Category: Series

No Top 10 list today. Let’s finish out our series on the 8 Habits of a successful salesperson.

It’s hard to believe we are already at habit # 8. I hope over the weekend you can take some time and look back over the last nine articles and can start incorporating each one into your daily routine, I know I will. 

OK, let’s dive into habit # 8 perhaps the most important of all the habits, having a Passion for what we do.

HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR PASSION

On the surface, credit card processing and merchant services seem like an obscure thing to be passionate about. Especially considering there are so many other products and services that one could sell. 

Yet, the most successful sales professionals understand and believe in the value of the services and solutions they’re offering.

Ask a handful of top-performing sales professionals why they do what they do and each will have a different answer. 

Sure, they all “want to make money,” but it’s not the real source of their passion. The most successful sales professionals will cite a higher purpose or mission statement for their life.

Don’t know what your higher purpose in life is? That’s OK. Just trust that it exists whether you can articulate it or not.

Popular author and speaker Simon Sinek provides a great model for identifying our “why.” He calls it The Golden Circle (pictured below) and explains it in  his famous TED Talk.

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”

-Simon Sinek

TIPS TO ARTICULATE YOUR “WHY”

We all have a “why” even if we can’t put our finger on it and find the right words to describe it. Sinek says, “For a person, your WHY is formed when you are young. It is the sum total of who you are, how your parents raised you and the experiences you had. Once formed, your life offers opportunities for you to live your WHY or not.”

• What excites you?
• What makes you feel most fulfilled?
• What jobs have you really loved throughout your career?
• What are you most proud of?
• What are you most proud of during your career as a sales professional?
• What special experiences in your life have made an impression on you?

There is likely a common thread among your answers. To help you with this exercise, think about the sales pitch you use on a daily basis. Consider removing the phrase “overcome your pain or solve your problem.”

Instead, think about what you’re really solving for a merchant. Freeing up their time so that they can go home to their family sooner? 

Providing peace of mind so that they can focus their attention on more important aspects of their business?

Don’t worry about making your Why Statement sound eloquent.

It is meant to 

evolve over time as you narrow your focus on what really brings you joy in life. So, start simple.

Here are some example Why Statements to get your creative juices flowing:

• To live life on my own terms and help others do the same
• What drives me is to be an agent of change and help people reach their full potential
• I believe in being honest and making sure that people aren’t being taken advantage of
• What drives me is learning new things and constantly challenging myself and others to reach new heights.

IDENTIFY YOUR “HOW” AND START SHOWING YOUR PASSION

How does one communicate their Why Statement when passion is inferred? You want your merchant to think to themselves, “wow, that guy is really passionate about what he does” rather than you directly telling them how passionate you are. You’ve likely heard people talk about how awesome they are. It rarely ever leads to anyone thinking they’re awesome. Same goes for talking about passion.

So, how do you communicate your passion? Through a combination of actions, body language, tone of voice and what you actually say. The most successful  sales professionals communicate their “why” through these 5 ways.

• Ask great questions AND listen carefully
• Be diligent in researching prospects on social media
• Prepare well
• Focus on building relationships rather than just earning sales
• Make a good impression
• …Do any of these sound familiar?

THE RISK OF FAKING PASSION

Do we really need to know our “why?” Can’t we just pretend to be passionate about what we do? Especially if we’re passionate about making money?

The short answer is yes.

We all know someone who is financially successful but obviously miserable and detached from their work. We can choose to be this person and we might achieve the money we’re after.  But most of us want to be wealthy AND fulfilled. am I right? Yes

Knowing your “why” and letting it fuel your merchant services business will deliver long term wealth and satisfaction. Share with me your WHY for selling merchant services.

Happy Selling,

David

It’s the 16th day of the month.

What is your sales goal this month?

How many told you to come back next week? have you?
It’s not surprising that top-performing sales professionals always have an answer to this question. What’s surprising is that their answer is linked to something they do every single day. Intrigued?
In this post, I will provide a simple framework for setting sales goals that will help you achieve big results by making a small shift to your daily routine. Let’s dive into and unpack habit # 7 of the 8 habits of successful Sales Professionals.

HOW TO FIND YOUR UPPER LIMIT
To reach your full potential, you have to push yourself far beyond what you ever thought was possible. How you ask?
Imagine that the finish line has been removed from a race. How much farther can you go when there’s no line on the ground telling you to stop?
Now, think back to the initial question: what is your sales goal this month? Whatever it is, start thinking about it as the bare minimum of what you can achieve instead of the upper limit.

Figuring out what your upper limit actually is takes some testing. Here’s a simple framework to get started:

1. Commit to daily action that exploits that strength.
   If your strength is cold calling and you enjoy doing it, commit to making 25 cold calls a day instead of the 7-8 that you typically do. Here are some other examples of daily actions you can adopt depending on your strengths:
2. Pick one single strength.
3. Make a list of things you’re really good at and actually enjoy doing as part of the sales process.
   This could be cold calling, giving a presentation or demo, building solid relationships or even writing compelling emails or text messages to your customers or prospects.
   Send a follow-up email to each prospect you meet with or speak to over the phone, no matter the prospect’s perceived interest. You never know who might refer your services, or contact you later.
   Connect with everyone you meet in person or over the phone on LinkedIn or other social media networking site and send a quick message.
   Send one lead to a referral partner.
   Ask each of the merchants you visit if they know of any other business owners who need help with payments processing, offer them a referral fee
   Set up one networking call or meeting.
4. Record and measure your results.
   Whether you choose to use a Word document, a CRM, your calendar, or even a sticky note on your car’s dashboard, keep track of the daily actions you’re taking. Reflect on your overall performance after two weeks, then after 30 days. Have your new daily actions paid off?

SETTING SALES GOALS FOR YOURSELF
After you’ve measured how exploiting your strengths in your daily routine have paid off, you should be able to forecast their impact on next month’s sales. Continuing with the example of increasing cold calls from 6-8 a day to 25 a day. Say that after a month, you exceeded your original sales goal by 5 merchant applications, nice right?
It would be safe to expect the same increase next month if you take the same approach. Add that to your typical monthly sales target and there you’ve set a new sales goal for yourself.

The good thing about this framework is that once you’ve successfully added one habit to your daily routine, it’s easy to add more using the same steps. It’s amazing how much more you can accomplish by making a small measurable change to your daily routine.

What habit has yielded the biggest results for your sales career?

Happy Selling,

David

You know better than anyone that trying to identify a merchant’s true needs and motivations is challenging. You can’t just ask any old questions. You have to ask the right questions, sometimes repeatedly to get the information you need in order to help the merchant. The best sales professionals have trained themselves to treat their conversations with merchants like covert FBI missions to uncover the merchant’s needs. They are patient and listen to a merchant’s stories, even ones unrelated to payment processing, to hear any nuggets or clues about the merchant’s motivations and also potential objections.

Here’s a scenario that I’m sure will sound familiar to anyone selling credit card processing or merchant services. A sales agent makes an appointment with a potential new merchant. He’s been selling for some time now, so he walks in confident in his solution and his ability to say all the right things. And he does. He works all the right angles he practiced and offers the merchant a deal that he thinks the merchant won’t be able to refuse. But he leaves without closing the sale or getting a positive response from the merchant.

SO WHAT WENT WRONG?

It’s frustrating when you think you’ve done all the right things, prepared perfectly, and still lost the sale. But time and time again, we all see the same patterns of failure in potential cases that should have gone well. Top sales professionals selling credit card processing say that it’s not about what you forgot to say, it’s about what you shouldn’t have said.

The best sales professionals know that the key to closing is asking good questions. Your entire approach to making a deal should hinge on letting the merchant tell you what they need, instead of you telling them what you think they need. 

That’s where a lot of good salespeople go wrong: they make their case so well that they forget to listenand let the merchant voice their concerns. Often, there could be pain points that the merchant is trying to share, but they don’t know how to explain them. If you jump in and start pitching your solution right away, you could be doing yourself a very damiging  disservice.

SELLING CREDIT CARD PROCESSINGSTARTS BY ASKING QUESTIONS

I’ve been working on a new top 10 of the top 10 questions that our most successful professionals ask new merchants to earn their trust. The idea of asking these questions is that they will help you get the merchant to talk more and encourage you to talk less. That might sound absurd, but when selling credit card processing and merchant services, it’s critical. Merchants have a lot of concerns and pain, and they will tell you. You just have to ask and then listen.

MAKING ASKING QUESTIONS A HABIT

Asking questions when you’re selling credit card processing should be a relatively easy habit to establish. And one that will increase your income.

The easiest way to get started is to shift your mindset from being a talker to an active listener. A sk questions such as “What are some strengths of your current processor? What are some problems?”

The next step is to start asking the questions!

You can do this by incorporating a few discovery-type questions into your initial meetings and calls. Basically, you want to utilize the idea of discovering specific information about your merchant, and use that information to inform how you tailor your pitch to them. You can use the Top 10 questions here

I referenced above as a good starting point. Even if you just include one or two in a conversation with a prospect, you’ll be doing yourself a favor when you follow up with them.

And finally, when you follow up with prospects, always try to mention your openness to hearing their questions, understanding their concerns, and communicating well with them. Merchants appreciate knowing that a real person with real passion for their work is helping them, and that their needs are a priority. This kind of emphasis will help strengthen your relationship with them.

Happy Selling, 

David

It’s important to realize how much of a prospecting advantage you’ll have if you’re able to use social media well. 

Most of the merchants that you rely on for new deals depend on their social media accounts to generate hype and interest in their business. Successful  sales professionals take full advantage of information available on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. These sources can provide a wealth of sales opportunities and chances to strengthen a merchant-sales professionals relationship in their communities..

There’s no denying it: social media is not a fad and it has become an incredibly valuable sales and marketing tool. People are using it for more than just connecting with friends and family and sharing funny videos ( this one  gets me every time).

People also use it to find a new restaurant or business, search for a job and to stay informed.

Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are at the forefront of creative social media sharing. Some smaller businesses even use sites like Facebook as their primary website. The rate of sharing and re-sharing on many platforms is so fast that many SMBs rely on their social media pages to inform customers about promotions and company news.

That’s why habit #5 of the  8 habits of successful sales professionals is using social media to research prospects and strengthen their relationship with existing merchants.

IS IT REALLY WORTH THE EFFORT?

You might wonder if using social media to grow your portfolio is worth it. But it absolutely is. Consider the recent “social media” LinkedIn study that reported that 81% of SMBs use social media to drive growth, 91% use it as a marketing tool and 49% for their own research and educational purposes. Clearly, the SMB market is immersed in social media use. And more importantly, that’s a HUGE number of prospects sharing a wide variety of data. Over the course of this blog series, I’ve talked about establishing relationships with merchants and prospects. Learning to use social media for that purpose can help you prepare good questions, understand their perspective, and make a good impression.

PICK YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILE STRATEGY – ACTIVE OR PASSIVE

Decide how you want to use social media: do you want to use it for prospecting, or for engaging with current merchants? Or both? 

Well, you’ll first need to decide how much you want to share on your profile and also how active you’d like to be on that profile. 

Here are some tips from HootSuite to help you decide what will work best for you. The biggest thing to consider is whether you prefer to be ACTIVE or PASSIVE in terms of your public activity level.

Let me explain as this will determine how you can use social media to support your sales activities.

Being ACTIVE on social media means that you are regularly posting, liking, sharing, or commenting and your connections can see that activity. Think about when you’ve looked at someone’s social media profile. You can decide pretty quickly if that person is active based on their recent activity.

Conversely, being PASSIVE on social media means that you’re watching from the sidelines. You might be clicking around and reading, but no one can see your activity.

There is no right or wrong activity level, but being active does have some advantages.

HOW TO MAKE IT A HABIT

Social media is one of the easiest daily habits to form. It’s also one of the most addicting! So you do have to be mindful of how much time you spend on it.

If your profile is PASSIVE

If you decide that your profile will be passive, you can use social media for sales prospecting. Here are a couple daily habits you can incorporate into your daily routine:

• Search for a specific tag or topic; discover the options for tags and locations on each platform and look for a specific category such as restaurants.
• Look at the businesses that your existing merchants follow or are connected to. You can then ask your merchant for a referral or introduction the next time you see them in person. Follow a few key profiles for an industry you’d like to earn more business in. Take note of any buzzwords or trends and use them as you speak to merchants in that industry.

If your profile is ACTIVE

If you’d like to use social media to keep up with your existing portfolio of merchants in addition to prospecting, you will need to have an active social media profile. Here are some ideas on how you can incorporate social media into your daily routine:

• Engage with your merchants’ posts by liking, sharing and retweeting them to your network; they’ll appreciate any traffic you generate and the consideration of your attention to their business.
• A different way to seek out referrals is to explore mutual connections on social media when you’re targeting a new merchant. If you see that one of your existing merchants is connected to someone that you’d like to be introduced to, you can ask your merchant for an introduction.
• Ask for a meeting. Using direct messaging through social media apps is pretty casual and allows you to build some good rapport. And if you have mutual contacts, you’ll seem more trustworthy.

To get the most out of social media, remember to stay focused on your goal and manage the time wisely every time you log in or else you could end up like this. 

Happy Selling,

David

Time to get back to the 4th Habit. Let’s face it. We’ve all had those days where you start out knowing what you want to accomplish but suddenly, it’s 5:00pm and you feel like you didn’t get anything done. 

You might have the best of intentions as you begin your day, but you get a phone call or two, or you see an interesting article that you just have to read, and before you know it, a whole hour has disappeared. I’ve certainly been there.

It’s difficult to master time management in any profession. Time management for salespeople in the merchant services business is especially tricky. You are your own boss and that freedom can be a blessing and a curse. That’s why the most successful sales professionals employ a simple solution. It’s all about breaking your most important work into two categories:

prospecting and selling.

Often we get these terms confused, but knowing the difference and assigning time specifically for one or the other is key to managing your time.

Prospecting : when sales professionals make outbound calls, or send outbound emails to leads in hopes of creating opportunities. Prospecting can involve both cold-calling/door pulling as well as contacting existing leads that may have turned cold.

Selling: working with an established connection to give specific product information, offer details, and reach a deal. Typically, selling differs from prospecting in that, a sales professional is building upon opportunities created while prospecting to actually make a sale.

TAKE INVENTORY OF YOUR TIME

If you’re looking to improve your time management, you have to start by identifying how much time you’re spending on each of these activities. You can take inventory of your time by writing down your schedule for a few days. Then, ask yourself:

• Does your schedule feel balanced to you?
• Do you find yourself avoiding prospecting or selling and therefore spending more time on one than the other?
• Do you invest a lot of time in each opportunity that once you close the deal your pipeline of prospects is nearly empty?

TIME MANAGEMENT FOR SALESPEOPLE – 5 TECHNIQUES

Once you understand the kinds of prospecting and selling goals you should be setting, there are plenty of things you can do to incorporate these time management strategies into your daily routine.

1. Downsize your to-do list. 

By “downsize” I don’t mean that you should set out to accomplish less. You will likely be able to accomplish MORE by focusing on 2-4 tasks a day rather than focusing on 6 tasks a day and making only 20% progress on each.

2 .Block your calendar for your selling and prospecting time. 

Sometimes, it’s easy to just assume you’ll have time later to make some quick selling and prospecting calls, or to shoot off a couple emails. But often, you can get to the end of the day and realize that you never got that quality time. To combat this, you can block off your calendar for specific prospecting and specific selling times. That way, when you wake up each morning, you’ll have a reminder of what your priorities are and won’t have to face that nasty feeling of defeat at the end of the day.

3. Stick to the same schedule every day.

if possible. One of an sales professionals biggest enemies can be the unpredictability of a business dependent on others’ schedules. But you’ll probably be surprised to find out how much of your time you can actually control. Sure, if an opportunity comes up, you’ll have to do a little schedule juggling. But by laying out the same time of day for the same things, you’ll be more likely to accomplish both selling and prospecting goals every single day.

4. Turn off or silence your phone and STOP LOOKING AT IT during certain times of the day. 

I learned this from one of our sales partners years ago, sometimes you have to “check out” for a bit to get things done. It’s the easiest thing in the world to just quickly pick up your phone while working on an email, or answer some texts while waiting for a prospect to meet with you. But sometimes, even if you’re just looking down at your phone for a minute, you could be missing out on something meaningful. Maybe you won’t notice a sign in the prospect’s office that could be a potential conversation starter for you. Or maybe a great idea would have surfaced if you would have let your mind wander a bit. 

Start small by turning off your phone for 20 minutes at a time. Seems scary, but believe me, your productivity and overall satisfaction with your day will drastically improve!

5. Lastly, set up your voicemail to let callers know when they can expect a response from you. 

Little assurances such as a voicemail can mean a lot more to your contacts. By setting up your voicemail detailing your hours or availability, you accomplish two things: 

1. you show your contacts that you take their call seriously and 

2. you hold yourself accountable to a consistent schedule by letting them know in the voicemail when they can expect to hear back from you.

Inevitably, there will be times when your schedule blows up and you end up only prospecting and not selling or vice versa. Or coffee with a friend turns into lunch which turns into a happy hour. That’s OK. 

What’s important is what you do most days, not what you do every once in a while. 

Building time management strategies for prospecting and selling into your daily routine is going to take practice and commitment. Time management is all about knowing yourself and your habits, and choosing whichever of these tips will set you up for success.

Let me know, which habits do you need help the most in your career?

Happy Selling,

David

Today we unpack the 3rd habit of be a Highly Successful sales Professional, Being Prepared.

While most of us know in theory that we should come prepared for meetings with prospective merchants, some just don’t…for whatever reason. The most successful sales professionals, however, dedicate time each day for preparation. And it sets them apart as true payment professionals.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR  MERCHANT SERVICES SALES MEETINGS?

Preparing well does not take much time and does not require a special talent. It just takes a few minutes every day. There are some easy things you can do to be ready for anything and really build a reputation for yourself. 

Remember that first and foremost, you are dealing with merchant services, which means that the merchant is the priority, (remember relationships). Little things such as knowing the merchant’s name, understanding who their target audience is, and having all of the necessary paperwork on hand for your meeting can go a long way.

Another key aspect of preparing is being able to conduct meetings smoothly and successfully. The best sales professionals know how important it is to appear polished and prepped, no matter the size of the business or the informality of the meeting.

To make preparation a daily habit, you can start incorporating some of these ideas into your everyday routine. I’ve listed the easiest tips first.

Commit the key contact and merchant’s business name to memory. 

Seems like a no-brainer, but accidentally calling someone by the wrong name can be a big setback on your credibility. It can also be pretty embarrassing! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shook someone’s hand and heard them say their name only to immediately forget it. Ugh. One trick that has helped me with this awkward first introduction memory loss is to immediately repeat the person’s name. For example, the person says “Hi, I’m Mike Laigle.” I reply with, “Hi Mike, it’s nice to meet you.” Then, I try to address the person one or two more times by name during the conversation by saying something like, “So Mike, how long have you been open?” or some other various question to use their name.

Equip your vehicle with office essentials. 

Try to keep an inventory of back-up pens, a legal size notepad, business cards, thermal paper and all paperwork needed to sign a deal with you so that you’re always ready for a meeting. Plus, having branded or personalized materials can help make a good first impression.

Research your prospective merchant

Google the merchant’s business name and the name of the person you’ll be meeting. Sometimes, a simple thing like knowing their bio and mission can set you apart from competitors who have called on them in the past. If you’re not familiar with the industry, do some extra Googling to understand how it works and how they fit into it.

Jot down some potential questions. 

Try to craft questions that show interest in their specific concern, and use that trust you establish to create a mutually beneficial sales relationship. If you’re having trouble, start simple and just try to break away from questions that can be answered with a “yes” or “no.” Dig deeper and ask questions the move the sale toward the close.

You don’t have to attempt all of these tips, just pick one to start with and be consistent with it. Pretty soon, it will be second nature for you like the  7 other habits of successful sales professionals.

Happy Selling,

David