All Posts by Andy Preston

Andy talks about Converting More Sales Leads (filmed ‘on the road’ in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong)

How do we convert more sales leads? How do we ensure we get the business, rather than someone else? How can that happen more often?

Andy’s Global Sales Tips are filmed on Andy’s travels on whatever equipment is close to hand! Be that Phone, iPad, DSLR or whatever. We’ve gone for ‘quality of information’ over ‘quality of video’ in most cases.

More professional quality videos and clips are on other videos of Andy elsewhere. This is about quality of information and speed.

The video below is a YouTube video. If you are one of our clients that has YouTube blocked, there is a Vimeo version below that, that you should be able to see.
Contact us here if you have any problems accessing these. Enjoy!

Andy talks about Sales Resiliance (filmed ‘on the road’ in Warsaw, Poland)

How important is Resiliance in Sales? And in particular, in ‘New Business’ Sales, and ‘Business Development?? And how do we increase it?

Andy’s Global Sales Tips are filmed on Andy’s travels on whatever equipment is close to hand! Be that Phone, iPad, DSLR or whatever. We’ve gone for ‘quality of information’ over ‘quality of video’ in most cases.

More professional quality videos and clips are on other videos of Andy elsewhere. This is about quality of information and speed.

The video below is a YouTube video. If you are one of our clients that has YouTube blocked, there is a Vimeo version below that, that you should be able to see.
Contact us here if you have any problems accessing these. Enjoy!

Andy has been involved with the Institute of Sales Management (ISM) for more than 15 years now, as a Fellow, attendee and Speaker at the main conference and various events.

He was also a main judge at the BESMA awards this year – and is very much looking forward to the awards dinner in London on 9th November in the evening – where some of the fantastic salespeople and sales directors that Andy was judging, will find out if they won or not!

In the day on the 9th November in London, the ISM are running a Sales Summit.

We’ve managed to secure our clients some discounted tickets at the Sales Summit due to Andy’s long-standing relationship with the ISMM. (Andy isn’t speaking as he’s flying back to the UK from an event in Saudi Arabia that morning, but hopes to be along later, and will definitely be at the BESMA awards in the evening).

So if you and/or your Sales team want to attend the sales summit in the daytime on Thursday 9th November, you can use the link here, and then use the code ISMAPrest30 to get your tickets for JUST £30, instead of the usual £200+!

If you want more information, or to book your tickets, you can see the event on the website here.

Andy may even see you there, or certainly later in the evening at the BESMA awards!

Andy talks about Credibility (filmed ‘on the road’ next to the Vaal River, South Africa)

How important is credibility in Sales? Business credibility and also personal credibility? And how do we increase it?

Andy’s Global Sales Tips are filmed on Andy’s travels on whatever equipment is close to hand! Be that Phone, iPad, DSLR or whatever. We’ve gone for ‘quality of information’ over ‘quality of video’ in most cases.

More professional quality videos and clips are on other videos of Andy elsewhere. This is about quality of information and speed.

The video below is a YouTube video. If you are one of our clients that has YouTube blocked, there is a Vimeo version below that, that you should be able to see.
Contact us here if you have any problems accessing these. Enjoy!

For those of you that have YouTube blocked on your computers, there is a Vimeo version below too. Again, contact us here if you have any problems accessing these.

Andy has just been booked to speak at the Ambition Broxbourne event in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire!

He’ll be speaking on his signature topic – ‘Stand Out Selling – The Future For Salespeople’ at the event, on Wednesday 15th November 2017.

It’s one of the rare chances you’ll get this year to hear Andy speak live at a public event – especially in the UK! (Most of Andy’s work is private events and consulting ‘in-house’ for companies all over the globe).

If you and/or your team are interested in coming along to the event (which we would highly recommend), you can see more details on the Ambition Website here.

You can also book your tickets direct on the Eventbrite page here.

We hope to see you there!

Andy answers this question in this video (filmed ‘on the road’ in Singapore)

Why is an ‘Agenda Set’ really important in Sales? And what should it contain? And where and how should it be used for best effect?

Andy’s Global Sales Tips are filmed on Andy’s travels on whatever equipment is close to hand! Be that Phone, iPad, DSLR or whatever. We’ve gone for ‘quality of information’ over ‘quality of video’ in most cases.

More professional quality videos and clips are on other videos of Andy elsewhere. This is about quality of information and speed.

The video below is a YouTube video. If you are one of our clients that has YouTube blocked, there is a Vimeo version below that, that you should be able to see.
Contact us here if you have any problems accessing these. Enjoy!

I’ve seen a number of things posted on social media recently, along the lines of ‘the more follow ups you have, the better”‘ and ‘x amount of sales are made on the nth follow up’….

Now, whilst some of the implied messages behind these can be quite useful (‘salespeople should pick up the phone more’, ‘every quote should be followed up’, most salespeople give up too easily’), there’s actually a danger in following them too closely.

In fact, there’s one particular one that’s been ‘doing the rounds’ again recently, the one about how many contacts it can take to make a sale….

Unfortunately when you do a little ‘digging’ on this, it turns out it was completely made up! 🙁

There is no such association as the ‘National Sales Executive Association’, and these particular statistics have been debunked numerous times, yet it still doesn’t stop people sharing it as if it’s ‘true’ – even when it’s not!

It’s almost as if we ‘want’ it to be true, to justify all the follow ups that we do!!

So here are some reasons why it can be ‘dangerous’ to take this study at face value (even if you didn’t know it was false until now).

Reason Number 1 – It Implies ‘More Is Better’

That’s probably the biggest point.  It implies ‘more is better’.  In other words, the more follow ups you do, the better you’ll do in sales.

And the problem with that?  It’s not necessarily true.

As an example, if you’re contacting new prospects, let’s say you don’t do your job properly on your first contact and don’t uncover any needs the prospect may have for your product/service, you don’t get them to admit/notice that they may well be interested in a further conversation, and manage to set the ‘next steps’ by the end of that interaction.

You’re now going to have to do ‘more’ follow ups to that prospect, than if you’d put more work in earlier in the process, so that wouldn’t be needed as much!  And most of the follow ups in that circumstance would be the dreaded ‘keeping in touch’ follow ups.

The world definitely doesn’t need any more of those!

So in this circumstance, ‘less’ is actually better!

Reason Number 2 – It Implies No ‘Evaluation’

And this is a VERY important point!

Good salespeople will evaluate/qualify both the prospects, and the potential sales opportunity, to know whether it is worth following up at all!  And if it is, when, how and why they should do that!
And as early in the process as possible!

And if you truly want to maximise your time as a salesperson, you need to be able to quickly identify REAL prospects from people that will waste your time.

You see, some prospects might have little or no intention of using you or your company, but they need your proposal, in order to give them a comparison with the other suppliers they truly are considering.  Therefore they will still take you all the way through your sales process, talk to you, meet with you, ask you to submit a quotation or full proposal.  But with no intention of using you.

These prospects will suck you time, suck your energy and chip away at your ‘sales esteem’ (your self-esteem in relation to your sales role).  You need to identify them as quickly as possible, not only not to waste your time, but to avoid the ‘endless follow up’ trap that also hurts your sales esteem.

Reason Number 3 – Too Many Follow Ups Annoy Prospects

The other thing to consider when you’re having to do lots of follow ups, is how annoying you can become to prospects if you try and do too many to one person!

Lots of follow up to one person (without anything fresh to say to them) ends up with lots of calls that are basically ‘how are things?’ or ‘has anything changed since we last spoke?’ or ‘any new feedback for me?’.

You already know the reaction to those you of calls is going to be terrible. So why are you still doing them?

Most salespeople end up doing these because they have to have an update on their ‘pipeline’, or their manager has asked them to get one! Yet, because the earlier part of the sales process wasn’t handled well enough, we end up with these ‘pointless’ call backs, that run the risk of just annoying prospects!

If we handled the earlier part of the sales process better, most of the follow ups wouldn’t be necessary. Because we would already know the next steps, and have arranged call-backs booked in, not just random ‘keeping in touch’ calls!

Follow the steps above and watch your sales soar! I look forward to hearing about your future sales!

One of the most difficult (yet hardly talked about) objections to deal with in sales, is the ‘principled’ objection.

This is something I cover fully in my Stand Out Selling Objection Handling training, and it’s something unique to me and that system. So you won’t ever hear other sales trainers or speakers talk about this (although if you do, let me know because that would mean they’ve ‘stolen’ it from me, and I need to go and talk to them about it ;-))

So what do I mean by the ‘principled’ objection? And why is it an important part of objection handling?

The Oxford English dictionary defines principled as ‘(of a person or their behaviour) acting in accordance with morality and showing recognition of right and wrong’

What I mean in relation to this is when the product/service you’re trying to promote, the ‘angle’ you’re using or the package you’re trying to discuss is against their ‘principles’.

Let Me Give You An Example…….

Your objective in this situation is to tell the customer about the offers you have available, and sell this existing customer an additional product. A typical outbound sales call for some clients that I work with.

They already have a product with you on monthly subscription/contract, but your objective on this call is to sell them an additional one, or a complimentary product that is linked to the one they already own.

That means an increase in the monthly fee they are paying, or a separate contract for the new product that will increase the amount they are paying overall.

The problem is, early in the call, they tell you they are happy to hear about any offers, but they DO NOT want to increase the amount they are paying every month. Now that’s a fairly major problem, if your objective (and your commission) is based on increasing their payment, not reducing it!

Why Most Standard Sales Training Doesn’t Help Here…..

Now here’s what every other sales training company or programme will tell you what to do. They’ll tell you to either ignore it (and run the risk of irritating the other person that thinks you aren’t listening), or they’ll tell you to ‘objection handle’ it, and tell them all the benefits of increasing their monthly fee (which really runs the risk of putting their back up, ad it’s the opposite of what they just told you).

Neither of those work very well in my experience.

So What Do We Need To Do Differently?

The Stand Out Selling way of tackling the ‘Principled’ objection deals with this in a very different way.

In order to deal with the ‘principled’ objection, you HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE ‘PRINCIPLE’ FIRST!

In other words, you need to deal with the principle of ‘I don’t want to spend any more money on a monthly basis’ BEFORE you can suggest any increase, or talk about the benefits of what they could get by increasing their payment, or taking on an additional contract.

If you FAIL TO DO THIS, you will almost always come up against resistance.

However, once you overcome this part, dealing with the objection is far easier!

If you’re interested in learning more about dealing with the ‘principled’ objection for yourself or your sales team, or what to understand more about the Stand Out Selling methodology, get in touch here, or call us on +44 161 401 0142, and we’ll be happy to help!

I was out in Singapore recently, speaking at the largest conference for speakers in Asia – the Asia Professional Speakers Convention.

It was a great chance to catch up with my clients and friends in the region, plus a chance to help my fellow Speakers improve their sales!

Like a lot of people, Speakers generally wouldn’t consider themselves ‘natural’ salespeople. Like photographers, designers, consultants, lawyers, engineers, and many of my other ‘non-salespeople’ clients, they aren’t naturals at selling, yet as they own their own businesses, they somehow have to bring in sales!

So I thought I would share some of the tips I gave them, to help them generate more sales!

Andy’s Sales Lesson Number 1 – Make Sure You Have Your ‘Sales Fundamentals’ In Place

No matter whether you consider yourself a ‘salesperson’ or not (and I would argue that we’re all salespeople!), if you run your own business, you need to get the fundamentals in place.

That means having a process for handling incoming enquiries, for prospecting, for discussing prices, and objection handling etc where needed. There is no excuse for not knowing the sales fundamentals, and not knowing them will cost you money.

If you’re the owner of the business, you have the sales ‘responsibility’, like it or not. Don’t let opportunities pass you by because you’ve not got your sales fundamentals in place!

Andy’s Sales Lesson Number 2 – When The Opportunity Comes, Be Ready!

This is something else that people that aren’t ‘natural salespeople’ often struggle with (and some ‘natural;’ salespeople too!).

It’s really important that you’re ready for when an opportunity comes your way. That means having things in place, ready for it.

For example, if you know that a prospect is going to ask you about work you’ve done before for companies similar to them, what evidence have you got that you can send to them, quickly?

If you’ve got to sit down and put something new together each time, that’s unlikely to be effective, and also not efficient! If you’ve just got one ‘standard’ document you send out, that’s unlikely to be successful for you either!

Be ready to send what they are likely to ask for. Be ready to have the conversation around price (particularly if your price is flexible, or negotiable!). Most of all, be ready!

Andy’s Sales Lesson Number 3 – Change How You Feel About Sales!

Most small business owners tell me they’re not ‘comfortable’ with sales. Yet they also realise that sales is a vital part of their business! So much so that if they can’t bring in sales, they won’t have a business!

Yet most still avoid it, mainly because of how it makes them feel doing it, or they’re worried about the response from the prospect, or because it makes them ‘feel like a salesperson!’

I say that sales is one of the best professions in the world! And I still like Malcolm Gladwell’s definition of a salesperson in his book, ‘The Tipping Point’

Gladwell’s definition of a salesperson was a ‘Persuader’ – someone that got other people to take action. I really liked that definition when I first heard it, and I still like it today. And I think that’s what true salespeople do – get others to take action!

And if we believe we have the best product. The best service. The best thing for the prospect. Isn’t it our job to persuade them to take action on it and gain the benefits from it?….

Oh, and if you’re a speaker and in (or near) the Singapore region, I highly recommend going along to a meeting of, and joining APSS.

One of the best associations in the world!

I look forward to hearing about your future sales!

So after the warmth of South Africa, the next stop was Dublin, after an overnight stop at Heathrow to pick up the video crew who would be with me for the rest of the week.

Dublin was pretty warm considering, a balmy 11 degrees that was pretty much T-shirt weather compared to London! And it was a short taxi ride from Dublin Airport, to the Croke Park Hotel, across the road from Croke Park itself, where the event was being held for the next couple of days.

It was the first event with a new concept, an 80/20 event, where most of the time, there would be a number of workshops running concurrently, with just an ‘opening’ and ‘closing’ piece each day with everyone together.

My workshop was 5 hours of ‘How To Sell More Sponsorship, Advertising and Exhibition Stands’. This is something I’ve delivered a number of times, for Event Organisers and their membership body in South Africa. Plus my experience helping leading sports clubs sell more sponsorship, advertising and hospitality deals.

Here Are 3 Quick Sales Tips From My Workshop

Now, these tips will work whatever you are selling, not just for sponsorship, advertising and exhibition stands, so you can apply them to any country, any industry, and any situation – with a little ‘tweaking’ if necessary.

Andy’s Tip No 1 – Create Urgency

There HAS to be urgency present in every single buying situation. If urgency isn’t there on the side of the buyer, the salesperson HAS to create it. Without it, there is no impetus or momentum in the process, and that often results in the buyer ‘thinking about it’ – which usually means no sale!

Andy’s Tip No 2 – Understand Their Reasons For Interest

For anyone to be interested in buying space at your exhibition, sponsoring your event (or part of it) or buying advertising in your magazine, show guide or digital package, there has to be a reason behind their interest.

It might be something personal to them (self interest), it might be something that their business can take advantage of (a PR opportunity, or associating themselves with your venue or show for example), or it could be they are desperate for sales leads!

Either way, if you find out what their specific interest is FIRST (instead of just ‘pitching’ your product or service at them without asking questions), you’ve got a far better chance of securing the business afterwards – often at higher rates!

Andy’s Tip No 3 – Control The Process

One of my favourite sayings is ‘The Salesperson Should ALWAYS Be In Control Of The Sales Process’. Yet often they are not. Often they let the buyer take control of the situation, dictate what will happen next, and then find themselves chasing with endless follow ups that never seem to go anywhere!

The Stand-Out-Salesperson makes sure they are controlling and leading the sales process, and therefore they get the outcome that they want more often, and secure the sale. That’s what we all want to be aiming for!

Good luck with your future sales!

Are you interested in me speaking at your event, kickoff, roadshow or Sales Conference?

Or alternatively working with you or your team to overcome some of their problems with sales pipeline, managing their sales opportunities, cold calling and prospecting, or converting incoming leads?

Then please contact me here, or call +44 161 401 0142 to see how I can help you!