ Wristband

(Read the original essay here.)

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• Cross the Line (personal notes)
• Cross the line™
• Smile and Hire
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• Luck

If you know a principal or teacher who might like to present this to their students, please forward this to them. They can pick up a copy of the slides and the script at http://www.GiveMore.com/cross. If they’d like to show this narrated version to a group of students, they can purchase it here.

We also have versions for colleges, coaches, and companies/organizations.

Get the Cross the Line™ Wristband

(Read the original essay here.)

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• Cross the Line (personal notes)
• Cross the line™
• Smile and Hire
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• Luck

For those of you that don’t know the inner workings of the team that writes articles for Sales Bloggers Union, each month we choose a topic.  I’ ve committed to write a post on that topic somewhere between the 16th of the month and the end of the month.

It’s 6:17PM, PDT, June 30th, I’m stumped….so you can see my problem.

I don’t want to let you, our loyal readers down, I don’t want to let my colleagues down, I don’t want to fail to meet a commitment.

It’s all very odd to me, as a person who is never at a loss for a metaphor, analogy, story, or pun, not being able to write about it makes me very uncomfortable.  When I’m uncomfortable, I tend to try to figure out why and fix it.  If you don’t mind, I’ll think out loud about this topic.

I know metaphors are critical, they help us connect with our customers, the people we work with, our families and friends.  They enable us to take complex thoughts  and ideas, and translate them into things people understand.  They help us put meaning to what we are doing.  They help us connect–not only intellectually, but emotionally with others.  Somehow it seems metaphors make us more comfortable, they’re safe—otherwise, why would we use them so often.

Great metaphors get people excited.  They can help people envision something new–something that solves their problems–something that makes them happy.  Great metaphors also seem to engage and inspire people, they can help people imagine themselves in a situation, they can help people seize ownership and charge forward.

Another strange thing about metaphors is while they are stories, they are not real, somehow the right metaphor makes it what we are talking about more real to the person we are talking to.

But why do we need them so much–not just in selling, but in our work and community lives?  Sales is not about facts and data–those are important and can never be disregarded.  Sales is about finding problems you can solve and helping customers solve them  (and for that privilege, they pay you for the solution).  But unless you are Mr. Spock in Star Trek, these are insufficient for our success.  At it’s core, I think metaphors are about connection and imagination.  It’s our ability to use metaphors that have meaning to our customers that enables them and us to be successful. 

I don’t know how to talk about metaphors in sales, I just know that we can’t be effective unless we use metaphors in sales.

It’s 6:53 PM PDT, June 30th, I’m looking for the right metaphor to end this article.  My good friend, Daniel Waldschmidt gave me an idea about “adding extra icing to a sweet enough cake…”   It’s a little obscure and a little inside,  I think I’ll stop here and thank you for letting me think out loud.

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One of the objectives of telling stories is to help your prospect or customer conjure up a mental image or picture of their situation with your product or service as part of the solution. Creating this mental image requires you to tell the most appropriate story for a particular situation.

One of the inherent challenges is that many people are not good story tellers. Plus, the vast majority of sales people have never learned how and when to use stories in their presentations. However, with a bit of practise you can learn to use this approach in virtually every sales situation. Here’s what you do.

Use the “Can I tell you a story?” approach. This is how it works.

My wife and I browsed through a new furniture store and we asked a question about the ease of cleaning the fabric on a particular chair.  Rather than simply state an answer the sales person asked, “Can I tell you a story?” He then went on to share a real-life example of a customer who had purchased that furniture and had spilled wine on it the very first weekend after it was delivered. BTW: the fabric was cream colored so a red wine stain could have been devastating.

He repeated this process a couple of times during our conversation and although the “can I tell you a story” question got stale, his ability to relate an actual example of a customer’s experience was more interesting AND effective than the standard approach of simply answering the question.

This approach is powerful is because people love stories. Stories keep a person’s attention. Stories that use real-life examples help people relate your product or service to their specific situation. Stories that are well-told are compelling, fascinating, and interesting.

This technique can also be used when responding to objections. After you have empathized and clarified the objection you can ask, “Would it be okay if I told you a story?” This permission-based question actually encourages the other person to say yes which means they will more receptive to your solution.

One word of caution. Your story does not require every stitch of detail. Highly analytical people may be compelled to include every ounce of information including dates, times, the position of the moon, sun and stars and every other detail they can think of.

Don’t!

Keep the level of detail to a minimum; otherwise you run the risk of having your customer tune out or think, “Get to the point already!” The point of your story will quickly get lost if you use too much detail.

Here’s how to make this work in the real world.

Think of the questions and objections you hear most frequently. Start with no more than two or three situations.

1. Develop specific stories and edit these stories so they are short, sweet and to the point. Include ONLY the information that is vital to making your point.
2. Practise reciting your stories so they flow comfortably and naturally. If you only have two to three stories, this won’t take too much
3. When you hear a question or objection ask, “Can I tell you a story?”
4. Tell your story.

Integrate story-telling into your approach and you will notice a difference in how people respond to you. And it should result in more sales.

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I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got a hold of for the moment; and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

–George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
Irish writer

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The point is to take advantage of the present as much as possible.

This is one translation of the Ode from 1865. (complete book here)

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The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that the incentive plan should drive results. Of course, that assumes that you have the right plan in place.  After that, you get little agreement. 

There are the purists who say that incentives should only be paid for results; deal is closed, invoice issued, revenue realized, the rep is paid. While its simplicity makes it hard to argue with, it also leaves it much less effective than it should be, even in positions where there is no base, it is 100% commission.

If in fact incentives are supposed to drive behaviour, and let’s for the remainder of this post agree that behaviour equals activity, (the right activity), then why do most people only incent results?  Is it not the activities that ultimately lead to results, results, the close, is the end of the process, I guess that’s why they call it “closed”.  Why not then incent the right activities, the right behaviour that leads to the results.

Paying only for results seems to have an element of gambling to it.  At the risk of over dramatizing it, you roll the dice and hope the right numbers come up.  Sort of like taking a rep, giving him a territory, pump him, train him, and then send them out, and hopefully they come back with the right number.  And hey if it is a smaller number, it is a smaller payout.  But the savings on that incentive will never equal the lost opportunities.

One of the reasons to have a properly documented sales process is so that you sales organization can execute the sale in a logical and sequential way.  So then why not incent along the same line. So as an example let’s say a rep can potentially earn 10% on a given deal; assume the average deal is $100,000, $10,000 commission up for grabs.  Assume you have a five step process, and you know that based on past history, if specific activities are properly executed, the probability of closing the deal successful in a proper time frame goes up exponentially.  Would it not make more sense to incent the behaviours and activities that ensure that those steps are consistently executed?

Appointments are key, so you may pay 10% or $1,000 for qualified initial appointments, you would have to have qualified defined.  You know that if you can get people at a high enough level in the hierarchy to tour you facility, you stats show that you probability of closing those that tour is over 60%.  Why not pay another 10% for completing that.  Same stats show that (real) proposals have a closing rate of 70% or greater, so you pay 10% for real proposals.  This still leaves 70% for the close, but you have directly impacted behaviour by incenting it, which is the premise after all?

There are a number of issues that need to be considered, I do understand the view that the base salary is meant to pay for those activities, and the commission is reward for success.  I would not argue with that, as a concept it is valid and good, in reality it seems to lead to a vast majority of B2B reps not hitting their financial targets.  Some will tell you that this is where management by objective or some KPI scheme will help, again in concept great, let’s examine reality once more.  Under the conventional schemes you often find reps who will close a couple of large deals a year, get their commission, and the company still doesn’t get what it wants.

So while the details do need to be worked out, seems to me a much better way to impact and alter behaviour and drive execution in a way that is financially rewarding and fair for all.

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