Sales Ninja Killer Newsletter

During father’s day, i took my dad out for dinner and then to the movies. We watched The Karate Kid. The new one of course. The old one is with Mr Miyagi, the new one is Jacky Chan playing Mr. Han. My father enjoyed it, i was ok with it. Karate Kid is not the only old movie that is now a new movie. Terminator, Indiana Jones or Nightmare on Elm Street are all old movies.

My point is, old stories still work in the new world. So if your sales manager told you an old story of how he/she used to close the sales, the old story is still valid, all you need to do is a remake. The content remains, just the ‘style’ could be different. So don’t just discard some old stories and say, ‘last time is different, the world has changed’. Yes, last time is different and the world has changed but – fundamentals don’t change. Basics of selling is always the same, understand buyer’s need and wants, give a good solution that solves their problems or that improves their situation.

Don’t say, it doesn’t work, ask yourself, how can i make this work. Ask the right question and get the right answer.

Hanzo Ng
SalesNinja Grandmaster

Been selling for 10, 20, 30 years? That’s great. Or was it 1 years experience repeated 10 times? In Sales Ninja world: Experience ≠ Results. Experience gives you a higher confident level because you are familiar with the product or the process. The key question here is, are you producing more sales and making more money every single year? If yes, i congratulate you, keep practicing what you are doing because results matter. If your performance is not going UP, then here are 2 suggestions for you:

1 >> Keep pushing yourself. Remember when you got started? How blazing your fire was? How much time you spend hitting the floors and punching the numbers on the phone to get appointments? The more years you are in selling, the more it turns you into an order-taker, mostly doing visitings and servicings and taking orders from your customers. That’s not selling.

I have a public listed client who dominates the market with more than 50% market share. With over 20 years in the business the relationship with the clients are solidly strong. The CEO launched a new product and wants the team to sell it to the clients. The results were miserable. Experience field reps with strong relationships with their existing customers unable to cross sell other products. Why? Very experienced sales people, but they forgot how to sell, they were servicing. Which leads me to point number 2…

2 >> Go back to the basics. Selling is all about mastering all the basics and practicing all the basics. It does not matter how experienced you are, you must use the basic skills of selling at all times. The more i conduct sales trainings in Malaysia or for that matter any other countries across the world, the more i realize how important mastering the basics are. Most sales people know the basics, but they have not mastered all of them. They just do a few of this and a few of that. That’s not Sales Best Practices. It’s called Sales Best Practices because it must always be… Practiced!

No skilled athlete or fighter is going to say, i’ve swinged a few times, i’m the master, i don’t need to swing anymore, let’s do something else. Michael Jordan is famous for a story of him shooting 1000 baskets in his practices before he stops. That’s practicing the basics. A fighter before a battle practices straight punches, the most basic of all punches, but he/she keeps practicing that, why?? Because that’s Best Practices – it must always be practiced!

My view is this, it does not matter what you know or how much you know or how long you’ve been selling. It’s results – period!

Unconventionally,
HANZO NG
Sales Ninja Grandmaster

© 2009 onwards Sales Ninja Training. All Rights Reserved.

Hanzo Ng is Sales Ninja Grandmaster, lingo for Chief Trainer of Sales Ninja Training, Asia’s #1 Unconventional Sales Training. Sales Ninja Training specializes in helping small-medium, listed and global companies transform their sales people into the ultimate sales professional known as Sales Ninja. For more information on our sales, motivation and leadership trainings, visit http://www.SalesNinja.com

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I will now start writing a series of posts relating what i know about martial arts to sales, to selling. Obviously the philosophies and principles are general enough to apply to life. So think beyond the context and be creative in the application. I have 3 black belts in martial arts and it has definitely taught me so many things. To start off, all martial artists begin with what kind of belt?

Begin With White Belt

Start with the fundamentals. Make sure you master the basics of selling. Don’t get trapped into learning some advanced techniques that can short cut your way to success. Learn one step at a time. The beginning is going to be hard but it is also the most important. Begin hard and end easy. If you begin easy, you will end hard. If you don’t pay attention to your White Belt, you will miss the crucial things that will grow your bank account.

In martial arts, the best techniques are also those you learn in White Belt - straight punches, basic blocks, front kicks. Those ‘advanced’ flying kicks are not practical in real fighting situations. They look good in martial arts demonstration but are useless in group fightings. So do you know what are the White Belts of selling? Are you the master of all the basic of selling? Which area can you work on? Always remember, even though you are a Black Belt in sales, a veteran, a senior with lots of experience, don’t lose your edge in the basics of selling. Polish your White Belt skills today.

Unconventionally,
HANZO NG
Sales Ninja Grandmaster

© 2009 Sales Ninja Training. All Rights Reserved.

Hanzo Ng is Sales Ninja Grandmaster, lingo for Chief Trainer of Sales Ninja Training, Asia’s #1 Unconventional Sales Training. Sales Ninja Training specializes in helping small-medium, listed and global companies transform their sales people into the ultimate sales professional known as Sales Ninja. For more information on our sales, motivation and leadership trainings, visit http://www.SalesNinja.com

   Click here to subscribe to Sales Ninja Killer Newsletter

I just bought a new Toshiba notebook about one month ago:

The funny thing is, after playing badminton last Sunday, had a little chat with Calvin. He’s apprently going to China to manufacturer his own products. Now, all this while i’ve known him to be a distributor of computer peripherals. I was talking to him about Windows 7 and the topic of i just bought a new toshiba came up and he said… You just bought a Toshiba? Didn’t you know i also sell Toshiba notebooks? Well No! I didn’t know he sells Toshiba, Dell and Compaq notebooks.

So i got a question for you, do your customers or prospects or friends know exactly what you sell? How effective are you in building an army of associates out there selling for you? But first, they need to know what we do. Begin right now, tell everyone you know what is it you sell, update them on new products you just added to your list of products and ask them for business or referrals.

Unconventionally,
HANZO NG
Sales Ninja Grandmaster

© 2009 Sales Ninja Training. All Rights Reserved.

Hanzo Ng is Sales Ninja Grandmaster, lingo for Chief Trainer of Sales Ninja Training, Asia’s #1 Unconventional Sales Training. Sales Ninja Training specializes in helping small-medium, listed and global companies transform their sales people into the ultimate sales professional known as Sales Ninja. For more information on our sales, motivation and leadership trainings, visit http://www.SalesNinja.com

   Click here to subscribe to Sales Ninja Killer Newsletter

It does not matter what job function you are in, you have to sell. If you don’t deal with people, you don’t need to sell. Most of us deal with people so selling is important. If you can’t sell, you can’t get things done, no one will listen to you, no one will help you. In small companies, they all know they need to sell, but in larger ones, they leave the effort to the sales team. Big mistake! Everyone who interacts with customers or prospects should and must sell. Especially in tough times, everybody needs to come together and sell.

I was in a hotel in Penang for training. I left the computer running and internet on while I go for dinner. When I came back, the Internet got disconnected and I couldn’t get in. So I called the lobby and I was directed to their tech support. Tech guy called and was coaching me on what to do to get the configuration going. I told him, why is your internet speed so slow? He said something ‘remarkable’, he sold me on a great idea, here it is…

He said, well, the management is cutting cost and they are mainly a group of penny-pinching dudes who don’t understand the importance of upgrades. That’s why the internet is slow. Oh wow. What a fantastic selling pitch yes? Like I said, everyone sells. In this case, the tech guy sold me on the idea that I wasn’t going to get fast internet speed for a long time in this hotel. Question for you, what are your non sales people selling to your customers? Better find out and train what they should sell…

Some things to consider when training your non sales people to sell. Make sure they understand everyone sells, doesn’t matter if they are the delivery boy or vice president of operations. Next, 3 things are important to train them on. 1: introducing your company, products and services. In classic sales, they call it the elevator pitch, it’s basically a short presentation on what makes you special. In Sales Ninja we call it Positioning.

Everyone in your company needs to have a standardize introduction, very important especially if you talking to someone outside your industry or if you are a small company. Everyone knows Nokia but not many know Nanotech Solutions for example. And just because you have been around for the last 10 years doesn’t mean everyone knows you. For a start, train them on this.

Next, train them to look for opportunities to sell. Selling is helping. So when they hear there is a gap or problem or situation that the associates are having, they need to jump in and sell. The more advanced sellers create needs or opportunities, but for non sales people, at the very fundamental, they need to have their radar on for selling opening. Say your company sells advertisement to survive, what is the opening here for non sales people? If they hear some company’s revenue is shrinking, bang! If they hear some company is launching a new product, bang! If they hear some company is changing their strategy, bang! There are so many opportunities to jump in. So train your team to look for them.

Three, train them to tackle objections. Sales term we call it Tackling/handling/preventing/managing objections. In non sales terminology – simply correct the audience’s feedback or concerns. Say you are the admin executive for an automobile company that sells China brand cars. One day you are having tea with some friends and one joker decided to bang on Chinese made cars are a joke. That one may drive the car and the tires may suddenly fall off. While it’s a joke, it can also hurt your company. Even though you are the admin exec, you need to jump in and ‘correct the facts’ because people misrepresent the facts and you need to sell them the ‘right facts’.

So there you go, 3 immediate things you can do to ensure Everyone Sells. Train them on how to introduce your company, products and services. Train on how to look for opportunities to sell. And train them to correct the facts.

Unconventionally,
HANZO NG
Sales Ninja Grandmaster

© 2009 Sales Ninja Training. All Rights Reserved.

Hanzo Ng is Sales Ninja Grandmaster, lingo for Chief Trainer of Sales Ninja Training, Asia’s #1 Unconventional Sales Training. Sales Ninja Training specializes in helping small-medium, listed and global companies transform their sales people into the ultimate sales professional known as Sales Ninja. For more information on our sales, motivation and leadership trainings, visit http://www.SalesNinja.com

   Click here to subscribe to Sales Ninja Killer Newsletter