I couldn’t resist the urge to share this message from a childhood friend. His name is Nick M. and we were pretty close friends in high school. He has spent the majority of his career in sales (as have I) and we recently reconnected because of Facebook.

If you ever wanted to see, hear or feel what passion felt like… here goes:

Nicholas M. August 4 at 12:12am
“Joe, how is it going. Your short post is interesting and motivating at the same time. While I read this, I replay my day in my head of what makes a great sales person rise above, and stand out from the rest, that are telling the same story as you. I, like you, get this uforic feeling when accomplishing a motivated or unmotivated person to say yes, I ll take it. I am working 10-12 hour days and can’t get enough of it. I am literally sitting here and cant wait to get to work tomorrow to see how many people I can educate, overcome objections, and then firmly but not aggresively pursway from one side of the fence to the other with me. Most of my clients are refferals 50%, but the other 50% are people who just wanted a qoute online and after filling out name and phone number realize that they are not getting numbers, but they are getting a mortgage banker to call them back. Then it’s game time, and I love to win… So my quesiton reamains, how will I take the talent given to me to the next level… “

A few things to note in case you missed it:

• Notice the time of day he sent it… this is not a 9-5pm “JOB”
• Driving purpose: “to educate and help others”
• Can’t wait to wake up the next day – how many on your team are saying this right now?

More importantly this was UNSOLICITED… I would think we now can say we have seen PASSION and URGENCY, right?

Thanks to my man, Nick…

Joe

Become our Facebook fan (Already a fan?  Forward this to your friends)!  Why?  Joe Mechlinski and I are in a heated battle…he thinks that we CAN’T get 500 fans by the end of September and I believe that we absolutely CAN!

For every fan that we are short of 500, I have to pay him $1.  For every fan over 500, he owes me $2.  If me making money isn’t enough motivation for you to admit that you are a fan, then maybe the following 10 reasons will be!

1). entreQuest shares GREAT information about how to increase sales and build stronger businesses.  This helps you become more educated which will make you sound smarter when talking with your friends.

2). Because we’re the source for sales growth, you’ll sell more (or encourage your employees/colleagues to do so) which will MAKE YOU MORE MONEY which means that you can buy bigger houses, faster cars or just save money for the next recession.

3). You can network with our community….which is a tight knit one that will most likely welcome you with open arms.

4). We don’t mind if you directly solicit our contacts for meetings or invites to your Facebook fan pages as long as you keep it G-rated and not annoying.

5). We give away our training materials from time-to-time for FREE…yes, free…nothing in this world is EVER free so you should jump on it.

6). Our recruiting division has basically blown up and we now have opportunities ALL OVER the United States.  This is a perfect opportunity for you to pull out the cool card by getting your friends great jobs.

7). eQ is involved in the community and from time to time does fun things like raising money by bowling for kids, serving food to Baltimore City shelters and sponsoring events, which will open your eyes to the endless opportunities out there to make our world a better place. (We are the world….we are the children…we are the ones who make a brighter place…so let’s start liv’n – RIP MJ)

8).  eQ does free public webinars that teach salespeople how to sell better using social media.  Again…free….no need to discuss further.

9). We’re having a 10^th year anniversary thank you party…and if there’s any shot that you will get an invite, you better be a fan of our page.

10). It takes 1 click on the word ‘like’ (look up and to your right) to become a fan which is the same amount of energy you use to blink your eyes once.

JOE SOAPBOX TIME:

Today Google announces that the Wave is no more.  Why is this brilliant?  B/c it celebrates this mistake in a timely and candid way.  Check out the story on www.techcrunch.com.

Own it – this is all we want.

In business – we are all put to the test.  Do I take the high-road, spin the truth, take the road less traveled, and/or make this a win-win?

Whether you are Tiger, Toyota, BP Oil, Enron, Tylenol (back in the 80’s) or anyone of the other examples of what not to do… the lesson is always the same – do the right thing immediately w/o hesitation… even when its hard and no one is looking.

Whether the golden rule or some other famous line, we all need a reminder in a time where the examples above grab the headline vs the real every day hero’s (past great parents, school teachers, the military and such).

I am not a full out Budhist, but do believe that likes attract likes.  If you are a great person or company, you will tend to find others like you.

If you are a snake or a “spinner of the truth”, then have fun reaping what you sow.

Cheers Google,

Joe

• SERVE: No matter what we do, we can’t get away from our roots of being a company that wants to make a difference in the community. Not to flaunt but to inspire other companies to consider.  Before getting to your “real” business, get to the business of serving others.  It’s great for the soul and puts in perspective what really matters.  For our retreat last Friday, we decided to give back at Our Daily Bread in Baltimore.  See here:

• CELEBRATE: This is also a great time to look back and celebrate your accomplishments as a company.  For us this was an extra special occasional. As you can see below here, Misti celebrated her 5-year anniversary with entreQuest. Since  Misti has been here, she has worked with more than 200 companies and helped placed more than 300 sales professionals.  Not bad for 5 years.  Beyond this, Misti is the glue that holds our company together.  A big congratulations to her… and us!

For me this is easy because it’s the day my wife (obviously girlfriend then) and I went on our first date (and yes I am going to turn this into a blog).

But when you get to thinking about how time flies, what you have accomplished in the last 5 years and what you could accomplish it gets a little scary.

I am sure most people reading this email have one of these moments usually marked by a birthday or anniversary of some sort.

By big aha for this reminds me of my favorite quote:

“Change is inevitable but progress in not.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Now if you are reading this post you are obviously a high-performer and very intelligent (think about who the compliment was for there), but what can you learn to make serious progress.  Here are a few things to think about… and remember, if the shoe fits, wear it for you and your company:

1). The customer, not the vendor, is in control. If your company is still denying this, you haven’t adapted to the new reality.

2). In an experienced-based economy, it’s no longer just about products and services. The customer experience has become paramount.

3). Sometimes it’s the most basic things that we’ve lost sight of when sales begin to slip. For example, the simple practice of listening, or keeping your word, or handling a problem. We refer to this as the Golden Rule on steroids.

4). Sales used to be a one-way street, but now your sales pitch must become a conversation – a two-way dialogue and a reciprocal relationship.

5). You’ve got to find a way to create a partnership of value and change the dynamic from “closing” the client to “enrolling” or “re-engaging” the client.  The emotional intelligence of relationships is the key to making this shift.

6). Statistics show that the least committed people in an organization are typically its salespeople.  That’s a problem.  If they’re not committed, what are they communicating? Salespeople reflect their relationship with the company in every interaction. By changing your relationship with your own people, you can change everything else.

7). Slow sales aren’t about the economy, the competition, the market, or even the Internet.  It’s all a question of shifting the mindset of your key people and your sales team.

8). The carrot and stick, parent-child model of sales accountability is outmoded and it doesn’t really work.  What works is a relationship of mutual respect between two adults who come to terms on a professional agreement of intrinsic value to both.

9). Pipeline and opportunity management are no longer about volume; they’re about quality. The question isn’t how many contacts, but how deeply did you connect/engage, how clear are you on the prospect’s agenda rather than your own, did you understand their mission, vision, needs and agenda?

10). Sometimes stunted growth isn’t a sales problem at all. It may be that the company and/or the leadership hasn’t created a clear value proposition that everyone understands, wants and is willing to pay for.  We can help with that, too.

As my good friend Henry Ford says… “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do”

Here is to the next exciting 5 years!

Be Your BEST,

Joe

For young companies looking to grow their business, the most important thing they should know is that there is a process for winning sales and building sales teams, and it starts with mindset.

Putting mindset before process is what we call the Achievement Model. The Achievement Model establishes that, with the right mindset, almost any set of processes aimed at developing new business will work.

Create Long-term Relationships by Enrolling Clients

So how do you develop the right mindset that will help you win sales? Think in terms of enrolling clients, as opposed to closing deals. When you have the enrolling mindset, you are acting as their partner instead of their vendor. You are providing value because you understand their larger outcomes (their ultimate or ends needs), rather than just their immediate problem (the means to the end). By contrast, if you close the deal, you close the door on future opportunities.

The enrolling mindset allows you to differentiate your company in a very meaningful and personal way. Once you’ve discovered the prospect’s ends needs, you will be able to demonstrate that you have a solution that matches – or that you don’t. People will always respect you for seeing the issue from their side of the table, even if it means you won’t get the sale this time. If the opportunity isn’t there this time, you will have built trust for next time. And when you do have a solution that helps them toward their ends needs, your enrolling mindset will turn the potential one-off prospect into a long-term client.

Build Winning Teams by Enrolling Salespeople

The Achievement Model works for building sales teams, as well. That’s because hiring salespeople works exactly the same way as selling prospects. Only, when you are trying to attract talent, they are selling you as much as you are selling them. Why is it important that you sell them on you? Given the high cost of turnover, you want to hire people who have bought in to your company’s vision, who are not simply temporary. Likewise, you want to understand what they really need, so that you determine whether you can give them the opportunities to be successful over the long term.

The Process of Peeling the Onion

Let’s say you have the enrolling mindset. How do you go about discovering the ends need?

We refer to the process of discovering the ends need as “peeling the onion.” Peeling the onion is the ability to ask probing business questions that peel back the layers of what others first say they need, down to what they actually need, and why.

For example, let’s say you work for a computer hardware company. Your prospect tells you that he needs a new server because his old one is off-lease and at the end of its shelf life. While you might be tempted to pull out a quote for a new server, instead you take the time to ask a series of questions about the business and the ultimate goals of the business owner. You discover that several aspects of his core business functions run on an ASP model (he manages customer data, inventory and bookkeeping online), and he has been thinking about taking his company virtual, so that he can be home when his kids come home from school. Having peeled the onion, you can make a recommendation that he should not buy a new server from you. Instead, he should consider a hosted solution for all of his applications, eliminating the need for a server. If your company offers the hosted solution, so much the better for you. But if not, he will certainly welcome your call next time you have hardware recommendations.

Peeling the onion works in team-building as well. In our company, a major factor in hiring salespeople is how well candidates try to discover our ends needs. More than anything else, we want to see their ability to question. Do they go into rote presentation mode, or do they use the Socratic method to discover the deeper forces driving us, of which possibly we were not even aware? Do they accept what we say we want, or do they keep probing?

Life is Sales

In life, we trust those who can demonstrate that they understand what we need, and why. If they can make a good case for why they can help us reach it, we know we have a fit. Your prospects and your potential sales hires are no different. Develop an enrolling mindset, and back it with a process for discovering ends needs, and you will position your company for long-term, sustainable growth.

Be Your BEST,

Joe

Studies show that sales people on average stay at their jobs for approximately 21 months.

Studies also say that if you hire 10 sales people, it is likely 6 will be gone in the first 12 months.

So how do you mitigate your downside risk?

Selections Tests: YES (Predictive Index, Myers Briggs)

Better Interviewing: YES (See below)

One of the most common “asks” for help we get at entreQuest is what do you ask in an interview.  What are the questions?  What do you look for?  How do you know?

These are all GREAT questions with unfortunately not easy answers.  Leaving out what are the attributes of the best sales people and selection testing, below is a simple list of questions we have seen work pretty well.

1. What should we expect of you in your new role?

2. Tell me about a failure and what you learned from it.

3. What motivates you? How do you motivate yourself?

4. What do you feel are the appropriate steps to selling something?

5. Do you read? What was the last book you read? Why did you select it? What did you learn and apply from that reading?

6. Have you ever been given any formalized training? Attended seminars?

7. What would be most important to you about your new working environment? What type of support would you need?

8. What recommendations would you give us to best work with you in supporting you to do and be your best?

9. Tell me about a time when you received constructive feedback, and then made changes as a result?

I am POSITIVE there are more… in fact, please share your favorite interview questions and stories.

The SOURCE for Sales Growth,

Joe