Dealing With Dangerous Audiences

On very rare occasions a group presentation will turn ugly. No matter what happens, keep your cool. If you get a hostile question or comment, thank the person for sharing their thoughts with you, then deal with it just like you would handle an objection. If the whole room starts twitching in their seats, stop your pitch and ask them if you’ve said something wrong, then correct your misstatement.

The most common problem you’ll face with groups, though, isn’t hostility, it’s keeping them on the track you want them to follow. It seems like every group has a leader or a loud-mouth (sometimes it’s the same person) who wants to comment on every point you make, and everything everyone else says, too. Don’t take it personally, though, because this person probably acts the same way every time this group gets together. In fact, you can usually identify this guy before he opens his mouth because the rest of the crowd will start rolling their eyes when they see his hand go up the first time.

I wish I had a magic incantation for you to use in this situation, but I don’t. All you can do is stay pleasant and polite, not hesitating to change the subject back to your presentation before the loud-mouth can ask a follow-up question. Try to resist the temptation to put them in their place the way a stand-up comic deals with a heckler in a nightclub. Just grin and bear it and try not to lose your place in your pitch. Actually, the sympathy the rest of the group feels for you might well work in your favor

Another unpleasant situation is when the meeting degenerates into the dreaded “I Can Top That” routine. When the war stories start, everyone in the room seems to have a primal urge to contribute one. Each one has to be more horrible than the last one, of course, and the negative energy in the room just builds and builds. If it goes unchecked, you end up with an ugly mob on your hands.

Once again, the best tactic is to jump in before the momentum builds. The best rule of thumb is to interrupt after the second story is told. Don’t let the third one even get started. Give them a polite “That’s very interesting” and get back into your presentation. If you’re really good, you’ll be able to relate the benefits of your proposal to the problem that sparked the first story.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Keys To Sales Presentations To Groups

The dynamics of group presentations can be interesting, to say the least. This is a sales presentation, not a floorshow, so you want to encourage questions and comments from the group. In fact, you should plan to ask some questions of your own just like you would if you were meeting with the prospect one-on-one.

Your questions can either be thrown out to the group as a whole or addressed to one person in particular, depending on which is more appropriate. You will find that agreement questions such as “Do you like this idea?” don’t work very well in a group setting. There’s too much danger of the group splitting into factions or a particularly out-spoken member shooting you down before you get into your presentation.

Information questions, though, such as “Who is your biggest competitor?” can work very well. Many times, they’ll spark an intra-group discussion, which is a great time to listen closely and learn a lot. Watch the group dynamics to learn who the leaders really are. Obviously, you’ll want to listen to what they say about their business, their market, and their competitors as well as what they say about your idea, your company, and your competitors.

You should welcome questions or comments that come from the group, even when they break up the flow of your presentation. If the question is one you don’t want to answer yet, it’s perfectly acceptable to say that you’re going to cover that subject in a minute. Just make sure you do cover it before you end your presentation. If it’s a question about your proposal that indicates the listener doesn’t understand something, take the time right then to make it clear. If one person didn’t get it, there are probably others who missed it, too.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Making Public Golf More Fun

The golf course architecture firm of Robert Trent Jones II® (RTJ II), designers of such storied public golf courses as Poppy Hills and Spanish Bay in California, Washington’s Chambers Bay, and hundreds of others in more than 40 countries around the world, offers ten tenets supporting accessible and affordable public golf.

They come in the form of a Public Golf Proclamation that complements efforts of the ASGCA, NGCOA, USGA, The PGA of America, and golf organizations, associations, and governing bodies worldwide to bring the game to more people in more places.

We should all embrace the comments made by Master Architect Robert Trent Jones, Jr., who said, “We believe that golf should...be easily affordable and accessible to everyone who wishes to play it.” Jones took this further, writing in a recent letter to the New York Times, “Golf architects are often called upon to design courses that support upscale real estate developments. But the game’s roots reach down into the Earth, not up into trophy homes. Golf first developed 500 years ago as an accessible and affordable sport that brought people together outdoors, rather than separating them. Many great golf courses serve the public and the environment. The future of our sport lies in embracing the Scottish tradition in which all people are equal as they stand over a white ball.”

The firm's tenets say:

We aspire to:
1. Work with municipalities and other government entities to create great golf courses for their citizens through insightful, integrated master plans specific to each community.
2. Assist communities in creating programs and initiatives that make great public courses accessible and affordable to everyone.
3. Advocate for the creation of golf facilities on degraded sites to return unproductive land to productive and sustainable public uses.
4. Always protect and enhance the environment for the good of all.
5. Design courses that require less earth moving, water, fertilizer, and other resources in an effort to keep investment and operating costs—and therefore green fees—reasonable.
6. Create wider strategic routings and sets of shorter “family tees” to encourage children to take up golf and have fun playing it.
7. Advocate for innovative practice facilities where young people and newcomers can learn to love golf, and support programs and organizations that introduce new players to the sport.
8. Design facilities that encourage speed of play, including inventive layouts such as “Learning Courses,” par-three routings, 6-, 9-, and 12-hole loops, and others.
9. Create public courses that are flexible, fun, and challenging to golfers of a wide range of abilities.
10. Encourage golf course owners to support local businesses and take an active role in their communities.

Given the declining state of the game today, it makes sense doesn't it?

In addition to writing about golf, Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Dog-gone Novel Based On A True Story Of Christmas Magic

Every Christmas, I re-visit Hunting Elf, a doggone Christmas story. It's based on a true story that always reminds me there is some magic in the holiday.

Hunting Elf was my first novel. It is set in the world of Elf, a champion-bred Silky Terrier puppy who leads his accidental owners on more than one exciting chase through and around fictional Harrington, NY, a Westchester County suburb of New York City. Along the way, they encounter a set of strange and wacky neighbors, in-laws, outlaws, and dog lovers of various stripes and persuasions. It’s a comedic canine adventure.

Hunting Elf was first published as an online audio novel in podcast form. Word spread and thousands of episodes were downloaded by Elf lovers the world over, encouraging me to self-publish the trade paperback edition.  The reviews were enthusiastic.

“TRUTH is often stranger than fiction, and that is certainly so when author Dave Donelson tells the story of Elf, a Silky Terrier puppy with uncontrollable wanderlust and a posse of murderous dog fanatics in hot and hilarious pursuit.”
--read the full review at K9 Perspective

“Drawing on his life in a house with several champion show dogs - his wife, Nora Guzewicz, breeds and shows Bichon Frises — Mr. Donelson filled the novel with experiences recognizable by anyone who has ever raised a puppy. Elf lifts his leg in all the wrong places, chews on everything from an heirloom Oriental carpet to the CATV cable, and has an uncontrollable urge to dig up and eat delicacies like kitty paté, which gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘doggie breath.’”
--read the full review at the Larchmont Gazette

“Hunting Elf has a rollicking movement that pulls you into it and keeps you listening.”
-- read the full review at Dogster.com

Hunting Elf is now available as a trade paperback, Kindle ebook, other ebook formats from Smashwords.com, and an audiobook from Audible.com.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

A Christmas Gift Helping Women In Africa

Same Sky is an innovative program that supports African women living with HIV/AIDS by teaching them a skill and providing materials that help them earn a living. They are given a marketable skill and steady employment, essential factors when it comes to rebuilding lives and supporting their families.

The women are taught to crochet and make bracelets using hand-blown glass beads. The jewelry is sold online and at events around the world, with all net proceeds reinvested into the company to buy more materials and employ more women. It began with a partnership with Gahaya Links in Kigali, Rwanda, and expanded to Zambia in 2011.

If you're in Palm Beach on December 9, you can see what Same Sky does--and support the cause--at Badgley Mischka, 251 Worth Avenue. Same Sky founder Francine Lefrak, Michele Herbert, and Carolyn Grace will be there from 6 to 8 PM. Check the Same Sky website for events in your area or to order directly.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

Making Complex Sales Simpler

Another element adding to the complexity of the selling process today is the sale of services and product systems rather than items. You probably don’t sell a line of widgets; you sell “widget-based interior manufacturing process solutions.” You don’t sell a bookkeeping service; you sell “digital financial management decision and accounting information systems.”

The more complicated the product, the more “experts” required to make a decision about buying it. And the greater the number of incremental or interim decisions that have to be made before the final order is placed.

One of the many pitfalls in a complex sale is the “whisper down the lane” problem. You’ve probably played that parlor game where one person whispers a phrase to the next, who repeats it in the ear of another person until “Mary is going down to see Phil” becomes “Mary’s gong rang on Sea Hill.”

This is going to happen to you and your proposal when a flak catcher says to you, “Mr. Big is too busy to see you now, but I’ll explain your proposal to him for you.” This is not a good thing.
Not only is the flak catcher unlikely to get your proposal right, it’s a given that he or she won’t deliver it with the same enthusiasm and positive energy as you would. In fact, he’s very likely to start his pitch of your idea with, “I don’t know if you’ll like this, but.…” and go downhill from there. Remember, it’s the flak catcher’s job to say “no” to proposals, so he has to at least imply that answer to Mr. Big.

That’s if he takes your proposal into the inner sanctum at all, of course. Most of the time, he’s giving you that routine for the same reason a prospect says, “I’ll think about it” rather than giving you a simple “no.” It’s a convenient, low-risk way to get rid of you for a while. In fact, when you call back to see how Mr. Big liked the idea, the flak catcher can tell you “no sale” and blame it on Mr. Big. And you have no way of knowing for sure whether Mr. Big actually saw it or not.

This same problem is magnified when you’re forced to deal with a buying agent of some sort. They really have a vested interest in keeping Mr. Big in the dark about your proposals. And they will go to great lengths to make sure you don’t even think about going around them.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

How To Sell Despite Gatekeepers, Flak Catchers, And Other Obstacles

Many times you’ll have to fight your way through an army of flak catchers to get your proposal in front of the people who matter. Flak catchers, by the way, are those people noted author and social commentator Tom Wolfe identified as the ones sitting in the outer office whose job it is to intercept incoming shrapnel, complaints, and sales pitches to protect the real decision makers inside.

There’s a great temptation to try to blow right by the flak catchers and get to Mr. Big. The problem with this tactic is that it backfires too often. You never know just what the relationship between the two may be. Many a busy executive will take cues from an administrative assistant because they work so closely together day after day. And the assistant will know just how much power they have, too, and not hesitate to use it if they feel slighted in any way. Remember how much trouble Marie Antoinette got into because she brushed off the concerns of the little people.

You have to be careful, too, about job titles. Does the Senior Vice President of Marketing make the final advertising budget decisions? Does the Operations Manager buy the production line equipment—or does that job belong to the Purchasing Manager? Maybe. Maybe not. It all depends on the company and their practices. You obviously need to do your homework and ask lots of questions as you’re working your way through the maze.

The decision influencer that will really drive you crazy is the invisible one. I don’t know how many times I’ve worked for months on a prospect, making endless presentations to person after person only to get a final “no” because there was an unidentified decision influencer I missed along the way. You just never know and unfortunately you can’t count on the prospect to offer you all the guidance you’d like to have. Ask, ask, ask.

Another source of sales insanity is the self-appointed expert. Every prospect seems to have someone on staff whose main job responsibility is to pass negative judgment on every sales proposal. They always seem to be hardest on those proposals that didn’t start in their office, too, which is an interesting coincidence.

Some product and service lines draw these experts worse than others. More than two-thirds of American homes have computers, so you can count on at least half the prospect’s employees having an opinion on your product if you sell information systems. Everybody is an expert on advertising too, of course, since everybody is exposed to it every day.

The strategy I’ve adopted to deal with all these contingencies is to make the presentation to anybody who will listen to it, whether I think they’re directly involved in the decision or not. With a complex sale, you can never be sure who’s doing what or who has the stroke, so cover them all. Since a complex sale can take time (weeks, months, or even years) to complete, it’s not unheard of for someone you’ve pitched to get promoted, transferred, or terminated before the final decision is made. So cover all your bases and make the presentation to anybody you can corner long enough to hear it.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Selling In The Face Of Empowerment

Companies who "empower" their employees will proudly tell you that you don’t have to pitch your product to Mr. Big because any number of subordinates can make the final decision. Mr. Big will go along with anything they decide. Did you notice that Mr. Big still has the final word? To me, just saying that he will go along implies that he also has the option to not go along.

Unfortunately, at least in my experience, many of the employees who have been empowered don’t want the responsibility that goes along with the territory. Some people subconsciously feel threatened by the responsibility that comes with decision-making. They may even believe that upper management is copping out on their responsibilities by pushing decisions down in the organization. They’re much more inclined to say “no” than “yes” because keeping the status quo is almost always felt to be the safer decision. And a great deal of second guessing goes on, too, especially among those who live to please upper management and as such are mostly concerned about what Mr. Big really wants them to decide. There’s a tendency to push the decision back up the corporate ladder—or worse, not make any decision at all—if they can.

It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s one that you have to deal with constantly when you're in sales.

The biggest reason you’ll constantly be involved in complex sales is that the fabric and structure of many industries have become more complex. The Mom and Pop grocery store has given way to the hypermart. The independent local realtor is now a franchisee of a national financial conglomerate. The local lumber yard has been replaced by a big box store and the neighborhood hardware store is under siege. Waves of consolidation have swept through every industry from toy stores to funeral homes.

And with size almost always comes complexity. The management of a nationwide chain of service stations has a vastly more complicated structure than the one running your local two-pump corner gas station. There are local managers reporting to regional managers reporting to division managers who draw on the resources of the corporate marketing, finance, legal, engineering, and administrative staffs. The decision to buy a new digital sign, for example, may have to be approved by a dozen individuals. At the local sole-proprietor gas station, one person—the owner/operator—will make that decision alone.

Since creative sellers focus on the larger potential accounts, they almost by definition pursue the national organizations rather than the mom and pops in their industry. You must develop a set of tools and tactics to reach and persuade the multiple decision influencers in your prospect’s company.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Closing Sales To Decision Influencers

Have you ever heard this sales adage: Never take “no” from someone who can’t say “yes?” There’s more than a kernel of wisdom in it, but this truism undoubtedly pre-dates the age of virtual corporations with horizontal organization charts describing the functions of an empowered workforce. In most complex selling situations, the first hurdle to overcome isn’t “no,” it’s identifying all the various players with something to say about the decision.

When it comes to identifying the people involved, I refer to decision “influencers” as well as decision “makers.” That’s because there are many people in the modern business structure who don’t have the authority to say either “yes” or “no” but whose opinions are solicited by the final decision makers. Even seemingly simple decisions often go through the influencer mill. This happens for a variety of reasons.

For one, a large number of executives today practice consensual management. The old autocratic “buck stops here” decision maker is out of sync with the latest in management theory. These modern executives believe (and rightly so) that involving more people in a decision improves the ultimate acceptance of that decision. If you’ve ever sold consulting services, for example, you know that the client staff members who are going to be affected by the project can destroy it if they don’t “buy in” early in the decision-making process.

There’s also a widespread belief that the more people involved in a decision, the better that decision will be. It’s a safety procedure practiced by decision makers who prefer to spread the risk among a larger group. Of course, decision making by committee has its downside, too. It tends to produce “safe” decisions because a group tends to grind all ideas down to the most acceptable level.

Group decisions may be safe, but they’re certainly not necessarily better. Each member of the group has his or her own agenda and will act to carry it out within the group with varying degrees of success. I’m sure you’ve heard the story of the committee charged with designing a horse. Every member added the features they wanted. One suggested the beast have four legs and another made them long and added large, flat feet for traction on soft surfaces. Another insisted on a tail to shoo away flies while yet someone else modified it to not be bushy so maintenance would be lower. And so the process went through meeting after meeting until the committee to design a horse produced instead a camel.

Here’s a scary number: 27. That’s the number of “yes or no” interim decisions that need to be made in a situation where a committee of just three people is deciding whether to buy an item with three specifications (like size, color, and quantity) and where each person has to consider and agree/disagree with each of the others on each possible combination of specified features. And what’s really scary about that number is that it does not include the final yes or no buying decision! Unfortunately, sound management practice or not, decision-making committees are often part of the complex sale.

That’s one reason I suggest eliminating as many of the interim decisions as possible when you put your proposal together. If you give the committee just one decision to make (buy or don’t buy), you’ve eliminated all of the interim decisions they have to debate.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Westchester's Incredible Shrinking Libraries Do More With Less

As library funding continues to come under pressure from ever-tightening governmental budgets, the quality and level of service is bound to suffer. Librarians are super managers, but they're not magicians.

According to the annual NY State report released September 30, 2011, here's what happened to Westchester County's 38 public libraries from 2005 to 2010:

Total circulation went up 12%, but total materials purchased declined 10%. Annual materials expense dropped 13%.

The average minimum weekly total hours open went down from 50.1 to 48.6 even though the number of library visits increased 4% to 7.8 million.

Paid staff (FTE basis) went from 800 to 728, a decrease of 10% and the number of reference transactions declined 12% (it takes people to answer questions!)

Continued chopping of library budgets will further impact the level of service provided to the more than 500,000 people who hold Westchester County library cards and the countless thousands more who use our public libraries without one. Let's hope the municipalities and other entities now contemplating library budgets for next year realize the full impact of what they are doing.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.