How To Episode 2: How To Cold Call

Posted on 5 August 2013 by Maya Saric

The first part of the process is, can you really do it? It looks easy and many people think that anyone can do it. We all have phoning blitz or a called calling day, get the whole company out there, do a bit every day or have some major function where we all get out there on the street and hassle up some new business – but less than 5% of the sales population, now that’s 5% of the sales population, not the total population, can actually do it.

The first part of how to cold call is to find out if you are able to because you don’t want to spend. This is the hardest part of the sales cycle. Despite it looking so simple, you don’t want to spend endless hours following my instructions first of all and perfecting your script or rehearsing your technique only to find that really you can’t do it. It’s going to slaughter your energy. It’s going to make you feel miserable and dejected and horrid.

First of all, do our Sales Inventory Profile IQ system. It will identify a whole bunch of things about your selling ability and one of those is whether or not you can cold call. If you can cold call, then develop the skills Then, prepare a magnificent killer script, rehearse it to depth so that it performs naturally and practice it to a whole bunch of people before you start doing it with prospects. Because cold calling regardless of how clever you think you are or how magnificent your product is, take the whole bunch of energy. It’s really emotionally draining.

So, how do you develop a killer script?

There are 3 key components. The first 10 seconds is the most important. In the first 10 seconds, you want to do only 2 things. You want to identify yourself in the simplest, clearest way possible, and you want to give them a reason to listen. A reason a listen so that you can interrupt their current activity. You can bring their attention to you and your content. They will make all sorts of polite noises about whether or not they are listening. You can ask them on what hours they come home, if they’ve got a moment to talk and most polite people will say yes certainly. But what you really want to do is slice through their attention so that you’ll have a 100% of it yourself, that is about what is in their current environment that you can fix. So the first 10 seconds is about knowing what pain your product will address and clearly articulating how in those first 10 seconds.

When you introduce yourself that’s, “Hello, this is Maya.” That simple, right? That clear. My name is a bit harder than hopefully yours is, but you don’t want to say, “Hello, this is Maya from Corporate Coach. That’s just too many words. And why do you want to listen to me? Because I know how to improve cold call outcomes. That’s the biggest pain that most of my prospects are in, is their ability to generate cold call outcomes. “Hello. My name is Maya. I’d like to talk to you about increasing your cold calling rate.” Those are really clear why they should listen to me and it has identified a specific pain that my business can address.

Next is, how your product does that and the final thing is getting permission to take further action. In the middle is a little bit about your product and how you do that. Then, is the permission to proceed.

What is the next step that you can gain permission for during that one cold call? Is it to meet in person? Is it to send them some information? Is it for them to attend an event? Is it to do some sort of demonstration? Be really clear about what you’re trying to achieve. Introduce yourself and your product and then ask permission to proceed to the next stage.

First of all, find out if you or your staff can in fact cold call, then get really clear about the script and do some rehearsing before you engage with clients.

Lovin’ the series? Check out How Resumes Are Killing Your Business here.

How to choose a Business Coach

Posted on 26 July 2013 by Maya Saric

Lets leave aside the question of when do you need a business coach and skip to: How do you choose the right one for you?

I often hear comments by people trying to sell their coaching services that only current superstars in any profession have the right or capacity to coach others to excellence.

Really?

What I think all good coaches need to have is not the ability to perform particular activities well themselves, but the ability to bring to consciousness your performance on those activities so that they can help you improve. But – changing human behavior is a difficult thing. Thus, the profession of coaching has moved into the business world as the bridge between classical training, i.e. giving people new information about how to perform tasks and creating sustainable changes in behavior.

Coaching is about helping people move from ‘knowing’ to ‘doing’. That is a complex process.

A good coach – a coach that will give you the outcome of better performance – is one that is able to translate your current performance, which you may be unconscious of, into consciousness, then help you to improve from there. A good coach is someone who understands the psyche of the human being; how to guide people through change; how to support people through levels of insecurity and fear and doubt, all of which dominates the process of change and learning; who are able to guide you through that process, and bring to consciousness your abilities. Then they have a good long look at where you’re currently at, how much runway you have ahead of you (i.e. ability to change) and formulate a plan that has absolute clarity from your perspective about how to make changes in your current behaviors to create a performance improvement.

I often hear coaches selling their personal sales success as the key to being good sales coaches. You know, currently, the best blah, blah, blah in the whole planet, or, the most squirms of any human ever blah, blah, blah. Well congratulations on your personal success! But often these people are successful, but can they coach someone else? They may have a great natural grasp of their topic and they may have been on a journey of growth, maybe they’ve received support or good training from somebody else and they have merged all of those things together into a system that works really, really well for themselves. Their intuitive knowledge, their education, the support they’ve received from people around them whether that was from an official coaching process or just from the warm and the encouraging words of their peers or their parents or sometimes even the insults and challenges that they’ve received, that they’ve been able to rise and prove them wrong.

But, as a coach, how do you recreate that process to another person?

How we motivate ourselves, how we change, how we responded to fear, how we deal with the uncertainty, these are the things that stand in the way of our success. And what you want in a good coach is somebody who knows how to systematically guide you through your fear, uncertainty, confusion, boredom, irritation, etc.

You don’t need a coach who is good at the individual tasks but has no consciousness of how they got good at these things themselves. A good coach is someone who is conscious of how success comes, and thus will be able to guide you through change.

I’ve recently saw this awful caption of “Is your Coach yesterday’s Hero?” Meaning, have they been a great performer in the past but have long since lost their touch. First of all, I find that kind of thinking offensive and secondly, it’s actually irrelevant whether the coach is yesterdays or today’s superstar in the performance of the actual activity. It would be like saying that you can’t coach Olympic athletes unless you were yourself currently an Olympic athlete. Unless you hold the world record in breaststroke, you cannot teach, or more to point, coach to excellence a current star in the swimming pool.

For more on training and improving your sales skills, check out our Emotions in Selling training blogs here

How To Episode 1: How To Recognise a Sales Person

Posted on 22 July 2013 by Maya Saric

You need staff and you need to interview a pool of candidates and see which one of them can sell.

There is a myth that some people believe that they can recognize sales people as soon as they see them, as soon as they chat. To some extent, that is true because during the chat, they will exhibit some of their selling abilities. Certainly, they will exhibit their communication style but whether that style is the right one for selling or not is harder to tell, so being able to be a good communicator is a really small fraction of the equation for being able to sell.

Another myth is that, it’s their energy, the twinkle in their eye, the spring in their step, their motivation, their ambition that really counts, so people that really want to succeed, that are passionate about selling or the product, or some other aspect of their life, this energy will exude when they are selling. This energy may indeed exude when they are selling but it isn’t going to help them sell. Their energy levels is about how interested they are in selling all their product which is certainly helpful, but their ability to sell is what’s crucial. There’s a huge chasm between being interested in something and then you are able to do it.

I have a great passion for quantum physics and a whole bunch of engineering topics but I’m never going to make an engineer because despite my passion and interest, I don’t have any of the relevant abilities. So we have a sales test that identifies the 75 attributes which you can never see in an interview that allows people to sell. It’s not a skill-based test because skills are something that people can develop, you can teach them, you can change them, and you make skills better. what you need is that they have the core capacity on which to build those skills. Find out if your candidates can sell before you interview them, before you get mesmerized by their passion and certainly do observe for yourself as many of those skills that they may possess, but remember the current skills can be topped up, that core capacity. It’s either there or it isn’t.

Visit our Facebook page and leave a message for Maya, or call her on 0407 005 290.

Next in the series: How to Cold Call

Spotting a Top Gun Listing Agent

Posted on 15 July 2013 by Maya Saric

Spotting a top gun listing agent in a 40 minute interview just from their external attributes is impossible…

As a Sales Psychologist with 20 years experience I have found in my research of top guns that they come in all personality shapes and sizes. There is no obvious type. Some are ego maniacs and brash however, as of yet I haven’t met one that is revolting.

I have also found that the very best can be humble and mild mannered in their external persona and can have a very ‘soft’ style.

Back in 1995 I conducted extensive research with a large group of known guns (i.e. new business agents with certifiable great sales results over more than two years). Using Clinical Psychology tools these guns were tested on 500 different attributes that it’s possible for a person to possess. The analysis showed they had 75 of those attributes in common and a whole bunch more that weren’t in common.

My research showed that the more of these 75 attributes you have, the more of a purebred Hunter you will be i.e. if you possess over 80% of these attributes then you can be classified a Hunter. You also need over 70% to be a good account manager style rep.

Hunters: Can endure prospecting, think on their feet well, compulsively persistent.

Farmers: need to plan and organise themselves in advance of engaging the prospect to perform well and be confident.

So a Farmer who has prepared well before an interview can appear to be a better agent than the-shoot-from-the-hip, off-the-top-of-my-head’ style Hunter. This is what we call in Real Estate as being “good in the lounge room”. But Farmers cannot prospect. Alone, farmers don’t get into many lounge rooms and they don’t usually persist long enough to get the listing.

But how these required ‘selling’ attributes combine with all the other attributes these people possess varies, to give them all very different external personas. That’s why it’s so difficult to spot these people accurately during an interview. Plus in an interview you are seeing them in a specific sales call and not at a time when it’s possible to exhibit any Hunter-only capacity.

There is one characteristic style all the pure Hunters have and that is an Exocet missile attitude to achieving the goals they set for themselves. For them, goals set by anyone else don’t work as an internal guidance tool, so they miss these targets.

So knowing all these differences, what can you do?

How to build sales results

Hire people who have enough of the required attributes to become listing agents. The only way to do this with confidence is to use the SIP recruitment system which incorporates a clinical psychometric to search specifically for these attributes. See www.salesinventoryprofile.com

Now that you have them in the business…train them. I cannot emphasise this enough. Capacity is a necessary foundation for skill. Skills are developed over time from training and practice. Like babies learning to walk, their capacity is inherent but to realise this they need to observe others walking and copy (starting with copying very badly). A good listing agent needs to see and hear lots of good techniques and then try them for themselves. If you leave them to work it out alone or observe the under performers in their environment they will be like babies who watch people walking with only one leg. They will eventual walk with a limp.

Traditionally we have spent very little time or money training new staff in Real Estate partially because most Principals are themselves still selling so their time is very scarce but more because 90% of new recruits will fail and the money, or time, spent training will be wasted.

This need not be true if you hire people capable of hunting.

Finally you need to manage or coach them over time to help them stay focused and energised. While hunters need to work alone, all humans are herd animals and perform better in groups over time. So a hunter is a very special blend of working best alone and needing to feel like they are being supported. The best way to do this is one on one with weekly coaching sessions. Again because of time constraints this can be difficult for business owners to provide, it can also be unwelcome by the staff if the Principal is a listing agent competing with their hunters. So if the business owner is still listing then you will need a Sales Manager or an independent Coach.

Interested in more sales training articles?

More on achieving Sales excellence | Read about how to change Sales Results in your Staff

Alternatively, to talk about getting your staff trained and coached, call Maya on 0407 005 290

Starting a Sales Career Part 1

Posted on 12 July 2013 by Maya Saric

In this short interview, Maya Saric – Sales Psychologist and founder of Sales Inventory Profile – will be talking to Eliza Doueihi, a member of the Sales Tribe team. Eliza starting with Sales Tribe as a Business Development Manager, moving on from her career as a Business Analyst. This interview looks at why selling – especially cold-calling – is so difficult, and the components of success in real estate.

Maya: Hello, welcome back. Today, we are talking to a sales person who has journeyed from watching from the sidelines to being her own personal superstar. Today, welcome, Eliza Doueihi, a member of the sales inventory profile team. Eliza you were in IT, tell us a bit about your pre-sales career.

Eliza: In my pre-sales career I was a business analyst role.

Maya: Yep. Sounds boring.

Eliza: Business specialist, basically. I’ve been in the company for quite a while and my ultimate passion was to get into sales. I love to talk to people and I really wanted to move to sales but my boss just love so much and he valued what I contributed to the business that he wouldn’t let me go. Really, it came down to that. it wasn’t though I wasn’t able to do it, it wasn’t that I couldn’t sell – because I’m sure if I got the right training, I could. It’s just that, he wouldn’t let me go. That was really frustrating. It’s where I wanted to be. then I got the opportunity to move into real estate and that’s when I started really building relationships and talking to people and helping them out, getting them to where they want to be.

Maya: Alright. So before you go into real estate, what was your perception, what did you reckon?

Eliza: Well, I thought it was crazy, and I thought this will be so good. I’ll be driving a Merc in 6 months time…and I have my home line paid off. My kids are going to be doing all of these extra things that they never dreamed of. I didn’t get that far but I’m getting there, the thing was, the challenge was the fact that I didn’t realize how much work was involved in building my profile within the community and building my sales, and building my pipeline – which is really critical to a successful sales person. It’s to keeping that pipeline of funnel filled.

Maya: Right. So real estate has to be the most popular sales job on the planet because it does look easy, doesn’t it?

Eliza: Absolutely. [Chuckles]

Maya: Those beautiful people wearing lovely business suits, standing at the front door greeting – that part is easy.

Eliza: Not in the cold winter morning, Maya! Have you ever done that? There’s frost on the grass, 8 o’clock in the morning. It’s not pleasant. Putting sign boards, it’s not pleasant. And I tell you that. [Chuckles]

Maya: Eliza is an Australian who had a small voyage into New Zealand land, but there are natural hazards as well. But, back to things, that part where you see them in the house and you first meet them is easy.

Eliza: Yes.

Maya: But what is the hard bit? Knowing, as the failure rate is astronomical.

Eliza: Okay, the harder bit is when you’re got that list of contacts that you’ve taken from an open house and qualifying them and saying whether they’re going to be buyers or they’re actually sellers having a bit of sticky beak. So it’s taking that list and work again basically. The other harder bit is the actual building up of your client base, so actually cold calling. Building relationships.

Maya: That has to be a dirty word, cold calling. Back to the ice and snow of New Zealand. Why is cold calling so difficult?

Eliza: You can imagine you’re picking up the phone and you’re talking to someone you don’t know what they look like, you don’t know what their situation is and you want them to trust that you know what you’re talking about, and that you’re there to will help them out.

Maya: They’ve never met you before and you’re probably ringing in the middle of dinner.

Eliza: Yes. That too. That too.

Maya: How many people survive that in the real estate world?

Eliza: Not that many. I’d say 5% to 10% of people can really prospect and cold call.

Maya: 5% of the population can cold call which is to pick up the list from the phone book or get on the street and knock. A small percentage can warm call, which is the ringing the people that came to see the house on the weekend. What’s the next component of success in real estate?

Eliza: The fact that you close the same I guess would be the next one. You’ve got a buyer there and they’re still trying to decide what they’re going to do and it’s just working out how you’re going to get them to that next level. That’s another challenge on its own. Working at negotiating price that’s going to suit both parties. It’s just basically…a sales person rings 2 people like in real estate, you’re bringing 2 people together. So you’re bringing a buyer and a vendor and working out, finding a common ground. That’s really what an agent does from a selling perspective.

Enjoyed this video? Watch Part 2 here. Remember to ‘like’ us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more videos!

Starting a Sales Career Part 2

Posted on 12 July 2013 by Maya Saric

Continuing on from part 1 this short interview Maya and Eliza talk about using SIP – the Sales Inventory Profile – to recruit people who can really sell, and why this is.

Maya: So Eliza, you’ve journeyed from not selling to selling, you’ve entered in an industry that you didn’t have any significant background in…what would you recommend to other people who are thinking of the same thing?

Eliza: I would highly recommend you find out if you can cold call, first and foremost. Because if you can cold call, then you are more than half right there. So, that’s the first thing I will recommend because if you can’t there’s plenty of other sales positions where you don’t need to make cold calls, whether it’s real estate or in other industries. There are jobs out there that you can still sell without that cold call but if you want to move into real estate particularly as a listing agent, you need to know if you can.

Maya: And how do you find out?

Eliza: You have to use SIP. That’s the only way you that you can find out if you can cold call. It’s the only accurate measuring tool that can tell you that.

Maya: SIP is a profiling system that allows you to see if you have the inherent attributes to sell even if you’ve never sold before like Eliza and allows you to identify whether you should be in a new business cold calling environment or more in the account management, or in retail which is sort of half way. What’s your recommendation to businesses looking for sales staff?

Eliza: My recommendation to businesses is, cold calling is critical to business growth. For you to have a staff that can’t cold call it means that you won’t be growing. You need to find out if the people that you’re recruiting can cold call and the best way to do that is to use SIP.

Maya: What would you say to people…I’ve often spoken to business owners who say, well I don’t cold call, so how can I possibly make them do it?

Eliza: I would say to business owners that say that, you’ve had the experience; you’ve been in the industry for a long time so you won’t need to cold call. You’ve already built the relationships. When someone comes in new into the industry, they need to cold call to build relationships. They need to fill that funnel, and it’s the only way to do it. If they can’t cold call, don’t take them on.

Maya: Right. So it is as simple as that. If they can’t cold call, don’t take them on. You as the business owner might have 5,10, 20 years experience and a reputation and a client base. They have a telephone. They need to be able to pick it up.

Eliza: I also remind them when they say that to me, to cast their mind back to when they first started. I’m almost 100% certain they would cold call to build that client base in their area, and to build the reputation they now have.

Maya: Right but like with all things that are painful and difficult in our lives, they’ve wiped it from their memories, right?

Eliza: That’s right. They’ve forgotten. They absolutely have forgotten.

Maya: There are no shortcuts.

Eliza: Right.

Maya: If you’re in a cold calling environment, it’s the phone and real estate is a cold calling environment to get the listing.

Eliza: Yes.

Maya: Eliza, thank you for your time.

Eliza: Thank you, Maya.

Enjoyed the interview? Check out our latest How-To Series. Happy watching!

Sales Myths Episode 5: Anybody can sell

Posted on 8 July 2013 by Maya Saric

Sales Myths: There’s no skill required to sell. Anybody can do it.

Indeed, there are lots of people who have tried to sell and failed miserably. The mutli-level sales organizations of the world would testimony to that. They have thousands of members but less than 1% of those are generating their revenue. It’s a very small percentage of the population. It’s less than 5% if you need to proactively make phone calls and initiate sales conversations.

Find out if you are one of those 5% before you waste your life and oodles of your money learning to sell when it just isn’t you.

Liked our series? Watch more videos: Starting a sales career

Sales Myths Episode 4: Selling is not a real career

Posted on 1 July 2013 by Maya Saric

Selling is not a real career. Indeed, many people do get into it by accident. But, 90% of managing directors having during their career been sales people. Sometimes for a long period of time, sometimes for 4 or 5 years, sometimes for 10 or 15. You cannot lead an organization without understanding how to generate revenue.

Selling is a skill that you can perfect and hone and develop if you have the real capacity. SIP — Sales Inventory Profile will identify that for you. If you’ve got it. You can make it. If you’ve got those attributes, you can then craft a really spectacular long-term sales career and perhaps management career.

Watch Part 5 here.

Sales Myths Episode 3: There’s only one sort of sales person

Posted on 24 June 2013 by Maya Saric

Sales Myth – the myth that there’s only one source of sales person. I have tested 30,000 candidates and I know that that’s NOT true. There are at least 2 types in the simplest definition. There’s the sort that can generate new business and there’s the sort that nurtures the existing client base. It takes totally different skills, perceptions, and style to successfully do those 2 different jobs.

The new businesses go out there into the world as people have to be agile, adaptive, fluid, sometimes they’re spontaneous, sometimes they shoot from their hip but that’s the sort of style they need to be able to work their way through the unknown respond to whatever comes at them with precision and become proactive in the smallest little nuance of opportunity they’re able to move themselves to effectively deal with it.

Account managers are very different. They will be effective when they’ve had plenty of time to think about, strategize, plan, thinking through the details of what does my customer need, where does my customer need to be in a years’ time. How will I help them get there? That is a stay-home-and-think process. If you interchange those jobs or if you interchange the people who have to perform those jobs, you will NOT get the optimal outcome.

You can keep the hunters at home, the new business people at home and make them tend to the crops. You can. They will be willing. They will think. Oh, lovely. I can rest. I will just, you know, have a chat to the existing customers because, you know, I created them probably 3 years ago, they will know me. It would be lovely to catch up with friends and have a bit of a yang. But if you keep your hunters at home, they become lethargic and stroppy and careless because to perform well, they need to stay on their toes and deal with the unpredictable.

You cannot make the farmers go and hunt. They are not able to do that, willing or otherwise. There are lots of times business do telemarketing of promotions for Christmas or something where they think they can get the whole company on the telephones, 5% of the sales force is capable of initiating a sales conversation. 15% are able to continue a conversation. That’s the account managers. So, be really clear if you are hiring people. What you need for this job and be able to identify them.

Sales Inventory Profile is able to identify, to the last degree which sorts of sales person, if at all, your candidate can become.

Bringing your more Sales Myths Videos here with Part 4.

Sales Myth Episode 2: Selling Ice to Eskimos

Posted on 18 June 2013 by Maya Saric

Another sales myth that is the most popular is that if you can sell, you can sell anything.

And a lovely cliché of selling ice to Eskimos. That is also not true.

There are several types of sales people and they perform better if they stick to their marketplace. So, there are people that can generate new business, and we often call them hunters and they have a series of different formal business names. And then, there are those people who can nurture and grow an existing client base, we call them account managers and farmers. They are not the same people.

If you move people between the two jobs, they will fail. The hunters who are agile, adaptive, fluid, capable of dealing with the unknown and that ultimately means people that are new to the business, new to your client base, will get bored and stroppy and lazy if you make them step on and farm. They won’t object though. They’ll agree happily because farming is easier, or it is to them anyway. So they’ll happily say, “Sure. I’ll take over the client base and the prestige of being the account executive,” but they would do a bad job for you.

On the other hand, the strategic long-term precise people who are really good account managers who can sit themselves down and really think about what they need to say and why and how, and prepare the tools that they’re trained, who don’t need to improvise and don’t like doing it. They cannot ___. Not just won’t they willing, they actually can’t. The different mentality. It’s a different skill sets. So, you will waste their skill and capacity if you make them go out and do it. Lots of businesses, when they’re short of cash just get everyone on the phone, let’s all make cold calls including, yes. I’m the managing director. I will sit down because I’m brave and I will do it with you.

Five percent of people are able to do that. Don’t torture and discourage and demoralize your staff by making them do something that they really cannot. It’s not about their willingness. It’s not about them being being diligent.

Find out more by contacting Maya.

Watch Part 3: Answering whether there’s only ONE type of Salesperson?

Sales Myths Episode 1: Willing to sell is able to sell

Posted on 14 June 2013 by Maya Saric

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The Importance of the Herd effect in selling

Posted on 10 June 2013 by Maya Saric

Having started in previous posts to talk about the role of fear and trust in selling, we now introduce two additional concepts; “herd” and “separate”. The Herd response signifies safety in numbers and falls into the trust side of the decision making process as they keep as safe. Much as media use the term “following the herd” as a negative concept it is fundamental to our nature as we as humans are, after all, herd animals.

The alternative to being part of the herd is to be “alone” and “separate”. Being separated is scary for most of us as humans; we only have to see psychology experiments which confine people in rooms to see how much it really affects us. Being alone and separate heights our fear response and subsequently triggers our expectations of danger or death. This heightened anxiety is no state for calmly making commercial buying decisions or splurging out on personal luxuries.

How does this relate to the commercial world? Being part of the “herd” is about staying with the majority, doing the things the majority are doing and definitely buying the things that the majority are buying. There are only a few brave souls who are able to explore uncharted territory, implement unproven technologies or make decisions without regard to the opinions and reactions of their peers. There may be a reasonable number of people showing interest in new products but few will take action and buy them while they are in the minority.

Obviously then, when making sales, you want your prospects to feel the comfort and safety of staying in the “herd” and keep them miles and miles away from this dangerous “alone” and “separate” zone where they associate themselves, or you, with danger during your sales call.

The first issue in the safety of the herd is whether they perceive you to be a trusted member of their herd or an outsider. Do you clearly belong to a herd they expect for the product you represent? Or do you appear as an obvious outsider of their herd or any they want to relate to? Your membership of the herd can be about simple appearances and dress code or it could be about the content of your conversations. Are you making them feel like they belong to a safe herd when they are talking with you? Or are you talking about things that are unknown and are trying to draw them away from what is known and safe?

Making prospects feel safe buying your service or product is easier if your product is well established with many testimonials, great client case studies or endorsements from people they trust and admire. As the old advertising said “no one ever got fired for buying IBM”. Getting fired is definitely a commercially dangerous outcome to be avoided by clients.

However if you’re selling something new to your market, no matter it’s obvious revolutionary benefits you are effectively asking your prospects to make a stance alone by taking the risk of a new product. To achieve the sale you will need to develop much more trust on other issues to compensate for the lost sense of safety being alone in a new market will trigger for them.

Stay tuned for our next installment about what motivates people to make decisions to change their current state including making decisions to buy new products.

The Role of Trust in Overcoming the Fear Filter

Posted on 7 June 2013 by Maya Saric

Continuing on from The Role of Fear in Selling where we looked at how the fear filter works, we continue to discuss the Trust barrier in selling.

To recap, the fear filter separates the Primal brain and its flee or freeze or flight response and the Modern brain with all its logic and rational decision making; it’s the bit that can make or break your deal. Expanding on this, this article introduces you to the critical Trust barrier and how it is the foundation of stable buying decisions.

As we established, the fear filter blocks your prospects from being able to think logically and rationally if there is any risk of harm in your sales processes. Now here’s another thing: the same filter, this same line, can stop data coming down to the primal brain where the ability to make a final decision resides. In short, information and data must pass UP to the Modern Brain and then DOWN again to the Primal brain for any decision to be made, as seen below.

This means that the information you give a customer and the conversation you conduct with a customer has to pass through two filters in order for them to make a decision. We talked about the fight or flight mechanism and the survival instinct.

As we mentioned, data doesn’t go up from the primal brain unless it’s not frightening, and when coming back down, the data will not come down from the modern brain unless it is trustworthy. And now we have the second filtering process – the Trust barrier.

Now say your information gets past the prospects fear filter the first time your prospects are able to make sound, rational and logic decisions thanks to the modern brain. This information must once again come down and pass the trust barrier.

So once again, your prospects are assessing the risk of decision. Will the decision to buy have any negative consequences? If it does then they will not make the purchase; that is, they cannot act on the decision despite having come to it in a logical and methodical way.

To optimise your prospect’s decision process, you need to be really conscious of how to communicate data so that it is absorbed by the logical brain and processed complete enough for them to make a decision that they can confidently act out.

Part of this is the way you explain things but an equal part is knowing their current knowledge and beliefs on this issue. Until you know what they already know and believe you cannot make sure the information you present will make enough sense to them to be trusted as correct and used reliable to make the decision to buy it. If you say something that contradicts their beliefs or they cannot understand completely they will not be able to use your information as part of their rational processes.

Next, we’re going to talk about the data you present to your prospects. Tune in for the next article on how to gain their trust, overcome the fear filter and the trust barrier, and sell your product/service.

More in the series: The Herd Effect and Selling

The Hunter vs. The Farmer

Posted on 31 May 2013 by Maya Saric

In our world, there are a lot more Farmer types than Hunter types. The people that interview and hire you, such as HR Managers, Sales managers, and even some Managing Directors, tend to be Farmers. This means that they are more likely to “buy in” Farmers to their organisation – and if you happen to be a Hunter, it is much harder to come across as someone they would like to hire, and much harder to show them your sales abilities in the interview if the interview is geared towards showing off Farmers’ skills. It’s like trying to show how fast you can swim, when you’re made to fly!

Bottom line: It’s important to know your sales style so you can present yourself well during an interview. If you are a natural new business style salesperson rather than an account manager styles you will most likely be the exact opposite of the people who hire you.

Know how you are coming across to ensure you are really understood and appreciated….and get the job!

All about SIP Recruitment: Why we write your adverts for you?

Posted on 22 May 2013 by Maya Saric

All about SIP recruitment program is that we write the adverts for you. We use your logo, your identity, and we write elaborate detailed adverts that are designed to attract a broader and deeper candidate pool.

So if you are a well recognized international brand, you may be swarmed with candidates. But to find those rare and few sales people who are suited to your job, we need as big a candidate pool as possible. The SIP software means that you only need to relate and to talk to the ones that are an exact match. So the staff who takes care of the majority of the people who are not going to be suited to your selling position, so it’s very time efficient. We attract the candidates. You only interview the small population who are suited to your job.

More videos about SIP: Why you should recruit with SIP

All about SIP Recruitment: Best Sales Recruitment tool in the world!

Posted on 21 May 2013 by Maya Saric

Sales Inventory Profile. I like to call it SIP, is the world’s best recruitment program because at its core is a selling IQ program.

We’ve recruited hundreds of sales people around the country; 70% of those are still in their jobs, 70%! That’s a huge retention rate for sales people. Many industries are averaging 10%. It’s a recruitment system. It has an IQ-based program at its heart that identifies the 75 attributes required to be successful at selling. From these attributes, we are able to detail exactly what’s in a sales person your candidate will become, whether they can cope which is really important to some new business jobs but not all. Whether they are generally a new business or account manager; and whether they have, if they are an account manager, the attention to detail and long term perspective.

We help you with the advertising so that you attract the biggest pool of candidates possible because the number that is really qualified is very small. The program does the short listing. Every candidate who applies to your role has to complete the SIP process, and then you only interview from the shortlist of people who are capable of doing your job.

More on how SIP started: A Lesson in History

All about SIP recruitment: A Brief History of SIP

Posted on 20 May 2013 by Maya Saric

Sales Inventory Profile. Its acronym is SIP and it has been in the market since 2008. The research was conducted in the mid 1990s.

When I was offering sales training, I was going around the world saying, “Let me help your sales team.” “Let me make them do better.” The biggest objection to my sales training was nothing to do with the training or the quality of the content, or its workshop material. The greatest objection I’ve got through the training was the candidates. My customers will tell me over and over again. No matter who we train them with. No matter what program we put them through. They’re not getting better. One of my clients said that he would spend all of his budget on finding out who could sell before he trains them, and that has been my mission since 1994. It is to work out who can sell before you recruit them and then before you train them.

So you got people in a company that might be good at selling, don’t move them across and say you got _____, find out before you move them. If you move people who are currently not in selling to a sales job and they failed, you’ve lost them forever. Nobody wants to go back to their old life, their old job. We’re able to test your current staff and find out if any of them has this heated dominant sales potential and we are definitely able to recruit only amongst that pool of candidates who are able to sell.

More about SIP and the value of recruiting with SIP for your business

The Role of Fear in Selling

Posted on 13 May 2013 by Maya Saric

We get it when salespeople freeze up in fear when they start out. But what about when prospects refuse to listen no matter how convincing you are because they are in fear?

How does this work and how do you help them overcome this and close the sale?

To understand how to achieve anything , we need to look at the psychology of fear – the why’s, what’s and how’s of customer fear and overcoming it.

Let’s have a look at this diagram of a person’s head. Let’s pretend it’s transparent so we can see what’s going on inside.

Now at the very top of your spinal cord is the first part of the brain. That’s the part of the brain that all animals have in common. Among its medical terms, It’s also called the primal brain.

All animals have that sort of brain at the top of their spinal cord, and what that is designed to do is take in information from the senses. Your eyes, your nose, your mouth, from your body in terms of touch and your ears.

Now what does this primal brain do with all that information it receives from the senses? Essentially, it is responsible for keeping you alive. It manages all of your bodily functions, eating, digestion, removal, and all those good things.

Why it is important to you to understand this process is that predominantly, it is also a fear filter. When something is coming in from the senses, it is the first and dominant decision processing facility. We’re talking about how people decide to buy the Ferrari, the house, or the new pair of shoes. It’s exactly the same process. So this is the bit that can make selling a huge pain for you.

The first thing we have to think about – our primal brain has to think about – is whether that data about the new shoes/car etc passes our fear filter. And if it doesn’t pass the fear filter, as you already would know, then the primal brain triggers the flight, fight or freeze response.

Activating the fear reactor shuts down the rest of the brain, turns off our modern and bigger part of the brain and sends data back to the rest of the body to flee or freeze or fight. It quite simply makes decision making impossible.

So you have to be careful and aware that when people walk into your shop, car dealership, or you enter their home as a real estate agent, you could be sending people into instantaneous freeze, fight or flee response.

So how does it affect my ability to sell if the brain is in fear respond mode?

As mentioned, when in fear response mode, the larger part of the brain, the modern one, will shut down, meaning it will not be able to process information for logic. So…logical thinking? Gone. Rational thinking? Gone. Decisions making is still working as that is in the primal brain, but after the fear response is activated the only decisions the primal brain is willing to make are about survival.

So until the fear reaction is resolved, no other useful processing will occur.

You can understand this through the diagram where the Modern Brain is being “blocked” by the Fear Filter. The Fear Filter can thus be seen as the gatekeeper to which the Modern Brain can be accessed (or not).

So really, if you have triggered the fear filter, nothing you say after that, nothing coming in from those ears is being pushed through to the logic part of your client’s brain. They are not thinking about return on investment or how glamorous they will look in that new Ferrari or how fashionable the new shoes are, or any other positive thing that your product gives them.

They won’t be thinking about any of it.

They will be feeling and acting on fear.

That’s something you need to be aware of in how you present yourself, how you present your product and how you conduct the conversation with a client.

So how do you get past this tricky fear filter and start selling?

Read on about the role of trust in overcoming the fear filter for the second part of the article.

Eliminate time-wasters and finish your to-do list!

Posted on 15 February 2013 by Maya Saric

Time management is an essential part of everyone’s lives. It’s particularly important for salespeople as if you’re not careful you will only spend 10% of your time selling. SO what really happens to the remaining 90%? Here’s a breakdown:

Since a whopping 90% of your time is spent outside of direct touch selling – effective time management is not just helpful; it’s Vital (with a capital V)!

Although we always talk of time management and getting organised – it’s hard to actually get started, especially when we have a million things buzzing through our minds and tasks continually piling, and piling and piling on our schedules and to-do lists. Selling isn’t called ‘life in the fast lane’ for nothing and that’s never going to change. It will never be quiet enough to make tidy detailed lists of EVERYTHING that needs doing.

What you need is an easy strategy to help you work out which 2-3 things you will make sure get done each day and how to priorities the rest to get most of it done.

So, firstly, just stop everything, take a deep breath, slow down and implement the following tips that you will read in this article.

Key Tip to Successful Time Management for Salespeople –

CLARITY.

Be clear on what your primary role is and your top 3 sales objectives.

If you have any doubt re-read your sales plan and the commission rules or if you are working for yourself you may have a business plan. If you don’t have a plan consider this; if there were only 3 financial targets you could achieve in 12 months what would they be?

PLAN EVERYDAY

Write a list of the activities that contribute most directly to your top 3 objectives above. If you are an account manager define your highest yield customers. If you’re a BDM or new business sales person define your target prospects for these objectives.

Schedule only these activities into the time of day when you are most effective. For some people this will be a personal choice based on your own productivity issues, like energy levels. For others your schedule is defined by some characteristic of your clients’ business or by the availability of an important resource.

Do not book more than half of the available time for these primary activities as no-one can maintain that level of concentration every day. This gives you the rest of the day to respond to immediate tasks that you could not plan for. As other activities arise during the day ask; ‘does this help me achieve one of my objectives?’ Or my favourite questions ‘will this help me close a sale?’

Then consider the most productive environment for your primary activities and if there any ways to boost your output. Perhaps you need to work away from your desk somewhere quieter to help with concentration; or just hide in a meeting room (café or car or someone else’s office) for a few hours to prevent interruptions. Perhaps you need to be away from your PC and all the electronic traffic. Saying you will only answer email or browse the internet for a specific time rarely works for most of us.

MAXIMISE YOUR ENERGY

Be realistic. No-one ever has time to complete all the tasks they would like to do or that are asked of them. To decide which ones you WILL NOT DO ask yourself a different question; ‘will not doing this get me fired/result in bankruptcy/land me in jail/lead to divorce?’ There will be some consequence in the tasks left not done so choose to complete the ones that contribute directly to your objectives and avoid the ones that will not create a disaster. For those second level jobs – they are neither a selling priority nor prevent disaster – fill your day to a reasonable level and sleep well at night knowing that you squeezed every productive movement out of your day and that no more was possible.

Take care of yourself.

Your body and your concentration are as much your tools of the trade as a phone or PC. Create some time each day to do something simple to recharge your batteries. On a sunny day take yourself for a walk for at least 10-15 minutes. Walk briskly or stroll and ponder but move your muscles, breath deeply, enjoy the sun and let the pressures of the day go for a moment. If you cannot walk, perhaps a drive or even some simple stretches away from your desk while you wait for the kettle to boil i.e. ‘move your muscles, breath deeply and let the pressures of the day go for a moment.’

Take an interest in nutrition and have real food available throughout your day. Don’t rely on having to drive out to buy everything each day as you may easily find your time too is tight and you’re having lunch from the vending machine and surviving on coffee and complimentary biscuits.

Learn a few stress relief techniques which you can do at your desk or in your car and finally sleep. Sleep, along with letting your muscles relax, is your brains why of tidying up and preparing for the next day. If you toss and turn when you go to bed, your brain hasn’t finished for the day. If it’s rehearsing for an important event then stay in bed so your muscles can continue to rest and let your mind rehearse. If your brain is full of activities not completed, get up; reach for your diary and start at the top of these tips by defining what is most important, which ones can feasibly be done, scheduling when to get it done and where you will be most productive; then return to bed.

More tips to help you prioritise (we recommend you print this off and keep it somewhere visible)

Set a monthly goal – calculate number of prospects/clients needed to hit that goal
Calculate the value of your time per hour by dividing your annual one target earnings by 1920 working hours per year
Designate priority time to make calls and prospect
Post your revenue goals somewhere completely visible and mark off as you progress
During work hours stay away from people who waste your time or make you feel low.

Reach those 2013 Goals without goal setting

Posted on 4 February 2013 by Maya Saric

Happy New Year! It’s always great to launch into another year; put the last behind and start afresh – of course, remembering what worked last year and learning from what didn’t – kicking off the New Year with renewed ambition and a whole new set of targets. It will be great to pull the team together and lay out the grand battle plan; 2012 was good but now let’s set the bar higher and get everyone working towards bigger goals – it’s an exciting time!

Now for the bad news – goal setting just doesn’t work.

Let me qualify that. Of course every good sales manager sets goals and of course these goals need to be communicated to the whole team concerned with achieving them. However these goals or sales targets in themselves have very little potential to generate the behaviour required to achieve the goals. If I can talk a little about the psychology of selling – after all that’s my main game! – sales targets have very weak motivational power for sales representatives who are experienced and capable; these representatives are in a comfortable space (relatively speaking,) and simply setting a larger sales target for them will not influence their work methodology greatly.

After all, what generates more leads and sales? Prospecting; and prospecting is seriously hard work. As a task in itself prospecting isn’t a huge amount of fun; it requires effort, discipline and resilience to stick with it until results start to flow from it. When a representative starts out fear of failure is a massive motivation to keep on prospecting hard. The situation of having no leads, no sales, no network of referrals or existing clients is extremely fear provoking and exerts a powerful pushing force upon the representative. Once a representative becomes more established, builds networks and has momentum from previous work generating ongoing sales then they find themselves in a safer place. They have moved some distance from the source of their fear which is no longer a powerful motivator. Motivations are now primarily about maintenance of this happy state.

How to encourage a representative in the “happy” zone to achieve more? Goal setting only provides a weak pulling force on the representative’s behaviour – not a pushing one. Anyone with a mechanical bent will know that it is much easier to push things than pull them.

In my sales training program Emotions in Selling I explain the Action Continuum to describe the process of motivation as it applies to understanding how prospects move to a decision to purchase. The psychology of this process also applies equally well to understanding how sales representatives make a decision to change their existing practice and perceive their own goals or “wants.”

Just as I train representatives to understand how and why prospects do or don’t make decisions to buy or in effect move from the position they are in I also like to help sales managers understand what motivates – and also demotivates – representatives from moving from the selling space they are in.

Those who have taken my Emotions in Selling course will readily understand why it can be difficult to motivate individuals to take a course of action which will actually benefit them – you are in effect asking the individual to cross a barrier; possibly even two barriers. And as is the case with prospects, even experienced sales professionals are subject to these same emotions and barriers.

Understanding why goal setting doesn’t work (or perhaps more fairly, why goal setting is a weak change driver,) is the first step. Knowing how to transform those goals into powerful change mechanisms is, of course, the answer to the $64- question; that’s a story for another blog ….

How will you drive yourself in 2013?

Posted on 1 January 2013 by Maya Saric

If something is truly important to us we are motivated to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Very few people think getting more money is important enough to endure the angst of prospecting.

To have people push through their pain they must be clear on how important the result of their prospecting really is; self pride, glory, respect, providing for their children. It has to be really important to them.

— Maya Saric

Hire the right Sales reps and training them will also be easier

Posted on 25 December 2012 by Maya Saric

We don’t expect to be able to do accounts in order to employ an Accountant. So…why do we expect to be great Sales Reps before we allow ourselves to employ great reps?

Can we really expect a new sales person to prospect when no-one here does?

Yes absolutely!

If you choose people because they can do it (SIP can spot them for you)

You hire them with the clear plan that they will do it.

They take the job knowing they will need to do it

AND

When they start you teach them how to do it!

They will do it!

If you have hired well, it is a simple process to get great results. Yet, without SIP, finding the right people will be hard.

— Maya Saric

Book your January Sales Makeover – Build sustainable growth in 2013

Posted on 19 December 2012 by Maya Saric

If you’re wanting to Grow your Sales team in 2013, we’re offering our selling, coaching and recruiting expertise for a FREE planning session in January.

Making big changes in your life, personally or in business, is one of the hardest things we all face. It’s that time of year and everyone is trying to change for the new year. But achieving sustainable growth alone is near impossible. So don’t let 2013 be yet another year of good intentions.

If what you want to change has anything to do with selling, we can help!

We are experts in building sales results, by improving personal skills, crafting sales strategies and recruiting new members to the team who can sell.

Yep we know how to attract and spot real sales aptitude and then turn that into sales results.

We would like to offer our sales expertise for a free planning meeting to help you change your sales results, personally or for the whole company in 2013.

Ring now on 0407 005 290 or email maya@salesinventoryprofile.com to book your meeting at our Sydney office or by phone.

More info about SIP here

Hit the right notes. Recruit the Right Salespeople.

Posted on 19 December 2012 by Maya Saric

The quality of people’s resumes amazes me every day of the week in terms of details, consistency, layout and logical flow. I read thousand’s of selling CV’s a year now and even years ago the trend is always that, the better the BDM skills, the worse their résumé. Given some CV’s are total works of fiction I don’t know why BDMs don’t at least make the detail up more often.

In regards to grammar and spelling, I postulate this is because the fast paced style of a BDM is incompatible with spelling and structured detail. When you deal everyday with technical writers this must be very glaring for you. I say this also in my own defense. I‘m sure you have found stacks of typos in my communication. I used to have a business partner (Mez is what he calls himself) who was more of an Account Manager-style Salesperson than me and he was mortified with some of the mistakes in my emails. I certainly didn’t notice any in Mez’s.

As for KPIs, clear territory definitions and achievements are usually missing – and that baffles me too. Certainly in clear BDM roles, people don’t survive for years at a time like Mez has done without bringing in the numbers. I wonder if not bringing in the numbers is the real explanation for why Alex (a good old Hunter style Salesperson and I suppose a Jack-of-all-trades when it comes to careers) has moved so often.

Also, good Hunters are also by nature, risk-takers and so, they are willing to move more often. Though our Alex seems to have some underlying problem as he keeps moving in and out of recruitment. Yet here is something for recruiters and HR Managers to keep in mind – it is this constant moving about that indicates someone who is happy to take risks (or actually adores it), happy to push past their comfort zones; a trait that may possibly indicate an exquisite Hunter-style Salesperson.

Warm regards,

Maya Saric

Managing Director – Corporate Coach Aust P/L

SIP helping you build sales results quickly and cost effectively by identifying people who can sell.

More information on SIP: Why SIP has no age limits

The Story of Sales Tribe

Posted on 13 December 2012 by Maya Saric

Stories are born every day in simple ways and some grow to be legends. Here is our story.

Sales Tribe gathered for the first time on November 26th 2012– a fresh Monday start, where a gathering of our small team (a mix of 5 women and 1 man) of sales, marketing and one industrial design professionals resulted in something quite magnificent, no need to be modest here – our final, collective brand which you all now know as Sales Tribe.

So there we were in Maya’s living room, the official ‘board room’ for Corporate Coach Australia and above the sales office for Sales Inventory Profile, gazing into the bamboo trees that shot to the ceiling.

Maya called the meeting because of our growing frustration that neither of our official names really sums up who we are. Our company is called Corporate Coach, reflecting our starting point as Australia’s first professional coaching service back in 1994. Now in 2012 we have grown and do so much more than Coach. Our second identity Sales Inventory Profile (SIP) is one of our products – a sales IQ technology. Problem is, that doesn’t reflect the total service that product is a part of – hiring people that can actually sell – does it?

It’s time for a new brand that captures all of our services equally. We are all pretty clear on who we are and what we do for a living- helping our clients build High Performance Sales teams…but that’s way too wordy, urgh.

So there we were, on this Monday morning, brainstorming what we should call ourselves?

Something that encapsulates who we are and what we do – or something simple and completely random (we were inspired by Virgin and Apple for example)? Most of us loved the random, every day mundane type of names that are easy to spell and create curiosity and impact. Maya threw out “Frog” just as an example, which had enough impact that it made it to the final round of evaluations – was it that Maya was in charge of the marker pen?.

We debated over whether we should position ourselves as “smart” or “team-oriented” through our brand. Should we call ourselves something that screams intelligence and performance like “Smart”, “Avance” or trend more towards building teams, and towards collaboration? Or perhaps something young, fun, feisty, female? Someone, I think it was Eliza, threw out Bamboo – strong, durable, fast-growth and something that presents our history, this was inspired by the bamboo trees at Maya’s. Nonetheless, Bamboo became another favourite.

So there we were that Monday. 15 minutes walked by, 30 minutes ran by, 90 minutes flew by as more and more names were added to our burgeoning list. People were on their phones, searching up words in the thesaurus, adding to our inspired ideas. Time came when we were rounding down to the Finals.

It came down to “Tribe” or “Smart”. It was a 3 to 2 for Tribe. Tribe it was.

Then came problem #2: upon searching online we quickly realised that we weren’t the only ones to love this exotic, primal title. Tribe.com was taken, and after searching other domains we settled on Sales Tribe – blending both a hint as to what we do (selling the World’s First Sales IQ Technology!) and what we build for our clients: Tribes.

After our 2 hours of our creative branding meeting, the “geek” (Maya’s word not mine!) in Maya did some background research on tribes. That night, our inboxes received a small email from Maya about why Sales Tribe really is an awesome and suitable name for us.

So what is Tribe – and why does it fit us like sun-and-shine?

Here’s what Maya found and why she adores our new identity:

tribe (tra?b)
— n
1.	a social division of a people, defined in terms of common descent, territory, culture, etc […]
5.	stockbreeding a strain of animals descended from a common female ancestor through the female line

“This last one really appealed to me as I am a Taurean and that is symbolised by a boy cow (yes I know what they are called and that also has lots of negative selling connotations, ie BS) but the idea of growth and lineage based on the female genetic line and the other meaning of tribe being one third of the Roman empire seemed a great name for a huge organisation (soon to be empire) lead by a woman, a mother and a Taurean.”

That is the story of how Sales Tribe first gathered in an office in Sydney. No birds or bees – just great ideas from great minds. November 26^th, a Sagittarius. Just a small side fact; Beethovan, Churchill, Maud the Queen of Norway and Tina Turner (and Eliza Doueihi) are/were Sagittarians too. That’s definitely saying something about Sales Tribe’s future; look out for us!

Curing Mondayitis: The first steps to becoming a Sales Star in real estate!

Posted on 13 December 2012 by Maya Saric

This is it, the last straw; it is the season for change. Your current career is not challenging you, nor motivating you. And someone hit you on the head for saying this but you are sick of getting paid to kill a 9 to 5 Every. Single. Day. Of. Every. Single. Week

So your morning routine probably starts off with something like this: “*Disgruntled moan* Another boring day at work!” When Friday comes you sing along to that terrible “Friday song” by that terrible teen. Come Sunday anxiety rises and your body feels a little heavier. So why are you still there? Well because it’s normal to go: “Don’t we all hate Mondays? Aren’t we all bored endlessly by work?” You just don’t have a choice, right?

…Not right. You do have a choice. A choice to (finally) step out, turn things around, revolutionise your world.

We know you have seen them, pulling up in a fast car, professional and sleekly dressed, closely shaved (for the men) or for the ladies, wearing those pair of heels you have had on lay buy all year? These People-that-radiate-confidence walk out holding their “For Sale” sign, and you think “They are working on a Saturday….what torture!”

But do they look like they’re being tortured? They’re smiling, beaming with confidence, shoulders back and heads held high. They don’t look like underpaid, grumpy employees forced to work – no, they’re victorious and loving it. They love what they do because they know they are first-rate.

Ok…fine, not all real estate agents look like this, but those that do are “THE STARS”. Franchises are fighting over them, people are buying from them, and YOU wish to be them. But the fact is that these stars are only 10% of the population. That’s right, only 10% who started a career in real estate actually have the ability to sell!

They are rare individuals in the commercial world, and they are cannot settle within a boring job where they are not exploiting their full abilities. Does this sound like you?

We know it is not easy, sales in real estate can be hard and risky; with a high failure rate in recruitment it can be a bit disheartening. On the other hand it can be one of the most rewarding and well-paid jobs you will ever have…if you get it Right.

So what if we told you if you could be within the 10% of people in the population who CAN in fact sell, in real estate terms, “a Star”, and you might not even know it yet!

Why waste you’re time wishing and wondering what if? When you could be among the few out there who do it RIGHT.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to pursue a career in real estate but you are unsure because you don’t have the experience or it’s so different to your current field that you think no one will take you seriously?

We can help you!

Before committing to a career in Real Estate let us answer these questions for you, before you waste a single day job hunting or working in the wrong job!

Can I sell (even if I never have)? How can I know this NOW, both for my own confidence and for the confidence of the employer?
What specific training do I need to really get my career going?
Which office is the best for me to start my sales training and invest my career in?

So you’re thinking you want in?

Now there is a way of clearly knowing your sales ability and fit for Real Estate selling (or alternative products) before you even walk into the offices of a Real Estate agency for an interview or waste thousands of your own dollars getting your Certificate of Registration and basic sales training.

We have an independent, industry accepted, standard test for Sales IQ that you can take to ensure that you are suitable to take this journey. This assessment is called the Sales Inventory Profile, or SIP.

Many real estate businesses across Australia are using SIP to hire new agents.

Take control of your career and plan your own sales training program.

What you get when you complete a SIP

The Comprehensive Report is a 14 page document that will clearly answer that first question “could I become a Real Estate agent?” You can show this report to prospective employers in place of a Résumé (CV) or include the SIP Certificate of Sales Potential with your résumé or CV.

We have also given you the first of a five-part training program called “Emotions in Selling” to help you begin your sales training.

We will also provide you with a guide on how to assess which agency you want to work for and how to present yourself to the Principal to ensure that you get the job.

To find out if you can be a star in Real Estate start the assessment now!

Go to www.salesinventoryprofile.com

Scroll to the bottom right hand side of the home page and click inside the 3rd grey box.

Press the blue ‘Start Now’ button and you will go to a registration page.

Once you have started the questions it is best to do them all at once, the average time to finish is 30 minutes but some folk do take longer. You can stop, log out and come back anytime if you need to from the top of our home page by entering the username and password you choose for yourself when you completed the registration page.

Only when you finish all the questions will be transferred to complete the payment and then you will need to log-in again on your home page to:

See your report and download as many copies as you need at any time in the future
Use your login to apply for jobs that require a SIP
Below the report on your SIP log-in screen will be a link to the first Emotions in Selling education module
You will receive your ‘How To Get Started In A Career In Real Estate Guide’ in a separate email from us. When the Guide is updated you will automatically receive the latest versions for free.

What is the real upper limit for personal income in Real Estate?

Many recruitment adverts for real estate agents say things like ‘uncap your income’ or ‘unleash your income’ or ‘rocket boost your income’. But is that really feasible?

Actually yes. There are plenty of real estate agents in suburbs across every city and the smallest country towns whose personal income is $500,000 or more per annum before tax. That is possible for the truly well suited and you will know from your SIP score if you are in this group.

That is the top 10% of all the people who ever started in real estate that are that well suited and after 5 or more years in practice they are earning that level of income. There is a further 10% of all starters who may take longer to reach their potential and will then be earning around $300,000 per annum, also a very good income compared to a doctor or a lawyer who also invested 5 years in learning their profession.

But if you are in the other 80%, give yourself a break. There are plenty of other great products to sell where the sales capable range is much broader and you can still earn $100,000 plus in the same time period. Join a different industry, with a product that is better suited to you and be much happier.

Check out some jobs from our Jobs section and press the APPLY NOW Button to start your assessment. I truly hope you find this journey of taking control of your career as exhilarating as we do!

All the best for your Success.

Maya Saric, Sales Psychologist | Connect with me on Facebook

More info about SIP here

Check out our Sales Jobs listings for your next big opportunity

The Value of Recruiting with SIP for the Real Estate industry

Posted on 21 November 2012 by Maya Saric

Do you know how the costs of hiring the wrong people for your company? It’s not a pretty sight going far beyond the money spent on recruiting and training. Think of your own time wasted and the energy levels of your business as more of the wrong people join the team.

Here’s how SIP will ensure you avoid those costs and hire effective sales staff…

The first mistake hiring managers make is to assume that all sales people fit all sales roles. They may do a great job of selling themselves at the interview but how good will they be at selling your service?

SIP scoring system helps identify people with each of the different selling styles for the following positions:

Sales

Listing Agent (this one is the hardest for you to spot in advance because of the high need for prospecting which is a very rare capacity, so this role carries the greatest risk of miss hiring)
Buyers Agent or Partner Agent
Commercial Agent

Property Managers

Property Managers
Property Officers
Leasing Officers

Sales support

Receptionist (this really is a listing agent style but with need for the prospecting capacity)
PA’s to listing agents or Property Managers
Other – i.e. anyone who helps at Open’s or otherwise relates regularly to either buyers or vendors, or supports the sales process, like manages marketing programs

Once you have clarity on who you really need for your role, the SIP Candidate Management System (CMS) will save you time on recruitment and analysing candidates. Here’s what we do:

a) All candidates are visible permanently in one place and not scattered over many weeks in your in-box. This ensures that they are:

Quick to find
Accessible by all managers not just the one who has their email on the advert
No double handling (i.e. forwarding to each other)
Never deleted
Keep track of all communication by everyone with each candidate,
Includes resume and cover letter in one file per person.

b) Bulk communication facilities.

With a few clicks you can communicate with the entire candidate population by sending either standard emails that notify them of the progress of their application or write your own emails to suit your situation.

All emails sent to each candidate are in their ‘Notes’ and visible as a status against their name so you need never wonder where you are up to with each one.

We understand that your Brand is highly important. So SIP allows you to get the above all easily and quickly done, whilst still maintaining your professional image:

a) Applying through our website (a structured form followed by a serious test) clearly shows your job is a serious one with a professional sales organisation which is much more satisfying for a candidate embarking on an important new career, rather than sending an email to an unknown organisation through SEEK.

b) Candidates receive two auto-emails from the SIP website to identify the progress of their application; when they complete the registration form and when they complete all the questions.

c) The bulk action emails, especially the ‘sorry’ one, gives them closure on what happened or is still happening to their application.

Get your name out there with our Advertising Service! Writing professional copy for advertising is a skill that has a huge direct effect on the outcome of the recruitment process. Lifeless, short adverts focused on what is important to you don’t attract high quality individuals no matter how strong your brand is. There are hundreds of adverts being launched everyday by your competitors and you need to stand out amongst them to speak directly and effectively to the people you need for your business.

We write hundreds of specialist adverts a year so we definitely know what we’re doing and what’s involved. Here’s what you get:

a) Emotionally engaging adverts that sell you and your position to attract more AND better candidates who are keen on you, and not just ‘having a go’.

b) Fresh adverts for each new role type tailored to appeal to people who are suited for that sort of work.

c) Work load management so you won’t need to do a thing after the advert is written as well: we load the advert to SEEK, track advert effectiveness, make changes if necessary and respond to stray candidates who apply directly to ensure all candidates are processed equally.

Want to know more about SIP? Have a watch of our short SIP Report Comparison or read our User Guide if you’ve already got one.

Watch some videos on SIP: https://mayasaric.com/2013/05/20/best-sales-recruitment-tool/ Want to get started? More information here: https://mayasaric.com/2012/09/19/sip-report-comparison/ https://mayasaric.com/2012/01/28/sip-sales-recruitment-training-coaching-programs/

A Brief Guide to Starting a New Residential Real Estate Agent

Posted on 14 November 2012 by Maya Saric

Ensuring the new recruit realises all their inherent capacity without getting demoralised or exhausted before they reach their full potential.

By Maya Saric

Managing Director Corporate Coach Australia P/L | 0407 005 290

Introduction

The purpose of this document is to outline a specific model for how to help and organise a new person entering the world of real estate listing so they can learn the process and make a respectable income towards the end of their first year. The process outlined here may take more than a year considering the nature of the market, their energy and the assistance that an experienced agent is able to give them.

If you have used SIP to recruit your new sales person then they should have the energy and style to succeed; the remaining variable is the quality of the training they receive in their first year.

The method we are proposing here is only one of a number of methods to induct new staff into a residential listing role. However we believe this method has the highest likelihood of success.

Defining a separate territory for the cadet

Define a set of streets that will become the new cadet’s territory and which will be prospected exclusively by the new agent. They will be provided with all office generated leads in this territory within three months of starting and the defined territory will remain the agent’s indefinitely.

Effective territory definitions are very important to creating harmony in a sales office and allow for easier lead dispute resolution. It is best to define your entire geographic area into individual territories of equal worth before hiring additional staff. We suggest defining the worth of each territory by the number of and sale price of the total transactions in the previous year.

If your business has a large enough reach then set each territory at a maximum of 2000 doors. The objective is to have territories that can generate adequate personal income while being small enough for the cadet to engage each household personally every quarter. A territory that is bigger than 2,000 doors – especially in the first 12 months – is not a good idea as it will dilute the agent’s effectiveness and or the territory’s viability.

List street names on a sheet/spreadsheet or copy a map and highlight the boundaries. Be as clear and as specific as possible.

Partnership with an Experienced Agent

The trainee agent needs to be partnered for a planned 12 months minimum with an experienced busy agent who is either the Principal or an experienced agent who is good at listing, but may not be actively prospecting.

Why partner the cadet with the principal?

Principals will have the greatest interest in the development of this person. As principals want this person to succeed as quickly as possible so they will spend the time helping them analyse each situation they have just participated in and plan new activities for the cadet that re-enforce learning. The Principal is also the most willing to have them fly free at the end when they show an interest and the ability to work as an independent agent.

Are they a cadet or a PA?

Having the cadet work as a simple helper or admin support person to the experienced agent will not provide enough exposure to the sales process to allow for effective learning to become a listing agent.

If you have hired an effective listing agent, (i.e. SIP hunter style,) but do not allow them to get stuck into learning the components of their ultimate role quickly they will lose their energy and may leave your business before exhibiting their real capacity. Also people with stronger hunter profiles are not inherently well suited to being in an administrative role and will make mistakes and underperform, further disillusioning themselves and you. You have hired them to become a listing agent and they need to be in that processes as fully and quickly as possible within the effective control of an experienced agent.

When to use an independent coach?

Many principals do not have a strong background as listing agents having come into their owning businesses from property management or commercial real estate. If they were once a listing agent and are now just too busy with the daily running of a large office to go back into a proactive sales role. In this case I recommend you use an external coach so that the cadet has someone to turn to on a daily basis in the first few months.

When to use an experienced agent who is not the principal?

An experienced agent who is not doing enough prospecting is often motivated enough to have a trainee partnered with them, someone who can set up appraisals for them. While they will need to share their commissions with the cadet (see section below) the extra appraisals will still make this attractive.

But this has the drawback of having poor habits rub off on the trainee. It is for this reason that this option is suggested last, if a selling principal or independent sales coach is not available.

The other problem is that an experienced agent may not be interested in the trainee’s long term development, only wanting them to prospect, for more appraisals and thus listings. To overcome this you may hire the new person with the intention of them being a long term partner agent with a cadet style phase so there is no loss to the experienced agent when this person has become effective. The issue then is forming effective long term partnerships.

Finally a busy experienced agent does need a real PA. However putting the cadet in that role will fail to give the experienced agent adequate support and will in turn demoralise the cadet because hunter style cadets are not well suited to administrative work.

How long does this partnership last?

The partnership stands for a minimum of 12 months or until it has listed AND sold a minimum of 10 properties or a minimum of 12 months. This will then have given the new agent two advantages:

The cadet will gain enough experience with variations of appraisals, listing meetings and buyer negotiations to be able to deal alone with the majority of complications that they will face in the market.
Ten examples of their selling capacity to validate their ability to potential vendors in the future (i.e. their name on ten boards and old marketing material samples). This can be critical for them in responding to vendors who want “the local real estate stars to sell their property, not some unknown rookie”. This success with 10 properties in their own territory removes the ‘rookie’ tag!

We don’t suggest a maximum duration. It is acceptable for this partnership to last longer if the two individuals so choose with a title change from cadet program to partner selling, to give the cadet a sense of progression.

First two listings: Who will do each part?

Open for Inspections: Together, i.e. cadet with experienced agent.

First buyer phone follow up after open homes: Cadet only as they are already experienced on the phone. (Ideally within the same day of the open and to a script agreed with the experienced agent).

Private inspections (especially return viewings): Together.

Negotiate close with serious buyer: Experienced agent with cadet listening if possible.

Prospecting

It is very important that you get staff into the habit of doing two hours of prospecting every day from the beginning. There is nothing more important to learn or habit to develop. If staff do not establish this habit early in their career with you it will be near impossible to achieve later.

The first two weeks

The focus of the cadet’s work from the first day is learning how to prospect. Ensure you have a few tested sample scripts, a database and even a professional coach ready for the first week the cadet starts with you.

Go through the sample scripts with the cadet and provide examples of wording in your own style to get them going. Be sure to explain that he or she needs to evolve their own style and to use the sample scripts and your style as starting points.

The first three months

The most important mission in establishing an effective listing agent is to teach them to prospect and develop good work habits for a career in selling.

When to prospect and how much?

Ideally 2 hours on the phone and 2 hours on the road each day.

One of these sessions should be in the morning the other in the afternoon/early evening for summer time, with the review meeting with you and other administrative tasks in between. Be careful not to give the cadet too many administrative tasks to hide inside of.

Letter box drops do not count within this prospecting time so should be done before or after working hours. Doing your own letterbox dropping is a great way to get to know your suburb and see relevant changes but it is not effective for the generation of MA’s which is the priority in the first stage.

Mix up the routine each day of which activity is performed at which time to help the cadet identify a pattern which suits them and gives the best results in their target market. If you are phoning mobile phone numbers, within reason it may not matter what time of the day it is, but you will find better days and times of the day for catching vendors at home for door knocking depending on the demographics and size of your suburb.

How to teach prospecting?

All forms of prospecting feel weird to anyone who has never used them before. Acknowledge this with the cadet in the first week and assure them that with a few weeks practice they will settle into a comfortable groove with one or more of the recommended methods. Within six weeks they will think it’s easy and boring. The boring element remains forever.

Start the cadet off with a few types of prospecting methods only until they develop their own style and you see their strengths. They will have no strengths when they are first starting so they will need to use the same system for six weeks before deciding it doesn’t suit them. The only real definition of which style suits them is the one that gives them the three MA’s or more per week in the least amount of time.

Three prospecting methods

Cold Calling using a public database of property in this territory. Develop a script with them.

Door Knock inside their own territory (See survey style prospecting system from SIP as an example method).

Previous Buyers in this territory or from agents no longer in the business (if no conflict exists with another agent). That is, old open for inspection sheets. How old? The return (chances of locating a listing) on people who were looking in the last six months is more likely (i.e. they haven’t bought and thus sold yet) but any age is possible and it’s a good excuse to establish contact.

How long to stay in prospecting only mode?

The first two weeks are basic training. Then we recommend a minimum of ten weeks or longer if they are not consistently achieving 3 MA’s per week.

We call this 12 week period the “prospect” only stage and it has a different recommended remuneration plan.

Targets

Activity: 50 contact calls (Phone- cold, cold MA’s, old buyers or door knocking) per day.

It is better to state this as a daily target rather than 250 per week. A weekly target looks daunting to some and gives others a sense of their being ‘plenty’ of time

Outcome: Three Marketing Appraisals booked (i.e. time and day agreed with the vendor) per week.

Manage activity Reward outcomes

Set clear KPI’s for activity (see suggestions above) that is realistic for the first few months and reward for over achievement of these. Setting the performance bar low and having over achievement rewards creates a baseline or floor level of activity that is sustainable indefinitely while stating your expectations that you are planning on them to be doing more than this.

Manage their activity on a daily basis starting with a 20 minute formal in person review of their work. After a few weeks you may drop this to a formal sit down review twice a week plus daily ‘quick catch-ups’ ideally in the middle of the day which can be by phone or in person.

What time of day to conduct reviews

We recommend middle of the day, preferably before lunch and definitely before 1 pm. This is for both the formal 20 minute sit together session as well as the two to three minute quick chat. This has several positive effects:

There is less dread to starting the day if yesterday went badly
If the morning is going badly you may be able offer some wisdom to make the process easier for the afternoon, or suggest they change to a different prospecting method
Reassuring them after a few hours of work will give them additional energy for the afternoon

Salary and Commission

First one to three months:

Straight salary at the rate for administrative staff. Do not start cadets from day one on debit/credit as it’s too discouraging when they don’t have the skill to achieve listings. Being on debit credit too early means they are in catch-up mode for many months which reduces their feelings of success for the early sales. Given that positive re-enforcement from success provides the extra energy to achieve more success you do not want cadets feeling defeated by having completed a training phase. Without a training phase they are unlikely to succeed or help with existing listings no matter their suitability.

Prospecting only phase

This is before cadets start attending the MA’s they have generated and is designed to reward them for learning to prospect well. We suggest the admin salary plus a piece based incentive:

$50 for booking MA’s

$100 for MA’s they booked that becomes listings.

$100 for more than 3 MA’s conducted in any week. (‘Conducted’ still counts if the experienced agent fails to attend)

Cadet shadow selling with experienced agent

For the first ten properties sold where the original MA was generated by the cadet in the experience agent’s territory, share available commission 50/50 with the experienced agent.

This is no matter how little work the cadet has done toward closing the listing or the sale. In the first few properties sold, the bulk of the work (after prospecting) is being done by the experienced agent. This ratio should reverse by at least by the fifth property sold.

In the case of other listings in the experienced agent’s territory not initiated by the cadet but where the cadet assists in the sale of the property (i.e. runs the open, manages buyers etc,) the cadet receives 20% of the experienced agent’s commission.

Cadet selling to own territory with help

Where the cadet continues working under the oversight of the experienced agent into the second year, (or for the duration of the partnership,) but is now working in the cadet’s own territory the cadet and experienced agent shall share available commission 50/50.

Where, after 12 months, the cadet begins working independently in their own territory they can choose to return to the 50/50 split with the experienced agent. The cadet and experienced agent may choose to do this irregularly for unique situations where the cadet feels insecure completely alone or for planned absences by either party.

Training Programs for the Registration Certificate

Real Estate Institute of New South Wales http://www.reinsw.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Queensland http://www.reiq.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Victoria http://www.reiv.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of South Australia http://www.reisa.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Tasmania http://www.reit.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Western Australia http://reiwa.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Northern Territory http://www.reit.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Australian Capital Territory http://www.reiact.com.au/

To grab your own PDF version of this Guide:

Click on the link below
You will be redirected to a new page – then, click on the link “Maya’s Guide to Starting a new Cadet Residential Listing Agent-PDF”
Save your PDF copy
Enjoy!

Maya’s Guide to Starting a new Cadet Residential Listing Agent-PDF

Q&A: What is the role of ‘High Expectations’ score in selling?

Posted on 24 October 2012 by Maya Saric

Answer:

Having Expectations (EXP) at or over 73% is the biggest component to being a mega ‘hunter’, i.e. someone who can sell new business in a big way regularly.

These are people that can drive themselves consistently through all the tasks and obstacles that is the daily grind of selling. The absolute biggest obstacles that slaughters most new business Sales people are inertia and boredom during cold calling. This hence explains why the old ‘self-starter’ is so popular. Many sales people are great at hitting their targets when they have clear and pressing deadlines, or work in a call centre with autodial – but leave them alone or give them undefined time limits and they slow down and get lethargic.

Many people can stomach the tough stuff intermittently but being able to do it day in day out as instinctively and unflinchingly as brushing ones teeth is what gets some to the very top. Only a small percentage of the people we have ever tested with the Sales Inventory Profile are that high. In fact, cold calling are what Sales people find scariest.

To be able to stomach cold calling we recommend to all our clients that they hire candidates with EXP over 68% as a minimum and develop good sales management techniques run great sales meetings and have clear weekly KPI’s to help their ‘almost’ mega hunters still get mega results. But if your sales staff need to work alone from home or a remote office without daily sales management they will need EXP to be well over 70%, and ideally over 73%

Unfortunately, good sales management techniques are also rare in most organisations. So, if you work alone (either for yourself or from a distant office), or are the boss and still selling, then you’re dead without them.

Watch our SIP Comparison Report or access our User Guide if you’ve got any more queries!

Q&A: Is there a better day to start a job advert?

Posted on 24 October 2012 by Maya Saric

Answer:

Things I know about sales candidate activity on SEEK: Sunday to Thursday are better than Friday and Saturday.

There are less adverts released on both Saturday and Sunday. As more adverts are released your own advert gets pushed down. This is really important to the success of your advert as candidates don’t need to go past page one to find good jobs to apply for in most markets. For this reason we always pay the extra $20 to be at the very top for a full week even in categories where we don’t get pushed off page one for a week or more naturally.

So if the objective is to maximise candidate enquiry the longer you can stay at the top on a good candidate activity day the better…so combined that makes Sunday better (equally good day as Wednesday and Thursday for candidate traffic but lesser new jobs pushing us down). That is why we recommend we wait till Sunday if possible. I organise my adverts during the week and load them to SEEK but press ‘play’ on Sunday when I get up. It takes me 2 min.

All of that is my knowledge of how candidates behave in sales roles. I am assuming a similar pattern for admin roles as currently in Sydney there are 186 ‘ sales’ roles versus 150 for ‘Administration’.

Next Q&A: What does the “High Expectations” score in SIP say about Sales Skills?