We never finished the conversation, but this video made me think about the question again. It’s a great piece. It’s worth the 5 minutes. Especially today.  After watching I was left wondering, is Martin Luther King’s legacy in this country that of a black leader or a civil rights leader, representing all people.

I’m talking an informal poll of this community. I’m curious to what you think.

In the sidebar on the right I have two poll questions.  Do me a favor and answer the two questions. I’m really interested in what this community thinks. I have my thoughts on how you will answer, but I’ll share that after I close the poll.  I’m going to leave it up for the week. So come on back and check it out.

Also, as always, share your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear what you all think.  To know what I think, check out this post I wrote a while back. Race in America: Enough Already!!!  

The best sales people can make the sale

without almost ever having to talk about

their product

When we are talking about our product, we’re NOT talking about the customers business. (There is one exception, I’ll get to that in a minute) When we’re talking about our product we’re focused on our need and not our customers. The best sales people sell by focusing on the customers; issues, challenges, needs, motivations, drivers, business metrics processes and more.

The best sales people can have a long conversation without ever talking about their product and by the end have the prospect wanting what they sell. The key to selling is to lead prospects to the sale through their own perspective, their own view of the world.

How long are your conversations before you start talking about your product? Can you sell without talking about your product.

The only time it’s OK to talk about your product is when the prospect is so ready to buy what you have to sell, they say; “OK, what do you have that can address everything we’ve been talking about.”

Once the client realizes you know enough to help them and they start asking you to talk about your product, then talking about your product is OK. Until then, don’t!

I was struggling with a post topic today. I was looking at past posts looking for inspiration when I noticed my posts total. It’s 801. It was kind of shocking to see that number.  When I started blogging in February of 2009, I didn’t set out to post 801, or 1,000 at that matter.  I took it day by day.

It’s been an amazing journey. I have developed an entirely new group of friends and acquaintances. A fun and engaging community is sprung up around this blog and I’ve learned a lot.

I can see 1,000 posts is just around the corner. I don’t know how long I will post. I don’t know what the final number will be.  I do know that it’s not a 1,000. However, I will mark that day here. It seems like it might feel like a special day.

From 801, to 1,000 and then to ????, I’m going to take the approach I took when I started. I’m going to take it one day at at time.

I just signed up for Pipeline Deals.  It’s a CRM system that uses ease of use and simplicity as its key selling points.  What a great value proposition. Getting sales people to use CRM has been the single greatest challenge of sales managers since CRM was introduced.

I met JP Werlin, Pipeline Dreams co-founder a month or so ago.  I’ve been meaning to sign up since then. So, now I am on. I’m going to be playing with it over the next 30 days. I’ll share my thoughts here.

I’m looking forward to it. Simple has such a good ring to it.

“I understand your world.” and “I’m not here to waste your time asking you to teach me about your business.”

What I love about this excerpt is it flips the traditional scripts.  Sales people have been taught to engage the customer in a discovery process, where they expect to be educated by the prospect or customer. This approach relies on the customer or prospect to drive the sale. The sales person brings little to no value to the sale until the customer gives them something they can work with.

Expecting the customer to tee up the sale is at best ineffective, and worse flat out inefficient.

What do you think?  You agree with this quote? Can you honestly say this to your prospects?

Related articles

• The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation (customerthink.com)

Rather than wait till I’m finished reading to review it as traditionally do, I’m going to post excerpts here as I come across them. Why wait?

The Challenger Sale is the result of extensive research by the Sales Executive Council.  They set out to measure the behaviors of top performers.  What they found was sales people fall into 5 categories or profiles:

• Relationship Builders focus on developing strong personal and professional relationships and advocates across the customer organization. They are generous with their time, strive to meet customers’ every need, and work hard to resolve tensions in the commercial relationship.
• Hard Workers show up early, stay late, and always go the extra mile. They’ll make more calls in an hour and conduct more visits in a week than just about anyone else on the team.
• Lone Wolves are the deeply self-confident, the rule-breaking cowboys of the sales force who do things their way or not at all.
• Reactive Problem Solvers are, from the customers’ standpoint, highly reliable and detail-oriented. They focus on post-sales follow-up, ensuring that service issues related to implementation and execution are addressed quickly and thoroughly.
• Challengers use their deep understanding of their customers’ business to push their thinking and take control of the sales conversation. They’re not afraid to share even potentially controversial views and are assertive — with both their customers and bosses.

What the research also found was, although top performers could be found in all the categories, the Challenger profile produced overwhelming more top producers than any of the other profiles.

These findings don’t surprise me at all.  For years we have been told our job is to help our customers solve problems or create opportunities for them. Our ability to solve problems or find opportunities is severely hampered if we are unable to challenge our customers and prospects.  Challenging allows us to uncover unidentified opportunities, or hidden problems.  Challenging gets us beyond the surface issues. It gets us to the meat of the problem.

I talked about this the other day. The best sales people are critical of their customers. Being critical, requires challenging.

I’m excited to get through the book.  As I come across excerpts I love, I’m going to post them here. It will be fun to read what you think.

I’ve been sold a million times, and if you are qualifying me based on your needs, I’m gone. I don’t have the time to prove to you that I’m your guy until I know you can actually do something for me.

The only way to qualify a customer is to determine if you can impact their organization.  It’s that simple.  A customer is qualified if you can demonstrate you can reduce time to market, increase sales, decrease expenses, improve the customer experience, strengthen the brand, improve efficiency, create a competitive advantage, etc. Without solidifying your capabilities in actually improving a prospects business, BANT or any other qualifying approach is remedial.

Once you’ve proven you can impact their business in a meaningful way, go ahead and use BANT. It’s absolutely a good way to manage your pipeline.

Qualifying for you doesn’t cut it anymore.  Customers and prospects don’t care about you.  Qualification happens when YOU have found an opportunity the customer didn’t see.  When YOU have identified a problem that is costing the customer.  Only after you’ve identified how, where and why you can positively impact your customers business are they qualified.  Anything else just makes you a pain in the ass.

Here is a good read on BANT. I like Bob’s take.  

I have a Vizio Internet TV and I just recently discovered the Yahoo Fantasy Football widget/app.  It’s awesome. The widget signs me into my Yahoo Fantasy Football League and track my players results while I am watching the games.

This is what my screen looks like. I love it.

On the left are my fantasy players and their updated points.

Integrated products and services change the customer experience for the better.  There are a lot of opportunities for companies who integrate their products and services.  Personally, I can’t wait. The experience are awesome.

Will there be another Steve Jobs?  Absolutely, there has to be!

Mashable asked this question yesterday. It’s a good read. They put the question to a number of industry insiders, technologists and entrepreneurs. Their answers were varied and interesting.

After reading it, I wanted to take a shot at the question myself. Mainly because I thought it was a good question and I have a little different take on it.

The key gift of Steve Jobs wasn’t his products, his innovative genius, or attention to detail. Steve Jobs’ gift was how he changed our lives; the way we think, and the way we communicate through his innovation and products. Steve Jobs true legacy was the IMPACT he left on society and that is why there will ABSOLUTELY be another Steve Jobs.

The world requires people like Steve Jobs. The world would come to a screeching halt if it weren’t for people like Jobs. Many have been comparing Steve to Einstein and Edison.  I think a better comparison is Henry Ford. What Ford did for the automotive industry is far more akin to what Jobs has done for software and hardware. Just as now, it would have been easy to ask the question then, if there would ever be another Henry Ford, Albert Einstien or Thomas Edison. For most at the time, the easy answer would have been no. No, unfortunately, robs us or our confidence and self-esteem as a people. There have always been more Einsteins, Thomas Edisons, Henry Fords, Ghandis, MKLs and Jobs and there will continue to be. The world is very capable of creating more greatness. It’s as sure a thing as E=MC2. The trend will continue.

Bill Gates, is he a Steve Jobs?  Just the suggestion, makes many grimace. But why? What if Bill had died in 1994, smack in the middle of the PC revolution. Would we have been asking the same question of Bill? Let’s remember, Apple made a horrific strategic blunder by combining the operating system with the hardware. It virtually wiped them out for 15 years. No one was thinking about Apple in 1994. Would we be ready for the iPad, the iPod, the iPhone, without 15 years of PC use? Is it safe to say that without Gates enabling 15 years of the world marinating in the PC and the PC’s access to the Internet the table may not have been set for Jobs?

Mashable asked this question:

Could there ever be another person capable of profoundly changing the world through software and hardware design as Jobs has done?

When it comes to Jobs, this is the wrong question.  It assumes that changing the world through software and hardware design is what the world is going to need again. Jobs greatness wasn’t changing the world through software and hardware design, it was the fact that he changed the world, period. It was his timing. The world needed to be changed by software and hardware design. If the world requires that type of change again, there will be another Steve Jobs.

Henry Ford changed the world by creating the Model T. It revolutionized transportation. It was what the world needed at the time. Has there been another Henry Ford who profoundly changed the world through automotive manufacturing and distribution? NO!  Has there been a need, not yet.  (Side note, I think we are getting close and may see the next Henry Ford come out of the electric car world)

Steve Jobs changed the world at a time when the world needed it. So did Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Albert Einstein,Thomas Edison, Eli Whitney, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King.  Will there be another person capable of substantially changing the world through software and hardware as Jobs as done? If the world requires it, YES!  If not, NO! Will there be another person who changes the world? YES!  We require it. Knowing this is to be true is calming.

Will there be another Steve Jobs?  Steve was one of a kind and we all benefitted from him. I certainly did. I’m typing this on a MacBook Pro, reading the Mashable post on my iPad and listening to iTunes on my iPhone. The Steve Jobs has passed and therefore he can not exist again. Thanks to him he leaves a legacy for others to change the world.

Related articles

• Who Will Be the ‘Next Steve Jobs’? (allthingsd.com)
• Steve Jobs another Thomas Edison or Henry Ford? Maybe not. (csmonitor.com)

Feel free to share your opinions, thoughts, or places for improvement.

You can find it here.

I’m looking forward to your ideas and input.