Tag Archives: sales

You need to believe to sell

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I had an epiphony the other day and I’ve since coined it “the belief lag”.

Last week I went out for dinner to the Meat Co in Melrose Arch with the Demographica Head of Media Sales Marloe Wise and the Head of our Cape Town office Kath McChesney to discuss product sales strategy and the integration of culture between the Jozi and CT offices.

I went to the bathroom and came back to an intense debate between Marloe and Kath on the unique selling points of our latest Drive Time advertising product. I sat back, didn’t get involved and listened to the debate. Then it struck me – they totally believed. They both had a 100% belief in the product.

Drive Time was conceived of in September 2012, a full 11 months prior to this debate at the Meat Co. The product was then developed and launched in February 2012. In the build up to the launch and obviously post the launch, I was Drive Time’s biggest advocator. Why? because I believe in the product 100%.

When I pitch Drive Time to potential clients their responses are truly remarkable and some big things are happening. But the same wasn’t happening with my sales team – they were struggling to pitch it even though I knew that through training they completely understood the product.

For months I couldn’t figure out why I was having success pitching the Drive Time product, whilst my top business developers (who are better than me to be honest) were struggling to get client buy in.

My epiphony happened at the Meat Co. It took Marloe and Kath a full 6 months to believe in Drive Time – and trust me, they really wanted to believe. It will take the rest of the sales team a little longer. The product owner (me in this case) will always be the first to believe. Then naturally you start to train and educate the company and the market about the product. You then set sales targets and create client wish lists and ultimately get to work.

I think CEO’s sometimes mistake poor sales with poor sales ability – it is not necessarily true. Maybe the sales team still need to believe, maybe they are still in “the belief lag”.

It took Demographica over 6 months to believe, I don’t know if that’s long or short, or good or bad, but I do know that it’s reality. People need to authentically believe to perform, give them time.

Story telling in sales

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Remember your group of friends from high school?
There were two types of people in the group: those that could tell a joke with such conviction that people would laugh hysterically and then those that could take even the funniest of jokes and not be able to deliver it properly.

Why is it that you could take the same joke, give it to two people and see two totally different outcomes?

Storytelling. The art and skill of being able to tell a good story.

Those of you who know me will know that I have a passion for sales and deal making. I am also lucky enough to work with some unbelievable people who are award winning sales people and deal makers. I am therefore exposed to the top sales people / deal makers in the advertising industry.

When I study the people that I work with, I consistently find that the people that are able to tell a great story are consistently better at selling than people who can’t tell a good story.

Even if you look at our history, story telling has been around for generations and traditions are passed down through the generations via storytelling.

If you want to succeed in sales, learn to tell a great story.

Closing the deal – like a dog

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I love learning from other entrepreneurs. The other day, I learned a lesson from an entrepreneur that I have massive respect for.

First, some context.
Demographica and his company are in the early stages of doing some work together. We have a new product that he likes and he has a hugely successful business with some clients that our new product would connect to perfectly.

Like all shrewd businessmen, he wanted to do his research as well as totally understand the structure and various applications of the new product – in order to do this, he needed conversation time with me. Over a period of 3 days, he called me 6 times, sent me 5 sms’s and we exchanged about 4 emails – that’s a total of 15 conversations in 3 days.

Not for one second did I feel ‘hounded’ or ‘pestered’ by him – in fact, he made me feel that he genuinely wanted something to happen with this new product of ours and his authenticity and tenacity was something that I admired. Bottom line – he made me want to do business with him – because I felt that he genuinely believed in what Demographica and his company could do together.

A few days later I asked him about his deal making style, and he introduced me to a concept that his company uses internally – it’s called ‘Dogfuck’.

I googled ‘Dogfuck’ and you can imagine what it showed me.

He explained to me that when a dog wants to mate, there is nothing that will stop that dog from mating. You can hold the dog back, you can push the dog away, but at the end of the day – the dog will mate!

When they interview potential employees, there is a rating on the HR form whereby the interviewer rates the interviewee on a scale of 1-10 on his/her level of ‘Dogfuck’.

The lesson here is clear – potential customers will knock you down, reject you and give you a million reasons why they wont meet you or buy your product or service – but the deal makers with a high rating on the ‘Dogfuck’ scale will eventually close the deal.

How to motivate a sales team

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I am incredibly proud that the Demographica sales team won “Best Sales Team” at The Bookmarks Awards in 2012.

During the year we tested various incentives to see what type of incentive would drive a sales team to bring in a higher volume of deals as well as higher value deals.

This is what we learned:

  1. One type of incentive does not motivate all types of people
  2. You need to figure out what type of incentive drives each and every sales person
  3. Very often, a “high five” achieves more than monetary incentives

The take away from this experience is that a real understanding of emotional intelligence (EQ) is the primary skill set that a sales manager needs and public “high fives” are underestimated at your peril.