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

Happy Friday sales world! I am getting ready to hop on a plane to Albany to visit an old friend but before I do I wanted to share a quick question I received this week. I also want to share my answer with everyone because I feel like it can benefit many here in the professional sales world. The question was: What are all the questions I can ask a customer to get all the necessary information I need to close a sale? This question is a little generic so I am going to answer fro a few perspectives.

I did not know what industry the reader is in and if the person is really a customer or a prospect? Jay Abraham, the marketing guru, talks about the difference between a customer and a client. A “customer” is someone who you do a transaction with; a “client” is someone who is in your care. That means you have an ethical obligation to understand what they want to accomplish and make sure you can help them make that wish a reality. Too many times I see a sales rep that is all about making the sales and getting the order. Unfortunately the prospect senses that the rep is out for them self and they start to resist. This is why you may feel some tension during the call because you are trying to “close” them. Nobody likes to be closed but they easily buy when the feel your solution will accomplish their goal. How do you change that… by focusing on the prospect and not the order. I don’t know enough about the reader’s situation to give him a list of questions. What I would suggest is that he asks questions that give a full understanding of what the prospect/client wants to accomplish. Then he can show his prospects how his offerings will help the them accomplish those wishes, hopes and dreams. If you have done that to their satisfaction then they will want to buy. There is no hard close just one simple question…what would you like to know Mr/Mrs prospect?  

That said, I do want to fully applaud the reader for asking a the question in the first place! This is the first big step at becoming a top performer – becoming educated.  It took a little while for me to figure that out (see the post about how I had to figure that out the hard way). Kudos to you. If you want some more education – sign up for my weekly newsletters. They are filled with good lessons (and tips, research and action items) that I had to learn the hard way so hopefully your wont have to.

Hope this helps!

Have a Sales Question?

Over the years I have encountered all types of questions about selling. Some are pretty common but many times I have been asked very tough and intriguing questions.  Often I have my opinion as to how something should be handled. I recognize that there is more than one way to handle a situation so I am always in search of the best ways and practices. In my search for the “truth” I have had the good fortune of connecting with some of the best sales and marketing minds in the business. Until a few years ago, almost everything you learned about selling was based upon practical experience, conventional wisdom, some sales training and very little if any research. Now with Universities around the world offering degrees in selling they are compelled to research and publish their findings. I have been fortunate enough to have access to the latest sales research as it gets published.  Typically there is a 10 year lag between research findings and the sales force having access to that information. I have to admit the research is very academic and as about exciting to read as a scientific abstract on the cell division of an amoeba.  In spite of the dry reading there is one thing that I do glean from the research – proven statistical facts about sales practices… what works and what doesn’t.  This means that not only do I have my experience to answer the many questions I get asked on any given day, I also have knowledge and data to back up all types of questions.

So what does all this mean to you? I have decided to put together a little opportunity for all of my blog readers.  I invite you (and your colleagues, employees, friends etc.) to submit any questions you have (by filling out this form) at anytime during the week.  I plan to read through them and choose 2 – 3 of the best to answer on my blog each Friday.  This is one way I can give back to the sales community and dispel all the bad and outdated information that is out there.

Go Submit Your Weekly Question and don’t forget to check back on Friday to see if your question was chosen. (fyi – even if you question was not chosen this week there is always the chance that I may address it in a later post or in the weekly newsletters.) Ask away!

Machu Picchu

Sorry for the delay in posting. I took a long weekend and went to LA with some friends. For the last 15 years, every October, I go with 2 other friends on some exotic adventure trip. We have been trekking in Thailand, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Scuba Diving in Indonesia, on safari in Kenya, climbing volcanoes and gorilla watching in Rwanda, the Amazon in Brazil and last year’s trip was to Machu Picchu in Peru.

This year the plan was to go to Laos and Vietnam but we couldn’t go because of major health issues with our aging parents (all 3 of us). So the booby prize was a long weekend to LA for some sun and fun. We played tourist the whole time going to muscle beach, Santa Monica pier and the Getty Museum which is a must see if you haven’t seen it. (I’ll share some pictures when I get them uploaded).

Andy and Jayme Brooks

A special treat was driving up the coast to Venture where we went to see our good friend Andy Brooks. Andy used to be the executive chief at a high end restaurant in Washington DC (DC Coast) before moving to Ventura and opening up his own restaurant (called Brooks) with his wife Jayme. Andy is a great chief and a smart guy. In 18 months he had 6 articles written about him and won an award for the best wine list in California for under $150. I have always been amazed at how delicious and consistent his food is. I could go on and on but here is the thing that amazed me the most of all. Andy spent a lot of his evening talking going from table to table and giving each patron some special attention. Now Andy is a real outgoing guy so that is not too surprising but it is rare that I have been to a high end place and the chief came out to say hello.

 Andy knew how to read people and to give them just enough of what they wanted. Let me say that again. He wasn’t out there to get praise and recognition. He was out there to give each patron a unique experience in just they way they wanted it! Some patrons got a quick visit while others were more talkative and got a little extra time. Andy’s wife Jayme is an accountant during the day and greats people as the come to the restaurant at night. She is slightly on the quite side but a real joy to be around. She too knew how to read people. Each patron got a greeting that matched their style. Some got a hand shake, some got a hug and others received a warm and friendly hello. Both Andy and Jayme had mastered the platinum rule. The golden rule says treat others the way you want to be treated but the platinum rule says treat others they way they want to be treated. When you combine exceptional food (or product/service) with exceptional experience you get a following of raving fans. Isn’t that what we all want for our businesses? 

What do you do to adjust the way you interact with your customers and clients to enhance their experience? Let me know by leaving a comment at the end of this post.

Until next time!

Best,

A lot of people ask me how I got started in sales. Outside of the lemonade stand my friends and I would do as kids trying to earn a buck, my first real sales job was for a little software company. 

The President of the company, a natural born sales person, said give it a try for 12 months and if you don’t like it we will move you into a technical position. That was all I needed to hear and so I started a new career as a salesperson. There were 5 salespeople and not one of us had any sales experience, training or skills. So I did what I thought was the right thing to do. I called data center managers on the phone and asked if they would like a free demo. Most people said yes, and without any qualification, I would overnight a demo tape.

Now I had to chase all of these unqualified data center managers to see if they had looked at the demo. Most had not and so I would arrange a call back and the game would continue. After 12 months the president called me into his office and said he was letting me go. From his perspective, I had not made enough sales. As I started defending myself and reviewing the amount of sales I had made, it was clear something was off. After some discussion we discovered my sales manager, Robert, had taken a couple of my large deals and credited himself with the sale. I couldn’t believe it; my sales manager had stolen my deals! Unfortunately, the President had made up his mind and said he was going to let me go anyway. I was one angry sales rep! 

I don’t know about you but I hate to lose! I knew I could do this job and I needed to prove it. So I decided make the president a gutsy offer and said, “I will make you a deal. I have total conviction that I can do this. Give me 30 days of working for free, no salary, no commission. Let’s agree on the number I need to hit. If I don’t hit my number you owe me nothing and you get to keep whatever I brought in during those 30 days. However, if I do hit my number you pay me for those 30 days plus my commission and… you make me the sales manager.”

So for the next 30 days I ate, drank and slept sales. From the time the first data center manager walked in the door on the East Coast until the last one went home in Hawaii I was pounding the phones seven days a week. Then in the late evening I was absorbing everything about sales that I could find. I read books, listened to tapes and found a retired sales guy who was willing to coach me. I was out to do whatever it took to hit my numbers…failure was not an option!

I hit my numbers and I became the new sales manager of the company. I decided, however, that I was not going to fire previous sales manager, Robert who had stolen my deals. Some perverse side of me wanted to keep him around so every day when he came into the office he would be reminded of my victory. I thought he would resign but he never did.

I learned some valuable lessons from that experience and it started me on the journey of what it takes to be the best. I learned that in order to be in the top 1%, I had to learn everything I could about selling. I have studied every topic related to selling know to man. I had to study everything, live outside my comfort zone, take chances and learn from my mistakes.

For all of you who are on the journey to become the best in professional selling, I honor you for your courage and commitment. This is a great profession, and I truly mean that. Open your eyes and look around. In the hospital, the airport, the grocery store, your office and even in your car – everything you see was sold by a salesperson. Nothing happens without sales and without sales businesses fail and economies falter. The lifestyle, the income and the impact you have on the world is profound!

If you read this far I am hoping that you really enjoyed this post.  I encourage you to share it with your friends, family and colleagues but selecting the Share This button below and choosing your favorite way to share. You can digg it, facebook post it, even directly email it or any other option that you perfer. I also invite you leave a comment by selecting the comments link under the title of this post. Thanks and happy selling this week.

- Andy

Every day for 16 years I talk with salespeople. They are always asking “how do I become more effective at selling?” Now there are many perspectives, techniques, approaches and philosophies so I won’t go into that now. These are important but one of the fundamental question is how well do you know your stuff? One question I like to ask a group is what sports did they play in high school? I hear the usual ones like football, basketball and a few others. So I pick football as an example. What is amazing to me is that after 10, 20 or 30 years people can still name their favorite play and describe what was supposed to happen. Now if you were in band or a cheerleader or played a different sport this still applies. Can you name your favorite cheer, do you remember the song and can you still do the moves? Now that we have had a couple of laughs lets apply this to mastering sales.

Let me give you a quick little exercise so you can determine your level of mastery.  Pull out a piece of paper and in 15 seconds write down the steps of your sales process. Now look at what you wrote down and ask “would my boss and peers agree that those are the steps?” Here is my point…we can remember something we played for fun many years ago and we still have a modest level of mastery. Yet when it comes to our profession we haven’t mastered the steps of the sales process. We could apply this to objection handling, closing, product knowledge or number of other applications but the point is – have you mastered what is needed to be a professional salesperson?