I met Seth Godin years ago at one of those kids activity centers where parents host their pre-schooler’s birthday parties. If you have kids, then you know that pre-school birthday parties means “no drop-off” thus you can’t run a few errands or stop by Dunkin Donuts. I was reading his “Permission Based Marketing” book amongst the happy screams of little kids and I notice out of the corner of my eye that 2 people keep walking past me and smiling. One of them finally approaches me and says, “My husband wrote that book!” The other person walking past me turned out to be her husband, Seth. You’d think that I’d recognize him since his handsome dome was right on the front cover of my book!

I was reading this while my kid was here

Seth’s recent post is about how intangibles are what allows you to charge more for your service vs the commodity-oriented competition. Some of his ideas include participation, enthusiasm, speed, focus, generosity and hope.

Hope? No, not “I hope this deal will close” as that’s not an viable or effective tactic for beating the competition. Instead, “is your offering going to be something great.”

As I’m reading this blog, it struck me that I consider all these intangibles to be my reputation. Just like an intangible, it’s hard to quantify reputation. You either have it or you don’t. Your reputation with your customer is what keeps them coming back to you instead of saving money with your competitor. Your reputation is what gets you the warm welcome when you meet with prospects.

Here’s a few suggestions of mine on ensuring you have the intangibles, the reputation, it takes to compete and win.

I had the pleasure of recently attending a presentation by a Managing Director of one of the top Wall Street firms. His topic was “How to Sell to Wall Street” for small companies, specifically IT ones. It was a great presentation and the entire audience had his full attention. What I found most interesting was that many of his points were not focused on how the sales rep sells to Wall Street. Rather, much of his focus was on setting the vendor’s senior management straight on their obligations to ensure success. I just wonder how many senior managers in the room understood the “what not to do’s” were targeted at them!

Wall Street firms spend money on solutions to:

• Reduce their costs now. Not in 2-5 years but right now.

• Support expansion of their high growth market areas. Don’t waste their time on incremental gains in saturated markets. And don’t expect them to tell you what their high growth markets are.
• Stronger risk & control systems. The current economic crisis is affecting financial services firms worse than the bubble of 2001 did for technology firms. If you have system that helps them reduce risk and improve compliance, they want to know about it. But remember that everyone is pitching “compliance solutions” nowadays.

Selling at the CIO level isn’t the best bet:

• There are multiple decision makers, all below the CIO level.
• Tech decisions are made bottom-up by really smart people with a great mix of technology and business savvy.
• CIO doesn’t have time or desire to pick your solution. They pay their people a lot of money and empower them to make the right decisions. Or get fired. Either way, your only hope with the CIO is that they refer you to one of the decision makers.
• Work the administrative assistants. Don’t screw with them because they can be your worst enemy.
• It’s a long sales cycle and they’ll demand aggressive pricing.

The Managing Director said that Wall Street and the metro NYC market is larger than continental Europe. Larger than the next 3 US markets combined. Therefore, “…get in anyway you can….make it easy to buy…legal, pricing, best tech people….but don’t give it away.”

His practical advice for selling to Wall Street:

• Understand your customer. Yes, this is obvious but remember that the customer knows how important they are in the biggest market in the world and therefore how important it would be for them to be your customer.
• Remember who has the money. The one with the money (the customer) is the boss. It’s their rules or no money.
• Don’t out-arrogant arrogant people. They’re successful Wall Street people and you are who?
• Send them your best. They’re the best so send them your best.
• Don’t send them resellers. Wall Street wants to work directly with the manufacturer.
• Give them consistency in sales. Don’t send a new rep every 6 months or worse, a new Sales Engineer every 3 months.
• Don’t break the process. Use their NDA. Use their license agreement. Don’t redline the agreements so that they look like your agreements. Let your business people review the contracts, not your legal team. Don’t make it hard for Wall Street to do business with you. They won’t.
• Have a local NYC presence. A rep traveling in from Los Angeles or even Boston doesn’t cut it. Wall Street is the biggest market so invest here.
• They all talk to each other. If you have cool stuff, they’ll tell the rest of Wall Street. If you fail to heed the advice from above, especially the parts about being too arrogant or not sending your best, they’ll tell the rest of Wall Street that, too.

He summed up his practical advice by repeating “…get in anyway you can….make it easy to buy…legal, pricing, best tech people….but don’t give it away.”

I recently listened to a podcast from John Jantsch at Duck Tape Marketing with Bob Burg. Burg is the author of Endless Referrals and together they discussed why a systematic approach to building referrals was so important.

You can hear the full podcast here.

The first step in deciding to systematically build a referral business is to ask yourself, “Am I getting referrals now? Am I giving referrals now?” If just by accident you are giving and getting then it’s worth building a system. But no system will help you build when there’s nothing to start with.

[shameless pitch] If you are ready to systematically build a referral-based business, then come join us at Inquisix!

To paraphrase, the Golden Rule of Networking is, “…all things being equal, people will do business with people they know, people they like and people they trust.”

Are you this kind of person?

The blog postings about “Morale Killer or Career Limiting Move” have been some of the favorite postings in our blog based on the number of comments. The email below was sent in by one of the Inquisix readers who wanted to share a “thanks-for-nothing” moment by their boss. The subject line of the email (and the title of this post) must have been a kick in the gut to the sales rep receiving this email. Names have been deleted to protect both the innocent and the guilty. And like the first posting of the “Morale Killer or Career Limiting Move” some key information that I wondered about is missing. I’ll share that information as I get it.

But until then, what are your thoughts?

* Surprised the prospect was nice enough to actually follow-up and say, “No thanks”?
* As the sales rep, how would you use this email internally?
* Any ideas on how to get back to this prospect and get another chance?

From: Divisional Manager at Potential Prospect [and decision maker]
To: Sales Rep
Cc: Prospect’s peer
Subject: We are not moving forward with your company

Hi [Sales Rep]. I hope that this email finds you well. I wanted to get back to you and let you know that we will not be going forward with your company. While I truly enjoyed talking with you, I wasn’t overly impressed with the sales approach of [your sales manager]. When a company is selling a service I would expect that the sales approach would be directed to the individual in charge of managing that service. The majority of the conversation was directed to [prospect's peer] who is not the decision maker. I have to say that a couple of times I thought I would get up and leave, however, I chose to stay because I did not want to appear unprofessional. I feel compelled to make a personal recommendation to your sales manager] to make sure that sales conversations be directed to the individual responsible for making the decision as to whether or not to purchase the product.

Have a nice summer – take care,
[Divisional Manager]

My source for these interesting emails sent me the VP’s next email about the sales meeting, an email that was sent to all sales and senior management.

The VP lists the reasons why the sales meeting is being held on the weekend. I’ve added commentary on what the sales team could be thinking as they read this email. Which response, A or B, would be yours?

Dear Team,

I have discussed the meeting dates with executive management and we have decided to firm up July 11th and 12th for our quarterly sales meeting…”

Response choices:
A - Good, the VP checked with senior management and they all agree
B - The VP must have forgot to check with the far-flung sales team

* Senior management team routinely travel 50% of their time, including weekends and holidays to support sales efforts.

Response choices:
A - They’re doing all that travel and only asking us for one weekend? That’s reasonable, then.
B - That’s why senior management makes more money then us and has 10 times the number of options

* Large public technology firms routinely plan off-site sales meetings on the weekends

Response choices:
A - We want to go public and cash in our options so we’re all for emulating those firms
B - Yeah, and they plan the off-sites in locations like Las Vegas, Atlantic City or New Orleans instead of corporate’s class B office space

* Large public technology firms require their employees to share hotel rooms

Response choices:
A - Cost savings are important so we show a bigger profit (or smaller loss)
B - Those employees share a room at the Vegas Hilton with their buddy or friend-with-benefit, which is not the same as sharing a Motel 6 room in Albany.

The VP summarizes the reasons for keeping the meeting on a weekend, “[Our company] has done more for its sales people while requiring a lot less than what other firms expect from their field sales force.”

Response choices:
A - You sold me, I’m glad I work with such a great management team
B - Ah, the beating continues. Can I find a new job in a month?

So what do you think now? Did you choose more A responses than B responses?

An Inquisix member recently sent me this link to an interesting blog posting. The author, Noah Elkin, writes about how marketing professionals can reach out to business contacts on social networking sites. While Inquisix is primarily a business networking site for sales and business development professionals to exchange referrals, I felt Noah had some interesting comments to pass along.

I’m cutting and pasting his comments that I find most relevant but you can read the full posting here.

“The principal difficulty lies in the ever-shifting nature of personal and professional boundaries…..some individuals are more judicious than others in accepting “friend” requests.”

“With etiquette and consideration in mind, here are five simple rules to follow when using social networks for business purposes:

1. Ask permission, not forgiveness — even though they may be public, social networks are highly personal
2. Remember to inquire about each person’s preferred mode of communication
3. Treat each contact as an individual
4. Respect the boundaries each contact sets (but adjust as the relationship develops)
5. Don’t bombard anyone with messages, regardless of the delivery method”

These simple rules should work for everyone, not just marketers and sales people.

Why would a blog posting from Inquisix mention cold calling tips? After all, we’re about exchanging referrals amongst sales people. Unfortunately, there are times when that referral is just not available and cold calling is required. This discussion came up in a previous blog posting, “Cold Calling Works?” where some sales experts chimed in with their thoughts in the comments.

I read a recent posting on DigIt! about a Cold Calling Tip. Just one! Elinor Stutz suggests the following to increase your response rate on cold calls -

“After leaving the voice message, immediately send a duplicate short email. But, here is where it will be slightly different. In the subject line, you can type ‘follow-up’. Begin the message from the reader’s point of view by stating, ‘I realize it is easier to press the reply key then to dial back. Per my telephone message…’ Keep your message down to one or two very short paragraphs.”

What do you think? Will this work effectively? I almost always follow-up a voice mail (cold call or not) with an email because some people prefer to return communications via email instead of phone. So I give them a choice. But to state, “I realize it is easier to press the reply key….” in your email? I’m not sold on that. Tone is often misunderstood in emails and this sentence can be read wrong too easily. What do you think?

Instead, I suggest that cold callers read this posting that provides 4 tips for cold calling from an inside sales rep that’s living it every day.

After reading Joanne’s post yesterday about recession proof selling, I saw this posting about recession proof marketing. Uh oh, it looks like almost everyone is agreeing we’re headed into a recession. (Unless you’re part of the tech industry in Boston, but I digress.)

Brian and Joanne both agree that one of the key areas to focus when economic times are tough is lead generation. Joanne gives her 5 tips for salespeople to improve lead generation through referrals. Brian tells marketers to, “…direct their budgets away from traditional awareness building campaigns that quickly eat up budget and instead expand and optimize lead generation programs that bring measurable results.” And he points to an IDC study that says that 80% of marketing expenditures on lead generation and collateral are wasted because the leads are ignored by sales people.

The Marketing department in a recession needs to focus on those tasks that generate valuable leads for the sales reps. So valuable that these leads are equal in value to the sales rep’s own lead generation through referrals.

Actually, marketing’s lead generation programs should be doing that even when times are booming!

We’ve all had a “PITA client”-perhaps more than one. (PITA stands for “pain in the a**.) A PITA will drain you, consume valuable resources, upset your team, squeeze you on price, pay slowly, and will never be satisfied with the results-even when you’ve agreed on the deliverables.

You know the warning signs. A PITA client will:

• Nickel and dime you on price

• Tell you they’re the decision makers when they’re not

• Threaten you with your competitors

• Make unreasonable demands, and expect fast, complete, and reliable delivery of your service

• Not return phone calls

Talk about loss of productivity! PITAs are our biggest time wasters and they erode our profits. When we accept a PITA, it’s an opportunity cost-an opportunity lost to do business with our ideal clients. Yet companies continue to accept this bad business, all the while thinking it’s better than no business. But is it?

Sometimes it’s because we have a quota to meet, or our company insists we do a deal, or we think we can turn a bad situation into a good one. We’re dreaming. Bad business is bad business. Period.

Salespeople frequently say that they will sell to “anyone who fogs a mirror.” Avoid this kind of thinking. We shouldn’t target just “anyone.” “Anyone” all too frequently turns out to be the PITA customer.

Fire the PITA! Most of the time we can identify the PITA client before we even begin to work with them. Say no. It’s OK to walk away. In walking away from the PITA, you’ll have time to attract the kind of clients you really want, to do the work you love, and your productivity will soar!

Want more?
Listen to my podcast on Productivity on Salesopedia

Get the No More Cold Calling Self-Study Workbook

This self-study program equips you with referral strategies for finding clients who truly need your product or service.

Everyone agrees that getting referrals to new prospects is so much better than cold calling down that long list that your company provided you. But how do you get started? John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame has put together a brief video primer on just this very topic. He focuses on

- defining your value proposition
- who you tell this to
- why you are asking for the referral

In principle I agree with how John suggests you get started even if it seems a bit pushy and low-tech. A vital part of any networking program is to ensure the people you want referrals from understand exactly what you do - ie your value proposition. Sure, your customers probably know that already but what about your friends, family and colleagues? Don’t bore them with a feature/benefit pitch - think of your elevator pitch that gets makes them chuckle and excited about telling other people about you. What do I tell people we do at Inquisix? “We’re matchmakers [pause] for salespeople!” Joanne Black, author of “No More Cold Calling” announces, “I’m the Referral Queen!”What do you tell people so they’re remember you?