I shared this with my list a few weeks ago and I got such a favorable response that I decided I should share it with the rest of my readers here at Andy the Sales Coach.

Interview with Michael Dunlop - My Bucket List

I know this is a few weeks late but we are still in the very beginning weeks of 2010. I wanted to share with you a tradition that I have done at the beginning of each year since I was 14 years old.

This is not only an exercise that I enjoy but also continually benefit from all year long – creating and updating my bucket list.

I good friend of mine, Michael Dunlop, interviewed me for his website – www.incomediary.com – back in November about the importance of having a bucket list. You can listen here if you are interested:

PDF of Bucket List for Sales Professionals

I wanted to take this a step further so I put together a PDF of how to create a bucket list and and made it especially targeted for Sales Professionals. At the end, I also attached a sample bucket list to get you excited about creating yours!

So get out your magazines and create your own bucket list for 2010!  You can make a poster of what your goals are in all areas of your life – personal, financial, career – just about any aspect of your life!

If you have any questions please feel free to shoot me an email!

Best,

Andy

My buddy Tom Schaff and I were recently interviewed by the leading expert in Sales Force Development – Dave Kurlan. On Dave’s weekly radio interview show, Tom and I reveal the secrets on “our biggest deal ever” and present many insights into one of our upcoming programs.  How to Land Your Biggest Deal Ever with expert author, Tom Searcy, is a 2 day workshop that will be coming to both the St. Louis and Washington D.C. areas in the upcoming months.

If you are interested in listening to Dave grill us about what it means to land your biggest deal ever I invited you to check it out here:

You will be redirected to our interview on Global Talk Radio

Until next time!

Andy Miller

Sarah here! I hope everyone had a great holiday season and new year celebration. (I spent mine getting engaged in Puerto Rico!) Now it is time to get back into the swing of things and to make sure our followers are up-to-date with the new plans AMI has for the near future.

We are excited to announce that Andy is helping to bring an extremely popular national event to our DC Metro region! After having the pleasure to meet with Tom Searcy, author of Hunt Big Sales, and attending one of his powerful seminars, Andy knew that he had to help others get their hands on this information.  The focus of this seminar is to help CEO’s, VP’s of Sales, Sales Managers and top Sales Reps to land their biggest deal ever.

Sign up for Your Biggest Deal Ever in Washington, DC Region

More information on the event

The event will be held at the Reston Hyatt Regency Hotel in the Reston Town Center only minutes from Washington’s Dulles International Airport and the Washington’s beltway on March 2nd and 3rd. Spots are limited and selling out quickly! If you want to begin 2010 by landing the deal that will generate a majority of your yearly revenue goal then I suggest you take a minute to sign up!

Hello! It’s Sarah again

I hope this post finds all our readers well. I know Andy has been out of the loop for some time but I just wanted to reassure everyone that he is not gone for good.  Andy has been zeroing in on his main full time job of consulting to Business Owners and working with their teams one on one to get them back up where they belong – on top!

We have realized something over here at AMI – It is something that we have known for a long time but didn’t really know how to go about fixing it but I think we have found a solution There is one other reason why you have not seen anything from Andy in a long time – he is not terribly excited about writing. He is an amazing thinker and speaker but when it comes to putting his thoughts down in an “article” it is not really his cup of tea.  Do not get me wrong – he has and he can do it and well. However it just takes him a lot longer then he would like or has time for.

That is why you will be hearing a lot more from me. I am going to be interviewing Andy and either posting the videos or just summarizing his knowledge to keep it coming your direction as fast as possible.

Please feel free to contact me at anytime with question or comments (I have some more free time then Andy and can oftentimes get your questions answered a bit sooner) and I love to hear from Andy’s fans.

In the meantime, I am busy helping Andy to build a 26 week sales training course that will be available hopefully by early to mid October. If this is something you will be interested in please go to:  my sales training course and sign up! Hope everyone is doing well.

Until next time!

Sarah

Hello everyone! Sarah here, Andy’s assistant.  I know it has been a long time since Andy’s last post and we apologize for that. However, we are glad to report that it is simply because Andy has been very busy consulting, traveling and speaking all over the country. In our busy time we have managed to get up a permanent company website at www.andymillerinternational.com. What do you think?

I wanted to take a minute to touch base with our blog readers and update them on Andy’s status and successes. One of the exciting events Andy had the privilege of speaking at was Tony Robbins’ and Chet Holmes’ Ultimate Business Mastery Summit. (I even got to go along and work the event!) It was a major success and I know a lot of good friendships were made and networking connections built.

Also, if you have not checked out Andy’s monthly webinars on Business Experts Webinars you are missing out! Andy gives value-packed calls on very relevant topics that often leave the attendees with a dozen or so gold nuggets to take back and implement right away for major results. Make sure to sign up for his next one by clicking on the sign up banner on the right hand panel.

In Andy’s “free time” (haha) he has been busy creating two very powerful products in the areas of sales and marketing that are in high demand. The first one has been in the making for years and is on Andy’s specialty – Consultative Selling.  Andy has always felt very passionate about consultative selling and has studied, practiced and taught the concept extensively. His “in the making” product will be a home study course on Consultative Mastery Selling.

His second product in the works is another home study course on a topic that Andy has used hundreds of times in his consulting, training, managing, and even in his everyday life – how to adapt your selling style to match your prospects buying style.   Andy uses the DISC personality types and he is creating a product that is specifically for sales professionals. Once these products are completed we will send out the notice to our friends so make sure to sign up for Andy’s Newsletters to stay in the loop.

Okay well I think this is enough to get you updated for now. I may help take over the writing of some of the blogs but I promise to get you great content from the guru himself. Contact me if there is anything you would enjoying seeing on here!

All the best,

Sarah

One of my favorite sales techniques/tools is knowing the buyer and seller styles and knowing how to adapt your style to meet that of your buyer.  To me, just knowing this one powerful selling tool can have a tremendous impact on a salesperson. Although this knowledge comes in many forms and has many names (personality types, behavioral styles, social styles etc.) I have found that there is one system that works well for sales people and it is called DISC. DISC stands for 4 certain types of people – Dominant, Influencer, Steady Relater and Cautious Thinker. Each of these types come with their own set of characteristics.  They communicate differently, operate differently, and build relationships differently just to name a few.  If a salesperson is able to identify the style of his/her buyer then they have a much better chance of communicating with and building a stronger relationship with him or her. I just wanted to share a little bit about each type to get your familiar with them.

Dominants

Extroverted

Influencers

Steady Relaters

Cautious Thinkers

These are just a few description words to help you start to idenify the different styles. I will be following up on this topic shortly with other rules and tactics to help you use this information in a beneficial way. Until then, have fun with this knowledge! Try to see what type your friends and co-workers are. Maybe – just maybe – it will help you understand why there are just some people out there that operate differently than you do.

Until next time!

No matter what you sell there are natural steps, common questions and a normal way of doing things. I often work with clients to help them define what is normal and what is abnormal. I have talked about the four buyer types in a past blog and it is true that each one operates in a different way. The difference is how slow/fast they move or how much/little detail they need. With that said, there is still some commonality to the sales process. What do I pay attention to if the prospect wants to move through the sales process in a normal vs. abnormal way? Because when something falls outside of the norm my radar detector goes up and starts flashing warning signs. I am not saying everyone has to conform but usually if something is outside the norm then typically you are loosing the deal. That makes me slow down and dig deeper so I understand what is going on. Fortunately many times you can save yourself from losing the deal if you acknowledge that there is something abnormal with the deal and act in a proactive manner before problems arise.

So what are some common warning signs you maybe losing the deal?

1)       They withhold relevant information

2)       They want way too much information for where they are at in the
sales process

3)       They want price quote or proposal prematurely

4)       They tell you there is an opportunity here but don’t let you
develop a relationship

5)       The deal moves way too slowly

6)       Typical decision makers are not involved

7)       You don’t have access to decision makers and influencers

8)       Your competition has met with the boss but you are blocked from
meeting the boss

9)       When they dictate and demand vs. collaborate

Many times we know these these red flags are there but we are too worried or scared to acknowledge them and thus continue on our normal process with our fingers crossed that these flags will disappear. The more you ignore the warning signs and not take the action needed the more deals fall through the cracks.  In summary – work proactively instead of reactively.  If you have any more warning signs that you are losing a deal I would love to hear them!

Thanks!

Do You Suffer From Potential Big Deal Intoxication?

Every week I get a call from a desperate salesperson wanting help with the mother of all big deals. This deal has the potential to make his/her quota for the year or is a big company with lots of potential. The possibility of that potential makes the rep so fanatical that they throw all the rules and common sense out the window. Some times I refer to this as big deal intoxication. They poorly qualify the opportunity if at all.

They skip the steps of the sale process and start committing valuable company resources way too early. They call in the VIP’s to give extra attention when they prospect hasn’t earned the right for that type of attention and they are typically guilty of “premature presentation”. To make things worse they offer incentives, better terms and discounts with the hope of shortening the sales cycle and booking the deal this quarter. If this were a little deal or smaller company they wouldn’t make these mistakes but because of its potential size they are like a dog in heat.  If the sales rep had called me 6 weeks earlier I could have thrown a bucket of cold water on them and guided him/her through the process. With a little coaching they could have kept their emotions in check and helped them either win the deal or disqualify it quickly protecting their time, energy, resources and profit margins! So if you really want that deal and can leave your ego out of the discussion then involve your sales coach early and stop getting intoxicated by the prospect of getting the deal.

Hoping that prospect will turn into something more? - Stop!

For years I have heard sales people tell me they want to learn how to qualify better. As odd as this may sound there is a danger to wanting to qualify better. It sets you up to have the wrong mindset and starts a tug of war between you and the prospect. You see there is little or no relationship and prospects are mistrusting of sales people from the start. So you start asking qualifying questions and what happens…they give you the “short answer”. You can feel the tension and resistance but we don’t want to push too hard because this has some potential and we can keep “hope” alive. From my perspective hope sucks!

Hope lets you fill your pipeline or sales forecast with junk (sometimes called deals) that are never going to close. Hope lets you lie to yourself that you have a lot going on and helps you procrastinate from making real sales calls. I once worked with a fortune 500 company who didn’t want to get real. They preferred to live in the land of hope even after I warned them they were setting themselves up for a shortfall. Sadly as I predicted the last week in the quarter $10 million in deals evaporated… not moved into next quarter but actually evaporated into thin air never to be seen again. Painfully they were $10 million short of what they told Wall Street and their stock was punished severely for it.

Until Next Time!

What will make 2009 a different sales year than 2008?

I was talking with some clients earlier this week. They wanted to know what they need to do to make 2009 the best year ever. As we discussed what needed to happen one of the senior managers said, “We have had this conversation every year and we say the same thing. WHAT IS GOING TO MAKE 2009 DIFFERENT?” What a great observation and question. You see everyone is looking for the secret sauce for exceptional growth. It is typical that companies try to fill in the missing pieces with training in sales, presentation, negotiations, improved sales process, CRM, new marketing approaches, new brochures and a whole bunch of other things yet nothing changes. What my client realized, is the piece that nobody likes to look at.

It is not about what you know it is about WHAT YOU DO! You see the majority of salespeople and sales organizations fail to do enough of the proper sales activity. It doesn’t matter if you have additional skills training, a more effective sales process or new marketing materials if you aren’t talking with the right kind of prospects! It doesn’t matter if you sell face to face or over the phone… proper activity makes all the difference in the world! I say it is like having a health club membership but never taking your expanding buttocks to the club. You have the knowledge to eat better and you know you need to exercise but the action or activity to actually go to the club 3 times a week is lacking. Now if you really want great results then you would exercise a little longer per session or go 4-6 times a week. Exercise and sales activity are very similar…bottom line is low activity gets low results and high activity gets high results. Professional athletes and professional salespeople both know this is absolutely true. So the honest question to ask yourself is…are you doing enough of the right kinds of activity on a daily basis?