Today’s guest in this edition of How to Succeed in Sales is Dan Henderson, Regional Sales Manager for Schneider National Carriers. The transportation and trucking business is a highly competitive industry with dozens of shipping options available to businesses. In this interview Dan explains how he manages to stay ahead of the competition, achieve his sales goals and expand his business WITHOUT resorting to heavy discounting.
I trust you will find this interview as enjoyable and insightful as I did.
BTW: If you would like to share your sales success secrets and be interviewed for this series, drop me line and tell me why you would be a great guest for the series.
In recent months I have had the good fortune of working with two people who think big.
In both cases, their father started the company and created a mid-size business from scratch.
However, both of these individuals have bigger goals.
One wants to double the company’s revenues in the next few years and the other has the vision of growing the company tenfold.
Both people are thinking big.
Neither are entirely sure how they’re going to achieve their goals.
But…they aren’t letting that stop them.
They are big thinkers.
They have ambitious goals and aspirations and I feel honored to work with them. Plus, they inspire me.
I strongly believe that most people—including sales people—don’t think big enough. They succumb to small thinking and don’t believe they can achieve big, audacious goals.
Yet, thinking big is one of the keys to success.
The other day I had a conversation with my business partner and we both agreed that we could achieve more and elevate our business to a new level.
Will it be easy?
Of course not.
But anything worth achieving is worth working for. I’m not sure who originally stated that but I firmly believe that we owe it to ourselves to set big, challenging goals.
Goals that scare you.
Goals that make you sweat and cause you to wake up in the middle of the night and ask yourself, “Can I really do this?”
If you settle for average, mediocre results you will never discover what you can actually achieve.
When you set your sights on achieving great things, the universe opens up and creates opportunities that will help you get there.
Stop settling for second-best or average results. Start thinking big.
Make a pact with yourself that you will do something that you didn’t think was possible. Even if you only get half or two-thirds of the way, you will still achieve more than if you hadn’t set your sights on that target. Plus, you will achieve more than the average person.
And let’s face it…you aren’t average…are you?
I help sales teams become master their sales conversations so they can win more deals. Feel feel to contact me if you think I can help. 905-633-7750 or Kelley@Fearless-Selling.ca.
Get out your calendar and start making plans for the week of Monday, May 9 through Friday, the 13th. During those five days you’ll have the opportunity to attend up to 35 incredible webinar sessions—7 every single day—presented by 35 of the top sales minds in the world.
Each session will be a quick but highly targeted 30 minutes.
Who are some of these presenters?
Well, there’s Jill Konrath, Paul McCord, Colleen Francis, Linda Richardson, Tibor Shanto, myself, and many others. Topics covered will range from Sales 101 Isn’t Enough: Advanced Selling Capabilities For Outselling Your Competition to 7 Habits of Highly Effective (Social) Salespeople to Successfully Profiting from the New Buying Cycle to my session on How to Achieve More Sales Success by Ditching Your Pitch, and of course, many, many more.
And here’s even better news—when you attend any given session you’ll be helping the Red Cross in their mission in Japan.
Jonathan Farrington, the host of the conference says, “Just four weeks after the Magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake and a tsunami which delivered 46ft waves, we learn that the death toll is likely to top 25,000 and recovery is going to take not years, but possibly decades, maybe even a generation, at a cost of at least $250 billion.”
This is our opportunity to show that the sales community – so often derided for being shallow and materialistic, amongst other things – actually has a very big heart.
We plan to charge just $5 registration fee per presentation, and we are limited to 1000 guests per session, so places will be allocated on a “first come – first served” basis.
That’s right, it only costs $5 to attend any one session and 100% of those dollars will be donated to the Red Cross specifically for Japan. At the end of each session you’ll be given an opportunity to donate an additional $1, $5, or $10 if you so wish.
Can I count on your support? Together we can make a worthwhile *contribution to the people of Japan. Here is a tremendous opportunity to contribute to the efforts in Japan and get great training at the same time.
What a great deal!!!
I encourage you to seriously consider attending my session Monday, May 9th at 12:45 PM Eastern time. I’ll be giving you details on how you can differentiate yourself from your competition and achieve more sales success by ditching your pitch.
Last week the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) banned radio stations from playing“Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits after it received a SINGLE complaint from a member of a minority group about the use of the word ‘faggot’ in the song.
People who are familiar with the song know that it was inspired when Mark Knopfler overheard a conversation between two blue collar people in an appliance store as they watched a music video and one of them used the word ‘faggot’ to describe the musician.
This song has been played tens of thousands of times in Canada since it was released in 1985 but one person has effectively prevented it from being aired again.
Unfortunately, this type of knee-jerk reaction is common.
When I first started writing my newslettermore than eight years ago, I once mentioned a particular company in a negative way and immediately received backlash from ONE subscriber who lambasted me for mentioning the company’s name. Since then I have been cautious how I present information in my newsletter and blog. However, as time goes on I have become less inclined to bow to the pressures or comments of a single subscriber.
Here’s how this reaction by a few people affects your sales decisions.
One prospect expresses concern about your price and you immediately think that price is the sole reason people make buying decisions. Or, you believe that ALL of your competitors are cheaper and that your company is pricing itself out of the market.
One customer says they are dissatisfied with your product and you instantly start to wonder if other customer’s feel the same way. As a result, you begin to lose faith in the value of your products and services.
One prospect hangs up after you make a cold call and you automatically believe that every person you call will behave in the same manner. This causes you to rethink the value of cold calling and you scale back your efforts to connect with people using this approach.
You try a new approach with an existing customer or new prospect and it backfires so you think, “That doesn’t work” and decide to stick to your standard approach even though it doesn’t seem to working as effectively as it used to.
Your company introduces a new product and the top sales person says, “Our customers will never buy this” so you decide you won’t present or mention it to your customers.
A coworker attempted to expand his sales by approaching a new channel and was met with resistance so you decide to keep selling to your existing accounts and customers even though you think a new channel would benefit from your offering.
Your idea to improve one of your company’s products or services is rejected so you vow to stick with the status quo and keep new ideas and suggestions to yourself.
The most successful sales people don’t allow a small group of people determine how they do business. Not everyone is going to agree with your approach, your ideas, your solutions or how you do business.
That’s okay. Your goal is to focus on the majority. Stop allowing a small percentage of people to dictate and influence your results. Focus on the majority, not the minority.
McDonald’s has their secret sauce. KFC has their secret recipe. And, infomercials have a secret formula that help make them successful.
The mostsuccessful sales peoplealso have a secret ingredient. An ingredient that is often overlooked, neglected or dismissed by their colleagues or coworkers.
This ingredient separates the average sales person from everyone else. It can help you transform from someone who struggles to meet their monthly or quarterly quota to a person who consistently exceeds their targets.
It’s a simple concept. And because it is so simple many people ignore it.
Are you ready? Here it is…
Practise.
Anyone who embarks on learning a new hobby, sport, or language quickly learns that practise is the only to master that skill. It’s no different in sales. It is ALWAYS difficult when you implement something new into your routine.
When you first begin making cold calls, it will always feel uncomfortable.
When you ask new, tough, penetrating questionsit will feel awkward.
When you deal directly with objectionsit may seem aggressive.
And when you first start asking people for the sale, it will cause your heart rate to increase.
The key is to practise these new procedures until they start feeling comfortable and natural. Only then will they start to work. Make the time to practise new concepts and you WILL improve your results.
*A note to my American friends, this version of practise I used in this newsletter IS correct. Canadians have two version of this word:
1. Practise as a verb: I practised playing the guitar for 30 minutes today. 2. Practice as a noun: I have owned a law practice for 15 years.
