SalesGiants Interviews Hank Trisler, Author of No Bull Selling

Hank Trisler, author of No Bull Selling

At 73, Hank Trisler has seen it all. And he tells it how it is.  According to Hank, selling isn't very complicated. It's not exactly nuclear physics. We all know people less intellectually gifted than we are who consistently sell at high levels. Selling is hard work, but it's simple. People selling well know that customers buy based on two principles:

1. People buy on emotion and justify the purchase with fact,
2. People buy for their reasons, not ours.

In this interview Hank Trisler, author of No Bull Selling, shares with us what he’s learned with all his years of practice.

About your book:

1)      Hank, let’s start by talking about your book No Bull Selling. 

       Who should read it?

NO BULL SELLING is written in large print and little bitty words. People new to selling will find the examples clear and the assignments manageable. Assignments? Oh yeah, you start selling on the first day. Grizzled veterans will get back in touch with techniques that made them great in the first place.  That’s more than one sentence, but there’s a little something there for everyone, even non-sales folks.

2)      On the other hand, who should’t read it? What will salesprofesssionals NOT find in your book?

Those looking for easy answers and “canned pitches” will be disappointed. The pay is far greater for asking the right questions than for knowing the right answers, so I have not attempted to include the answers in my book.

3)      What is the book’s greatest lesson?

There are two primary lessons in the book. The first is to shut up and let the customer buy. The second is that this is not brain surgery. You have to forgive yourself your stupid mistakes and keep on keeping on.

4)      What should people do after they finish reading the book and put it down?

Don’t put the book down. There are exercises at the end of the chapters. You’re talking to suspects, prospects and customers the first day and every day thereafter. Never stop doing that.

5)      What are your favorite sales books?

Tough question, as there are so very many good ones. I have long loved, How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger. People Buy You by Jeb Blount and Snap Selling by Jill Konrath lead the list of current offerings.

       

    

  

About you:

6)      How did you start your career in sales?

I don’t think I really ever had a choice. My Dad was a salesman and I just always assumed I’d sell.

7)      What was your most memorable sale?

Damned if I know the most memorable sale. I’ve long since spent all the commissions I’ve earned and that’s what was most memorable. I don’t look at selling as some sort of art form, but rather a business. I don’t have any of my customer’s heads on my office wall, either.

8)      How about your first sale?

I sold my first big truck to a fellow named Ralph, who owned a lumber yard in Renton, WA. I didn’t know that HD springs stood for Heavy Duty springs and didn’t want to get surprised when the truck came in, so I didn’t order them. When we put a load of lumber on the truck, it just squatted. Wouldn’t roll an inch. The whole story is in NO BULL SELLING, if you need it. There have been countless other disasters, but there’s little point in dwelling on them.

About your work as an expert:

9)      What is the biggest mistake you see as a sales consultant?

No problem here. Talking too much is the runaway winner. Salescritters fear silence and run their jaws to keep from seeming stupid and prove just the opposite. Talking too much leads them inexorably into a whole string of problems, many of which can simply not be overcome.

10)  What project are you working on right now that makes you feel energized?

Your question is a good one and makes me realize that, at 73, I have pretty much run my race as far as acquisition is concerned. I’ve been most of the places I wanted to go and have owned most of the things I really wanted. You’re absolutely right, I need a project and I’ll get one week after next.

11)  What is the best testimonial you have ever received?

I have a wife and children and grandchildren who all claim a certain affinity for me. I guess that’s my greatest testimonial.

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To know more about Hank Trisler’s work, you can visit www.nobullselling.com .

Interview with Marci Reynolds, from The Sales Operation Blog

About your website:

1) Let's begin talking about your website. In a short sentence, Marci, who should visit http://salesoperationsblog.com/?

Most of my content is about sales and service enablement, best practices for Operations or Leaders... All of the things tied to people, processes, technology and data that happen internally - that enable the front line teams to achieve their business objectives.The target readers are Managers, Directors or VPs in Sales/Service Operations, Sales/Service Support, Direct Selling/Inside Sales Management.

2) On the other hand, who shouldn’t? What will readers NOT find in your website?

If you are looking for pure, "how to sell", content, e.g. how to overcome objections, you will find little on my blog - although I touch on everything surrounding the sales interaction. The content is geared more to leaders than to the front line team members. 

3) What's the first thing someone should do when they get to your website?

 I find that when readers come to my website they are looking for a specific topic that interests them. They should first scan the most recent posts in the right hand navigation. If nothing appeals to them, they should click on the View All Posts tab. More than 80 posts are categorized and I guarantee readers will find something they like.

4) Besides yours, what other sales websites would you recommend? 

For true Sales Operations content, the best are:

• http://salescompinsights.com
• the newsletter published by http://www.synygy.com/newsletters.html
• the white papers and studies published by CSO Insights.

For sales tips with an entertaining twist, I rely on:

• http://yoursalesplaybook.com/
• http://growthebusiness.wordpress.com/

Last, when I want an Inside Sales focus I visit:

• http://blog.bridgegroupinc.com/

5) How about your preferred sales books?

I am more of a blog or magazine reader, versus a book reader - and the #1, best magazine out there for sales is Selling Power Magazine (www.sellingpower.com). The content is always fresh and covers all aspects of sales. I have met the entire Gschwandtner publishing family and they are all great people.

From a book perspective, I loved "POP, Create the Perfect Pitch, Title and Tagline For Anything", by Sam Horn,  and I am currently reading the book Flip and Grow Rich by Armando Montelongo. I love the show and want to understand the sales approaches he's used to go from food stamps to making millions.

  

About you:

6) How did you get started in sales?

My first corporate America job back in the 80s was as a Call Center Rep. I soon learned that I was very competitive and enjoyed exceeding business goals. Over time though I learned I was more process than people oriented, so I veered my career to the operations and support side of the business. 

7) What are you doing now?

 For the past 10 years most of my roles have been in senior leadership, managing operations teams that enable sales or enable service. I currently oversee an operations team that provides service such as reporting/analytics, CRM, capacity planning, project management and process improvement to enable our service team to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

About your sales expertise:

8) What is the biggest mistake you see as a sales expert? 

  

There are a few:

• Trying to fix processes with technology. Always fix the process first... you may not even need technology.
• Teams using old school, high pressure sales techniques. Consumers are much smarter now and have minimal tolerance for this.
• Making decisions without using data and analysis... i.e. driving blindly.
• Underestimating the effectiveness of Inside Sales - instead, relying on too many, expensive Direct Sales resources.

9) What are you working on right now that makes you feel energized? What's your next big project?

I am leading a rollout of KCS (Knowledge Centered Support). Check out my blog, “Do you KCS on the first date?" For more info: http://salesoperationsblog.com/2010/08/01/kcs/

10) What is the best testimonial/comment you have ever received? 

This is one of my favorites, which came from a direct report:

“Marci is one of the few people I’ve worked with that can draw from a strong mix of left brain (logical, analytical) and right brain (creative, able to think outside of the box) characteristics and employ them successfully in a corporate setting. Marci is a strategic thinker, oftentimes the first one to quickly and clearly recognize the key issue or opportunity in any given situation. I witnessed several instances where she was able to step up to the plate on a matter that needed leadership, articulate a vision and gather the appropriate cross-company executive support to address it."

***

Marci Reynolds has led successful sales and service operations teams for the past 15 years at prestigious organizations including ACI Worldwide, Monster.com, Staples and Deluxe Corporation. She has her M.B.A. from Bentley University with a concentration in managing operations and technology, her B.S. Business from Northeastern University and a Six Sigma Greenbelt.

Marci also enjoys business writing and blogging and recently authored several ebooks including “Contestology, A Sales Manager’s Guide to Sales Contest Design”.

For more information about Marci, please visit her website: www.marcireynolds.com. You can reach Marci directly at marci@marcireynolds.com.

Interview with Andrew Dugdale, from Fit-4 Sales Assessment (www.salesassessment.com)

1) Hi Andrew, thank you for this interview. Let's start by talking a little about Fit-4. In a short sentence, who should use Fit-4?

Anyone who wants to improve the revenue performance of their sales people – and if you find anyone who doesn’t, then Fit-4 definitely isn’t for them!

Fit-4 is a unique, role specific, robust and highly accurate sales assessment instrument that compares the capabilities of your current sales talent, or new hires, to the capabilities found in a High Performer doing the same role.

This enables you to measure an individual’s suitability for your specific sales role and shows you:

• How well they are likely to perform, compared to a high performer in the same role.
• What their development needs are specifically to improve revenue performance in that role.
• Whether they have the potential to become a high performer – or not.
• What’s going to motivate them to perform better – or stay with you.

2) What have you learned after all your experience with Fit-4? What is the biggest lesson?

The biggest learning/surprise is that so many sales people have ended up in their current jobs simply because there was a vacancy, they happened to be available, and the recruiting manager felt they would fit in with the team.  

The biggest lesson we have seen is that ‘being available’ and ‘seeming like a nice sort of person’ are not good enough reasons to employ sales people.  

The biggest challenge we face is breaking the bad news about the capabilities of their sales team to a sales leader.  The benefit though is that we can at least help them fix those same problems – usually within just a few weeks!  

3) What sales books do you like and recommend?

My favourite books are “Every Business is a Growth Business” by Charan & Tichy (because if you’re not in business for growth – you must be a charity!); and “Differentiate or Die” by Jack Trout (because if you can’t differentiate your offering it’s simply not worth being in business!).

 4) What's the first thing someone should do after taking your assessment?

Take stock of their situation: our assessments are Role specific, so if a candidate gets good results – then hoorah!  the right person is doing the right job, and they should feel good about the fact they are in a happy minority of sales people and enjoy their undoubted success.  

If a candidate gets poor results – then maybe they need to reconsider whether they are doing the right job – often sales people hunger for sales jobs with bigger titles, but then find them hard, become less successful, and so become unhappy; by taking a job for which they are a good fit, regardless of the title, they will be more successful, happier – and ultimately enjoy their career in sales. 

If people get results showing they are in the right job, but lacking capabilities – then they should work with their employer to improve their skills, and through that their success, and ultimately their happiness.   To be successful in sales you just have to enjoy your job.  

Rule number 1 – ensure you are in the right job; 

Rule number 2 – ensure you are fully trained for that job;

Rule number 3 – don’t think the grass is greener elsewhere – enjoy your new found happiness and success.

About you:

5) How did you get started in sales?

I started life as an electronics engineer back in the mid seventies, moving into the embryonic business of computer engineering in the late seventies.  After qualifying as a computer engineer I moved to work as a product specialist with an Intel Partner right at the start of Intel and the Microchip.  After working in that role for a few months, I found that I was designing in product which was resulting in the customer buying, often without a sales person being involved, so I migrated to ‘technical sales’.  

After a few years doing this I moved to a fully fledged sales job in the early 80’s with a British company producing Ethernet components, right at the beginning of the networking revolution, initially selling, then managing European Sales, then Worldwide sales.  

From this point in the late 80’s I moved into a major US Telco, just as the telecoms business was deregulating and enjoyed success there, before my final move in corporate life to ICL in the mid ‘90’s.  

I left ICL to start my first sales training business (Intellectual Capital Development Limited – which is still going) in 2000, developing the basis of the Fit-4 product during this time.  I formed SalesAssessment.com in April 2008 to sell the advanced hybrid sales assessment tests I had developed over the previous 8 years.  

6) What was your toughest sales ever?

My toughest sale was persuading my wife that it was right for me to leave the security of a very well paid Corporate job to “risk it all” in my own business!  Thank goodness it was a success! Or I may not be here talking about it today!

7) Most memorable sale? Was it because of the money, the adrenaline, the recognition, the power?

None of the above – it was memorable because it was the only sale I wasn’t sure I wanted to make.  Going out on your own is a very big step, especially when you have kids at private schools and a very expensive house to run.  I know it was right, but I was looking for reasons to “lose the deal” all the way through.  So I was selling to my wife – and also to myself!

About your consulting:

8) What is the biggest mistake you see as a sales consultant?

I’m not really a sales consultant any more, I now research, design and publish role specific sales assessment tests.  But in my time in my other company I have seen them all – perhaps the biggest mistake I have seen over and over again is people worrying too  much about the competition instead of getting on and creating competitive advantage through continuously improving the value of their offering to their customers.   

Actually – in thinking this one through – perhaps the biggest mistake people make is to study their competitors in detail, but NOT spend time understanding their customer’s business in the same sort of depth.  

How crazy is that?  It ends up with them designing their businesses as “followers” to their competitors, trying to keep up with them instead of trying to innovate and lead.  And we all know there are no prizes for being second in sales.  Maybe some companies “design in” being second???

9) What are you working on right now that makes you feel energized? What's your next big project?

My next big project is to answer the "so what" question many customers ask after taking our assessments.  The level of granularity in the development detail we provide is very fine and most training courses are more like blunt instruments than surgical instruments.  

Once our customers see exactly where the capability gaps are for each individual, they want to invest specifically in these precise learning gaps – not apply a blunt instrument approach.  

My next challenge is to find enough high quality e-learning modules that are a good fit to our diagnostics and develop a portal enabling our customers to identify precise training elements for each individual.

10) What is the best testimonial/comment you have ever received? Or the one that touched you the most?

Fortunately I get many testimonials, but I think the best one recently was from one of our smaller, growing customers who said ““Growing businesses need the best sales talent, with the right skills, in the right roles, with each sales person highly motivated at all times.  Yet that is one of the hardest things to get right.  Fit-4 delivers the means for any business manager to get that golden combination, whether you understand sales people or not.  Whether hiring, or developing your existing sales people, Fit-4 can guide your investment decisions into the areas that will deliver the most return.”

It really doesn’t get better than that – being able to help not just the Fortune 500, but also the smaller guy.

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To know more about Fit-4, please visite http://www.salesassessment.com/index.html