Selling Power Blog

Seven Ways to Improve Your Email Response

Nicole Merrett is vice president of CRM marketing for Sage North America, a supplier of business management software and services for small and midsize businesses.

 

 

Here are seven suggestions to help you craft more effective email campaigns and get better response rates.

1. Subject Line
   First impressions are critical in any form of communication. When people receive an email, the first thing they see is the subject line, which has the potential to either gain or lose their interest. Subject lines that include your company’s name as a reference and provide specifics supporting your email topic will typically gain higher open rates. 
2. “From” Line
   To understand how important this is, think about your own inbox. Would you be more likely to open an email sent from advertising@xyzcorp.com or nicole.merrett@sage.com? People don’t want to open an automated email.
3. Personalization
   People love seeing their own name. It makes them feel is if the email was written to them personally and not sent to thousands. Online services have simple options to directly insert names from your contact database using a template editor.
4. Variety
   How often do you send out newsletters, event invites, and updates that aren’t just soliciting a purchase? Are you getting an active response from recipients? If not, try something new. Be conscious about how many emails you send out each week or month. How are individuals interacting with your emails? Are you following up accordingly? How are you engaging the people who seem uninterested? Some email services include click-through analytics that monitor which readers spend time with your emails and forward them along to colleagues.
5. Quality Content
   When you provide your contacts with quality content, they’re more inclined to read your emails and even forward them to friends. Gain your contacts’ trust by emphasizing quality of communication over quantity. One option is providing information they can use immediately. A seller of gardening supplies might offer a series of horticulture tips; and when a prospect is in need of planting materials, he or she would likely think of the insightful supply-marketer first. The best sources for good content are the questions you get from your customers.
6. Testing…
   Test the way your email appears, not only through your own email service provider, but through several providers. Test all links in your message to make sure they work. Test your graphics. Pictures are a great way to grab someone’s attention. Remember, however, that pictures don’t always show up in email messages, so test the effectiveness of your email by viewing it in an email client with images turned off and making sure your message remains easy to understand and the call to action is clear. Finally, test your email with a spam check tool before sending. Spam check services review email content to see what might get caught in spam filters.
7. …And More Testing
   Your email has passed all the tests: it looks good, the Web links work, the images are properly placed, there’s a clear call to action, and it’s made it through the spam check…but it’s not getting the open rates you expected. How come? There are many reasons, including the time of day you send your email, the day of the week on which it’s sent, the frequency with which you send emails, etc.
   
   So why not test it?
   
   Test one change at a time. For example, explore what days your recipients are more likely to open your email. Split up your recipient list, and send each set of recipients the same email on different days. Does the open rate stand out more on one day than another?
   
   A next step could be to determine the time of a particular day people are more willing to open and interact with your email. Again, divide your list and send out the same email at different times of the day. A good starting point is the start of the day and middle of the afternoon. Studies have shown that these are the best times of day to send emails. See if your tests concur.
   
   When you have a specific day and time recipients are most responsive, examine your content. What sort of subject line gains the highest response? Do your recipients react more to graphics or text? Consider the placement of your call to action. Is one position more effective than another? Do your recipients appreciate lengthy, informational emails, or do they prefer a quick read? Test each element one at a time.

With email marketing, you never need to settle for one formula because you will often have the flexibility to make improvements as you go. So make taking advantage of trends and technology the constant in your digital marketing programs. This will help you achieve more tangible results.

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Here's How to Expand Your Selling AREA

Today I received a letter from Paul Pease, president of the Pease Group. He shared a letter his father wrote to his sister when she entered the sales field on November 25, 1988. What makes this letter so special is that it contains time-tested sales wisdom that hasn't changed to this day.

Dear Daughter,

Now that you are firmly entrenched in the sales profession, I am submitting the following for you to chew on and digest. I was fortunate enough to work for a man (John A. Sexauer) who was tough, demanding, commanding, and sincere. I worked for him – straight commission – from 1947 to 1979. He had a formula for hiring people, and the formula was reduced to an acronym: AREA.

"A" is for Adaptability – using your talent to rectify errors that occur to the customer through no fault of your own (wrong merchandise shipped, poor quality, or a billing error). The ability to cope personally with the situation, without help from your superiors, is adaptability. While you must be consistent in your selling discipline, you must adapt your selling tactics as times change; experience molds you, and you learn from others. Adaptability on the call and over your career is a prime selling fundamental.

"R" is for responsibility – to yourself, to your company, and to your clientele. "To yourself" is probably the most difficult, since it requires self-discipline. Get up and get out every day. Make commitments (appointments), honor them (show up on time), and offer the customer something of value (to them) that is profitable to your business (sell). "To your company" simply means giving a productive effort for your wages. "To your clientele" is usually reflected by the results of the "to yourself" discipline, because it proves that you are reliable; hence, customer rapport that challenges the competition is established. You can serve a client without being subservient. There is a great distinction between the two: stand 10 feet tall, but remember, you are there to serve and not to surrender.

"E" is for enthusiasm – for which there is no substitute! Without this element, life is an abyss. No salesperson can afford to ignore it. It is the spark that ignites attention faster than any other medium of salesmanship. You cannot expect to sell something unless you are sold on it yourself, hence the reason for genuine sincerity in your presentation. When you have convinced the client that you are providing value, then price becomes secondary.

Like a good cook, add ingredients to boost the flavor, such as consideration and integrity. Consideration is necessary when you are about to close the deal and the client suddenly has an emergency that delays the order. You have to be considerate of the circumstances. Integrity can come only with time – time for the client to judge your character for honesty. Integrity is a priceless ingredient for any transaction. Your word is your bond, and never forget it.

"A" is for ambition – not only for the money, but it certainly does not discount it. Ambition seems to be inherent; either you have it or you don't. It cannot be taught. If it must be taught, then it is no longer ambition but simply obedience to the teacher. Salespeople who lack ambition are merely order takers because they have no spark.

Hope this helps you out. Nothing moves in the entire world until a sale is made. And if the day comes that you think you know it all, shoot yourself.

Love you,

Dad 

 

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How to Be Great at Sales (and Enjoy Yourself)

Today's guest post is by Ryan C. Lowe, author of Get off Your Attitude! 

Sales can be frustrating and complicated, or it can be very simple. Now when I say “simple,” I don’t mean that it is not difficult. Selling is difficult. However, once we take out some of the complications you’ll be able to sell more, and, hopefully, enjoy yourself.

I know the frustrations. I remember when I first got into sales, I thought it was going to be easy. I thought that all I had to do is be a good talker, have a nice smile, knock on doors, and the sales would start coming in. I learned the hard way -- after being fired from one of my sales jobs -- that success in sales required much more. I learned that it is an art; to be great at sales, you have to work on yourself as much as you work on the job.

First, you must have a positive attitude. If you wake up dreading your job and hate what you do, it will be almost impossible to sell anything and your potential customers will see right through you. You must carry yourself in a positive way, and have the confidence in yourself, product and the company you work for.

Second, develop personal and production goals. The important step to achieving any type of goal is to write it down. If you don’t write the goal down, I consider it a wish, not a goal. You must know what you’re aiming for. You can wish for how many sales you will have for the year, or how much money you will make. After writing them down, you must look at them on a daily basis.

Third, prospect. This is the time you must go out and add qualified customers to your inventory. There are several ways to prospect. You can do it the hard way -- by going out and cold calling -- or you can be smarter about it. Ask the customers you already have, and the people you know, for referrals. Did you catch that last phrase? You not only can ask, but you should ask for referrals. A woman once told me, after one of my seminars, that cold calling is a way of God punishing us for not asking for referrals. I loved that comment! Referrals are the best way to get business.

Fourth, know your presentation. Do you know that 76% of all sales people wing their presentation? That is why those same salespeople fail. They don’t present their product in a professional manner. They are simply all over the place and the customer gets confused and gets scared … and doesn’t buy! Your goal is to know your presentation backwards and forwards. The only way you can do this is practice. Practice!

Fifth, ask for the sale. The number one reason sales professionals fail is because they never ask for the business, or they get to the end of their presentation, and ask a question, such as, “What do you think?” The customer will reply, “Let me think it over.” You don’t want to ever get that answer. This is one of the most -- if not the -- most important steps, because this where you either go back to the office with a sale or with nothing. Learn several closing techniques and make them part of your presentation. I promise, you will see great results.

If you follow these five tips and build on them, you’ll be more confident and successful, and you’ll enjoy your life in sales much more. 

 

Are Profits for Your Company and Salespeople Aligned?

Today's blog post is by Christopher Cabrera, CEO of Xactly Corporation, the industry leader in sales compensation automation.

 

Many sales organizations get challenged when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. Some do well; others do not. Regardless, significant growth events—mergers, gigantic new accounts or game-changing product releases—almost always jolt companies into making major process changes.

When a major supplier to the Orthotics & Prosthetics (O&P) industry acquired another company, it doubled its sales force overnight. Because the leadership decided to make one radical change, they increased sales performance and greatly reduced their administrative burden—while increasing Salesforce user adoption. (Read Cascade’s story.)

Another company made a similar decision following a multi-billion dollar acquisition. It now motivates strategic sales behaviors based on revenues, margins and units across 8 regions and 500 sales people. Sales leaders assess the effectiveness of their sophisticated sales plan with valuable analytics and reports, generated in minutes. (Read Carestream Health’s story.)

What did Cascade and Carestream Health knew that some others don’t is that sales performance hinges on the tenets of human behavioral science—that humans instinctively behave in certain ways when they have the right incentive to do so. This is why the radical change that both companies made was to automate their incentive compensation management processes.

To further illustrate the concept of motivation, think about what happens when a well-known high roller visits a swanky club. Why does the staff treat him so well? Because they know his black AmEx means he’s likely to spend more and leave a generous tip.

Salepeople are no different. They do more of what they know will benefit them and less of what doesn’t. That’s why real-time access to performance data improves employee behaviors and performance.

When sales data is easy to access and easy to use, sales reps can see in real-time how they will be compensated for selling the things the company wants them to sell, such as higher-margin products.

They can even run “what-if” scenarios to determine how to structure a sale for maximum payout of commissions, bonuses and special incentives.

Meanwhile, sales leaders can break down what their teams’ success is made of and achieve detailed visibility into what’s working in their sales compensation and what’s not—what has been sold, to whom, at what margins, through which channels, in which regions and at what price.

The key here is good, clean data. For many, post-sales information is scattered across a variety of systems, including ERP, HR and payroll. Often, it’s bound up in spreadsheets.

More and more companies retire those error-laden spreadsheets and centralize post-sales data into a single sales compensation management system. Xactly’s customers pull this information from as many as 30 places and everything is still seamless.

This radically changes the landscape for post-sales data, just as CRM optimized the sales pipeline.

Data allows companies to target incentives to get more of what they want from reps. Just ask Cascade and Carestream Health.

To learn more about The Science of Motivating Reps, join Christopher Cabrera at the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on Monday, April 2.

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My Thoughts from the Sales Management 2.0 Conference

At the Sales Management 2.0 Conference in Philadelphia, I talked a lot about how automating the sales process can drive higher revenues faster and more efficiently. In fact, I continue to be amazed at the number of Sales 2.0 tools and solutions that continue to emerge to make life easier for B2B sales teams. 

I firmly believe that, to succeed, sales leaders need to constantly be experimenting with and adopting new tools for their sales teams. But do tools alone create better sales teams? Of course not. Why? Because salespeople continue to fall into the same old traps:

• They talk all about themselves and their products and fail to uncover customer needs. 
• They run from one opportunity to the next without consulting with their sales manager or tapping intelligence that already exists within the sales organization. 
• They reinvent the wheel every time they need to write a proposal or reach out to a prospect. 

Inevitably the sales organizations that provide the best sales tools to make teams more effective are the ones that win more. They continually train their salespeople and help them seamlessly integrate process with technology.

At the same time, these sales leaders never lose sight of the need to train and coach sales reps on the ground-level selling skills.

No other department in any company can do what sales does; the value of its function is unique. The sales team has the rare ability to build rapport, to create relationships where none existed, and to persuade executives to make the changes and decisions that will help them run a better business.

All paths related to the sales cycle -- technology, process, selling skills -- lead to one final destination: the customer. The customer is the reason we are in business. They dictate our actions and reactions. They drive the conversation and tell us where we need to go next. 

Yet, as I told the audience on Monday at the Sales Management 2.0 Conference, only 13% of customers believe a typical salesperson can demonstrate an understanding of their business issues and solve them. This number should make every sales leader sit up and take notice. What is the level of customer understanding at your company? And what actions will you take to make sure you're in synch with their needs? 

This Thursday during a live webinar, I'll be talking about one area sales leaders can leverage to build a better sales organization: CRM. I'm excited to share ideas that can help you put the customer back where they belong: at the heart of your selling strategy. I invite you to register now for this webinar and join the conversation.

And I hope you'll consider joining me on April 2-3 in San Francisco, where I'll host the next Sales 2.0 Conference. For my money, there is no better investment of your time than to take the time to network with other sales leaders. Everyone needs consistent exposure to new ideas that can help them meet the challenges and realities of selling to today's customer. That is why I continue to dedicate my time to these events -- there's nothing I enjoy more than bouncing ideas off of other top-notch sales leaders and industry experts. There is always something new to learn about how to make a better customer experience in a digital age. 

Revamp Your Sales Pitch Today (You Might Win Big)

If you've recently attended a Sales 2.0 Event, you might remember me saying that salespeople need to "ditch the pitch!"

This is my shorthand way of saying that the audience for your sales pitch (or elevator pitch) has changed. We are currently living in a conversation economy. Buyers today don't want to talk with someone who knows nothing about their needs. The challenge for sales professionals is to find engaging ways to explain who they are, what they do, and how they can help customers and prospects -- without launching into a dull monologue or overenthusiastic babbling. 

The world of selling is moving toward collaboration and co-creation. It's time to ditch the flat, scripted sales pitch. Just as you routinely update technology, hire new and better sales reps, and renovate your sales process, you also want to give attention to your personal and professional messaging.

If you think you've got a strong sales pitch, put it to the test. Record a 60-second video in the next two days and enter to win the 2012 iMeet/Sales 2.0 Sales Pitch Contest. Winners will be announced live on Monday at the Sales Management 2.0 Conference in Philadelphia (which I'll be hosting). Prizes include an iPad2, and more.

Revamp your sales pitch today and get ready to join the conversation economy. 

BONUS: Watch this video for some of my quick tips on how you can use emotion to captivate and persuade your audience.

Turning the 80/20 Rule Upside Down

Today's guest blog post is by Mike Bosworth, founder of Solution Selling and CustomerCentric Selling, and cofounder of Story Leaders, which helps people harness the power of story to connect with, inspire, and influence others.

 

When I first got into training in the late 70’s, my mission was to help the salespeople who struggled the most: the bottom 80%.

In 2008, however, I got some very disappointing news: the Sales Benchmark Index reported that after all these years, despite the efforts of all the sales methodology companies, (including my own Solution Selling and CustomerCentric Selling methodologies) the 80/20 rule had gotten worse. It was now 87/13!

On top of that, the 80/20 rule was alive and well inside of both sales productivity companies I had founded. A small percentage of people in both Solution Selling and CustomerCentric Selling had carried the load. I wanted to believe my own affiliates were using the methodologies that we sold, but I had to ask myself why was it so disproportionate if we were all using the same sales process?

What did all this evidence prove about the effectiveness of sales methodologies – including my own, which I dearly believed in?

That same year, one of my long time collaborators, Customer Centric Selling affiliate Ben Zoldan, found himself on very similar path. We shared our pain and ended up walking away from our sales-process business to begin a research project.

Our main questions were: If the best salespeople were doing something so different from everyone else, what was it? Why are some people so much more influential than others? How are they communicating?

We knew the very best sales professionals communicated in a way that inspired people, but we never knew how to bottle that. All we knew was top sellers created an emotional connection with their buyers. Each one of them could be described as displaying the following traits:

• Authenticity and passion
• Strong ability to connect
• Strong ability to inspire trust
• Willingness to be vulnerable, and
• Tendency to tell stories from the heart.

When we looked for these attributes in the business section of the bookstore, we came up empty. We found these qualities, however, in the Self Help section (where you will rarely find an enterprise salesperson).

As we did our research, the concept of “story” kept popping up. We studied biology and neuroscience to learn why stories have such a profound effect on human beings. We thought, “We are trainers, we’re experts – we know how to codify skills – we can teach people to sell through storytelling.”

We began inviting our professional and personal friends to spend time with us in 2008 so we could share what we were learning. By the summer of 2010 we were teaching enterprise B2B salespeople to build and tell stories. We were teaching empathic listening skills. Still, both Ben and I felt something was missing. We knew we still hadn’t cracked the code on this.

Two events helped us finally get it.

The first was a SVP of a major software company who went through our workshop but was still not convinced. My partner got him to commit to “try it on a sales call.” He did the following week and turned a scheduled 45-minute call with a hostile customer into a 3-hour call where the customer opened up with his story. The ‘aha’ moment was how his story got the customer to tell his story.

The second event was a workshop where we decided to teach story tending around attendees’ “Who Am I” stories. When I saw the tears in the eyes of people who just had their personal stories tended, we finally got it.

Story is not a technique; story is a way of thinking. Story can inspire change from the inside out. Change is driven first by emotion. Then the cerebral cortex can help message the logical reasons so other logic people will not think us crazy.

Storytelling is not the end; it is a means by which we can all connect to each other. By tending to another person’s story, we can help another feel safe and connected with us enough to consider changing – “I am here and I am ready to move there.” Today, Ben and I are excited to share this new understanding with the world.

It was extraordinarily difficult for me to let go of my old paradigm of selling, but I knew I had to. It is exhilarating that after 30 years, we’ve finally discovered what’s been the greatest mystery in the sales profession: how the very best, most influential people inspire others to step away from the status quo into something new. 

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Top 12 Tools to Use for Social-Media Lead Generation

This guest post is by Rebecca Corliss, head of the social-media lead generation team at HubSpot. HubSpot is a marketing software company in Cambridge, MA, that makes inbound marketing and lead management software. Follow Rebecca on Twitter as @repcor.
 

Social media is a fantastic, quickly growing channel that marketers around the world are using specifically for B2B lead generation. By promoting your best blog and lead-generation content, your company can successfully grow a large social-media reach and funnel a portion of that reach into traffic and leads for your business. But what tools should a marketer use to generate leads most effectively through social media?

This article will walk you through the most useful social-business pages, monitoring applications, and measurement tools that will help you fully and easily manage your social-media lead generation.

Company Business Pages

1. Facebook Business Page – Facebook is a great place to collect "likes" for your company. Use your Facebook Business Page to showcase some of your most intriguing and fun content to your community. To optimize your Facebook page for lead generation, make sure to post a solid mix of fun, visual content and business-focused educational articles that can funnel your most qualified prospects to your Website.

2. Company Twitter Account – Use your Twitter network to develop a fast-growing community of people who will look to you via your Twitter account for interesting information and links relevant to your industry. People especially appreciate content that is educational or information that will help their business.

3. LinkedIn Company Page – Company pages on LinkedIn have been rapidly improving, including a new status-update feature (similar to Twitter or Facebook) that can be used to share similar content with your LinkedIn network. Company Pages also have a "Products and Services" tab, where you can promote specific offers. You can also use this tab to request product recommendations from your network as an additional promotional tool.

4. Pinterest Page – Pinterest has gained popularity recently and can be a great way to promote your company's most visual content and drive traffic back to your Website. Use Pinterest to create "boards," which will act as a collection of the best visual content around a specific topic. Make sure that your collection includes content from your company and others. Promoting your content exclusively contradicts the nature of the site and could anger your followers.

Monitoring & Posting Tools

5. HootSuite – It's important to monitor social buzz around your company to prove that you're listening and receptive to feedback. Use HootSuite to monitor a constant stream of your company's mentions or other search terms that are important to you. Be sure to respond to relevant requests for help, kind words of praise, and other tweets that deserve a reaction from your company. HootSuite also allows you to schedule posts for the future to help you save time later.

6. TweetDeck – TweetDeck is another monitoring tool. Download TweetDeck to monitor most important terms and mentions for your company, similar to HootSuite; however, it does not include the same publishing and scheduling features as HootSuite.

7. TweetChat – Ever consider hosting a Twitter Chat related to your industry? (HubSpot's Twitter Chat is every Tuesday at 3:00pm ET.) Twitter Chats are a great way to create a wave of Twitter content around your company by hosting a crowd-sourced discussion. Use TweetChat to consolidate the conversation to one page and encourage chat participants to follow your company.

Measurement Tools

8. HubSpot – HubSpot is all-in-one inbound marketing software that includes analytics tools that help marketers measure how much traffic, leads, and customers you generate from social media or other channels. Use it to prove the true ROI that your social channels drive for your company – a great way to argue the value of social media to your management team.

9. Google Analytics – If you want more in-depth Web page analytics, use Google Analytics to learn how specific pages within social networks are driving traffic to your Website. This will help you figure out which are the best sources for promoting your content to drive the most visitors.

10. Topsy – Topsy is a great Twitter search tool to analyze usage of specific keywords and hashtags. If you are promoting a specific Twitter campaign that has a hashtag, use Topsy to understand how often that hashtag was used before and after the campaign.

11. Klout – Curious to know how influential your social accounts are? Klout helps you understand how much pull you have over your network on Twitter, Facebook, and more. You can also see how it changes over time based on the content you offer or the number of retweets you receive.

12. Twitter Counter – It's very important that your social-media reach grows consistently so that your business always has a fresh network of visitors to attract to your Website. Use Twitter Counter to understand the rate at which your Twitter account is growing and recognize any key dates that led to significant growth.

With these key tools, marketers can optimize their social channels for lead generation and measure success with meaningful metrics. Over time, you’ll learn which social channels drive the best leads for your business, and with that data, you can focus your efforts on the ones that are most effective.

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How to Create a Target-Rich Sales Pipeline

Today's guest blog post is by Paul Alves, chief executive officer and cofounder of AG Salesworks.

 

When I was a rookie sales guy, I didn't put much stock in creating a business plan. My motto was, "Give me a list and a phone, and I'll make it happen." Guess what? It worked; I did make it happen. But what I learned several years later is that I could have made more happen with less work, if I had only taken the time to plan.

As a salesperson, you are running your own business. Your support can range from no support at all to a finely tuned marketing machine. Either way, it is up to you to succeed. Failure is not an option.  

Every successful campaign starts with a plan, which should have two major areas of focus: database development and a proactive, outbound teleprospecting/email plan.

Build Your Database

The first step is to create a quality database. Think quality over quantity. While it is tempting to create as large a data base as possible in hopes that just the sheer numbers will produce prospects, this is only true to an extent. Yes, you need lots of prospects, but if they are not a great fit, they will only dilute your focus on the best opportunities.

Scrub Your Database

As you work through the process of building and scrubbing your database, think about whether or not your prospects look like your ideal customer. Do they look like the last several closed deals? Build a database in your CRM consisting of quality prospects that you know are a fit for your products or services, and be diligent about scrubbing and adding to it every day. This is the pool from which you will find prospects to fuel your pipeline.

Develop a Teleprospecting/Email Strategy

Now you are ready to create a well-planned, consistent, proactive, outbound teleprospecting/email plan to ensure success.

Think of your prospects as a network of professionals who you can help. Reach out to them with a phone call, and if you don't catch them directly, leave a voicemail followed up by an email introducing yourself and your company. Explain to them why you believe they should take a few minutes to speak with you. You might try a message like this:

• "Hi Mr/Mrs. Prospect, my name is Paul Alves, calling from AG Salesworks. We specialize in identifying and delivering high-value sales opportunities to technology firms. After researching your company, I realized that we have had specific success in your space, helping companies like 'X,' 'Y,' and 'Z' grow their pipelines by two to three times in three to six months. I would be happy to share some of what we have been seeing in the market and determine if we might be able to help you, as well. Do you have five to ten minutes to connect over the phone this week or next?"

Conduct Research

Take the time to research your prospect's business online prior to reaching out. Leverage social-media information that you can find on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. When you call, be brief, and provide specific examples as to how you have helped similar companies. Give them a compelling reason to speak with you, not a fluffy marketing pitch. These people get calls every day, and if you don't sound like a peer who can add value, they will not take the time to speak with you. You have to stand out, and if you don't, then you're just white noise like all the rest.

If you have a marketing team to help you, use it. Collaborate with marketing staff; let them know what messages resonate and which ones fall on deaf ears. Always fine-tune your message for each industry segment and job function. Don't use one boilerplate message on every call. Customize, individualize, and optimize your calls. Engage interested prospects, and remove those who are not ready to buy, but always keep in mind that it is your job to add value on every call. Don't be afraid to drop prospects into the nurturing bucket and let an automated marketing process take care of them. 

Final Words

Build your database, reach out to your prospect universe consistently with a value add message, set a goal to complete an x-amount of quality conversations per day as appropriate for your business, and hit that conversation goal every day. Executing on your plan will turn your target rich pipeline into dollars.

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Beyond Listening: Integrative Conversations

Salespeople today know that listening is a vanishing art in a world where knowledge is exploding all around us. Top salespeople know that buyers can be liars. Sometimes, they're confused as to what they want, and they often need a guide who helps them clearly define what they really need. Like psychiatrists are trained to listen to facts, feelings, and fantasies, top salespeople tune in to the customer's psyche, probing for needs, wants, hopes, desires. They always make sure there's a pause after the customer has finished talking; they know that the most important clues to the customer's real concerns often come as an afterthought.

Listen to More Than What Is Said

Great salespeople also listen to their own streams of thought that are triggered by their customer’s words, sounds, and images; this is also known as following our instincts. These salespeople go a step beyond rephrasing the customer's problems to demonstrate understanding. They do more than ask probing questions that allow them to sharpen their understanding. These superstar salespeople follow a highly effective process that good psychiatrists use: integrative conversations.

Summarizing Your Understanding Is Not Enough

Average salespeople are too preoccupied with reducing the customer's comments to a Reader's Digest version of the conversation: "What I hear you saying is…" Great salespeople kick it up a notch by weaving what they've heard the customer say with what bubbled up inside their own mind while they listened.

An integrative conversation is an authentic exchange of ideas, concepts, opinions, and feelings, with both parties developing a new narrative that reflects a synergistic whole that's co-created by both partners. Integrative conversations happen naturally between non-neurotic people who are willing to give up their preconceived notions when a better idea comes along. For integration to occur, there must be freedom from emotional obstacles or ego-related issues. Integrative salespeople don't push ideas into a prospect's mind; they tease them out instead. They are not preoccupied with the outcome of the conversation; they focus on the quality of the conversation, the flow of ideas, and the depth of understanding that leads to fresh insight. An integrative conversation gets both people to focus on co-creating an optimized outcome.

Become an Integrative Leader

Sales leaders can maximize their potential by becoming integrative leaders. Management guru Warren Bennis once said that becoming a leader is much the same thing as becoming an integrated human being. Integrative leaders are continuously exploring their inner life while passionately pursuing their business goals. 

Key takeaway: Next time, try to be open to what the customer communicates, and observe how the customer's facts and feelings resonate with you. Instead of focusing on the logical content as the sole source for your response, integrate your own associations into your response; it will greatly enrich your conversation. You will become a better collaborator and feel better about your personal and professional achievements. 

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