As I recently reported, I’m back into the sales game baby! I’ve been on the phone non-stop, schmoozing and talking to potential customers - has it been draining? Yes. Have I loved every minute? Absolutely! Most of the business our company has done in the past has been through consumer sales and this time it’s all corporate sales. Let me just say that the process is entirely different.

The 3 rules I live by, whether I’m selling something or trying to get a vendor relationship going are:

1. LISTEN

This is one thing I’ve had to work on for sure - I have a habit of wanting to talk and control the conversation. However, the best sales people are great listeners. They control the flow of the conversation through short remarks, but spend most of the time listening.

A sales call = therapy sessions.

You’ll find that people love talking about themselves, their success, their problems - everything. If you just give them a bit of time to talk, they’ll sell themselves. They will tell you all of their pressure points that you can then “strategically” hit in your “pitch.”

2. Don’t Negate or Argue

The easiest lure to interrupt someone and take over a conversation (also lose a sale) is to negate someone when they’re talking. You will always hear something that you don’t agree with or even a statement about your product that is completely false - DO NOT INTERRUPT OR ARGUE.

The best thing to do at this point is make a note of it and LET THE PERSON FINISH. When they finally stop, actually ask them “OK, mr. buyer, I hear you loud and clear and you brought up some great concerns, was there anything else you were concerned about?”

Most likely, the person will either continue and give you even MORE pressure points to write down or they will really say “Nope, I’m done” - wait until they say they are done for you to start your part. But, still when you start - NEVER tell the person they are wrong about anything they said.

Rather…position yourself as saying “Mr. Buyer, I completely understand where you’re coming from, actually, if I was in your position, I would feel exactly the same way - you’re definitely not alone in feeling that way. Let me explain how this feature works…”

Note how I never used words like “But” or anything else that would imply I’m negating their point. You can actually explain your view without ever negating someone. The best way to convince someone that they’re wrong is to let THEM decide they were wrong. You are just there to explain the feature in a way that resolves their concern.

Be understanding, agree and wait your turn.

3. Get As Many “Yes’s” As Possible

The trick to closing a sale is to get the prospect to say yes as much as possible. One of the easiest way to get a yes is to simply listen, hear them and then make a statement that you know they would definitely agree with…here’s an example:

“Wouldn’t you agree that it’s pretty tough to find great candidates for this job you’re trying to fill?” Once you get the prospect rolling on yes’s, you can start to slip in discussions of features of your service that would make this problem that much easier to solve.

As you’re explaining, you’re build a relationship, you’re getting the prospect excited and comfortable.

So, remember…LISTEN, Don’t Argue and get the prospect to say yes.

Follow these 3 rules and you’ll find it much easier to sell someone!

Popularity: 20% [?]

It’s one thing to start hiring and having to let go of things you used to do - it’s a completely different thing to not only let go of the day to do activity, but to even let go of the MANAGEMENT of the activity.

As a company grow, you’re not just going to find yourself hiring people to takeover tasks that you or people you closely trust used to do, but you’re also going to find the need to figure out WHO manages these people - it absolutely CANNOT be you.

This is a problem I had a while back, no matter how much talent I had in the company, I had to have my nose in every part of the business - I quickly burned out and even became a hurdle to the business. Here’s how I learned to let go and let others do and manage…

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STORY TIME!
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I was actually in the hospital ICU in very bad shape - barely able to work. The business had to go on, but I could barely stand up, I wasn’t allowed to have a laptop in my hospital room - all I had was my Treo handheld. I was limited to being able to send E-MAILS basically telling others what to do and just letting them do it.

I also ended up assigning “management responsibility” asking some of my key people to watch the others.

What happened? 

My business grow tremendously and my life got easier! Actually, believe it or not, we launched an entire product that actually got us 100% out of credit card debt, ALL while I was in the hospital. How? I trusted others to completely manage the project and run with it.

So how many people should a CEO manage?

From what I’ve learned, this not only applies to a CEO but to ANY leadership/management position - you should never have more than 5 people reporting to you directly. If you do, you’re not an efficient manager and are not setting up the corporate structure properly.

The typical positions that report to a CEO are:

1. CFO
2. COO
3. CTO
4. CMO (or VP of Marketing)
5. << Fill In Based On Need >> Could be Legal, Head of Investor Relations, etc…

Having 5 team members directly reporting to you gives you the ideal situation of being able to assign ONE day a week per department - this way the CEO can easily get weekly updates on all aspects of the business without going crazy!

Popularity: 11% [?]

One of the things you learn as the business grows is that the “role of a CEO” can get more and more routine and even boring - it’s like I mentioned yesterday, you start to become more of a robotic manager. There are certain things that you may personally love doing that you slowly have to part with because you just don’t have the time and you have to hand those responsibilities over to others…

For my specific example, I absolutely LOVE selling. Selling is a drug for me, it makes me feel high. My adrenaline gets pumping, I can’t sleep…

I love the “win” feeling you get when you close someone or when you convince them to buy from you - something about it. I’m not sure if it’s the feeling of power or just excitement and a sense of pride. This may sound or seem a bit “vicious” but here is how I feel after a good sale (btw, I really am a nice person

(Before Clipart.com sues me, this is THEIR poster and I already bought one for my office…to buy it go here…)

The poster says First Round, First Minute - look at Ali’s face, doesn’t that excite you! That’s the kind of rush I get when I close a sale. Unfortunately though as the business grows and I’ve had to start getting involved in other areas (more management and legal related), I’ve had to pass on the selling responsibility to a very capable and well networked VP of Marketing we brought on.

I do miss it though. A lot.

My solution? At least at the size my business is right now, I feel I can still take some time to get involved with sales. Maybe I don’t do it ALL - but I can still do some! So, as of yesterday, I started sending out more e-mails and I already lined up a big company who we’ll finish the conversation with tomorrow.

My advice to CEOs - No matter what it takes, keep your hands at least a little bit on the part of the job you love(d) the most. Otherwise, being a CEO can really get freaking boring.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Many people really confuse these two into being the same thing. The more and more I learn about business, I’ve learned that they are actually two VERY different things. An Entrepreneur has a mind that seems to race - they are full of ideas, exuberant and a bit hard to control (of course there are exceptions).

Now, of course, by default, when an Entrepreneur starts a business, they are the CEO by default. But, what you find overtime is that many entrepreneurs are not fit at all to remain a CEO (I’ll explain why in a second). Many of these start-ups eventually go hire a “professional CEO” and the entrepreneur takes a different more targeted position (many times either technical in nature or marketing related).

Now, of course with that said, there are also many Entrepreneurs out there that have proven to be a great CEO, every day, I strive to be that Entrepreneur (and have to say that I’ve done a fairly good job at it so far).

See, a CEO is a manager. A CEO is good at building organization, structure, watching the details, the financials and keeping a “company afloat.” A CEOs entire job is to keep the company in the right line. A CEOs biggest responsibility is to build “share-holder value,” most entrepreneurs could, by nature, care one flying hoot about “shareholder value” - they just want to paint on the canvas!

The biggest difference I have personally experienced and seen between an entrepreneur and a CEO is that an entrepreneur can be FULL of ideas and always generating new ones as well. However, new ideas can give CEOs headaches (since new ideas challenge structure and organization).

Of course, again, there are many cross-overs here. Most “start-up” type CEOs can be close to an entrepreneur, but they still have a very structured way of looking at business.

It’s like someone said to recently… “Entrepreneurs are like artists…a business is their art, and we all know that most good artists don’t paint for the ’selling price’ - they paint to fulfill something inside them.”

Popularity: 27% [?]

Just to put this out there, if you feel like I’m bouncing around everywhere from topic to topic, that’s really the point.

A) I haven’t exactly found my “groove” - the more readers and feedback we get, the better I’ll know what to talk about.

B) I think the entire point of this “blog” is that I pretty much talk about what’s on my mind that day - I have 2 major things on my mind today, the first one…

Vaporware…

I first heard this term about 3 weeks ago from our VP of Marketing who was hired just months ago. Basically, we were in the middle of launching a product/service and she goes to say: “why aren’t we selling this already?”

My answer was: “because it’s not ready!”

Her reply: “Haven’t you ever heard of vaporware”

Obviously I had not, so she went on to educate me. Once I learned about it, I thought it was a very sneaky and slick concept, almost down right deceptive if used improperly.

Honestly, I didn’t make much of it at all until I heard it AGAIN a few days ago from another major “corporate” person who is on our board of advisors. STILL, I did not think much of it - I almost felt like it’s “wrong.”

That was all over the minute I heard my very own mentor use those words saying: “We can sell it as vaporware, just so long as we know we can definitely deliver the promise…” NOW, you have my attention.

So what is vaporware? From my understanding, it’s basically a software/service/program/product that you start selling but it’s not complete! You actually make FAKE demos (maybe just screenshots or even just HTML pages that LOOK like they are coding).

Vaporware is commonly sold to companies and even INVESTORS. The whole point is that you need the money from the investors to actually build the damn thing, so you make it look like you’re a lot further along.

The more I think about it, I’m starting to think it’s a very smart concept (of course given that you KNOW you will be able to deliver otherwise it’s just deception and fraud).

The reasons are as follows:

1. You can start selling soon so revenue comes in faster.
2. You have customers to launch with from DAY 1.
3. You get money to help you invest in actually building it.
4. You get a level of interest - if there is none, you don’t have to waste time and money making it!

Our next product/service, I’m definitely going to try this concept.

Just a word of advice, yes, everyone in corporate knows about this - but still, no one wants to BUY it - so never say the word vaporware during a presentation!

Lastly… wikipedia defines this word a bit differently from what I’ve learned. But seriously, who’s word are you going to take? Mine or Wikipedia?

Popularity: 19% [?]

When I first started I used to be very “willy nilly” about hiring people, I pretty much met them and if they were being referred by someone I knew, that was good enough for me! Obviously after getting burned a few times, I learned and learned and still continue to learn (but am much better now).

Lots of companies and CEOs are good about having long drawn out interview and selection processes and that’s good. Personally, I make sure that all current hires are interviewed at least 3 times by 3 different executives in our company - each submits their own thoughts and ideas after the interview. Some companies are even crazier with longer interviews, live case studies (like Google) and even more. I used to think they were crazy, now I think they are brilliant.

But, this post is not about checking for someone’s competency level - nope. This post is all about seeing if someone “fits” your company.

Just because someone is good at what they do does NOT mean they are a good hire for you.

The #1 mistake I see when “great talents” are hired is that there is no attention paid to how that person will fit the corporate culture! What is the atmosphere in your office? Is that an atmosphere that this new hire can work in?

If your entire office is a very competitive sales driven environment, then a “laid back” easy going person is probably not the right fit for you (even if they are good at selling) - just the stress from the environment will make them wig out.

In my company, the opposite is true - we are ALL very laid back, even down right goofy - we like to have fun. Someone who’s too serious is a bad fit, I recently had to let go of a lady who was so damn serious that she scared all of us!

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STORY TIME - Why I Didn’t Even Interview The Best Salesman In Our Industry

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I recently was at a table and had a chance to kick into an interview with one of the best salesman in our entire industry. His Rolodex is ridiculous, everyone knows him and everyone is already used to buying from him.

Well, when we sat down to start talking, I quickly realized that this gentleman was just NOT a good fit into our company. I felt that he would make all the team calls more tense, the office more tense and just make everyone feel more reserved (including myself) and that is NOT our corporate culture.

I actually just finished the chat without EVER going into the interview at all simply because one great salesman is not worth ruining the dynamics of the rest of the team.

So, the next time you look to hire someone, personality is key - think “how would they get along with my team…do they fit?” — You’d be surprised what your answers are sometimes…

Popularity: 22% [?]