Over the past six months I made a number of purchases contributing to the sales volume at the Home Depot store in Hackettstown, New Jersey.

The first major purchase was a log splitter. Not knowing what to buy and having a large selection to pick from, I was helped by Don Orfield.

Don asked me a number of questions to understand what I was trying to accomplish. With his help I was able to select an electric portable splitter I could move easily by hand. By the way it does a great job.

My next major purchase at Home Depot was a snow blower. Not know anything about snow blowers and having a large selection to choose from I was lucky to be helped by Don. We talked about my needs and with his help I made my purchase.

After the purchase Don offered to have the snow blower assembled and would call me when it was ready. The day I picked up the snow blower Don had it ready with some gas in the tank. At first glance the machine looked very complicated to use.

There were multiple handles and switches, a choke, and an electric start. Don took the time to show me how to start it up and use the controls. He said that watching someone demonstrate it would make it a lot easier when I got it home and read the manual.

This year I needed to change the locks in my house. There was a combination of eight dead bolts and entry locks.

I was told that a locksmith would charge about $85.00 per lock to match all the locks. I went to Home Depot thinking it would be cheaper to just buy all new locks.

This time I was waited on by Matt Unkel. Matt suggested instead of buying all new locks I should go home and see what different types of locks I had and then come back.

When I went back to the store I had two of one type of lock and an assortment of the others. Matt suggested I buy two locks. Go home and bring in the locks I had on my doors and he would re- key them for me.

When the project was completed all my house locks matched and I spent less than one hundred dollars. Matt did not charge me for the rekeying of all the other locks. His words were, I see you in here a lot it is on us.

Due to high winds in my area the brackets for the hot tube bent when the cover was up.  I tried to buy new brackets. I thought my only choice was to buy a new system that would come to over three hundred dollars.

I took the mounting brackets down to Home Depot thinking I would buy new aluminum pipe and build new brackets. I saw Don Orfield and asked if he had any suggestions. Don took me to the plumbing department.

Using a pipe bender he was able to straighten the pipes. I purchased two new bolts, nuts and washers along with pipe insulators and I was back in business for under eleven dollars.

From time to time I have purchased paint at Home Depot. Gerry Figurelli and Cate Oakley have always been there to recommend the right brush, match colors and do whatever it takes.

There are some very important lessons from these experiences from a big box store.

If you want to increase your market share, increase sales volume it takes more than a just trying to sell stuff. It takes an attitude of customer service and building relationships

• Don, Cate, Gerry and Matt were genuinely interested in me.
• They took the time to ask questions to determine what I was trying to accomplish.
• There were no sales pitches.
• They all made suggestions they felt were in my best interests.
• They gave of themselves. (On the day Matt worked with me he was getting ready to leave the store and  stayed to help me. Don was just about to have lunch when I arrived with the bent hot tub cover brackets and helped me.)

I can buy a snow blower, a log splitter, a bolt anywhere. I know when I have to buy something I can go to Home Depot and get the help I need. My experience with Home Depot’s sales processes and systems was that it is built around customer service and customer satisfaction.

 I know when I have a problem there will be someone there interested in helping me.

When the board of directors of a company, select people that know how to build relationships, they in turn will be building a customer base that will stay loyal.

My conversation with Bill went like this.

Bill: Hi Al, I wanted this session with you because while I had a good sales year and hit my quota, I feel I can do better. I don’t know how much to increase my sales numbers, sales quota and how many more business opportunities I can capture.

Al: Well Bill, you certainly have a positive attitude, can you expand on that?

Bill: Sure, I have a vision of improving my sales process, not to be overly challenging and yet increase my sales performance. I want to increase my sales volume, do a better job of pipeline management and have a sales plan that would help me increase my quota and sales for 2012. But I don’t know exactly where to start.

Bill: Do you have any ideas, sales tips or new concepts that would help me increase my sales and market share.

Al: I want to take you through a sales process that will help have a clear vision of how to increase your sales and market share. Are you open to some self improvement as a sales person?

Bill: Sure, Where do we start?

Jumping ahead, Bill, at the end of our meeting had created a sales plan and sales strategy and a sales quota that represented a substantial increase in sales over his previous year and felt he was on the road to success.

Like Bill you can discover what you can do to increase sales, profits and market share in 2012. Here is the process we went through which you can replicate.

First determine how many new first appointments you had in 2011.

Then figure out how many working days you have in 2012.

• Start with                                 365 days
• Subtract weekends                   104 days
• Number of days left                   261 days
• Subtract holidays                         9 days
• Number of days left                   252 days
• Subtract vacation days                15 days
• Number of days left                   237 days
• Personal/Sick/Misc days              5 days
• Number of days left                   232 days
• Sales meetings/planning days     24 days
• Number of days left to sell         208 days

When Bill went through this process he realized he had 47 new appointments in 2011 in a 208 day period and closed forty percent for a total of 19 new accounts. Bill could not account for the rest of his day’s activities.

Bill also realized if he doubled the amount of first appointments to 94 he still had and all other variables stayed the same he could close 38 new accounts and 114 days left.

If he committed one day a week for phone calls which is 52, he still had 62 days left. Bill committed to attend 1 networking event each week and still have 10 days left over.

With a commitment to increase his first appointments he still had time each day for follow calls, servicing customers and making new appointments.

Every situation is different. But the exercise Bill went through should give you some insight on how to increase your sales. I would suggest you calculate how many working days you have in 2012. Then calculate how many first calls you had in 2011.

You will have to engineer your own vacation days, holidays, sales planning and sales meeting days, and planning the other days mentioned above where and if they apply.

Please let me know what sales plan you come up with and if there is room for increased sales and market share.

Susan called and wanted to know how to get out of the quoting game. The conversation went as follows;

Susan: Al, when I am cold calling and find a business opportunity how do I get out of the quoting game and still win my market share of the business?

Al: Susan, if you needed a product or a service and you had a good friend who was a sales person who sold that product or service would you go to them to make the purchase?

Susan: Sure.

Al: Would you go out and get a quote from someone else?

Susan: No.

Al: Why?

Susan: Because I have a relationship with them, I respect them and trust that they would do the right thing by me.

Al: Good. So how do you know they would do right by you?

Susan: Well that did happen to me. I wanted to buy a hot tub and my friend asked me a lot of questions.

Al: What kind of questions?

Susan: John wanted to come out to the house to see where I wanted to put the hot tub.

                Was I going to use it twelve months out of the year or just in the summer?

                How many people would use it at any one time?

                What kind of a budget did I have in mind?

                When did I want to have it in use?

                And a lot more questions.

Al: So how did you feel about the questions, what was your attitude?

Susan: It was fine. I got the feeling he was interested in me and was trying to make sure I bought the right tub.

Al: How would you feel if John just sent you a picture of the hot tub and a price?

Susan: I would probably look around and talk with other people.

Al: Really, why, I thought John was a friend?

Susan: Well, if he just sent something out in the mail I would think he wasn’t that interested.

Al: So Susan, since you had that experience what do you think would be important when dealing with a prospect that needed your product?

Susan: Really learn a lot about what they wanted to accomplish. Let them know I was interested in them and they were important to me.

Al: So if you wanted to get out of the quoting game what sales tips would you give someone?

Susan: The sales tips I would give them would be;

                Don’t be so quick to just give a price.

                Go see them.

                Let them know you are interested in them.

                Let them know you really need to understand what they

                want to really help them.

                Make suggestions and not just sell.

                Make their agenda your agenda.

Al: Susan that’s great, you are on your way. Would you like to set up another coaching session to take this session to the next level?

Susan: Sure, let’s do it.

What did you learn from my interaction with Susan? Feel free to add your comments below.

I received a call from Peter asking if I would debrief a prospect sales call. Peter was having difficulty getting in touch with the decision maker to book another sales appointment.

Our sales call debriefing session went as follows:

Al, I had a great first prospect telephone call. During the call I was able to determine the prospect had some issues that I could address for him successfully. From there we booked a first meeting two weeks out.

When I arrived I met with the decision maker. During the sales call I made sure not to go into a premature presentation. Most of the prospect call was dedicated to the prospect telling me where they currently were in their business, where they wanted to get to and what they perceived was getting in the way of their business growth.

After hearing all the issues I was able to determine my software would address all their issues and systems successfully.

While I did not tell the prospect how I would fix the problem I did focus on what it would be like after I fixed their processes and systems. As we came to the end of our meeting the decision maker had to leave and wanted to get together again to continue our conversation.

I told him I would call him to set up the next meeting. I have been calling for over two weeks and have not been able to get him on the phone.

When I spoke with his assistant she said he was out of town and would be returning in a week. She also said he keeps his own calendar and could not book an appointment for me.

I asked Peter what he saw as the problem. Peter’s reply was,” I can’t get him on the phone to make another appointment”. I had to let Peter know that not being able to get the decision maker on the phone was not the problem but was the effect of the problem.

The real problem was Peter did not set up another appointment with the decision maker while he was on the sales visit with the prospect. And, as a result had elongated his sales cycle.

Sales Tip: When you are on a prospect call or a customer call set your next appointment prior to leaving the prospect’s office. When the prospect books the next appointment with you, it confirms their interest and helps you control the sales cycle.

Tell me in the comment box below if you ever faced this sales issue and what technique you used to address it?

Long sales cycles or longer than expected sales cycles are one of the many causes of companies not hitting their sales quotas, and profit quotas.

It will also determine whether they capture their market share within a specific time period.

Three sure fire ways to shorten your sales cycle close more sales and profits and improve your selling systems.

1-Make sure you are dealing with the decision maker and/or understand the decision making process for that prospect. These selling skill concepts will help you avoid dealing with someone that is just gathering information for someone else. Dealing with the information gatherer and not from the decision maker will make your sales cycle longer than it needs to be.

2-Find out if the service or product the prospect is inquiring about is something they need and not just something they are thinking about. This will help you eliminate the tire kickers and the researchers that may not really want or need your product or service. You can always keep these prospects in your sales pipeline as a potential sale for the future.

3-Ask the prospect when they actually see themselves needing or using the product or service. This will give you the drop dead date and also help eliminate the tire kickers.