FREE launch event – 23rd January 2025, for our new Salient Inspiration Programme! Discover what you can look forward to from Salient Inspiration HERE

Categories
Feeding the pipeline Sales Planning

What’s happening to my Sales Pipeline?

I thought it was just me.  It isn’t.

How are YOU doing?

As you know, pipelines should always be kept as full as possible.  This way you can be sure of a regular income and a profitable future.  Salient has been successful for the last 15 years and has been growing steadily.  Even the Covid years were reasonably successful.

However, in the last 3 to 4 months I have seen a sharp downturn in business opportunities.  The result has been a decreasing flow in the pipeline, sometimes best described as a trickle!

Despite great efforts from my digital marketing team and much networking, matters did not improve.  My profile is the highest it has been, but engagement, enquiries and responses are at their lowest level for many years.

To find out why, I created a check list:

1/ Are my communication links still open – ‘phone’, email, mobile, contact forms?

Checked and confirmed

2/ Have I been posting and engaging with social media?

Checked and confirmed

3/ Are my products and offers up to date, relevant and meeting current needs?

Checked and confirmed – interest is still generated; commitment to invest is not

4/ Is it just me? 

– Checked….it isn’t!

5/ How is the competition doing?      

– Fairly inactive; no business lost to them

Direct action

Direct action became the only option. I am not afraid of being open and honest and often ask my networking contacts, ‘How is business?’.  Invariably they appear quite happy.  However, this time I told them how quiet the market was for me and the little interest I was generating.  I repeated the exercise a couple of days later at another networking group.

The results were very interesting.  When pressed, by far the majority admitted to experiencing the same thing, or even worse.  Even an IFA confirmed that in the last few months he had had far more fund withdrawals than increased investments!

My strategy for recovery is to ramp up social media activity and attend more, and different events. I am focusing on the two most popular products I have, the 1 to 1 Coaching Day for Micro and SMEs, and the Technical Sales Training for larger businesses. So far, so good.

What’s Next?

Although it is tough at the moment, try not to be too despondent, you are certainly not alone.  No one knows how long it will last, but if you can cut costs, raise your profile and meet more prospects, then, come the slow recovery, you will be well placed to begin to grow again. 

Whenever you are ready, I will be happy to help you with new ideas for growing your business.  Until then, there are many ways of keeping your business going.  I am happy to have a chat and offer suggestions for riding the storm. 

Good luck!

Categories
General Sales & Marketing

What can Salient do for you?

Here’s how Salient Sales and Training can help…

With extra ideas and strategies in planning, prospecting and contacting, I can make it easier for you to find more customers.

With tried and proven techniques and simple process, I can help you pitch and present with confidence and ease.

With clear and ethical tactics, I can help you to negotiate to set up the best deal for everyone.

With simple and straightforward questions, I can help you to convert and win many more business opportunities.

In short, I can show you how to make significant improvements to your turnover and profits.

….or is planned business growth not on your agenda?!

With Salient courses, sessions and workshops, you do not have to adopt a whole new system of selling.  Simply, you can take, adapt and adopt as many ideas, tips, techniques, and strategies as you like. 

Choose those which relate to you and your business and make them work for you. The more you use, the greater the uplift you can expect.

I don’t charge for chats so feel free to call Andy on 07941 041364, email [email protected], or book a meeting through my calendar.

Categories
General

Bullying in Business

They are still out there.

For those who read my blogs, they will know that I am firmly against bullying in business (or anywhere for that matter).  Despite great strides from good HR experts, I note from recent posits on LinkedIn that it is still rife and is still causing trauma and mental health issues. 

See Denise Pickburn’s post.  Over 90% of around 450 that responded to the question said they had experienced bullying in business. The results for those on the receiving end can vary from lack of confidence to significant mental health problems.

Rightly, the focus of such posts is on the effect of bullying on the individual.  However, little is mentioned of the results for the companies involved.  Bullying is not limited to bosses, but they set the ethos and the culture of the company.  Their behaviour sets a precedent that can be adopted by others within their field of influence.  But what are the results?  I suggest these are likely:

  • Good employees will leave to go to more caring competitors.
  • Those who stay may have lost a level of confidence sufficient for them to believe they would not be considered for employment elsewhere.
  • Those who stay may have adopted the same bullying ways and, therefore, are likely to have the same approach to business, in order to survive.
  • Those who stay maybe of the same mould as those with bullying ways, i.e. it becomes self-perpetuating.

Bullying in business is often in the form of pressure on the employee to achieve targets at whatever cost to themselves or others.  It requires a ruthlessness that is not natural to most people.  Bullies will target the less confident, as easier prey and less likely to stand up to them.

Those with more confidence are less likely to be employed as they would not respond to the bullies and may even become a threat to them.  Less experienced or generally timid people are perceived as easier to intimidate and control and so are more likely to be the target of the bully. 

I have read a few great posts where the target looks likely to be easy pickings, unfortunately these are often small, young and female, only to find that they have the confidence and bite of a terrier! See Fiona Scott’s recent post for just such a case.

To all confident people: if you see anyone being bullied; if you can, please call them out on behalf of the victim.

Categories
General

Persuasion – Building Buyer Relationships Part 3

When it comes to the Sales Process, the development of the relationship between buyer and seller can be viewed as three distinct actions: Educate, Influence and Persuade.

Just as we have shown that education and influencing can both be positive and ethical, they can also be manipulative and cynical, sadly, the same is true of Persuasion.

Time for the final step: Persuasion

Your influence may have been positive, but that does not automatically lead to a sale.  Countless times I have experienced the response, ‘yes, I see how that can be useful to us, but not just now’.  This could hide a range of thoughts from the prospect, from meaning that they cannot move forward for various practical reasons, or another way of declining without saying ‘no thank you’.  It could be that they have too much going on at the moment.

Whatever their reason, it is up to you how far you press them to find the real reason.  You could take that as a firm no and cross them off the list, but this is potentially a missed opportunity, they have after all said that they can see the benefit.

At the other end of the scale, if you press to hard you can undo all the goodwill you have developed and they may never buy from you. How can you at least keep them interested and possibly persuade them to change their mind?

The first answer is to simply ask them. ‘What is it that’s stopping you using these benefits now?  There are again, a number of ways this can go:

If they say, ‘no money’. Don’t give it away, ask them when they think they could afford it.

If they say, ‘I’m not sure it’s a good fit’, go through the advantages and benefits again.

If they say, ‘too busy’, explain how easy it would be to install/supply/provide and for them to reap the benefits.

Are you coming on too strong?

The key to all this is to know when to stop, when to take no for an answer.  If you have challenged their ‘no’ once or perhaps twice, stop there.  Any more challenges and they will begin to leave the conversation, possibly for good. If you back away it helps to maintain your credibility (you are not desperate!), as long as you agree a frequency of contact in order to keep them warm and to be available when they DO want to place an order.

My preferred tack is to focus on the value and the benefits:

‘When would you like to enjoy these benefits?’

‘What do you lose (or win) by postponing this purchase?’

‘How much could you lose by postponing this by 6 months?’

Adjust the wording for you own products or services. I am sure you understand the principle.

Anyone who delays investing in something of value to them is effectively losing out until they do purchase it from you.  You want to give them this opportunity and to demonstrate how that now they have seen the value, it’s ‘the sooner the better’ for them.

What’s next?

To discover our sales training and coaching packages, see the Salient Sales website or get in touch with us for more tailored options.

Categories
General

Influence – Building Buyer Relationships Part 2

When selling, the development of the relationship between buyer and seller may be considered as three distinct actions:

Educate, Influence and Persuade. 

Part 2: Influence

This is the second part of the series. In this blog we will be looking briefly at Influence.

Influence is key to selling, but how do you influence ethically?  Clearly, from the ‘spin’ comments in my previous blog, it is very easy to stray over the line and end up misleading the prospect. ‘Positive Ethical Influencing’, as promoted by Salient, is an approach aimed at maintaining focus on being fair and honest with the customer. 

The way you influence prospects and customers is key to the business relationship you are trying to develop.  This relationship will define whether the customer will buy, and if they do, whether they will come back for more.  Any evidence of exaggeration, hype, misdirection or simple lies will result in nothing coming your way and the likelihood of the door being closed to you for good.  Be careful what you say!

This is not just true of sales, but also of life in general.  What you say and what you don’t say; what you do and what you don’t do, all have consequences.  Sometimes these consequences can be very positive and fulfilling. Likewise, depending on what you say or do, the results can be catastrophic.  Be careful of what you say, and what you do.

Influence plays a great part in life, and in selling particularly.  I have simply scratched the surface here.  I will develop this theme in the future, but in the meantime, beware of misinterpretation or misunderstandings. Never mind business, wars have broken out on the strength of a misunderstanding or unfortunate phrasing.

What’s next?

To discover our sales training and coaching packages, see the Salient Sales website or get in touch with us for more tailored options.

Categories
General

Education – Steps for building Buyer Relationships

When selling, the development of the relationship between buyer and seller may be considered as three distinct actions:

Educate, Influence and Persuade. 

In this blog we look briefly at Education.

Education is an important start in selling.  Your prospective customers need to know what can be done to fulfil their need and specifically, what you can do for them.  They need to know the facts and it is your job as salesperson, to make sure they have all they need to make an educated decision. 

Can you ‘spin’ it?  Spin used to be a balanced and accepted term meaning a way of describing things with emphasis.  This could be a positive emphasis or spin, or negative, according to how you wished to influence the prospect.  As an example: ‘the car seemed keen to accelerate and be exciting to drive’ has a positive emphasis or spin to it. Alternatively, to say: ‘It was too easy to reach and exceed the speed limit as the accelerator was very sensitive’, paints a more negative picture of the same characteristic.

Spin should be used with care as it is very easy to begin to exaggerate a point to make it in your favour. The ethicality of this is questionable as you are moving quickly from educating to influencing, and likely not in the right way.

Buyers are not idiots.  They are most likely trained to counter spin, misdirection and all pressure selling techniques.  Those in sales that give honest answers and deal fairly with the customers, are the ones most likely to win the available business, both short and long term.

Education is the first of the 3 distinct actions on the development journey between buyer and seller. In the next we will look over Influence. And in the final, we will go over Persuade.

For more tailored sales training and coaching, see the rest of our website or get in touch with us.

Categories
Business management Sales Planning

Invest in your business!

Do you still actively invest in your sales success when the economy takes a turn…

I could earn a lot more money in Japan.

I prefer living in the UK, but Japan, and much of the far East, has a very different attitude to business.

Business in the UK tends to suffer from short-termism. When the economy is suffering, we ‘tighten our belts’ and go for a round of cost-cutting. Strangely, from my experience, this includes reducing sales and marketing activities and people. This defies all logic, as when business is harder to win it makes no sense to cut back on sales effort! The sales effort or department may be the most costly in the company, but properly invested and directed, the returns will easily outweigh the cost.

In Japan and the far east, when there is a struggling economy, their approach is to INVEST in sales and marketing. Business is still out there; you just have to work harder to find and win it. They use such hard times as an opportunity to train their sales team. When the economy recovers (they always do) they will have a team at the top of their game and so likely to find and win all the best opportunities. This is long-term thinking. Doesn’t it make more sense?

This year should see a slow improvement in the economy.

Will you cut back?

Or will you invest in you and your business?

Will you be at the top of your game when we emerge from the tunnel?

Ready to take the next step?

If you’re looking to invest in you or your sales team going forward, why not see our sales and technical sales courses.

Alternatively, why not get in touch with Salient Sales & Training – 07941 041 364, to discuss the needs of your business!

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Uncategorized

Salient at 15!

15 years ago, I formed Salient Sales & Training and every day has been different.  Testimonials received have been very positive and great motivators.  I am still thoroughly enjoying it.

From Physicist to Electronics Engineer, to technical sales to general sales, and finally, to running Salient, the business and life lessons I have learned along the way have served me and my clients well.  Of the 200+ companies and considerably more delegates I have trained, coached or mentored, each one has been both a challenge and a reward.

Here’s to the next 15 years!

15th Anniversary Special Offer

Any Salient training course or programme* booked before the end of February 2023 will be given the option of a free extra module, to be selected from the following list: (others will be considered)

Selling YourselfThe Psychology of Sales
Smart NetworkingPractical Decision Making
Time ManagementSelf-Inspiration & Motivation
High Level ProspectingPositive Ethical Influencing

* Courses and programmes are defined as any booking for a minimum of two days training or coaching and apply to general sales, technical sales and sales management.

(The offer does not apply to 1 to 1 coaching days, the Mentoring Programme or ‘Salient Gems’.)

I have won an award!

In the AI Global Media, Corporate Social Responsibility Awards 2022, Salient has been awarded the Best Ethical Training Course Provider in the UK!

My latest offer: ‘Salient Gems’

These are perfectly formed 3 – 5 minute video ‘bites’, each of which explains a tip, skill or technique useful in sales or business development.

They were chosen by the team I trained from Samsung Semiconductors.  At the end of every course or programme I ask the delegates to list three of the best ideas from each of the 8 to 10 Salient modules that have made up their full programme. The Samsung team of ten chose 44 in all and I added another 8 recommended by other customers and so we now have 52 Salient Gems.

Released at one per week, these will serve you all year.  At just £120 for the set, your return on investment will be significant, even if you just apply a few of them to your business.

You can pay for the full year, or sign up to a monthly payment of just £10.  Both payment options and details are available online at www.salientsales.co.uk

Testimonials

This newsletter features some of the feedback from Samsung Semiconductor delegates

(4-day sales programme given in Munich):

  • “Really well explained”
  • “Highly professional”
  • “Fulfilling today’s demand”
  • “Demonstrated great experience in sales”
  • “Good style of presenting”
  • “It was a real pleasure to learn sales techniques”

Tip of the day

Need some ‘bread-and-butter’ income?  Subscription products are a great way of doing this. Can you make something available to people that can be drip-fed to them, weekly or monthly?  Promote it, sell it and you have a useful regular income.

Clearly, the advantage to the customer is that they do not have to make significant outlay and can spread the cost over an agreed time period. 

It’s another Salient Win-Win!

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Uncategorized

If you build it, they will come

Do you believe in the ‘Field of Dreams’ approach?

This is where people or businesses build their presence online, or build a variety of marketing initiatives, and then sit back and wait for new customers to knock on their doors.  They believe that this is enough effort to build a business.

Hence the belief that ‘If you build it, they will come’; the Field of Dreams’ approach.

I am now experiencing this going a stage further with Lead Generation companies.  They appear to have a similar approach.  The latest I have seen was a video of the owner saying how effective their cold calling process is (cold calling is for another blog!)  He explained that his strategy can ‘continuously feed new leads into your pipeline and, therefore, have consistent sales coming into your pipeline and so we have solved that challenge’.

Well, not really.

The supposition is that if you have leads you will automatically have sales.

You see, if you have no skills in sales and selling you have collected all these leads and have little chance of converting them into sales.  You will have spent all this money on the cold calling, and all you have is cold leads, no sales, and no business.

If you have some sales skills, you may be able to convert some of them.  However, you are probably wasting more than half of the opportunities you have accumulated, wasted half the funds you have invested.

My advice would be, until you have had some sales training or coaching and learned how to convert a significant proportion of those leads, then don’t waste your money on expensive marketing or lead generation.

By all means invest in a variety of marketing and lead generation ideas, whether you do them yourselves of outsource them, but first, make sure you are skilled at opportunity or lead conversion.  Make sure you can negotiate and secure (close) the best deals.

I will not attempt a sales pitch here, but, before you invest in such initiatives, find yourself a good, ethical and experienced sales coach or trainer and book yourself a course or session with them!

Categories
General

How do you shop Ethically? Investigating Ethical Buying.

What is ‘Ethical Buying’?

I fly the flag for, promote and teach ‘Ethical Selling’. This is the open and honest approach to sales where building trust and loyalty are key to ensuring good, ongoing and profitable business relationships. 

To compliment this, I felt I should try and implement ‘Ethical Buying’. 

What is ‘Ethical Buying’? 

Simply, ensuring that the products and services you buy are sold by a company with a conscience; social, environmental, and people-focused, be they customers or employees. A few are ethical suppliers, but I suspect that most fall down in at least one of these areas. 

Some companies do not claim to be ethical in the way they operate, and you should not be surprised when you look into their business model. However, some do and of this group some are right and some are wrong.  It is worth digging deeper to see if they practice what they preach. 

I dug deeper and found it is not easy to buy ethically.

For example, I wanted to avoid buying plastic clothes such as polyester, viscose and nylon.  This is a challenge.  Who reads the labels these days, other than to find out the size and how to wash it?  I aim for cotton, wool or other natural fibres.  I found these difficult to source as at least some part of everything I considered included man-made fibres.  When I did find items of fully natural materials, I noticed that they were made in China, Indonesia, Taiwan and other distant places. 

In shipping to the UK, these will claim a large carbon footprint.

The situation with cars is even more involved.  Parts are sourced world-wide, plastics play a huge part, and some treat their workers very poorly.  Many of the larger car providers also have a questionable history, but this is another issue.

‘Natural’ energy is also a problem.  Wind turbines require the shipment of huge parts from all over the world and in order to secure them into the ground, vast amounts of concrete are needed.  Making concrete produces over 8% of the worlds carbon emissions.

Building insulation often uses man-made fibres.  Straw is an excellent alternative, and we have a huge surplus of this material in the UK.  Hopefully, this will catch-on.

What can you do?

How can you be an ‘ethical buyer’ in these circumstances?  Simply, try your best.

  • Try to source locally
  • Avoid plastic when possible
  • Select natural or at least recyclable materials
  • Check customer feedback to see how they treat customers
  • If important to you, search more deeply into the supplier’s history

Manufacturing in the UK is at a very low level and so sourcing locally is often impossible.  All I can suggest is keep trying! Things are constantly changing, and when a young business does set-up offering what you’re looking for try to support them.

In the meantime, Salient will continue to promote ‘Ethical Selling’ as the right and best way to approach selling. As well as purchasing ethically whenever we’re able.