Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah

Just a quick note to all of you to wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Chanukah. Enjoy your time with friends and family. As my son's running coach said, "Eat until you feel awful", we can get back to good behavior next week.

All the best from all of us,

The Waterhouse Group

Christmas good news

I just spent an hour in traffic here in Jacksonville heading home from the mall. While some might be upset, I was thrilled. That traffic tells me that our economy is strong and we are spending at an incredible rate. As you look at your 2006 sales forecasts, remember the traffic and do your best to get your share of all that great business.

Happy Holidays,

Steve Waterhouse

New MLM Sales Tools

For those of you in MLM or network marketing world, you can find some great mlm sales tools at www.mlmsalesbuilder.com

The Bike Accident (a sales training story)

There I was, on the road and bleeding…

Like many of you, I have been riding bikes since the days when we were putting baseball cards in the spokes to make noise. Today, I ride as a way of cross-training from my running. It saves my knees and legs…usually.

Last week, on my regular route, I was just about to cross highway 220 when it happened. I was waiting at the light with one hand on the cross-walk button and my right pedal positioned to get me moving when the light changed. The next thing I knew I was on the ground and bleeding from my right knee and elbow.

I was confused!

I had no idea why I had fallen, but I was sure that it must have been amusing for the people driving by. Probably looked like Arte Johnson on his tricycle on Laugh-in (for those under 40, see the re-runs).

We run into similar situations in sales all the time. You lose a sale and don’t know why. One day you are forecasting the business and spending the upcoming commission and the next day the client buys from someone else. It happens in other ways, too. You make dozens of cold calls and get nowhere. You send hundreds of letters with no results.

You are failing with no idea why.

With a new year in front of us, it is a great time to take an inventory of what is not working in your sales career. You work in a business where you are surrounded by people who have had great success and want to help you succeed. Bosses, mentors, trainers and peers are willing to help if you are ready to ask. The book stores and web sites are full of great articles and programs to teach you new techniques.

I often see the best sales people coming back to my training programs for a second and third time. They all tell me the same thing: I just need to learn and apply one thing today to make it worth the time. They know they will always have room to grow and they love it. You can see it in their eyes when they discover the key to one of their personal issues. They can’t wait to get back to work to try it. Like any performer or athlete, sales professionals need constant tuning to be their best.

I found it.

Well, when I got myself back together and started to ride off, I found the culprit. As I had pushed off, I had broken my toe clip. Once I saw the broken strap, it was obvious why I had fallen. When I showed it to the guy at the bike store, he laughed. “They haven’t used leather straps like that for 10 years”, he said. “They broke too often!” Now he tells me. I replaced it with a new, up-to-date, stronger, nylon strap and I should be good for many more years of riding.

What old ideas are you still hanging on to?

What weak area are do you need to strengthen? How are you going to do it? Make a plan for the New Year to improve one or two areas of your selling technique or process. Put it on your calendar and make it happen. If you need suggested resources, just drop me a note. If you want to receive my “10 Ways to Generate Great Sales Leads”, send an email to article22@waterhousegroup.com. I’ve got all kinds of great recommendations for you. Feel free to ask anytime as you build your personal plan.

Team Selling Webinar recording is online

I did a webinar called "The Power of Team Selling" for the Microsoft Leadership Forum on LiveMeeting yesterday. They recorded it and posted it online.

It's a great program that is about 50 minutes long.

Steve Waterhouse
Sales Training and Consulting

She stared at the glass and froze... (a sales training story)

She stared at the glass and froze…

I love it when companies grow, merge and change. It makes wonderful opportunities for the sales people involved. One of my newer clients has just gone thorough a buying binge and acquired a host of smaller companies that all offer related products and services. I had the privilege of working with the newly formed sales force which was comprised of seasoned pros from all of the new companies. Each one was an expert in selling their particular offering.

My job was clear. Get them all to sell everything. Sell the whole portfolio.

So here I am with this group of about 100 pros and I decided to pull out an old trick. I grabbed a water glass and handed it to the closest person and said, “Sell me this!” Ok, I put her on the spot, but that’s fair in my rule book. What did she do? She froze! She just sat their in front of 100 of her peers and said nothing. Finally, after a very uncomfortable amount of time, she said, “I sell services. I don’t know how to sell a product.”

Bunk! Trash! Huey!

There is fundamentally no difference between selling products and services. They all start with probing questions that help you understand the customer’s needs relative to your offering. Questions don’t care if they are asked about a product or service.

Mr. Johnson, what were you hoping our fugerwump would do for your company? Mrs. Smith, when you compare fugerwumps, what is most important to you? Mr. White, how are you planning to make your fugerwump decision. Insert any product or service you want for fugerwump and it works.

Let’s not trap ourselves into thinking that we only know how to sell one thing or another. If you have good sales skills you can sell many things. And if you have great sales skills you can sell them all as a total solution to your client’s ultimate need.

Oh, and the one that froze? She is actually one of the top sales professionals in the company they acquired. I predict she will go on to be one of the best as she has the opportunity to sell the entire suite of offerings of her new company.

Free Online Team Selling Seminar on October 25

You are invited…

Last week, I got a call from a friend who said, “HELP!! I need you to fill in for me on a webinar.” Well, I love an opportunity to make our programs available and you get this one for free. (Plus a bonus)

Here is the scoop. Just click the link below to sign up for this great webinar from Microsoft.

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=47857&cbClass=7582&signupkey=2659

BONUS: As a special bonus to my newsletter subscribers, I will select 10 of you to each receive a free copy of my book on audio CD. To enter, just register for the program and forward your Microsoft confirmation to me.

Here is all the PR stuff that Microsoft sent out:

The Power of Team Selling
Steve Waterhouse
October 25, 2005
9:00AM - 10:00AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
12:00PM - 1:00PM Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Speaker: Steve Waterhouse, President, Waterhouse Group

Seminar Overview: How to turn your sales group into an effective sales team.
This program will explore the many ways that teams can dramatically improve your sales results. We will examine the opportunities that teams offer and how to maximize them. We will also look at the mine field of problems that teams expose, both internally and externally and how to avoid them.
Sales managers who are looking for a secret weapon may find it in this program. You will also find ways to minimize your costs and maximize your impact. Building effective teams is one way that sales managers can effectively increase the size of their sales force without adding additional people to the payroll. You’ll see how in this program.

Sales professionals will learn how to take advantage of the team concept to sell more and sell faster. You will learn how to effectively manage your team’s resources for maximum results. This is truly the way to ‘do more with less’!

Bring your questions and problems or email them in advance and Steve will answer them during the program (info@waterhousegroup.com).


In this seminar you will learn:

* How to build and use teams to maximize sales
* How to avoid the mine field of problems that teams can create
* How teams can accelerate the sales cycle
* To use teams as your competitive secret weapon

About Steve Waterhouse

Steve Waterhouse's career as a record setting sales professional and sales manager make him uniquely qualified to help companies dramatically improve sales and increase profits. As the Semiconductor Sales Manager for Sprague Electric Company, Steve achieved record sales quotas in the Northeast and developed the most successful marketing campaign for new catalogs. When Steve took on the role of Director of Sales and Marketing for Vortech Corporation, the company's sales increased by 300% in 24 months. As an entrepreneur, Steve has successfully launched several businesses. He founded and developed Waterhouse Communications Newspaper Group, the largest community newspaper in the State of Maine. He also challenged the U.S. Postal Service with the state's first private mail delivery service.

Mr. Waterhouse is President of Waterhouse Group, a consulting and training company that helps companies increase their sales by building effective sales organizations. His clients have included IBM, Xerox, Lucent Technologies, Sun Microsystems, Guidant, AT&T, Aventis-Behring and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

He is the author of “The Team Selling Solution: Creating and Managing Teams that Win the Complex Sale” (McGraw-Hill, 2004).

Waterhouse Group

Waterhouse Group is a consulting and training company based in Jacksonville, FL with clients in 11 countries on 5 continents. They specialize in consultative selling, value selling and team selling.
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Don't forget your copy of The Ultimate Prospecting Manual at http://www.salesleadsforever.com and How to Leave a Voice Mail Message that Gets Results at http://www.effectivevoicemailmessages.com
Save when you order both!

Does anyone want my business? (a customer service story)

This should have been simple. I had a 12 hour round-trip drive coming up and I thought I should get an oil change first. The car was over due and I felt it was really important to get it done before I left. So Friday morning I drove over to the local Jiffy Lube figuring they could do it quickly (You know, in a jiffy!). Maybe not. As a drove up, I saw that each of the three bays was completely empty and the four guys inside were just leaning against their tool boxes.

I parked in front of the middle bay and walked up the guy who looked most like a manager and asked if he could change my oil. He said he had to check to see if they had a filter for my car, first. With that, two of the guys went below and started digging through the supplies. A few minutes later, the verdict was in: no filter in stock. The manager said that sometimes they have one for my car, but not today. Sorry!

With that, I drove away.

My next stop was Goodyear. This time every bay was filled and everyone was running around like a chicken with its head cut off (Don’t write me if you work for the chicken lobby). I went into the lobby and asked the counter person if they could do a quick oil change. He checked his computer and said, “Let me make sure I have a filter for your car.” Two minutes later, he came out and said, “Mr. Waterhouse, my computer showed that I had your filter but I don’t see one in the supply room. I’ve just sent one of my guys out to get one and he’ll be right back. Is that ok with you?”

Ok? Of course it’s ok. I would certainly rather wait 10 extra minutes than spend the rest of my morning running all over town. (Note that he said that the guy had already left before he asked for my permission. Great move!)

Here is the odd thing. The Jiffy Lube is locally owned by an entrepreneur who has his hard earned cash invested in the business and only makes money when they get a car in the bay. The Goodyear store is company owned and run by a manager whose bonus goes up about five cents when he does an extra oil change. Shouldn’t the Jiffy Lube people be the ones chasing all over town for my filter?

Do you or your sales people look more like Jiffy Lube or Goodyear? How do you know? Make a few candid calls to your customers and ask them to rate your service on a scale of 1 to 5. One being, ‘we never follow through’ and five being ‘we are always proactive about solutions’.

Strive for five. It will make you more money than a dozen new customers.

Here are two new tools to help you grow your sales. Check out Sales Leads Forever and Effective Voice Mail Messages.

Ask better questions (a sales training lesson)

One of my clients called last night about an upcoming program. She was all upset because her boss had called and said that the "What he had on my upcoming program looked very light." She told me that we should add more to the program to beef it up because this guy was used to more info.

Now anyone who knows me, know that my programs are already crammed, so I was a bit confused. Then she called back...

It seems that her assistant had only sent him my short bio and he wanted my long bio. He was not referring to the program at all. She said, "Steve, I should have paid attention to that section in your program on asking better questions. It would have saved us a day of running around."

I haven't even given this program yet and it's had an effect on one person! ;-)

Keep selling!

Steve

Please Give!

In this time of enormous need, please join us in giving to the American Red Cross.

Donate Here

Stop Throwing Cans!

Tim was dumbfounded at their request…

Two months ago, I had the pleasure of working with the technical training group for one of my clients. You know these guys. They are the techies who teach your customers how to use the software and operate the equipment we sell. They often come along on demos just to make sure we don’t make total fools of ourselves. Unfortunately, too often we fear that they will stray from their role and start talking. Who knows what will happen then!

This group had asked me to teach them how to sell since they not only talk with their own sales people, but their customers are usually resellers and interested in sales, too. They believed that if they understood a little about sales, they would be able to do a better job helping sales people use their information as a tool to make more sales. They wanted to talk their language.

What a concept!

I talked with them on a teleconference today and I’m happy to report that they are doing great, except for one issue. The techies showed the sales people how to find customers for each product. They tied all the features and benefits into customer value points. They even showed the sales people how to do a demo that closes a sale. Bravo!

Then came the big question…

Tim said that some sales people consistently asked him to reduce each offering down to one sentence or ‘elevator speech’. They wanted canned lines for everything. He came back a little frustrated with these individuals, and I don’t blame him. I had taught them a consultative approach. One that was based on questions and intelligent responses that connected with the prospect, not canned pitches that require little thought or probing.

What would you say to a prospect who asked you, “What can that do for me?” Would you throw out a litany of canned feature and benefit statements, hoping that one or two would hit the mark? Or would you say, “I don’t know. Tell me a little about your needs and I’ll tell you how this might fit in your situation”?

Selling does not have to be complicated, but it does take some effort. Let’s can the canned responses and make the effort to connect with every prospect through knowing their needs.

Ps: Respect your technical support team. They just might be the best sales tool you have.

Steve Waterhouse

You can have quality prospects NOW!

Sales Training in Value Selling

The Boss is Too Busy

I had a call recently from the administrative assistant for the Sr. VP of Sales of a medium size, regional company. She asked for pricing and I said that I needed more information first and the best way to get it was to talk with the VP directly. The Admin was nice but firm and said that they had had two previous bad experiences with sales training and that it was her job to screen the candidates to improve their success rate. (does that make sense to you?) She said I should ask her the questions and she could answer them.

Ok, I said. "What are your annual sales?" She could not tell me. "What increase are you expecting this sales training to give you?" She had no idea. "What skills sets need to be improved in your team for this training to be successful?" She had no idea what I was talking about.

Eventually, she said that it was obvious that a meeting with the VP was needed and that she would arrange it. Bottom line, the VP refused to talk until I quoted prices.

I no-bid the job.

If you can't get to the decision maker, you can't make a winning proposal. Don't let the client's flawed buying process ruin your selling process. Stick to your plan and you will waste less time on fruitless proposals.

Wishing you selling success,

Steve Waterhouse
www.effectivevoicemailmessages.com

Waterhouse Sales Training

New Prospecting Program is ready

It's finally done!

The Ultimate Prospecting Manual is completed and available online at:

http://www.salesleadsforever.com

I hope you enjoy it and profit from it.

Steve

You probably don't want...

If I hear that phrase one more time I think I'll scream. Sales people are so afraid to sell that they insult us by assuming that we don't want or can't afford the best that they have. Let me say no. I know how!

As sales people, we do not have the right to cheat our customers out of the opportunity to buy our best. Remember these facts:

1. It's easier to cut out options and lower the price than it is to build it up.
2. People like nice things and are flattered when you assume that they want the best.
3. No one has ever died from sticker shock! Not customers and certainly not sales people.

Go sell your best!

Steve Waterhouse
www.waterhousegroup.com

So Close, but no deal (a sales training story)

Well, he did send a letter with three of his business cards and a form letter offering Gina $100 if she would refer a friend to him. But wouldn't a call have been more effective? I think so. And it's not like car sales people are short on time. They spend most of their time pacing the floor waiting for a walk-in because they did such a poor job of prospecting.

Steve Waterhouse
www.waterhousegroup.com

Lesson from a car dealer

So my wife, Gina, went out Saturday and bought a new Honda for herself. I was in Vancouver, but I understand she hammered the guy on the price. Go Gina! Yesterday, the dealer called to make sure everything was ok and to thank her for her business. Today, a basket of cookies and goodies arrived with a personal thank you note. Now, either the dealer is doing a great job of service or he is hitting on my wife. Either way, he's got her attention. ;-)

And that's the point. He's got her attention. Now let's see if he can convert his good will into a referral. He certainly has a solid process that is turning a new client into a friend and, potentially, a lead source. Two point for Lucas Honda of Jacksonville.

Steve Waterhouse
www.waterhousegroup.com

Sell me on Vancouver

I am working in Vancouver, BC this week and it is beautiful. My room overlooks the bay with the mountains in the background. Tough duty!

Keep watching for our latest project. It's called T.U.P.M. and we will have more details soon.

Sell Smart,

Steve
www.waterhousegroup.com