The Fear of Acceptance

Ever wondered what prevents you from making the killer sale? There are a lot of reasons that can provide factual reasoning to failure. "The client doesn't have budget", "The client doesn't like us", " The client does not see value", or one of my favorites " The competition is priced way below, and our finance guys just don't get it". I have used these from time to time and some time it cuts ice, and some times at the end of the day you simply know that you simply didn't give it all what you could have...

However in your same group, you will find some sales guys who just seem to crack the puzzle each time. Seven out of ten times they win the deal. The rest of the times, they ensure that the competition is actually having to buy the deal. I was talking to one such sales guy sometime back, and he shared with me a story. This story, made me understand the very epicenter of failure and also about how we need to have a level of acceptance, so that we don't lose the lesson in the process. The story goes something like this...

In a village in the heartland of India, there was a river. The only way to cross the river was to use the services of the local ferry man. Although this might sound like a monopoly, the ferry service was a duty than a business for the family that was doing it. Once there was this rich businessman who needed to cross the river. He came over and noticed that the ferry was being chartered by a young girl who was barely in her teens. The businessman was surprised to see this.

At the same time he also saw an opportunity to throw some weight around and get off with a lesser fee. He got into the ferry and exuded a haughty attitude, which made the girl wonder about how the ride would go by.

As the ride went on, the businessman asked this girl "Girl, where's your father? Isn't he supposed to be doing this, rather than having a girl like you work at it?".

The girl was silent and somberly replied "Sir, last month in the hurricane night my father went fishing and never returned".
The businessman was slightly taken aback. He also felt sad for the young girl who had to do this to make both ends meet.
As the ride went on, he asked, "So girl, who else is in your family".

The girl replied " well sir its me, my mother and my younger brother".
The man asked "what about others? your grandfather, or your dad's brothers?".

The girl replied "Sir, my uncle drowned in the lake, and my granddad also met with the same fate".

The man asked " Girl, dont you feel afraid of doing something which killed the whole of your family?"

The girl smiled and kept rowing. The man was perplexed at the calm of the girl.

After sometime, the girl asked "Sir, how did your father die?"

The man answered "He died peacefully sleeping in his bed"

The girl asked "and his father?"

The man replied " well he also passed away in his bed after a good day of business"

The girl quietly asked " well sir, then are you not afraid of sleeping in the bed"?

The man quietly handed the girl her fee and a tip, and moved on to his destination.

In the world of sales, the analogy is very similar to a situation, where we encounter a tough client situation, we accept the consequences, keep true to the basics and do a good job on it...
and as they say, the rest is history....

Till next time happy sailing....

"Know Thy Customer"

In follow up to the discussion that I started of with on Sales Principles, I wanted to share with you another key aspect in the world of sales. This mantra when implemented is a great asset and differentiator: "Know Thy Customer". Understanding of the customer needs and addressing it through an effective product and an accompanying service is something that we all know about. However, the key lies in the way it is executed. As a learned man once said " Winners don't do different things, they do things differently". In the same way, "Master Sales guys don’t sell different offerings, they in fact sell the same offering differently", and in this process also ensure that what they end up with a relationship that acts as an anchor for the next generation of growth to ride on.

In this context I want to share with you two examples of selling the same stuff in different ways. Mid Town Manhattan, between the 25th and the 45th streets is the Garment District. This is a commercial area where the predominant concentration is of firms in the fashion, garment and clothing industry. There are of course exceptions in terms of the sprawling CSFB Building, the advertising agencies on Madison Avenue and of course the foodie district of Lexington. However, typically, on a weekday, this area of Manhattan is not a place where you will bump into a millionaire banker or the typical fashion aficionado. I usually take the train to the station at 33rd and Broadway. This is the Korean street. A walk down a couple of blocks on the corner of 32nd and Madison is an innocuous looking "Dunkin Donuts".

I would recommend you to check out this place some time at 8:30am in the morning on a weekday. There are a couple of other places here close by that serve smoothies and bagels, but what will differentiates this place is the line of customers which is usually bursting at seams. The line typically extends to outside the shop. The first time that I visited this place was about two years back. The place is manned by an energetic team of young Chinese boys and girls. I ordered the #4 on the menu. This is a Croissant with egg and cheese and a Turbo Hot coffee (1 shot espresso with coffee). A couple of days later, I visited this place again, and the young lady who served me took my order and I noticed that she was making a mental note of my purchase. After a couple of days, I returned to the same place and stood in the line that was being catered to by the young lady. The moment I reached the Point of Sale, the lady read aloud my order for "a breakfast sandwich egg and cheese croissant and a small Turbo hot coffee". I was extremely impressed!

Here is a lady at a Dunkins outlet that probably serves about 2000 customers in the early morning rush hour remember my order. Over the last two years, I have religiously visited the place at least once in a week. Each time, I see that the staff here remembers the orders of their customers who are regular. I see the regulars standing in line, and by the time they reach the POS, the order is already taken, ready to be served and all they need to do is pay. This is also one of the few Dunkins, where they pre-pack the salt, pepper and the ketchup to ensure that the clients don’t waste time in picking this up!! Its New York after all...I was talking about this experience of mine some time back to my HR colleague, and she mentioned that over the last one year, that was the only place where she bought her coffee, and the only motivation was the special attention she was given and the fact that the staff knows her order!!

Moral: "Clients like responsive sales guys. However, the sales guys who become business advisors are the ones who are able to comprehend the predictable needs of the client and ensure a timely delivery of product ". I really hope to provide my clients with the same degree of delight, but what is needed for this is the ability to observe, process and deliver the knowledge into a tangible service.

I want to share with you yet another experience, which was a revelation to me in terms of client prospecting and assessing client potential. This incident happened on the other side of the globe in the coastal city of Chennai in India. Chennai is one of the four metros in India and in the new age India, Chennai is the hub for automotive manufacturing. It is also one of the major centers for IT offshore services. I was here on a vacation to spend some time with my spiritual Master. During some time out, I stepped out to the beach along with my dad and my wife. The local beach is called, as the "Marina Beach" is one of the popular spots for locals to have fun on the weekends. We were on the beach on a Monday afternoon. The weather was quite pleasant, and we were taking a walk along the shore. It was not difficult to make out that we were not locals, and obviously we attracted a lot of attention from the vendors. We were being sold everything from cola and water to fresh corals and octopus caught from the sea!!

In the midst of this, we were enjoying our walk along the shore and the cold waves helped relax some of the fatigue. As we were talking and catching up on old times, a vendor selling roasted peanuts approached us. There was something starkly different about this guy. He approached us with a big smile and a very affable demeanor. These was quite contrary to the others who were rather reserved in trying to connect with us, but were aggressive in making the sale. In the matter of seconds, he put his basket down, and was passing us some nice well-roasted peanuts. These freebies were something that we expected in the least, and he caught us completely off guard. My dad who was by far the most experienced in these situations was getting the least attention by the vendor while he was passing on the freebies.

We had not even chewed upon the nuts, while he started packing us each a small packet of nuts. My dad tried to resist, but the fact that we had already bitten on the freebies ensured that we bought the nuts and enjoy them while the vendor moved one to the next client. The whole episode lasted not even a full minute. However a successful sale was done!

Now when I reflect back on the incident, I realize, that the vendor spotted us from a distance. He allowed the initial lot of vendors to wither away. He ensured that we were in a relaxed mode and that we had shed our guard. He caught us unawares and established eye contact. He offered freebies and locked us in. He made a sale and I am sure we were sold at a price higher than what locals pay.

Moral: " In a commodity mode of selling, timing and understanding is the landscape is the key. Sales is a very pre-meditated approach, just like hunting. You span out the area, target the client, get to a vantage point and make the kill. To sum it up all Know Thy Customer".

Till next time, Happy Hunting.....

My introduction to Sales..

When I was a student in school in India, I was an avid reader of comics. There was a publication called "Indrajal Comics"( http://www.indrajal-comics.blogspot.com) . They had great titles for characters like "Phantom-The Ghost Who Walks", "Mandrake the magician", Garth, Flash Gordon etc. The new copies would be quite expensive. However, during our weekend trips to the town, I would scavenge some of the old book shops accompanied by my dad or mom, and pick up some copies. One day during a trip to the local deli called "Variety Stores", I managed to locate a huge bunch of Indrajal comics. Each was priced at about probably 200% lower price. My dad bought the whole bunch for me. I was ecstatic. During the course of the next few months, I had finished reading through all of these. I realized that there were more publications on the shop that I could now pickup. I started selling the older copies to students and friends in school. This helped me make some money for new ones. I was also pretty good at art. I started making some greeting cards and sell it to my friends. This was my first rendezvous with the wonderful experience of selling.

To me, Selling is a very intimate process of building trust and investing in a relationship that will identify the risks and opportunities thrown open by change and building systems that will deliver the promise of those opportunities.

The end result of a deal, which from my standpoint is not the greatest achievement. Although a rational assessment digitally would place a win as the ultimate qualifier . I am a student of sales and want to use this forum to essentially share my experiences that this wonderful profession provides me with. During the course of my job, which is predominantly focused on information technology services I meet a wide spectrum of clients, vendors and team members. From each of these stake holders, I gain insights into the sales process, which I hope to manifest into intelligence and over a period of time distill it into wisdom.

During school there were a lot more such instances when I indulged in opportunities where I could exercise my interest in selling. However, the turning point in sales was when I was in Engineering. During my engineering school days, I had a lot of friends who were from a business community. I used to hang around with them and an evening cup of tea at their place, would expose me to raw business acumen. These sessions would be end of the day discussions in a family, where the men would discuss complex areas like pricing, relationship management, risk management in the simplest possible way. One of my mentors, who had a profound impact on me was an entrepreneur, who built is success in starting as a accountant and ending up as the owner of a publicly traded paper industry. During my next series of write-ups, I will discuss more about the impact his methodology of thinking had on me. However, one key learning from his association was in decision making. He told me that "when you are at a point of making decisions where you are making a choice in the short term that impacts the long term picture, steer clear of this decision". Over a period of time, when I have put my decisions through this filter, I have realized the profound impact of this advice.

With support from my mentor, me and a very close friend of mine started a venture in Engg. School. Considering the cultural background that I belong to, it was not appropriate for students to focus on any other activity other than studies. Needless to mention that my friends shared the constructive rebel that was driving us. At that point of time, the idea that was driving up against the wall was a silver bullet to handle the menace of plastic pollution. We decided to set up a unit that would manufacture paper bags much similar to the ones that you see in retail stores today.

The market we were operating in was central India, and I tell you this was a venture in which I donned the hat of the Sales guy and my friend was the technical master behind the design and manufacture of the product. It was an amazing journey. I have innumerable memories of this, but my greatest lesson in this process was mainly, understanding the value of perseverance, hard work and the fine line between skilled sale and unethical sales practices.

I would like to share with you this story on sales ethics. During the manufacturing of the paper bags, we would order a huge roll of paper from the mill owned by our mentor. Mind you the only advantage we were given was access to the mill, other than that he treated us as pure business customers to ensure that we learned our lessons right. Once we received the roll, the requirement was to get this roll sheeted into the desired size. Once it happened that we were required to sheet this paper and the regular place where we got this done was closed. There was another mill close by which could do this job for us. However, the day being a Thursday, the place was closed for regular business. I knew the guy who owned the place. Let me re-phrase, I knew the name of the guy who owned the place. I also knew that he had a younger brother, who was about our age and was in the same city we were living in. We also happened to know some common friends. I went into the factory along with my friend and introduced myself to the Super who was in-charge. I introduced myself as the friend of the owner and told him that we needed to get the paper sheeted. I also told him that this being an off-day, not to bother with disturbing the owner. The kind of confidence and control, I and my friend exuded, was that of total conviction. The Super himself loaded the paper, got the sheeting done, called for a pickup truck and escorted out. This was the biggest con I had ever pulled off. I was ecstatic. My friend was also amazed at our luck. You could call this the start-up die hard spirit or categorize it was juvenile short sightedness. However over a period of time, guilt caught-up with us. We were also worried for the innocent Super who believed us. After about a couple of months, me and my friend visited the place again, and this time we met the guy who owned the place. It was a great meeting. Not only did we become good friends, but he thanked us for exposing a vulnerability in his enterprise.

However, the lesson for me was clear. In sales, "A quick sale is a great temptation. However, the right sale is what differentiates the Men from the boys....."
Till next time, happy selling....