5 Techniques to Avoid the Dreaded Happy Ears Syndrome

I recently sat in on a pipeline review with a sales rep, Clare, and her manager. After asking a couple questions about one particular deal, her manager asked how confident Clare was that it’d close.
“They were really enthusiastic, so I’m almost certain,” she replied.

But when I checked in a week later, Clare told me that buyer had ended up going with a competitor. She’d gotten happy ears: The common sales trap of being overly optimistic about a deal because you haven’t qualified enough to discover true objections.
Happy ears lead to inaccurate sales forecasts and missed quotas, and are usually the result of salespeople failing to ask tough questions and uncover objections. These five strategies will help reps maintain a healthy level of skepticism.

1) Ask Probing Questions

Digging into the buyer’s positive statements helps salespeople identify if there’s a true intent to buy. It’s easy to interpret a statement such as, “It seems like a great fit,” as “We don’t have any reservations.”
However, that statement could just as likely mean, “We like what the product does, but the integration process sounds time-consuming and the price is a little higher than we’d like.”
The takeaway: If reps take everything buyers say at face value, they’ll miss serious reservations.
To surface potential objections, salespeople can ask these probing questions:

• “Glad to hear it, [prospect name]. Can you explain what you mean by X?”
• “Would you mind going a bit more in-depth about [prospect’s comment]?”
• “I think [feature] is great too. But is there anything you’re not as confident about?”
• “When it comes to X, do you see any obstacles to successful implementation?”

If prospects don’t have any objections, they’ll simply elaborate on their earlier statement -- which will subconsciously reaffirm their own positive opinions while confirming that reps haven’t missed anything.

2) Seek Out Red Flags

The prospect might sound ready to sign the proposal right then and there -- but unless they actually do, reps should be still keep their eyes peeled for warning signs the deal won’t close.
These include:

• Lack of authority: When salespeople get happy ears, they often forget to verify that their contact is the actual decision maker.
• Lack of consensus: One of the stakeholders might be be eager to buy, yet their enthusiasm won’t matter if their colleagues are skeptical. To get a deal over the finish line, reps must identify everyone involved in the buying decision and show each person why the purchase helps with their individual goals.
• Lack of urgency: Salespeople are always worried about the competition, but they should be focusing on the status quo. Doing nothing is always the easier option for prospects, even if inaction is harmful in the long run. Reps need to determine if their prospect is truly motivated to act and why. (Not sure how? Try assigning homework.)
• Lack of budget: Sellers can only help buyers find creative solutions to budget problems if they know buyers are having budget problems in the first place. Don’t assume there’s money for your product: Ask how your prospect plans on funding the purchase.

Everything might look good at first glance. However, if these red flags are present, reassess your strategy rather than preemptively celebrating.

3) Get an Outside Opinion

Reps can get a reality check by asking their manager or a team member to review the deal. An outsider can hone in on key details the salesperson might’ve overlooked. For instance, they might ask, “Why are they looking to switch solutions now? With the end of the year coming up, it’s an inconvenient time to replace all of their processes with new ones.”
The rep could have forgotten to confirm his prospect’s timeline. Thanks to his coworker’s suggestion, he can explore this crucial detail on their next call.

4) Avoid “This One Is Different” Syndrome

Ideal co-founder and COO Shaun Ricci recommends salespeople think twice when they find themselves saying, “This one is different.”
Reps may use this line to justify why a deal will close more quickly than normal or a buyer will spend more than the average customer, Ricci explains.
“There are exceptions to every rule, but if you find yourself uttering those words when your boss asks why a prospect will buy in two weeks when your average sales cycle is 90 days, that should trigger you to go back and review why you believe this prospect is truly different,” he says.

5) Prepare For the Worst-Case Scenario

A positive mindset often transforms a salesperson’s ability to convince her prospects of her product’s value. On the flip side, being too positive blinds the rep to the obstacles in her path.
How can salespeople strike the perfect balance between pessimism and optimism? Try New York University psychology professor Gabriele Oettingen’s W.O.O.P. strategy:

• W: Think about your Wish.
• O: Think about your ideal Outcome.
• O: Think about the Obstacles in your way.
• P: Plan for those obstacles.

W.O.O.P helps you envision the best possible future while also requiring you to prepare for roadblocks. If you have happy ears, this exercise will help you come back down to earth.
Getting happy ears can wreck reps’ chances of closing. These five tactics will help them maintain a balance of confidence and realism.

You Should Care About Your Prospect’s Mom: 15 Ways to Build Lasting Bonds With Clients

When I started my sales career I was brought up in the old school way of sales -- cold call like crazy, prospect until you dropped, hunt them, kill them, and collect your money. One and done.

Account management? What the hell is that?

My job was to get prospects into my funnel and close them. After that, I had no idea what to do because nobody taught me what to do. In my outside sales career I just closed and moved on to the next sale.

If the prospect churned the next month I didn’t care because I was too busy hunting new business -- I didn’t have a client list because the only time I was in the office was to turn in a contract or show my manager the business cards I collected (unless it was a blow-off day and I went fish bowl prospecting -- which happened a lot)

Getting those cards was gold. It was my raison d’être, because without a contract or business cards, there was no proof that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing -- it was old-school accountability.

So when I came back with a signed contract -- proving closed business -- I turned it in with much fanfare and put it up on the board, the measuring stick of sales success and worthiness. (And if I ever had two sales in one day I would only turn one in and sandbag it for the next day so I could go play hoops or golf -- hey, I was 22 years old!)

Once that contract was in, I had no idea what happened to my client. I never reached out to them or did any account management or customer service. When they were done, they were dead to me. I didn’t check in with clients to see how their families were (even if I’d referenced the family picture on their desk as a way to gain trust, build rapport, and eventually close the deal). I didn’t care whether the product had actually helped them. I only cared about me, mine, and my next sale.

In my last blog, I wrote about why and how you should upsell. But following up with your clients post-sale isn’t about making more money. It’s about staying in touch with the real gold, the client, and seeing how they are.

Have you ever told your client you loved them? I have. Of course, it has to be said with the right touch of humour and playfulness, and be a declaration of real love. I have a client who I tell that if he keeps doing business with me I’ll visit him and we’ll do cartwheels on the beach and our families will high-five and sing songs.

I’ll ask clients if anyone has told them they love them today, and if not I tell them that I do. It’s very disarming, makes them laugh, and helps build a bond. I know my competitors aren’t doing that -- I know this because they haven’t built the kind of relationships I have with my clients and so they can’t say these kinds of things.

Do you have a real bond with your clients? If not, they can be easily stolen away. If you value your clients, you should continually let them know you care about them and are interested in helping them be successful by continually showing them value. In our highly commoditied world, clients have many options so when they buy from you, it’s proof that you have shown them value and made a connection. Why would you ever ignore them and risk losing that?

I made these mistakes as a young salesman who only looked for the sale, and as I matured in the sales business and lost a lot of clients because of this ignorance, I vowed I wouldn’t lose a client due to inattentiveness again.

Here are 15 ways to show you care about and value your clients:

1. Send handwritten notes and thank-you cards
2. Call them on their birthday
3. Monitor the LinkedIn feed that notifies you when your contact is mentioned in the news
4. Call them and tell them you are grateful for their business
5. Refer a prospective client to them
6. Send them news about their Alma Mater
7. Send them articles you see that are published about them
8. Tell them you love them (when appropriate and the right amount of humour)
9. Send them a funny video
10. Take them to lunch or dinner
11. Call and ask them what they wish your company could do different for them
12. Ask for their advice
13. Share the content they produce on all of your social media channels
14. Buy and send them a book they would be interested in.
15. Send them 10 ideas that may help them improve their business or process

Existing customers are your best source of additional business and referrals. They literally help feed your family, so treat them like the gold they are. Be interested in their success, provide maximum value and build a solid relationship with them.

FREE Limerick Event: How to get More Cash in Your Business
Where: The Savoy Hotel, Limerick
When: 6.30 - 8.30pm, October 20th 2016

Show Employees You Care About Their Well-Being. Here are 5 Ways.

When we hear the term “well-being,” most of us imagine physical health. But well-being holds a much bigger significance in the workplace -- how employees envision their future, goals, overall outlook and attitude.
In the November 2015 Impact of Excellent Employee Well-Being study of 2,363 employees, conducted by the O.C. Tanner Institute, employees rated their life at work at the middle point of a 10-point scale. In five years, they said, they didn't see that well-being improving much.
That's not good: With well-being affecting turnover, performance and the overall health of organisations, it’s necessary for employers to begin changing these statistics. Here are five ways to change how your employees view their well-being in the workplace:

1. Improve their social well-being.

Let’s face facts: Many employees spend more time with their coworkers than they do with family. So, having a positive attitude toward their role and future at the company has got to weigh heavily on their interactions with fellow employees. Employers who recognise this will actively focus on team-building and establishing healthy coworker relationships.
To do this at your company, plan events around building teamwork skills and communications. Try coordinating monthly planning meetings where employees can brainstorm ideas for the coming months. Designate a chat room where employees feel free to express to one another work and personal issues. Establish a special team-volunteering day.

2. Look to the future.

It’s imperative that employees see how their paths can continue within an organisation. Offering them a clear visual will motivate them to strive for goals and see possibilities for personal growth.
So, be specific when showing employees their their future at the company is bright and includes them. Use one-on-one meetings to understand each staffer's expectations and goals. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember which goals were set, and on what time line; so keep track by utilising a tool like Workstory, a personal accomplishment journal.
Above all, be transparent so each individual can see what steps need to be accomplished to reach their ultimate goal.

3. Focus in on emotions.

When emotionally drained or stressed, any of us will are going to find it impossible to achieve our highest-quality work. Work-related stress is an enormous factor in mental well-being. Employees who have a natural drive may find it difficult to unwind and take care of that well-being.
Unfortunately, only 63 percent of 828 employees surveyed said they believed that company leaders cared about trying to create a more human workplace focused on employee well-being. The source for this data was The ROI of Recognition In Building a More Human Workplace study released in November 2015 by Globoforce.
Encourage employees to take time for breaks, especially those involving exercise. Relieve pressure by ensuring the organisation is properly staffed, and ensure that employees and leaders are on the same page about expectations of goals and hours worked.

4. Offer educational opportunities.

Leaders who provide educational opportunities are showing employees that their goals and future at the company are important. Fifty-five percent of 600 U.S. employees surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in November and December 2015 rated opportunities to use their skills and abilities at work as a very important contributor to their job satisfaction.
Give employees a chance to perform at their highest quality and contribute to the betterment of the company. Providing these opportunities will show them that the organisation is invested their future.

5. Recognise hard work.

The overall outlook and attitude of employees has a trickle-down effect from leadership. The way leaders interact and acknowledge accomplishments affects the overall well-being of both employees and the company as a whole.

FREE Limerick Event: How to get More Cash in Your BusinessWhere: The Savoy Hotel, LimerickWhen: 6.30 - 8.30pm. October 20th 2016

The 140-Character Limit Is Dead. Long Live The 140-Character Limit!

One-hundred and forty characters. What was your first association with that phrase? I bet you're thinking: Twitter.


At least that was (and still is) the character limit for the network. However, on September 19, the platform relaxed the rule: Now, photos, videos, GIFs, polls and Quote Tweets no longer count toward the limit.


This new update will make Twitter conversations so much easier, even richer. How many times have you struggled to cut the last two characters needed to fit the limit? Have you ever felt more like a robot and less like a human when tweeting all sorts of awkward sentences full of abbreviations? What about efforts to have meaningful conversations when the tweet you were replying to or quoting was stealing valuable character count?! Well, you're not alone and Twitter has finally heard you!


While this change is a huge step for the network, it is also a logical one. When Twitter launched a decade ago (yes, it’s hard to believe, but it’s been exactly 10 years already!), it was operating in a much different space from today's. Nowadays, there is an unmistakable shift toward multimedia content. Images, short videos and GIFs have practically taken over the social space.


Since Twitter was hit with a lot of criticism and showed no potential for-impressive growth, these changes were long overdue.  A plausible reason for Twitter losing its appeal is because the space just became too noisy. Partly because of the character limit (and also because of the desire to automate everything), most marketers tweet out the name of an article, sprinkle in a few hashtags, slap on a shortened URL and voilà, the Franken-tweet is ready to be published. How can they expect to get any meaningful engagement from that?


The other instance is to upload an image with tons of text on it, include a call to action in the body of the tweet and slap in the shortened URL once again. That's a bit better on providing some context, but is still not very human. Plus, not only is it not the prettiest workaround, it has technical implications for businesses.


Not so long ago, Twitter partnered with Google to make sure tweets appeared in search results. But, when you post a screenshot with lots of text on it, the text is not searchable. Meaning: Twitter’s biggest media partner cannot read your updates, and thus cannot count them as relevant to search queries.


Hopefully, the new update will modernise the network and its etiquette, encouraging more meaningful conversations, more colourful visuals and fun, short video snippets. After all, we are so used to these things on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, right?


Despite these plans, @mentions have not been affected by the recent change, but they likely will be soon. The company already announced this. We are really ready for the rule to be lifted from usernames as well, because if you’re trying to engage in a chat with two or three handles at the same time, half of your tweet will be wasted just for @mentions! It is especially important to encourage real conversations instead of spamming one other with links.


Because Twitter has started losing its major space in the social media game, the network really needs to start considering the breadth and the depth of conversations taking place online every second if it wants to stay at the top. This flexibility in character limits is the first step in the right direction. Your message can still stay brief and to the point, but the media you use should enhance that message instead of cutting it short.