Now, please, I promise, this blog entry is not going to be a rant against one of the greatest technical inventions ever.  My Blackberry has made my like more productive and enjoyable.  When my son Logan passed his last flight to earn his “Wings of Gold” as a Marine aviator, minutes within securing his aircraft he called me with the news and it was a moment I will always cherish!  

This blog entry is about cell phones and sales calls.

 The other day a local business journal rep was in my office trying to sell me advertising.  In the beginning of our time together I heard the distinct sound of his Blackberry ringing.  Obviously this rep had forgotten to turn his phone off for the call.  With an apology this guy turned his phone off – or so I thought.  A few minutes later I heard his phone buzzing: bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz.  It wasn’t obnoxious and the rep and I continued talking right on through.  The point here is that I noticed it and I couldn’t help but be just a tad distracted.  I also have to believe that the rep was just a little distracted as well.  I’ve been in that situation and I have found myself thinking, if ever so slightly, “I wonder who that is?”  Do you find it hard to pay attention for long periods of time?  I do.  I forget what the initials are but a lot of people say they have it. 

Here’s my point: when you have a meeting with someone, a sales appointment, leave your cell phone, Blackberry, whatever you use, in the car.  Don’t take it with you – leave it in the car!  In sales, face-to-face appointments are GOLD.  When you are inside a company you need to really be there.  When I sit in the lobby I use that as an opportunity to observe, to meet and greet people, to build a relationship with the receptionist.  On the appointment you need to be all there, totally focused.  I view it as a sign of respect when you leave your cell phone in the car.  When I am with you I am all yours because you and your time are important to me! 

Now, I know it goes both ways and I do feel a bit disrespected when my prospect or customer takes calls when I am with them.  However, I cut them a little slack because, after all, they are the customer and have a business to run.   

Thanks for reading this blog entry and, if you are so inclined, please leave a comment letting me know what you think.

Notes from Fierce Conversations - Susan Scott

"The most valuable thing any of us can do is find a way to say the things that can't be said."

"What happens in a company gets determined by what is talked about and how it gets talked about."

"Conversations are the work of the leader.  A leader's job is to engineer conversations one conversation at a time.  Conversations invite us to cross boundaries for collaboration or they add barbed wire around the walls of silos and fiefdoms.  Conversations provide either clarity or confusion." 

The Seven Principles of a Fierce Conversation:

1. Master the courage to interrogate reality.
2. Come out from behind yourself into the conversation and make it real.
3. Be here prepared to be nowhere else.  Speak and listen as if this is the most important conversation you will ever have with this person.  It could be.  Participate as if it matters.
4. Tackle your toughest challenge today.  Burnout doesn't occur because were solving problems; it occurs because we've been trying to solve the same problem over and over.
5. Obey your instincts.  Don't trust your instincts - obey them.  Your radar screen works perfectly.
6. Take responsibility for your emotional wake.  For a leader, there is no trvial comment.  The conversation is not about the relationship; the conversation is the relationship.
7. Let silence do the heavy lifting.  Memorable conversations include breathing space.  Slow down the conversation so that insight can occur in the space between words.

Additional notes on Fierce Conversations can be found at http://bit.ly/EIcHD and of course, you can always read Fierce Conversations - I obtained Fierce Conversations from the Towson Public Library http://bit.ly/wPLw

Today we can easily email, instant message and text people. I'm starting to wonder if the the art of face-to-face, live conversations are becoming a lost art. I believe that today more than ever, individuals who practice and master the art of personal communications gain a competitive advantage.   

I recently sent brief and traditional hand written notes to friends, existing customers, and prospects. In the majority of cases, I soon received a phone call (or a text message) telling me how nice it was to receive a hand written note. People rarely write longhand anymore, and my communication got through and was noticed!  Yes, this took time and my hand cramped.  However, I did secure two appointments with people I’ve been trying to meet, and strengthened a few existing relationships.

There is no doubt that email and smart phones are great productivity enhancers.  However, I suspect that the ease of the keyboard has made many of us a little lazy in getting out of our chairs to meet with people.  Nothing beats a face-to-face meeting. Voice inflection, facial expressions, and body gestures are lost as a form of communication when all we use is email or text. Reading words without the feelings behind them means that intentions are disregarded or misinterpreted. There is a lack of personality in a text message, making it hard to develop chemistry in a business relationship.

I do not mean to suggest that we do away with smart phones and email. I’d be lost today without these business tools. I am advocating that perhaps all of us need to meet with people more and to write a few more letters to the people, customers and prospects we care about most.

In his book, You Are What You Wear - The Key to Business Success - Bill Thourlby writes that  once you walk into a room, even though no one in that room knows you or has seen you before, they will make ten decisions about you based soley on your appearance.  They may make many more, but you can be assured that they will make these:

1. Your economic level
2. Your educational Level
3. Your trustworthiness
4. Your social position
5. Your level of sophistication
6. Your economic heritage
7. Your social heritage
8. Your educational heritage
9. Your success
10. Your moral character

To be successful in almost any endeavor, you may be sure that these decisions about you are favorable, because in that first impression you make - you are what you wear.  Your business card means nothing.  What you say my be charming, but it's secondary, your credibility is initially established  by the first impression you made through your appearance.

I know there are some out there who say that it's not fair to judge somone by what they wear.  They're intersted in the human being inside the clothes.  That is a beautiful ideal, but most of us have to compete in this world to achieve some level of success and, whether we like it or not, the world only listens to winners. 

There are those who insist that they evaluate a person only after they have gotten to know him or her - then they make a rational judgement.  I don't believe it and here's why: because if the guy or gal they are talking about was dressing in an iridescent blue shirt with red double knit pants or wearing a Lady Gaga outfit the first time they met this person, chances are they didn't get their name much less get to know or understand him or her.

My father taught me that I should look at clothes as an investment and I'm glad he did.  Believe me, I am not a slave to fashion but I always "play the odds" when deciding how to dress for a business occassion.  Socially, I always dress with the thought that I might run into one of my clients or potentail prospects ( and believe me; it happens).   I want to be known as a professional person and not as a "character."  It's a choice we all make in and out of business.

I'd love to know what you think on this subject.

These days I'm making too many comfort based decisions in my life. I don't seem to deny myself too much these days. That has to stop. I've got get back to the meticulous preparation before meetings that I at one time embraced.  I need to spend more time developing myself professionally than on the golf course.

The current financial/credit mess in our country has its origins in too many comfort based decisions. All of us have to got to get good at denying ourselves.  This somewhat spartan attitude can't help but affect our lives professionally and personally.

In our scout troop we always end our meetings with a prayer and an affirmation that we learned from West Point: "Help us do the harder right over the easier wrong." Easier said than done. Still, I 'm going to refocus myself and get good again at saying no to myself. I'll be better for it in the long run.

Thanks, son, for reminding me of that.

While reading his tributes I kept hearing about his Pyramid of Success.  I Googled it and found the official John Wooden website and learned more about Coach Wooden.  Go to http://www.coachwooden.com/ and download a copy of Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success.  Coach Wooden's philosophy applies to business as much as it does basketball.

Larry Bossidy, former CEO of Allied Signal, once remarked that if you ever wanted to know how you were doing as a leader that you should ask yourself this question: How many people can point to you as someone who impacted their lives and helped them get to the next level?  By this definition it would seem that Coach Wooden was truly a great leader.

Care to comment?  We would love to hear your thoughts!

Joe Smith is a sales representative  with a firm that specializes in consulting services for the telecommunications industry.

Barbara Brown is the Director of Operations for ABCom, an international telecom company.  Barbara is new in her role.

Joe has been prospecting ABCom for two months and finally succeeds in obtaining an appointment with Barbara.  Towards the end of the appointment, Barbara tells Joe, "Joe, I appreciate your time.  However, I don't need your services."

What should Joe say?  How can he resolve this objection?  What would YOU say?

Selling naked, at its core, boils down to the ability of a sales professional to be vulnerable - "to embrace uncommon levels of humility, selflessness, and transparency for the good of a client" or prospect.

#1 - Fear of losing the business: No salesperson wants to lose a sale or opportunity.  According to Lencioni, "this fear of losing the business actually hurts our ability to keep and increase business, because it causes us to avoid doing the difficult things that engender greater loyalty and trust with the people we're trying to serve."

Lencioni goes on to say, "What clients want more than anything is to know that we're more interested in helping them than we are in maintaining our revenue source.  And when we do something, or fail to do something to protect our business, they eventually lose respect for us and understanably question whether they should trust us."

To me, this is so true!  Does this fear strike a cord with anyone?

#2 - Fear of being embarrassed: Naked sales professionals are so concerned about helping their client or prospect that they are willing "to ask questions and make suggestions even if their questions and suggestions turn out to be laughably wrong.  They readily admit what they don't know and are quick to point out their errors."

Prospects and clients trust naked sales professionals because they know they will not hold back their ideas or hide their mistakes.

Again, does this resonate with anyone?  I know personally that when I sold for IBM I always worried about appearing incompetent in front of prospects and customers and sometimes would hold back for fear of looking stupid.

#3 - Fear of feeling inferior: All professionals want to be respected and admired and have a disdain for being overlooked, condescended to or made to feel insignificant.

Naked sales professionals overcome their need to feel important and will purposely and cheerfully set aside their egos and make the needs of others more important than their own.

I apprecaite your interest in my blog.   Praise this entry or tear it up!  Let me know your thoughts.  Thanks.

You would have thought I had asked him to recite the periodic table!

It was apparent that this rep had done very little "precall planning" for his meeting with me. In this day of social media tools and websites, there is no excuse for not having done your homework before meeting with a prospect. Face-to-face meetings are "gold" and should be treated as such. You might be interested to know that studies have shown that the # 1 complaint people have regarding salespeople is lack of knowledge on a call.

So here are a few basic, what I call "checklist items" you can execute to prepare for your next appointment:

1. Google the name of the person you are meeting
2. Google their company name
3. Search LinkedIn
4. Eyeball their company website
5. Write down a list of questions you want to be sure and ask

I know this is basic stuff but as we all know: "Common sense isn't always common practice."

What do you think? Have a better idea(s) for precall prep? Would love to hear your perspective.

I read a ton of books, articles and blogs on selling that proclaim:

• Cold calling is dead.
• The elevator speech is dead.
• Social Networking is where business gets done.

I'm not buying it and here's why: people still buy from salespeople. You still have to find a suspect, qualify them into a prospect,effectively communicate your value and ask for a decision. True in 1909, true in 2010.

Today I'm sensing that today's sales person may be spending too much time in front of a screen and keyboard instead of real people. I likeFacebook and Twitter. These tools help me follow certain clients. But they are just that: tools. I wonder if today's sales professionals are losing sight of the real purpose of the sales rep.: to find and build relationships that drive profitable business. Trying to focus on your customer as your BlackBerry vibrates is very difficult. Trying to generate an effective voicemail or consistent prospecting activity when you are constantly answering IM's, email and tweets can be at best, distracting. Building a business relationship on a screen is clutter.

LinkedIn helps me find prospects for my sales pipeline andoccasionally provides me with a personal introduction. However, most of the time it is still up to me to generate a professional request for an appointment. In other words, one still has to ask a stranger for a meeting. And while we're at it: has anyone really closed a complex sale over Twitter?

Matt Bertuzzi of The Bridge Group said it best: "Just because you're a bad driver doesn't mean your car is broken. Elevator pitches don't need a character limit. Sales people need to improve their game, communicate more effectively and think in terms of their buyers and not themselves."

Sales is still a process and people still buy from effective salespeople. True in 1909, true in 2010.

Thank you for reading this. Shake it up, tear it up and please let me know what you think!