Sales Dogs book review

March 12, 2018
Book Review Notes

Sales Dogs: You don’t have to be an attack dog to explode your income.

3/10/18

Different types of sales dogs

Pitbull: The most aggressive and most stereotyped salesperson. Used car salesmen example.

Tips from the pit bull: When in doubt, do something. Do anything. Just make a sales call. Making even a bad decision creates movement, action and can be corrected upon.

This habit will open more doors and generate more momentum that you would ever imagine possible.

Golden retriever: To the retriever, customer service is everything. The more you give prospects the more they will love you and the more they will eventually buy.

Much different than the seek and destroy methods of the pit

Always be the first to give. True in a negotiation, sale, argument etc. Gives first has the advantage.

Poodle: Live in a world of high class sales. Presentation is everything. Flashy. The poodle is the ultimate marketing dog. Sell big ticket items.

Learn to speak well to groups and practice this art as often as you can. One on one skills are important, but being able to speak before a crowd increases exposure and confidence 100x.

Learn how to present yourself physically through grooming and attire.

Chihuahua: the data driven one

Learn how to learn. Get to know your specific learning strategy and learn how to absorb critical material. Experience first, talk about it afterward, write down what you’ve learned.

Basset hound: Integrity, consistency and trustworthiness.

  1. Learn to listen. Track your ear to the listener
  2. Learn to match body language and modality of the language of the person you are talking to.

Play to your strengths. The purpose of a cold call is not to sell anything, but to train yourself for sales situations.

Adopt winning skills when you need them. Assimilate the behavior and skills that are a bit foreign to them can learn to be the ultimate sales dog.

Conditioning and training process is the repetition of drills and skills that may come naturally to other breeds, but are often foreign to yourself. The conditioning is only for burning the pathway in your brain.

Checklist for motivating high-performance salesdog teams

  1. Celebrate all wins. Actively acknowledge all participation and tasks well done.
  2. Establish a code of honor.
  3. Debrief all wins and learning experiences early and often.
  4. Use peer pressure to motivate the pack.
  5. Don’t try and teach pigs to sing.
  6. Use common terms vs convoluted corporate-speak.
  7. Feed the hot hand. WHen you’re on a roll, keep fueling the fire until it cycles out.
  8. Set short term goals that can be accomplished quickly and cleanly. Most dogs have very little concept of the future. They can scarcely thing beyond dinner.
  9. Get your dogs to practice standing in the head of pressure, confrontation and challenge often so they will become used to it. Be sure to surface and acknowledge the emotion that arises. The object.rejection system is good.
  10. Manage and address emotional needs more than tangible needs
  11. Give them a way to feel that they are contributing something to a higher purpose.
  12. Establish and maintain ritual behavior, events and routines that promote team, family and camaraderie.
  13. Always look for champions and allies within the team and use them to lead the team.
  14. Look for and acknowledge heroes all the time.
  15. Find a way to change the environment, mood routine or physical location when the team gets stuck mentally or emotionally. Don’t get lethargic.
  16. Manage and focus on energy and emotions continually.
  17. Throw their problems beck to them to solve.
  18. Be a student of people, psychology, management and change.

4 mindsets of champion sales dogs

  1. Face the challenge

    1. Strength can come from the past. You must learn to capture those successes and use them in the present.

  2. Respond to negative experiences

    1. Shift the blame away from you. Prospect having a bad day, bad timing, information was unavailable to you, personal issues.

MEMORIZE THIS

  1. Problem occurs
  2. As soon as you discover the problem, you experience a flash of emotion.
  3. Dialogue in brain begins
  4. "What am I saying to myself right now?"
  5. In 10 seconds you can recognize that you are using a universal descriptive work. Always, never, every time, all.
  6. When you recognize that word, check in smile and say "there it is"
  7. Mentally correct the universal word to.."this time”, "just happens that”, “in this case it didn’t work”
  8. Ask yourself, how would you really want to be feeling right now.

  9. Respond to a successful endeavor: Celebrate all wins

    1. A physical anchoring of the win with a high five handshake etc are all successfully.

  10. View yourself and other on your team. Project the power of your personal intention.

    1. Think of a dog chasing a squirrel. They just GET AT IT.

Training for the hunt: Chapter 11

5 critical skills for salesdog success

  1. Mastering the art of referrals

    1. Friend gets prospect to call you
    2. Fend tells the prospect you will call him.
    3. Friend tells you who to call and allows you to mention that he or she referred you.
    4. Friend gives you a name, any name.

Never jump on strangers. Never ever ever neglect existing clients. They are the greatest source of add-on sales, testimonials and referrals that you have.

  1. Delivering on powerful presentations
  2. Tapping the desire to serve others.
  3. Managing the personal marketing versus selling formula.

  4. S/M = Sales Effort

    1. The more marketing you do, the less selling effort you have to deal with. The more quality time you spend marketing, the less you have to physically sell. Prospects put their hands up and come looking your you.
    2. S * M = Results..double the M spend half the time on sales.

  5. Handling of objections or rejections.

    1. When a prospect says no, all he is saying is he is not interested in your product at this time or that he doesn’t understand something. It is not a reflection on you.
  • Create coop relationships with other individuals or companies that are already in contact with your prospects.
  • Send out sales letters
  • Advertise
  • Volunteer at industry functions
  • Conduct free educational seminars
  • Generate testimonials and referrals

Of all the things you can learn, the time you spend on the subject of handling rejections and objections is the most valuable.

At first, it’s important to just hear objections/rejections and just say "Thank you."

Follow the objection with honest probing questions. Then reiterate and restate the objection.

In corporate sales "honor thy client’s secretary". Treat them as they were the decision-marker.

Direct sales are three things

  1. Prospects
  2. Appointments - telephone or face to face
  3. Making arrangements(closing)

Don’t worry about qualifying prospects in the beginning.

  1. Sales is an energy business, what you expend comes back. So just getting out there and speaking to people is valuable from an energy-generation POV.
  2. You could be wrong, but they might know someone that does need a website.
  3. It will assist you to get desensitized to rejection and you can practice your objections on a relatively unimportant prospect.

Step 1: You should never be talking to anybody who does not know who you are.

Step 2: Make initial contact in whatever way you are most comfortable.

E-mail and then follow-up phone call.

  1. THank them for taking the call, assure them it won’t take super long and ask if they received the intro communication and if they have any questions.

Step 3: Do your market research. Learn everything you can about the prospects business and industry. Being equipped with information will give you confidence and show prospects that you take them seriously.

Prepare a list of questions that you would like to ask the prospect in advance, and rehearse them as if you’ve never done this before.

Know what kind of person you are talking to.

Step 4: The appointment. Be well groomed and well dressed. If you look good, you feel good and that comes across in your communication.

Be excited, enthusiastic and be happy.

Step 5: As you walk into the appointment remember on what you want to focus on what you want to happen as an outcome to the meeting. Anchor that positive moment by reliving the moment in your head and allowing yourself to feel that emotion.

Design a conversation solely to find out as much as you can about the prospect. Ask about what they do, why they do it, why they like it, what their ideals are and what their frustrations and problems are. DO NOT TRY TO SELL. Spend time asking relevant questions. Be truly interested, but not interesting.

How did you hear about our service or product?

What particular needs do you have regarding our service or product? WHen this product or service was referred to you, what was it that specifically sparked your interest?

2nd level of questions

Ask questions about the prospects themselves, their business and the nature of their needs and what they specifically want.

  1. Their specific tangible goals
  2. Their opinion about how to implement or make use of the product or service
  3. Their emotional expectation.

Step 6: Present a proposal from that conversation, outlining how the customer will reach those goals in question.

Step7 7: Give them whatever they want.

"If I could wave a magic wand, what is it that you really want in terms of xyz"

Step 8: CLosing

When would you like delivery? How quickly would you like to begin? How soon would you like to begin to take advantage of this opportunity?

Nutshell

Gaining prospects

  1. Speak to people you know first
  2. Make initial contact the way you are most comfortable.
  3. Do your market research

Appointments

  1. Make great first impression
  2. Focus on what you want to happen at the appointment in advance, not on your fears.Make an appointment to call or visit again..a reason to stay in touch.

Give them whatever they want.

Making arrangements

  1. Ask questions and handle objections. Listen and watch your prospect for buying signals.

Career cycle

Retail sales > Corporate sales > network marketing / franchise sales > Entrepreneur sales > business sales.

  1. If you cannot sell, then you cannot run a successful business. You have to sell to your customers, vision to your staff, investors associates.
  2. Cannot or will not put together a team. Have to be able to gather others who have more skill than you in specific areas. Enough confidence in your adea.

Seek opportunities. Enablement. Barrier to Override. Ownership. Feedback.

Dogs don’t think about it. They look across the room, see you as an opportunity for some companionship and simply walk over and nuzzle their sloppy face into your lap. Try it - it might work.

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