S&MM SoundOff

Sales Lessons, Courtesy of Will Smith

I tend to spend a lot of time in the theater during the holiday season in
the end-of-the-year film rush, when studios release all the good movies for Oscar contention. One of the most recent I saw was The Pursuit of Happyness, in which Will Smith plays the real life Chris Gardner, a
down-on-his luck medical-equipment salesperson who fell on hard times, became homeless with his son, but who got back on his feet by getting a prestigious Dean Witter internship.

The big takeaway in this movie is the typical underdog lesson: Hard work and determination can lift you out of the most miry of circumstances. But I also couldn’t help taking some real sales lessons away from this movie. For starters, Gardner’s responsibilities as a father meant that as an intern he couldn’t stay late to get in a few extra cold calls, so he saved time by not hanging up the handset every time he placed a new call. (He also didn’t drink much during the day so he wouldn’t have to waste time in the bathroom, but I’m not advocating that strategy.)

Pie 'O My

Yesterday at a pizza place near work, I found Pizza Marketing Quarterly, a trade magazine for pizza shop owners, among the old magazines available to patrons. A lover of pizza and trade magazines, I
perused it while eating a salad (the pizza at this place wasn't that good).

I've been going to pizza places since I was little, and even as an adult, I routinely seek out the best slices in New York. But I¹ve never thought about the business of owning a pizza place. Pizza shops are small businesses, and their owners have the same concerns as any proprietor.

One of the most interesting ads was for a call center service (read an article about pizza call service from Pizza Market Place, a different pizza trade magazine, here) that takes delivery orders for pizzerias and] sends the request to the store, so managers can worry about the restaurant instead of the phone. Is this a great idea or just a middleman getting in the way? It depends. On Super Bowl Sunday, having someone else take calls makes sense, but on a Tuesday afternoon, it's a waste of money. Sales managers also need to weigh the necessity and the cost when incorporating something new to their business.

For a run down on new sales services that work, check out Dave Stein's column at
Manage Smarter.

Podcasting with Reckless Abandon

I recently received an e-mail press release with the following headline: "Gaylord Opryland Joins the Podcast Revolution." It turns out that this Nashville, Tenn., hotel has put together a few mp3s, which they're making available on their Web site as well as on iTunes.

My first reaction: Why are they bothering? I went to the site and listened to the audio files, which consisted of interviews with various hotel employees, explaining how they do their jobs and what is so fantastic about the property. The interviews didn’t include any useful information about the hotel that couldn’t be found on GaylordOpryLand.com. Nor were they particularly entertaining. And aside from the charming Southern accents of the interviewees, the podcasts did little to evoke a sense of what it’s like to be at the hotel—a shame, as it’s quite a nice property. If I were a meeting
planner considering booking this property, I would file this one under “waste of time.”

So why did Gaylord bother creating the audio-casts? Well, why not? It doesn’t take much‹just some pretty basic recording equipment, a day’s work for someone in marketing and a few minutes for each of the interviewees. If customers and prospects don’t like it, they won’t listen. If they do, they might pass the podcast along or sign up to receive an RSS feed. And Gaylord goes back to the studio to cook up more. Either way, the hotel could learn a lot about its target audience.

What do you think? How important is it to have superior content if you want to market your brand with podcasts, viral video or another hot technology?

Should You Be Podcasting?

It's All About the Blue Box

"Good Morning America" did a story last week on how diamonds differ (or don't) depending on the store. The reporter compared purchases from Costco > and Tiffany & Co., and discovered that while the chosen Costco diamond > appraised for $2,000 more than the purchase price, the reverse was true for > the Tiffany diamond. At Tiffany, the reporter overpaid by about $6,000.

In the post-purchase analysis, master gemologist Martin Fuller explained that a customer gets added value from a Tiffany diamond—an upgrade program, for instance. He explained that you're also purchasing a name.

Monday Night Fever

The common cold is running amok and  last week I was a victim.

I woke one morning feeling more than "under the weather" and I disgruntledly stayed in bed for two work days. While doctors and moms alike say that putting your health first is the right decision, I couldn’t help but feel guilty for missing even a small amount of work, knowing my daily responsibilities were being forced onto someone else in my absence. I couldn’t go to work but I compromised and compulsively checked the ManageSmarter.com Website every fifteen minutes to make sure everything was in order. I was afraid something would go wrong. My needed days of rest were not the most relaxing. 

It turns out that my dilemma is not rare. According to a 2006 survey conducted by LifeCare, Inc., a surprising majority of employees believe that it is too risky--or that others depend on them too greatly--to take time off from work.  In fact, only six percent of respondents actually take a sick day when feeling sick. A question of work/life balance comes into play: How sick do you have to be to take a day for yourself?

The Next Big Thing

It's certainly cliched to say that everyone's looking for the next big thing. But, according to Fortune magazine, 10 new big things—inventions and products that will shape our lives—are on the horizon. The ideas range from "extreme roses" to wave-generated electricity. Innovative products are always intriguing, and it's always surprising to find out that, in fact, everything hasn't already been done.

What's your company's next big idea for 2007? Unless you and your co-workers are constantly coming up with new ideas, new products, new solutions-—and as a result, new customers-—you're dead in the water. Some of the 10 ideas Fortune is featuring are so simple that you want to slap your forehead in a "why-didn't-I-think-of-that?" sort of way. Maybe your company's big thing for '07 is a new product, or maybe it's just a new way of doing thing internally that will save big bucks when it comes to the bottom line. Innovation is what separates the companies that just survive from the companies that thrive. Which group do you want to be in?

Sales: Is it Art or Is it Science?

By Dave Stein, CEO & Founder, ES Research Group, Inc.

That's a question I'm often asked about b-to-b selling. I define science (in such an instance) as the ability and willingness of a person to follow a set of processes in order to carry on the business of day-to-day selling. Examples would be formal planning, the use of checklists, dependence upon research, vigilant qualification, etc. Traditionally, people who demonstrated such behavior have been labeled left-brained.

With that in mind, then art (again, as applied to selling) is the ability to excel at such things as interpreting nuances in a customer's behavior, effectively responding to a question with relevant examples (and diagrams), making decisions based upon gut feel, counting on instinct and acting upon hunches as a critical success factor--that's typical right-brained behavior.

In my experience, and in the opinion of many sales experts I trust, successful business to business sales people depend on 80 to 90 percent science and only 10 to 20 percent art.

On the First Day of Christmas, My Vendor Gave to Me....

It's that time of year, when cheese and sausage logs, popcorn tins and thank-you cards of all shapes and sizes start invading your mailroom. For every fruitcake that arrives in your inbox, there are a dozen gourmet chocolate boxes on its way to you from vendors, business partners and other associates, ready to be eaten—or left to clutter the office kitchen.

Sure, letting customers know how much you appreciate their business is great, if not expected, during the holiday season. But the art of giving customer gifts is tricky, as this New York Times article shows. The dregs of your gifts might end up in the conference room, with employees
wondering who gave the gift. Your budget may only allow for top customers to get gifts, which means your middle and bottom-tier clients get short shrift. Or your gift might just be something that your client downright hates. Who really eats those fruitcakes, anyway?

But gift giving is done not only to show appreciation, it's also to do some branding in the name of holiday spirit. Here are some tips to guide your corporate gifting this season, culled from the article and from the personal experiences of the S&MM staff:

Thoughtful selling

The crowd is going wild, everybody's on their feet. People are chanting. "To be enthusiastic you must act enthusiastic. To act enthusiastic you must be enthusiastic. Oooohh boy, are we enthusiastic." No winning game here, it was a leadership conference my sophomore year in high school. At that young age, I had no idea I was experiencing a sociological phenomenon. The self-fulfilling prophecy. The concept was at work though. At first I thought the kids at the conference were strange, karaoke night was a bust and I wanted to go home. But I had to participate in the cheer we had all learned, and when I clapped my hands together and swung my fist on the ‘oooohhh boy,’ to my surprise, I got excited.

Many times we have to act the part. But if we do it long enough, we become the part. The self-fulfilling prophecy usually refers to the wife-husband nagging problem. Because the husband assumes the wife will nag, he doesn’t listen to her requests. So the woman, in fact, does nag. But why not apply it to other things? Why not make it positive? We hear a lot about bad self-talk. I believe Dr. Phil first introduced me to the concept. If we constantly critique ourselves (I’m fat, I’m stupid, I’m ugly, I’m unsuccessful), then we become what we fear. You are what you eat is old playground talk, you are what you think is serious psychology.

So why don’t you take that concept to the conference room. Encourage your sales team to tell themselves at least three times a day that, “I am a good salesperson,” or even, “I am a top seller.” You can help them out too. If you tell them they’re a good rep enough, they’re bound to start believing it for themselves and repeating the same words. First they’ll think it, then they’ll be it. And then you’ll have a top producing team. Ahh, the power of thought, you don’t have to be a theologian to reap the benefits.

--Jackie Hunzinger

Too Many Sales Reps

By Dave Stein, CEO & Founder, ES Research Group, Inc.

Last  week Pfizer announced it would be reducing its sales organization by 20 percent--more than 2,000 people. Jeffrey Kindler, Pfizer's CEO, said, "The changes we are making today will better align our sales organization to our overall customer and business needs. This is an important step toward making Pfizer a more agile and effective company."

This is big, big news not only for Pfizer and the pharmaceutical industry, but also for anyone in sales. For years, many doctors have had issues with the tactics of detail reps, not to mention the sheer number of them.  Last year WSJ columnist Benjamin Brewer, a family practice doctor in Forrest, Ill., decided he would no longer see drug sales reps in his office. One of his many complaints was that drug companies sent multiple salespeople pushing the same drugs, hoping one of them would succeed.