Unfortunately, many salespeople wait and “save themselves” for the “good” leads; they fail in the waiting.

The best salespeople create their own good leads, mastering the three-part “sales sandwich”:

           2. Consulting

           3. Managing and closing the opportunity

Most experienced salespeople effectively consult – the “meat” of the sales sandwich – when the prospect is ready to buy. If the prospect calls and asks “can I buy from you today,” most experienced salespeople can take them through a consultative process. The problem is prospects don’t call us often enough – the line of buyers in front of our business has diminished in recent years.

We might well ask where have all the good buyers – the good leads – gone? Market fundamentals are always changing; what worked as recently as a year ago probably no longer works. We need to go out, create, manage and close opportunity.

Dieters notwithstanding, substantially more attention is needed on the bookends, the bread of the sales sandwich:

           • Developing the opportunity

          • Managing and closing the opportunity

I began my sales consulting practice with a focus on the second slice – increasing closing ratios by managing and closing opportunity, the “at bat” in baseball terms. This requires a strong standard sales call, a step-by-step procedure that:

           1. Marries our unique material difference to the prospect’s urgent needs;

          2. Proves to the skeptic; and

          3. Is supported by a battle plan for the longer-term, multi-step complex sale

Over time, I learned that in many companies there is an even greater need for the first slice of sales sandwich: developing the opportunity.

There are only two ways to develop opportunity with new clients:

          1. Introductions and referrals

          2. Outreach to colder opportunities (through marketing and phone calling)

By far, getting introductions and referrals is the easiest method for developing opportunity. Regrettably, most salespeople avoid this easier method, because they trip over their social values. They don’t feel comfortable asking satisfied clients and close colleagues for introductions.

They confuse friendship and social values with business values, failing miserably at networking. My teaching experience shows it can take up to three months of weekly seminars to help salespeople reset their value system in this arena.

Further, for many businesses the issue is not closing but opening and activating new referral sources. This is particularly true for many professional businesses that rely on referrals from accountants, lawyers, bankers, etc. – they need to activate new referral sources.

The techniques for activating new referral sources draw heavily on the standard sales call and battle plan, including:

         • Focusing on material differences

        • Proving, the proper use of moxie and in-kind payments – what we ask the prospect to do

       • Staying in touch with the potential referral sources for the duration of the “activation” campaign

Most companies provide some marketing to generate leads. However, salespeople need to take responsibility for developing opportunity, to complement or supplant company efforts.

When building their business, even successful networkers need to supplement their networking by reaching out and calling new prospects. Without adequate referrals, or company-furnished leads, the salesperson building, or rebuilding, her business will need to budget up to 100 dials per day to new prospects. This is a lot of challenging work. It’s much easier to network.

For those salespeople needing to call new prospects, they must develop a powerful script, loaded with material difference and moxie.

In the end, to succeed at sales you must build a powerful sales sandwich, and “take a bite.” Enjoy!

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Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. has been named one of the “100 Best” U.S. companies by DeMarche Associates, Inc., an investment research firm. Other companies named among the top 100 include Best Buy, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Wal-Mart. The award is based on DeMarche research of more than 3,000 U.S. corporations in the areas of growth and risk management in maintaining shareholder value. According to the DeMarche report, being one of the top 100 Best Companies places Pre-Paid Legal Services within the top 3 percent of all U.S. corporations.

James Lape, senior vice president, behavioral health & psychiatry and long-term care, at Trinitas Regional Medical Center, has been named president of the board of directors of The Arc of Union County. The Arc is a community-based organization devoted to promoting and improving supports and services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Lape is a founding member of the New Jersey Mental Health Institute.

Trinitas recently was visited by New York Knick forward Al Harrington, a native of Roselle who works extensively with underprivileged children. Harrington visited the medical center’s New Point Residential Treatment Center and spoke with the young people like Vianca (right), encouraging them to realize their potential.

______________________________

Marcy Sasso, director of operations at Ambulatory Surgical Center of Union County, has been recognized by Becker’s Ambulatory Surgical (ASC) Review as one of the outstanding surgery center administrators in the United States. Sasso is one of only 45 administrators featured in the ASC Review. There are approximately 4,000 surgery centers in the United States and 250 in New Jersey.

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In 1928 9-year-old Walter Collins disappeared from his home in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Police, under community pressure, launched a nationwide search, and eventually found “Walter” in Illinois. Only when he was reunited with his mother, Christine Collins, “Walter” turned out not to be Walter Collins.

Mrs. Collins complained to the police, but she was told to take the boy home and she was sure to realize she was mistaken. A couple weeks later she returned to the police with dental records, and instead of admitting their error, Christine Collins was committed to a mental institution. Only massive public outrage led to her release.

This story was made into a movie, The Changeling, which I watched recently with my wife. It was a very disturbing movie about the abuse of power. Afterward, my wife, who like me had been horrified by the events portrayed, commented that “thank goodness abuses like that can no longer happen.”

Unfortunately abuses like this do occur with great regularity. It is only the public outcry that seems to have diminished.

Union County is blessed with an organization named the Union County Watchdog Association. Led by Tina Renna, the group works tirelessly to keep Union County government honest. They attend all the Board of Chosen Freeholders meetings. They demand explanations of nepotistic hirings. They track expenses of county government offices and employees and point out abuses. They expose cover-ups and double dealing. They do all the things that good government requires.

And how are Ms. Renna and her group of watchers repaid? With ridicule, abuse, character assassination and sanction. It is incredible and disheartening to witness the treatment these people receive. They are taxpaying, voting citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights to question their elected officials and hold them accountable for their actions. Rather than be treated with courtesy and respect they are vilified and demeaned. Often, like Christine Collins, their sanity is called into question.

Recently a particularly ignoble piece of literature has appeared called the Kruger Report. It is sent out anonymously, but given that it is unflagging in its support of the freeholders, one can guess its origin. 

One can also only guess at the intent of its name. Is it named for Freddie Kruger, because it certainly has a slasher feel to it. The intent of the Kruger Report is to slander Ms. Renna, to undermine her credibility and to have us think she is insane (shades of Christine Collins).

In spite of all this, Ms. Renna and her watchdogs continue the watch. With the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) they are able to get information that government would rather hide. The Watchdog Association had to take Union County to court to get this access. They take what they find to freeholder meetings and ask for clarification or justification or simply shine the light where the powers that be would rather it not be shown.

Recently, the American Civil Liberties Union intervened on behalf of the Watchdog Association when the freeholder board denied them the ability to ask questions regarding relatives on the county payroll. Under threat of another unwinnable lawsuit, the freeholders apologized and now allow the questioning.

Because of the internet, the Watchdog Association is able to make public its findings. Their website, www.countywatchers.com, provides a wealth of information on what is happening in the county, information that is rarely available in any other place, especially since the demise of the county section of the Star Ledger. It is a site that I visit daily.

What really differentiates Tina Renna from Christine Collins is the lack of public outrage. When Collins was attacked, the citizens of Los Angeles rose up and demanded her release in public demonstration.

President                                                                                                       Copyright James Coyle 2009

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Where the Chamber Stands...

Not all ARCs Float - or Stick

In a pinch marketing and advertising professionals often resort to the creative approach of “throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks.” That’s fine when ideas come cheaply and those that don’t “stick” are metaphorically swept away into the dumpster.

This is not such a good approach for designing government programs intended to help the nation recover from the recession. With government programs, the shotgun, hit-or-miss approach can be costly. Buckshot is not free and taxpayers foot the bill.

The federal America’s Recover Capital, or ARC Loan Program, is an example of an idea that does not seem to be sticking, warranting revisions of design and/or implementation. ARC is a well-meaning program administered by the Small Business Association (SBA) intended to help struggling small businesses “ride out the current uncertain economic times and return to profitability.”

The program facilitates interest-free, deferred payment loans of up to $35,000 to struggling small businesses from participating banks, with the loans being 100 percent guaranteed by  the SBA and the lenders receiving monthly interest payments from the agency.

This sounds like a win-win program, an idea that certainly should have stuck.

So why hasn’t it?

When the SBA launched the ARC program in June it announced a goal of 10,000 loans by the program’s scheduled termination on September 30, 2010, according to CNNMoney.com. As of today, more than 1,800 loans have been made – a pace that is slightly off-mark of the goal but apparently healthy.

Yet the program has been coolly embraced, if not outright shunned, by most of the lending community. Fewer than 500 lending institutions out of the nation’s 8,200 FDIC-backed banks are taking part, according to CNNMoney. A review of the SBA’s lender activity report shows that two states, Wisconsin and Minnesota, account for 25 percent of the loans. In New Jersey, only four banks have made just six loans.

While the ARC loans sound like a great idea at first blush, there are fundamental design flaws in the program. First are the eligibility requirements. To qualify for a loan a borrower “must be experiencing immediate financial hardship,” according to the SBA. At the same time the company must be “an established business, have financial statements demonstrating it was profitable in one of the past two years, and be able to project sufficient cash flow to meet current and future loan payments over a two-year period.”

This seems a bit like searching for hobos who have enough income to pay for their train pass next month.

Then there is the banks’ side. While the ARC loans are fully guaranteed, the SBA is forecasting a 56 percent default rate, according to CNNMoney. National and local experts also point out that as much time and energy goes into making the ARC loans, many for far less than the $35,000 cap, as for a $1 million loan that offers a much greater return for the lender.

This foot-dragging is not dissimilar to the apparent reluctance banks have shown to participate in the federal Making Home Affordable Program intended to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. Like ARC, the program is voluntary and the target loan recipients are borrowers that carry the greatest risk – making them the least attractive to the banks.

In short, the banks have slower, fatter rabbits to hunt.

Not all government programs designed to help turn around the economy have failed to stick. The Car Allowance Rebate System, or Cash for Clunkers, was a huge success at spurring consumer purchasing (albeit there remain debates about the wisdom of some of those purchases and the delay in getting cash to dealers). The New York Times recently reported that the federal government so far has made a $4 billion profit on its Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, as banks have repaid their bailout loans.

Locally, the Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit program within the New Jersey Economic Stimulus Act has been warmly received by the real estate sector, with developers expecting the program to jumpstart projects that might have sat dormant for several years, as reported in NJBIZ. That means work and jobs.

Clearly, some ideas stick, some don’t. Unfortunately, in the world of taxpayer-funded government programs, those that don’t stick cost money – and leave struggling homeowners and businesses still in need of help.

The SBA needs to revisit the ARC Loan Program and implement changes to make the program more effective. Because this first toss against the wall is sliding toward the floor.

In the 2009 edition of the State Business Tax Climate Index, the non-partisan Tax Foundation ranked New Jersey as the least-business-friendly state in the country for the second year in a row. In the report, Tax Foundation economist Joshua Barro writes, “New Jersey, which ranks 50th out of 50 states, has a tax code that reads like a ‘What Not To Do’ for legislators.”

This designation should not come as a surprise to anyone who has ever owned or operated a business in New Jersey. Business owners in the state face the seventh-highest corporate tax rate, the ninth-highest sales tax, and the highest per-capita property tax in the country. This is all on top of the highest-in-the-nation state and local aggregate tax burden – a combined marginal income tax rate of almost 11 percent.

These heavy-handed taxes, compounded by federal personal income and corporate tax rates, place a great burden on businesses in our state and make New Jersey less competitive in the national and global marketplace. Most of all, this punitive tax structure makes it harder for individuals to build and sustain small businesses that, in turn, create jobs in our communities.

When I was Chairman of the Commerce and Economic Development Committee in the New Jersey General Assembly, I worked hard to make New Jersey a more welcoming place for small business and corporations. Now, as a member of the United State Congress, I believe it is imperative that the federal government ceases their interference in the private sector  and allows small business to do what they do best: create jobs.

Over the last decade, small businesses have been responsible for as much as 80 percent of private job creation, and now employ over half of the country’s private work force. It is vital to our economic recovery that we remove (and not create) burdens from the backs of small business owners in order to stimulate job creation and economic growth.

Earlier this year, I introduced legislation that would, among other things, allow small businesses to immediately expense capital assets, extend the “carryback period” for net operating losses, and reduce the marginal corporate tax rate by 10 percent. Unfortunately, the President and Congressional Democrats instead wagered a $787 billion bet that top-down government spending – not private entrepreneurship and small business – can stimulate and stabilize our economy. Seven months into the so-called stimulus plan, we’ve seen very few jobs created and far more businesses forced to close their doors. In fact, not only have very few jobs been created, unemployment has steadily risen to highs not seen in over 26 years.

This is a time, both here in New Jersey and across the country, where we should be looking for ways to make it easier to actualize the American Dream of owning your own business, not putting existing business owners out of business.

It makes no sense why New Jersey has become so inhospitable to business and industry, especially when nearby states are doing far better at creating and retaining jobs. New Jersey has all of the natural resources a manufacturer or company could ever ask for: multiple deep water ports, commercial access to major metropolitan areas, a diverse topography, relatively low fuel prices and an educated work force. Yet still, long before the economic recession, New Jersey was losing jobs and companies at an alarming rate, a trend only exacerbated by the financial crisis.

I strongly believe that a reduction in taxes on small businesses and an easing of accounting rules to encourage capital investment is the surest and most stable road to financial recovery – both in Washington and in Trenton. There is no reason to believe we can’t stimulate small business growth while stabilizing the economy; in fact, it is the only proven way.

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Twitter has quickly gone from a confusing buzzword many felt they could ignore to something most businesses are at least considering exploring – but are still confused about. Is Twitter right for your business? There’s a good chance it is.

Twitter is a 140-character, text-based “microblog” that is currently free of both advertising and usage fees. Started in 2006, Twitter has grown at an incredible rate and boasts one of the top web presences worldwide.

Taking a step back from the technology side, “twitter” is a word used to describe short bursts of communication, such as birds chirping. (Hence the Twitter “bird” logo mascot.) In other words, chatter. Chatter between you and your “followers;” between you and those you “follow;” and chatter among the enormous global audience that Twitter provides.

What does this mean to your business? Twitter presents an opportunity to reach out frequently with “bursts” of information to those interested in your product or service, your personnel, your brand and/or your company in general. It allows you to get information out there quickly – actually, immediately – with a very specific focus on that particular “Tweet.” (Now the bird thing is making much more sense, isn’t it?)

It removes the layers between “them” and “you,” granting followers instantaneous – and public – access to you. Marketers have talked for a long time about the desire to “create a dialog” with their customers, and Twitter makes that possible like never before.

One more important bit of information to keep in mind: since Twitter is a blog, unlike Facebook and some other social networking sites, Tweets are searchable by Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. That means whatever you put out via Twitter is relatively easy for your customers and competitors to stumble across. So before you enter the Twitterverse, be sure your customer service skills are sharper than a Ginsu.

Twitter may be right for your company if:

             • You would benefit from (and enjoy) frequent interactions

             • You are willing to let down the veil and share information in a way that is not currently available via other outreach efforts

            • You can allot the time to tend to your Twitter garden every day

            • You are willing to try creative strategies and spontaneous approaches

            • In other words: you will be social

Twitter is probably not right for your company if:

           • The thought of letting people peek behind the curtain is scarier than the economy

           • You think “Tweeting” once a month is sufficient

          • Your legal department will be dictating all that you Tweet, and approving each move you make before you make it

          • In other words: your social media activity will do more to turn off people than to facilitate increased connectivity, consideration and loyalty

Thinking of Twitter like a virtual social gathering – such as a cocktail party – can help put you in the right mindset. Nobody likes the salesperson at the party who treats each conversation as a potential sale, hands out business cards and follows up relentlessly. People avoid this “social downer” and may avoid future events from this host for fear of a repeat encounter. That’s the opposite of how you want people to feel about your company on Twitter.

We enjoy interacting with people who offer something of value: interesting information, intriguing trivia, solutions to our problems, or even just a sparkling personality with witty banter that makes us smile. That’s what you see in a popular party guest – and that’s what draws quality Twitter followers and interactions. Twitter gives you the chance to expand your brand personality while remaining true to your core.

Still wondering if Twitter is right for your business? Let’s close with a real-life example, Eight O’Clock Coffee. This iconic 150-year-old brand starting Tweeting in March. Just four months later, they announced a deal with the award-winning show “Mad Men” that included sponsoring online viral/social applications such as the popular “MADMEN YOURSELF” avatar creation program that gained millions of users in the first two days. At the root of this partnership: Twitter.

Eight O’Clock’s “groundbreaking” Twitter presence gained the attention of followers, the media and AMC. The connection was made. And the rest is Twistory.