Jonathan Farrington's Blog

“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him you are his sincere friend.” Abraham Lincoln

Nowhere is this truer than in selling, where you are trying to persuade another, often a stranger, to make a decision they may not even have considered prior to your meeting.

The buyer-seller situation – like any human contact – is an exercise in human relations: the interplay, cause and effect of behaviour by two or more people on each other. In the buyer-seller situation, the seller must be responsible for shaping mutual behaviour.

What’s the difference between human nature and human relations?

• Human nature is the instinctive behaviour that governs action concerned with the self and with self-interest.

• Human relations are concerned with how we think and act in terms of other’s interests.

Successful selling demands that human relations be dominant over human nature.

Selling is not something a salesperson does to a prospect. Selling is something you do with the prospect in a process of discovery and interaction – human relations at work.

The greatest barrier to success in this process is the “Egocentric Predicament”. This consists of being overly and unnecessarily concerned with self. Our ability to be perceptive and concerned about others is inversely proportionate to our self-concern.

When self gets unnecessarily in the way, the fruitful cycle of good human relations stops producing.

The key to understanding and accepting others, is to first understand and accept oneself – starting with the realisation that, rather than strive for an unattainable “I should be” image, we should settle for our real self as “I am” – accepting shortcomings along with strengths.
The following points provide a practical answer to the “I am” versus “I should be” conflict.

Recognise it – and recognise that its source is rooted in the views of others.

Either (a) accept your “I am” image or (b) decide on attainable, constructive steps to achieve “I should be” in the future.

Our behaviour is a reflection of our attitudes; and our attitudes grow out of our values. Each is an integral part of the other. Do your life values make it easy for you to put the other person’s interests first?

Sincerity is a much-used word in relation to selling.

Integrity is a kindred word. Integrity implies a consistent kind of honesty: acting outwardly the way you truly feel inwardly. That’s why sound values are so important to your success with others. Remember: “People buy our product not so much because they understand the product… but because they feel that we understand them.”

There are many effective ways of doing this: The best way to create this kind of buying climate is to “transmit on their frequency.” This opens their mind to you…makes them willing – and eager – to listen.

A sincere, specific compliment on a point of real meaning to them gets the other person talking about things of interest to them. It opens doors.

“Before I sell my prospect what my prospect buys, I must first see my prospect as they see themselves.”

In Summary:

Empathy is the magical word in the lexicon of human relations. It means feeling as the other person feels, not just with them. It means putting yourself in their shoes and shaping your attitudes accordingly.

Beyond getting the order, the plus factor in selling is to make people look good in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. Rather than sell to them, we help them buy.

We do this best by building their self-image. This helps them grow. And as we help others grow, we grow. To do this, we must be open and honest – this is the essence of good human relations.

These concepts are applicable to every facet of our lives and in selling, they pave the way to the truest and most fruitful success.

This week, I began the process of forming the adjudication panel for “Top Ten Sales Articles” and frankly, I have been staggered by the level of enthusiasm: Less than 48 hours after sending out the invitations to a very select group of sales experts, eight out of ten are already on board – truly amazing: Next week I will announce the final line-up and hopefully, the main sponsor.

I can reveal that I very rarely stray outside my preferred list of authors, when I have some spare time to read articles – actually most of them are on the adjudication panel of Top Sales Articles – but I “found” Megan Tough yesterday, and I am really impressed with her work. She posted a number of pieces on BuildYourOwnBusiness and you can find her here.

And finally, two new articles for you: On Group site, www.thejfagroup.com you will find “Quality Activity Really Does Produce Quality Results” – here is a taster:

“The less I see of what’s his name? – The more I forget him.”

“Failing to focus salespeople’s activity reduces efficiency and consequently reduces results, because there isn’t a salesperson alive that believes they have enough time in their working week to complete all the activities they want to achieve! Time is a huge constraint on salespeople’s activities so that when their manager asks them for more, it’s no wonder that they are overwhelmed”. continue reading

Meanwhile, on my personal site, www.jonathanfarrington.com I have posted: “Motivation – Moving Beyond The Carrot And Big Stick Theory” – and another morsel for you:

“Professor Frederick Hertzberg has promoted a theory of motivation which goes a long way forward from the original theory of “Carrot and Stick”, or indeed its extension ‘The Reward Theory’, still used by many managers and Companies to try and exhort greater efforts from their staff.

It stems from two-statements:-

- What makes people happy and motivated at work, is what they do.

- What makes people unhappy and demotivated at work, is the situation in which they do it. continue reading

Both highly readable, as you would expect me to suggest!

OK, that’s it for another week, I have a three week break from BlogRadio, until “Top 10 Sales Articles” launches on April 15th (on whichever medium we use) – hope you will tune in for the launch? A defining moment!

As ever, wherever you are, have a great week.

JF

“Prince Rabadash’s army lay close behind them, Anvard ahead. If they did not reach Anvard before Rabadash and his horde, their journey, their entire lives, would have been wasted. The horses, Bree and Hwin (both of whom could, of course, talk) galloped. Certainly both horses were doing, if not all they could, all they thought they could do; which is not quite the same thing. But a lion appeared out of nowhere and with the spur of terror; Bree now discovered that he had not really been going as fast, not quite as fast, as he could”.

This extract is of course taken from “The Chronicles of Narnia”, that fount of a million, simple and usually overlooked truths and it illustrates perfectly what it takes for some of us to be steered out of our comfort zone.

Perhaps of all the temptations we meet in life, money, power, sex, alcohol, drugs and fame,(but not necessarily in that order), the subtlest of all is the comfort zone, that invitation to settle for less, to go for content when the stresses of over achievement beckon. The way that takes you out of the comfort zone is the route less travelled by. Most of us when we come to that place where the two paths divide prefer the one that leads to safety, to warmth and to comfort.

Both in sport and in business, I have witnessed countless companies, friends, colleagues and team-mates that underachieved, despite having far superior skills and talents when compared to others who have made it to the top. The reason has always been the same; fear of leaving the comfort zone and entering into the unknown, the land potentially of failure and rejection.

All successful people have at least two things in common: The first is their attitude and the second is that they all expect to be successful and because they want it badly enough, they bring about its happening, i.e. fulfilled expectation.

The drive has to come from within because no one else is going to make us successful, they are too busy minding their own stores: From Einstein, an overused but highly significant quote:”The definition of insanity is to continue to do the same things in the hope that those things will miraculously achieve a different result.” In other words, “Keep doing what you are doing and you will keep getting what you have been getting”If you don’t like it, you have the power to change it.

My experience is that you cannot have everything you want but you can have anything you really want – you just have to work out what it is.

This week on BlogTalkRadio, my guest was Clayton Shold of Salesopedia.com – who, as anticipated, provided some insightful and refreshing commentary on a host of “article community” topics and lots of other things as well – you can listen to the full interview here, or read a transcript here.

I promised to keep you fully updated with the progress we are making on “Top Ten Sales Articles” – well, the site design and layout has been agreed and the team have been burning the midnight oil to ensure we achieve our launch date, which is Sunday April 1st and no I am not fooling.

Our primary objective is to provide a single location where time strapped business captains, sales professionals and publishers can locate the very best business articles every week. For authors we offer a unique opportunity to showcase their work and benchmark the quality of their writing against that of their contempories.

So How Does It Work? – Each week we will research and evaluate sales articles submitted to all the main article communities: We will then effectively perform a cull until we arrive at the ten best pieces of work. Then a panel of globally recognised sales experts will make their decision. The winner will be announced here and on the blog every Sunday and a fresh set of reviews posted. From the four weekly winners we will choose a monthly winner and logically from the twelve monthly winners we will select the Article Of The Year. All overviews will remain on site in weekly and monthly archived sections, providing an ongoing reference point for visitors.

And finally: I have posted two new articles this week – on my personal site: www.jonathanfarrington.com “Negotiation – Planning For A Successful Outcome” highlights the fact that it is imperative to plan prior to entering into a negotiation – here is a brief extract:

“In any kind of negotiation the planning stage is probably the most important. Too often we go in badly prepared and end up giving concessions that reduce the overall profitability of the final deal. The importance of planning is in having a very clear idea before entering into the negotiation i.e……..”

On the group site: www.thejfagroup.com – you will find: “The Seven Essential Qualities Of Leadership” An opportunity to benchmark yourself? And yes, you are right of course, there are more than ten, but I wanted to highlight the most critical, based on my own experience:

– “Although there are many qualities necessary to be a genuine leader in a specific situation, these qualities should be common to all.”

Finally, I have been following the “debate” on ProBlogger: www.problogger.net where a number of excellent bloggers have been discussing how often is too often, when it comes to posting. As you know my preference is for just one entry every week and I aim for quality over quantity – that goes for every facet of my life. Apart from anything else, my decision is based around the time constraints that I am currently working within. However, if you have a view on this, I would be delighted if you posted a comment – do you think I should post more frequently? – or maybe you think less!!

As ever, wherever you are in the world, have a great week and thank you!

JF

The responsibility for ensuring that every member of a sales team is successful and performing at optimum levels lies entirely with management and when a salesperson gains promotion to management the first thing they have to do is to quickly acquaint themselves with a new set of working relationships – and a new set of rules.

The salesperson’s primary working relationships are with customers: However the sales manager’s is with the sales force i.e. his subordinates. For example:

Essential Attributes Include:

Successful Salesperson:
- Personal drive (Ego).
- Needs to win battles (Individual sales).
- Able to work alone.
- Persuades customers to see his/her point.
- Needs selling skills, personal skills and knowledge.
- Able to work away from the office.
- Works well with people and numbers.
- Good at implementing sales tactics.

Successful Sales Manager:
- Submission of personal needs to the goals of the Company (Corporate drive).
- Needs to win the war (Meet corporate goals).
- Able to work with others.
- Persuades the sales team to see the Company’s point.
- Needs management skills and marketing knowledge.
- Needs to work at the office.
- Works well with people, numbers, paperwork and the corporate hierarchy.
- Good at developing sales and marketing strategies.

The most common danger in having sales managers who are basically super salespeople is that relations with subordinates including the critical tasks of development and supervision may deteriorate.

When I am asked to diagnose why an individual or even an entire team are not performing at optimum levels, I usually ask just four very straightforward questions:

• Are they visiting/talking to enough clients/prospects? In other words are they pro-active and are their activity levels high? I call this CCT as a percentage of TWT (Customer Contact Time as a percentage of Total Working Time)

• Are they talking to the right people within those client/prospect organisations? Are they able to penetrate the formal DMU (Decision Making Unit) and reach the MAN? (The person or people with the Money, Authority and Need)

• Are they saying/doing the right things? This really means – how strong are their selling skills?

• And finally, how is their attitude – that small thing that makes such a big difference.

From these four questions, I usually discover the answer but actually, it can sometimes be a little more complex and I refer to the “Eight Reasons Why Salespeople Fail” Continue Reading

This week I have invested time in improving my “broadcasting techniques” ahead of my second show on Sunday and I have also been lining up some very interesting guests for March and April – I do hope you will tune in and even participate. As I suggested last week, this really is new territory for me but I am determined to make the most of the opportunity and I feel I am gaining invaluable experience ahead of the launch of “Top 10 Sales Articles”, which is a tailored made initiative for BlogTalkRadio – if you want to check on future schedules, you can follow that link.

Interesting news just in from Skype if you are a fan like me: “Skype today announced a new beta version of their Windows offering (v3.1.0.134 beta). It’s main new feature is Skype Prime (beta) – something that will appeal to many entrepreneurial bloggers.

In short, it enables paid Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls. You can charge other people for calling you either a one-off fee or by the minute. Conversely, if you are the caller, you can call experts who charge for their services, and you can then pay the fee and access the expertise that the other call party provides.”

The timing of this announcement is fortuitous, as we are working on plans to provide online consultancy – more soon!

Last week I provided you with details of David Bain’s upcoming seminar in Edinburgh on April 11th but I omitted to mention that there is an “Early Bird Discount” if you book your place(s) by Friday March 23rd. Full details are here:

www.purpleinternetmarketing.com/13-Pillars.pdf – hope to see you there!

This week’s article on the Group site: thejfagroup.com is “Strategic Selling Begins And Ends In The Boardroom”

“In most industries to-day, a handful of ideal customers have become universal targets. Nearly every industrial salesperson dreams of calling on the CEO’s or managing directors of those top companies, which logically means that in the UK there are maybe 500 customers for a million sellers. With such intense competition, conventional approaches are not equal to the challenge. Salespeople need to develop strategies that distinguish their products, services and their organisations in the mind of the customer.” Continue reading

And on my personal site: jonathanfarrington.com I provide some tips on how to construct a winning proposal:

“A professionally prepared proposal is an essential part of the overall sales cycle and is often the only way some members of the customer’s decision making unit (DMU), find out about you, your company and your proposed solution. If you fail to adequately represent what you have to offer, all of that time invested in first locating the opportunity, initial meetings, qualifying etc, will have been totally wasted. Here then, are the essential ingredients of a professional proposal.” Continue Reading

OK, that’s it, thank you for your continued support and wherever you are, as ever, have a great week.

JF

By the time you read this, I will have made my first broadcast on BlogTalkRadio.com – maybe some of you will have tuned in: I have to admit that I will be spending much of the weekend trying to persuade the butterflies to fly in formation but it is such a great opportunity to extend the boundaries once again and I am grasping it with both hands.

“The Business Show” goes out every Sunday at 18.00 hrs GMT – that’s 12.00 hrs EST and the primary objective is to provide a brief overview of the next blog as well discussing upcoming events, product launches and relevant business issues. There is a phone-in facility, which I am getting to grips with, so do please accept this as an invitation to call in and take part in the show. You will find full details including schedules, segment titles and phone numbers by following the link in the first paragraph.

Back to this week and if you have ever wondered if you are predominantly left-brained or right-brained, I am going to give you the opportunity to find out. I have always known that the very best sales professionals are predominantly right-brained: I also suspected the Finance Directors and Technical Directors were predominantly left-brained – so where does that leave CEO’s and Managing Directors?

My perception was that it would all depend on their background but in fact recent experimentation currently taking place in the USA, which I am following with great interest, suggests that the most successful business leaders are in fact “balanced” That is to say they have no predominance, so they can think logically and methodically but equally, they can be creative and not be confined by paradigms.

In general the left and right hemispheres of our brains process information in different ways. We tend to process information using our dominant side. However, the learning and thinking process is enhanced when both sides of the brain participate in a balanced manner. This means strengthening your less dominate hemisphere of the brain. Continue Reading and Take the Test

I managed to catch up with the ebullient and highly successful Jill Konrath this week, she of: www.sellingtobigcompanies.com who is currently on vacation in New Zealand – hopefully, she will be introducing herself to Greg and the guys at SalesCommunity.com. I am very keen to share some ideas with her and also elicit her input into a new venture planned for later in the year.

You can find out more about Jill in an interview with my good buddy from the frozen north, the charismatic Clayton Shold: www.salesopedia.com/content/view/597/300/

It has been a while since I mentioned another good friend – David Bain of www.buildyourownbusiness.biz In fact, David has been working extremely hard setting up a brand new and exciting venture: I received this note from him earlier in the week:

“Thought I’d share with you what I’ve been working on recently: www.PurpleInternetMarketing.com ~ The Internet Marketing Training Company.

“It is my feeling that Internet marketing will have to become more of an in-house function in the future. I’ve therefore decided to set up a company that specialises in helping companies devise and implement their own Internet marketing strategy. I’ll be hosting seminars, conducting one-to-one Internet marketing training and advising on E-business strategy.

My first seminar will be held in Edinburgh on 11th April”: www.purpleinternetmarketing.com/13-Pillars.pdf

That last link takes you straight into the seminar details and booking process – if you are planning to attend, I suggest you book early: If you are going, please come up and introduce yourself as I will be there myself – as I have said in the past, David really is a guru when it comes to Internet marketing and the opportunity to listen to more of his wisdom live, was not one I could let slip.

And finally……… Two new articles for you this week:

On the Group site: thejfagroup.com I reveal the dilemma of an ex-client of mine, who found themselves with too many sales leads!

“Few marketers will question the value of sales leads generated by direct mail and other direct response methods. However, a poorly integrated lead generation programme can actually reduce the overall productivity of a salesforce.

This is a true story and only the company name has been changed.

The case of Newco & Co. illustrates the phenomenon. Newco manufacture a range of specialist industrial washroom equipment; they offer service contracts to maintain the equipment and supply their wide range of hygiene disposable products”. Continue reading

And on my personal site: jonathanfarrington.com I illustrate dynamic leadership in action:

“A very good friend and ex-client of mine runs a highly successful information technology service in the South of England and his private-sector customers include many Times Top 100 companies. We often exchange opinions and I recently asked his views on leadership, because I have always been impressed with his commitment to “people development”. Continue Reading

OK, that’s it for another week and as I always say, wherever you are in this (rapidly shrinking) world, have a great week.

JF

PS: Please don’t forget that you can read all my published work for February in “The February Month in Review” – just look for the clock image in the right hand column.