Is the company you represent, whether you own it or sell for it, sales driven? Just because you are part of a sales team does not mean the company (of which the sales team, in many cases, is but one of many divisions) is sales driven. Does your firm have a unique sales culture, flexible strategies, and a competitive sales philosophy? And, is that philosophy inculcated into the team on a frequent basis and buttressed with external sales materials and training? Hopefully you do not work for a firm that merely dumps you into a vast, high turnover bullpen to sink or swim, your only training provided through “sales floor osmosis”, relying only upon your ability to cannily pick out which sales reps to mimic. This approach does not lend itself to the development of a high performance sales career, and if this is where you currently find yourself pounding the phones, then your tenure at this popsicle stand like organization will most likely be short-lived.

Best in class sales teams are always part of a truly “sales driven” company that invests in the team and put the needs of their closers front and center. The most competitive companies often ensure that all its divisions focus on supporting and empowering the sales team, guaranteeing the reps have all the tools and back up necessary to generate revenue. And, of the many things a sales team needs in order to compete effectively, one of the imperatives is a sales process which is flexible and always evolving. The fundamentals might remain the same, but as prospect organizations evolve, economies become more complex and technologies change, so must the nuances of your approach, presentation and closing methodologies. The best firms don’t just stand on ceremony and count on one way of getting the job done, they invest in materials, literature, technology and sales training tools that allow their skill-set to remain fresh and sharp. In fact, according to an Aberdeen Group study the top companies, the innovators and early adaptors, were 52% more likely than traditional organizations (the type that cling to the “old ways”) to make use of external forms of sales training. Consequently, these “supercharged” firms outperform the “laggards” in many key areas, from achievement of quota to year over year revenue increases.

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I’d like to share with you a conviction I hold that has served me exceedingly well throughout my career:

You cannot blow a deal you do not have!

That brilliant little axiom has kept me alert and aware, on-edge and frosty. It has allowed me to cut through the bullshit and consistently separate the prospects from the suspects. Most importantly, dedication to this truism has kept me from wasting my time with time-wasters.

Too many salespeople put their faith in maybes, might do’s, and other various process extending excuses when trying to bag an elephant. Ever concerned that they may ruffle the feathers of their prospects, the mediocre tend to act more like messengers than closers, substituting desperate prayers to the deal gods in place of a zealous effort to gain commitment. Pretenders will go to all sorts of ridiculous lengths to avoid giving their prospects a bold faced ultimatum to “shit or get off the pot,” just so as not to offend, rankle or upset the prospect, or, heaven forbid, “rupture the deal.”

Do not throw your lot in with this band of cowards. Do not leave the outcome of your deals to luck or worse, fate (as she will most likely kick you in the nuts every chance she gets) – take control of your destiny and dedicate yourself to becoming a first-class finisher. Never mind the namby-pamby, kid gloves approach – remember, “he who dares wins”!

So, when your prospect’s reply to a closing question is a veritable non-answer like “we’ll see” or a vague diversion designed to jog you on and pull their own ass out of the pressure cooker, do your prospects and yourself a big favor, ask them to either put their balls on the line and take action or admit that they are just not that interested in what you have to offer. And, when an apparent condition (not an excuse) stands in the way of sealing a deal on the first conversation, attempt to make the deal conditional – that will flush out the liars from the buyers every time. Obligate or terminate!

Here’s the gospel truth, if your prospect is not sold or in love with your idea – if you haven’t managed to get him fired up about what you do and how you do it, then it matters not how relentlessly you close or how delicately you tread, the deal is DOA regardless! Any prospect that tells you, after pressing them for a deal or some form of conditional obligation, that they are not going to move forward because you are too pushy or because you are “pressuring them,” was never, ever going to do the deal in the first place.

Prospects that cry “high pressure” are, quite frankly, full of shit. Blaming a deal’s demise on pressure is the last dying gasp of a suspect who is just as terrified of saying yes for fear of regretting his decision as he is apprehensive to “just say no,” god forbid he realizes later that he has missed an incredible opportunity.

Don’t get me wrong, a clumsy, awkward salesman can certainly turn off a legitimate prospect. Acting like a bull in a china shop, full of unqualified assumptions and false sincerity during the initial pitch when you should be full of relationship building passion, relevant angles, and professional needs analysis questions will absolutely leave a nasty taste in a prospect’s mouth. And, if you hard close prematurely, before the prospect is sold lock, stock and two smoking barrels, then you will most likely appear inept and gauche. You will be viewed as a rank amateur, the kind who bunglingly endeavours to ram a sale down someone’s throat. However, if you have wined, dined and delivered one mother of a pitch, if you have sparked a love affair between the prospect and your concept and confirmed as much by asking strong qualifying questions, then it is incumbent upon you to motivate him to take action. You owe it to yourself and the prospect to not only present a clear and decisive path, but to confidently prompt and urge him to act on what it is he claims to be enamoured with. Under these circumstances, you are not going to blow anything by asking a prospect to commit. Someone who genuinely wants to buy understands the way business is done and appreciates a professional and firm approach. At worst, the real prospects and true decision-makers will be happy to offer a clear and legitimate explanation as to why they may not be able to move forward straight away and will be completely open to the suggestion that they put some skin in the game by promising action later if certain conditions are met.

By not going weak-kneed, by not cowering like some chicken-shit tenderfoot and avoiding the tough questions and if/then proposals, you are doing your prospects, as well as those that are suspect, a very generous service. For the buyers, you are showing consideration and respect for their position by offering them guidance and giving them what any true decision maker wants and respects: a clear, no-bullshit call to take action, an opportunity to be a decision maker and decide! And, for the liars, you are giving them the opportunity to either save face by blaming your “aggressive” manner for the deal’s demise (revealing them for the suspects that they are) or to simply admit what it is they were initially too polite or politically correct to say, that your concept (or pitch) flat out sucks and that they have no interest – “Goodnight Irene”!

Do not stake your career, your victories or your deals on a wing and a prayer. Count on obligation and commitment exclusively, they are your only true friends in a world rife with fear, political correctness and obfuscation. They will expose the ineffectual, the decision fakers, the bureaucrats and apparatchiks as efficiently as their use will garner the respect and loyalty of solid, tough decision-makers, multiplying your relationships with those that matter most (the power players). In the end the world might not always love a closer, but they will forever admire one.

Lawrence Rosenberg

Back in the late 1980’s, the Honda Motor Company ran a memorable series of commercials, the basic premise of which was that the company’s cars were so amazing, they sold themselves. This commercial’s “hook” was that it featured a salesman who was bored out of his mind and had nothing to do because the cars were so in demand they were practically walking off the lot. The brand’s slogan at the time was “Honda, the car that sells itself.” Ha! Only in a commercial, the irony of which is that the “car that sold itself” needed a massive and clever advertising campaign, plus an army of slick, fast talking (real) car salesmen to actually sell the damn thing.

As anyone who has spent any time in sales knows, nothing sells itself. You could promise the world for little more than a song and your prospects would be more likely to run for cover than beat down your door. No offer, no matter how grand, stands on its own two legs. And, you should never hope to find something so easy to sell that prospects will jam your phone lines to buy it, because if it did not take intense effort and creativity to sell your product or service, then your unique abilities and skill set would no longer be needed. Any pencil-pusher would be able to do your job and get paid an order taker’s hourly wage to do it.

There are dynamic and powerful reasons why the sales profession pays so well, among them is the fact that you are tasked with becoming a force strong enough to excite and motivate prospects left jaded and impatient from a never-ending barrage of boring, tedious proposals pressed on them by hordes of lackluster, mediocre salespeople. To do that, to shake awake a prospect so that he not only pays attention to your pitch, but actually becomes inspired by what you have to say, you better have one heck of a story to sell, and you better be ready to sell it! To truly have a shot at the big time, you had better learn to become a cold calling raconteur, a sales floor orator.

Is that how you currently approach your sales presentations, with a storyteller’s flair for captivating the imagination? With a pitch full of taut urgency, a story dotted with cliff-hangers and bristling with excitement, leading up to a furious climax that demands your audience becomes a part of your extraordinary idea? Are your prospects buying your story? Because, when a prospect says yes, it is your story that just got sold.

Purchasing your product or service is your prospect’s way of riding a wave, your wave. And, when they finally take delivery of what it is they purchased, if your end product or service is high quality and power-packed, then there is nothing as fulfilling as money well spent, especially to a decision-maker. They will come back again and again and, if handled properly, they will become clients for life, because to take that leap, to roll the dice and be rewarded for an emotion fuelled judgment, is to be validated for being a risk-taker, for daring to go where most do not. Any decision-maker worth his salt will tell you that there is nothing like taking a shot and getting it right!

So, does your story stack up? Does your pitch ignite that all important spark that is so necessary to motivate a prospect to do the one thing that all true decision-makers really want to do: take bold, decisive action? There is no room in our business for those who, when given the opportunity to broadcast, merely offer a bog-standard narrative, a bland recital of the details presented with the cardboard stiff execution of a weatherman. People don’t want a weather report; they want the movie “Twister” or “The Day After Tomorrow.” They want to be thrilled and chilled. They want their emotions evoked and their spirits lifted.

The issue of “pitching tame” or “pitching game” came up last week when questioning one of my newest salesmen about how successful his day had been. He was flustered because, although he had gotten the opportunity to pitch a number of decision-makers that day, he was unable to make it to the end of even one of his sales presentations. The guy was being blown off, cut off or slammed at every turn. After listening to a recording of one of his presentations it was clear to both of us just what was causing his prospects to cut and run: his pitch was as boring as watching paint dry! Was it informative? Yes, it was. Was it detailed? Absolutely. Was it interesting? Hmmm. Was it worth buying? The product, hell yeah! The pitch, hell no! The sales presentations given by this otherwise hard working and dedicated rookie were coming off as just another insipid intrusion on a decision-maker’s busy and bustling day. It turns out that his story, as well as his delivery, was cut-and-dried and conventional, it was cumbersome. We talked at length about how to set his pitch ablaze, about using electrifying and riveting speechcraft and injecting a hot dose of adrenaline into his vocal chords. It was time for our young upstart to get on the podium and preach the gospel!

Bear in mind: no matter how remarkable your product or service, if your pitch is not worth the money you are charging, then neither is what you are selling. If it were, then you would craft a presentation that lived up to your product or service’s true potential. What you would not do is inundate a prospect with a lackluster, robot-like, facts and figures download. There is a reason we call it a sales “pitch”! And, if you are not “pitching,” if you are not “throwing fire” and “hurling heat,” then you are nothing more than a second-rate, customer service hack.

Your pitch is the vehicle, the delivery system for your product or service, not the other way around. You are not a spectator or bystander in the sale, you are the damn sale! Live up to the power and majesty of your profession. You are a Pitchman! You are also a professional closer, but unless you start juicing up your presentation and making your story worth the price of admission, the only thing you will be closing is your checking account for lack of funds.

Wake up! Get excited! Pitch like a man on fire. Pitch like a man possessed. Watch the deals roll in. Watch your clients come back for more. Watch your wealth grow. Be the reason people buy, not the reason they don’t.

Lawrence Rosenberg

In business as in war, when faced with pain, confrontation or rejection most able-bodied men and women choose to pack up their bags and retreat. For the majority, the fight or flight response is typically activated in favor of turning around and running for the hills as opposed to wading headlong into the storm. And, as selling for a living involves enough pain and rejection to choke a horse, most avoid a sales career as if it were the plague. The rank and file will readily opt for safe, plain vanilla office work or blue-collar humping and lugging before they will ever consider the maverick, kill or be killed lifestyle of a professional closer. Better the monotony (and mirage) of a secure, stable job, one that guarantees a paycheck (no matter how mediocre) than to suffer through the discomfort of having hundreds upon hundreds of doors slammed in your face, and the frustration of an endless string of no’s to live through all day, every day. Never mind the incredible fortune an unrelenting closer is capable of generating, the sheer unpredictability of it all multiplied by the unease at having to push and cajole impatient and uninterested prospects propels your average “Joe the Plumber” to pursue a common, unexceptional job sweeping the streets rather than risking salary and certainty.

Now, I’m not saying that most working stiffs don’t bust their asses in these unremarkable, everyman jobs – far from it. It’s hard work lifting hundred pound cement bags 12 hours a day in the blazing sun. It’s bloody hard work digging ditches on bitter cold days when you’d rather stay in bed and nurse a raging hangover. I recognize and respect the blood, sweat and tears many a man sheds in an attempt to scratch out a life and I understand just how brutally tough and thankless these blue collar existences can be. However, as ball-busting as manual labor most assuredly is, it is also comfortable – as a matter of fact, it’s as comfort-zone as you can get. What?! Did you say comfortable?! Are you out of your mind Rosenberg?! Cleaning up construction sites six days a week or digging holes in the ground until your hands are cracked and bleeding is anything but comfortable I hear some of you shouting, so let me make this perfectly clear: Is it grindingly hard work? Absolutely! Hernia-popping? Without question! Thankless and unrewarding? Undoubtedly. Proletarian toil is all that and more, but it is also comfortable – it is comfortable because it is routine.

Wake up, dig the ditch, don’t think, don’t question, punch the clock, day in and day out – a robot’s existence ad infinitum. And, the money…let’s not forget the money. That unfulfilling, unrewarding, uninspiring remuneration you call a paycheck waits patiently for you at the end of every week, regardless of the heights to which you’ve risen or the lows to which you’ve sunk, that hourly wage is set in stone – no risk of blowing it, no risk of failure, no risk of going hungry if you don’t dig the day’s targeted number of holes, no reward for digging any more ditches than your colleagues because you’re faster, stronger and more ambitious – just follow the routine and all those nickels and dimes are yours – guaranteed! Waiting tables, flipping burgers, sweeping the streets, it’s no one’s idea of paradise. In truth, it’s a miserable existence without prospect or possibility – but it is safe, it is secure, and it is comfortable.

People sacrifice their hopes and dreams every day of the week, selling their souls for the safe road, the routine, the path of least resistance. They sell out at the expense of a future because for most failure and rejection are far more painstaking and heartbreaking in the short term.

Making it as a professional closer on the other hand, well that’s just as hard as laying bricks, but it is also extremely uncomfortable. Risking a paycheck and a safe, routine job in favor of taking your shot and going for broke as a fly by the seat of your pants, gun slinging, eat what you kill closer is anathema to the herd. The resistance and rejection, the struggle to win, is mind-cracking and rife with the type of fear (fear of the unknown) that the common man refuses to face. Fear of loss, fear of rejection fear of the word no. “No, I will not put you through to the boss!” “No, I do not have the time to listen to your sales pitch!” “No, we do not have a deal!” “No, there isn’t a commission check waiting for you at the end of this week!” That kind of existence is way too intimidating, uncomfortable and unnerving for most. For the huddled masses, mediocrity and invisibility is preferable to a life filled to the rafters with rejection and the never-ending possibility of failure after failure.

Even those with the courage to take a shot at a sales career are not immune to the “comfort-zone coma.” The unwillingness to get uncomfortable and slug it out on the path of maximum resistance is the single biggest reason why most salespeople completely fail in their attempts to generate the kind of income possible from what would otherwise be home-run money-spinning career. It’s frustrating and uncomfortable spending months trying to bash through or find a clever way around a hardened gatekeeper in order to get the real decision-maker (the Chief) on the phone, instead of giving up and pitching the boss’s minions. It’s unsettling and uncomfortable rebutting all manner of objections and closing over and over again well after the prospect has already told you “no”, or even worse: “maybe later”.  It is so much easier to punk out and take the path of least resistance, even if, in the long term, the pain and frustration of not having all the things you dream about far exceeds the short term discomfort you feel when you willingly put yourself into edgy situations with prospects or push yourself beyond the cold-calling pain-barrier to work harder, longer and more intensely than your competition.

As a professional closer there comes a moment, often many, many times a day, where you are faced with two roads, one leads you to the comfort-zone, the other to pain, frustration and discomfort. One road is safe, easy and comfortably numb, the other prickly and unnerving. One leads to perpetual misgiving and underachievement, the other to glory, money and power. Be that as it may, in the heat of the moment, when faced with the choice of which road to choose most are blinded as to just where these two divergent paths will lead. When the moment of truth arrives and you are forced to decide whether or not to wake up two hours earlier, whether or not to stay at the office a few hours later or whether or not to ask for the business one more time and risk the ire and invective of your prospect, all that most really see is the immediate pain and discomfort that taking the distressful action will generate. However, you don’t have to go down without a fight, this can be your Damascene moment – the instant when you choose to change everything. The very second your mind conceptualizes that your actions will lead to pain and discomfort is the instant when you must walk into the knife pointed at your throat!

The unnerving sensations that a distressing situation produces is not a warning to back away, it is your signal to advance, to move forward. How do you know that your actions will lead to long term achievement or to phenomenal success? If it is bristling and uncomfortable then it is the right path, period, end of! Let the short term discomfort and uneasy feelings that taking overt and aggressive action generates be your guide to knowing exactly what to do and when the hell to do it. And, when an opportunity arises to take the hard way in or the coward’s way out, press on with the tough route, the bumpy road – have the mettle to get hardcore and uncomfortable.

If your job does not present you with unsettling, unnerving predicaments daily, situations where to do might mean to die, then you are wasting your time and wasting away, doing only what it takes to exist. In order to ensure a booming and prosperous future, one where you call the shots, set the terms and reap the bounty, your actions must lead you down the path that the listless are too tired to walk and the gutless too fearful to tread.

Lawrence Rosenberg