Book SummaryNew Sales Simplified, by Mike Weinberg

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of New Sales Simplified

Generating new business as a salesperson is essential to a company’s success, yet few salespeople are good at it. Many reps are intimidated by making “cold calls” (first-time calls to potential customers to ask for their business), and therefore, they make only half-hearted attempts or none at all. But “prospecting” for new business isn’t difficult. In New Sales. Simplified., veteran salesman and sales coach Mike Weinberg demystifies prospecting for both veterans and inexperienced salespeople.

Weinberg’s solution to many companies’ and sales reps’ struggle to grow new business is a three-stage sales model he calls the “New Sales Driver.” The stages of the model are:

1. Targeting: strategically selecting potential customers to pursue
2. Developing your weapons: creating powerful sales tools and using them effectively
3. Planning and executing: determining which tools to use and when, then executing

New Sales Step 1: Select Prospects to Target

Look for potential new customers with a profile similar to that of your best current customers. Ask:

• Who are the company’s best customers?
• What do they have in common?
• What do these companies and their markets look like?
• Where or how can we find potential customers who resemble our best customers?

Resources for Finding Prospects

Once you know what kind of sales prospects you’re targeting, there are many resources for coming up with specific names. Local business journals compile and publish annual lists of businesses in the region by size, business sector, and so on. For instance, a journal might list the 10 largest architectural firms in the market, largest employers in the region, or top 25 banks. Another resource is Hoover’s, an online source for business data. With a subscription, sales teams can research potential targets. Other tools include LinkedIn, trade shows, social media, and referrals.

Target List Parameters

In addition to being strategic, a target list should be:

• Fixed: Zero in on a fixed or limited number of targets that you’ve chosen for solid reasons. Then work the list and keep working it. Don’t give up and move on if you don’t succeed on your first try with a prospect. Most importantly, stay focused on your prospect list and don't start pursuing other, non-strategic targets, which won’t be productive. With persistence, you’ll gain traction and begin building new relationships.
• Focused: Focus intensely on the category of customers that’s produced sales for you in the past. By doing so, you’ll become conversant in the industry’s or sector’s language, opportunities, and challenges. This, in turn, will help you ask smart questions that build credibility with prospects. With each success, the next will be easier to achieve.
• Written: Have a written, one-page target list literally at your fingertips to keep you focused on your mission. It’s faster and easier to pull out a paper list or spreadsheet than to boot up and scroll through digital pages of a CRM (customer relationship management) system, or to page through an industry directory. Even the act of writing, printing out, and posting a new-business target list on your wall inspires action and ultimately results.
• Feasible: Keep your prospect list short enough that you can give each account enough attention, and long enough to be challenging so you don’t get bored and waste time on other things. Determining the right number of accounts to include depends on the type of business being targeted, how easy it’ll be to gain access to each customer, the sales rep’s other responsibilities, and so on. For instance, if you’re selling complex enterprise-level IT software, you’ll need to keep your account list small, perhaps a few dozen accounts, so that managing it will be feasible. However, a telesales rep could handle many more, perhaps hundreds, of accounts for a simple product or service.

New-Sales Step 2: Develop Your Sales Weapons

Once you have your target list, you need three key sales weapons: a compelling sales story, an effective cold call, and a structured face-to-face sales call.

1) Sales Story

Your sales story is the response you give when someone asks you to tell them about your business. It’s the core of your initial face-to-face sales meeting with a potential customer. In addition, you’ll use pieces of the sales story in phone calls, voicemail messages, emails, marketing materials, presentations, and proposals. An effective sales story:

• Explains the customer issues you solve
• Briefly states the solutions and services your company offers
• Differentiates your offerings from those of competitors

The Sales Story Format

The sales story should be a one-page encapsulation of how your company helps clients that can be presented or read in two or three minutes. Here’s what it should look like, using the example of a company that provides security services:

1) Headline: A sentence or two introducing your company so potential customers can quickly categorize it. This provides context for the sales story.

• Example: Safety First Inc. is the top provider of security services in the Northeast. We work with businesses and property managers to provide comprehensive, integrated security.

2) Transitional phrase and client issues: An introductory phrase intended to pique the prospect’s interest. It names the type of businesses you serve or client job titles.

• Example: Building owners choose Safety First Inc. … or Senior marketing executives look to Taylor Communications …

After the introductory phrase, list a half dozen client issues that you address in bullet-point format.

• Example: Building owners choose Safety First Inc. when … they’re concerned that their current security firm isn’t projecting a professional image.

3) Your company’s offerings: A few short, unembellished sentences ticking off what you sell. This...

New Sales Simplified Summary Introduction

Generating new business is critical to a company’s success, yet few salespeople do it well. Many reps are intimidated by making “cold calls” (first-time calls to non-clients to ask for their business), and therefore make only half-hearted attempts or none at all. Further, sales reps are often their own worst enemies, engaging in negative attitudes and behaviors that turn...

New Sales Simplified Summary Part 1: Introduction | Chapters 1-3: Obstacles to New-Business Development

A salesperson’s job, in the simplest terms, is to connect with customers and prospects to see if your solution meets a need or solves a problem for them. The more people you connect with, the more you sell.

Even though it’s that simple, many reps are reluctant or afraid to tackle the most important aspect—connecting with new customers. There are both systemic and individual reasons many salespeople do a poor job of acquiring new customers.

Systemic Issues Hindering New Sales

First, here’s a look at the systemic issues undermining new-sales success:

• Salespeople haven’t learned to prospect: Many salespeople, especially those who joined the profession prior to the 2008 recession, don’t know how to “hunt” for new business. When the economy was strong, they didn't have to learn to grow their customer base—nurturing their relationships with current customers was sufficient to hit their sales revenue goals. But simply managing existing accounts isn’t enough to sustain and grow sales in the long term, especially when the economy slows.
• New sales models reject the value of prospecting: Sales experts decided that pursuing customers through cold calling...

Shortform Exercise: Identify What’s Holding You Back

A lack of knowledge or counterproductive behaviors and attitudes keep salespeople from succeeding at developing new business. Review the list of common reasons for failure to determine whether any are holding you back.

Which two or three issues on the list are the most challenging for you and why (for example, not knowing how to conduct a sales call or spending too much time servicing existing accounts)?

New Sales Simplified Summary Part 2: New-Sales Step 1| Chapters 4-5: Select Prospects to Target

The solution to the struggle to generate new business is a three-stage new-sales model—the “New Sales Driver.” The stages are:

1. Targeting: strategically selecting potential customers to pursue
2. Developing your sales weapons: creating effective sales tools and learning to use them proficiently
3. Planning and executing: determining which weapons or tools to use and when, then executing

This chapter discusses the first stage, targeting or selecting the right prospects (those most likely to buy) to pursue.

Create a Target List

When choosing your targets, look for potential new customers with a profile similar to that of your best current customers. Ask:

• Who are the company’s best customers?
• What do they have in common?
• What do these companies and their markets look like?
• Where or how can we find potential customers who resemble our best customers?

Target List Parameters

In addition to being strategic, a target list should be:

• Fixed: Zero in on a fixed or limited number of targets that you’ve chosen because they mirror your best customers. Then work the list and keep working it. Don’t give up and move on if you...

Shortform Exercise: Start Creating a Prospect List

To create a list of viable new-business prospects, identify companies that are similar to your best customers. To come up with a target profile, consider the following questions.

Who are your company’s top five customers and what characteristics do they have in common?

New Sales Simplified Summary Part 3: New-Sales Step 2 | Chapter 6: Assemble Your Sales Weapons

Once you have your target list, the next step in generating new business is developing sales weapons or tools. This chapter introduces the most important sales weapons in the new-sales model, which are then discussed in detail in later chapters. It also lists a range of supplementary tools that may be useful once you’ve mastered the key weapons.

The Key Sales Weapons

These sales tools and techniques, used proficiently, will differentiate you from your competitors.

1) Your sales story: Your sales story is a compelling, succinct, customer-focused response you give when someone asks you to tell them about your business. An effective story focuses on the problems you solve for customers and the ways your solution is different and better than anyone else’s.

2) The cold call: A cold call is a phone call in which you’re attempting to make your first contact with a prospect. It’s one of the most important and effective ways to get a meeting. While many reps fear making cold calls, you can make these calls with confidence when you know that your target resembles your best customers and you have a compelling sales story to tell.

**3) The first face-to-face sales call:...

New Sales Simplified Summary Chapters 7-8: Crafting a Compelling Sales Story

Your sales story—the response you give when someone asks you to tell them about your business—is the centerpiece of any sales effort. In a nutshell, an effective sales story focuses on the problems you solve for customers and the ways your solution is different from and better than anyone else’s. Most importantly, the sales story is the core of your initial sales meeting. In addition, you—and everyone throughout the company—should use talking points from the sales story in:

• Presentations and proposals
• Phone calls
• Voicemail messages
• Emails
• Marketing materials
• LinkedIn profiles

Why a Compelling Sales Story Is Important

Because it’s used so often, companies and sales teams need to get their sales story right before they can effectively use almost any other selling tool. Yet most companies don’t have a coherent, consistent, effective sales story because they’ve just assumed everyone knows what their company is all about.

Try this test at your company—ask your colleagues, “What’s our company all about?” People may be momentarily stumped. They may offer a marketing slogan, or ramble on with statements like: “We’ve been serving the community...

Shortform Exercise: Assess Your Company’s Sales Story

Your sales story is the response you give when someone asks you to tell them about your business. It should focus on the problems you solve for customers and the ways your solution is different from and better than anyone else’s.

What’s your current sales story? Are you satisfied with it? Why or why not?

New Sales Simplified Summary Chapters 9, 12: Making Effective Cold Calls

In addition to an effective sales story, your next tool for generating news business is the cold call. This chapter explains how to make successful cold calls by adjusting your mindset and creating a plan to effectively introduce yourself, present a mini-sales story, and ask for a meeting.

Few sales reps are proficient at or like making these calls. Further, some sales managers and teams have bought into the myth promulgated by new sales models that cold calling to generate new business has been replaced by “inbound marketing.” Inbound marketing attempts to attract new customers through social media, search engine optimization, branding, and content marketing (videos and blogs that provide information without explicitly mentioning a brand). However, it’s a supplement, not a replacement for calling prospects.

Start With the Right Mindset

To set yourself up for success when cold calling:

1) Throw out your preconceptions and start fresh: When most salespeople make cold calls, they picture themselves as annoying telemarketers interrupting the prospect to pitch an unwanted product. Because what you believe affects how you act, having this negative image will undermine...

Shortform Exercise: Prepare for Cold Calls

Besides having a compelling sales story, a critical tool for developing new business is cold calls, but many reps fear making them. The key to making cold calls with confidence is preparing a call outline and talking points.

How do you currently prepare for cold calls?

New Sales Simplified Summary Chapters 10-11: Conducting a Face-to-Face Sales Call

Getting a face-to-face meeting with a prospect is the culmination of your new business development efforts. There can still be a lot of work to do after the first meeting, including preparing a formal proposal or presentation. But the essential step to winning new business is first getting in front of the prospect and setting the tone for a productive relationship.

Preparing for the Face-to-Face Call

A surprising number of salespeople try to “wing it” in face-to-face calls, but the key to a successful call is taking ownership of it from start to finish. You can’t own the call without a plan and structure. Reasons for planning are:

1. You’ll come across as a professional.
2. It’s the only way to ensure the outcome you want.

In contrast, not planning your call sets you up for two problems:

1. Frustrating the customer with a poorly organized call that wastes their time. Since customers are used to poorly handled calls, they’ll treat you like any other sales rep (they’ll try to get rid of you as soon as possible). You’ll have missed the chance to differentiate yourself as someone who offers unique and valuable information.
2. **Defaulting to the customer’s...

Shortform Exercise: Assess Your Face-to-Face Sales Calls

A successful face-to-face sales call requires developing and following a plan with specific stages in the proper sequence.

What is your sales call structure? (For example, do your calls have a logical progression from building rapport and sharing an agenda to telling your sales story, asking discovery questions, confirming fit, and agreeing on next steps? If not, what structure do they have?)

New Sales Simplified Summary Chapter 13: Making a Presentation

Many prospects expect sales reps to make formal slideshow presentations at the initial face-to-face meeting. This started with the introduction of PowerPoint in the 1990s when the ability to create slick slideshows changed the focus of many sales calls from dialogue to presentation. The seller became a performer taking the stage with the buyer as the audience.

However, as Chapter 12 explained, to win new business, you need to first learn the customer’s needs so you can offer a tailored customer-focused solution rather than a generic presentation. Such a tailored presentation, given after the initial meeting, can be a powerful sales tool. This chapter looks at how to create a customer-focused presentation and how to deal with premature presentation requests.

A Customer-Focused Format

The first step in creating a customer-focused presentation is resisting the urge to create a monologue and visuals focused on your company, processes, people, and solutions. Drop the photos or video of your buildings and campus—they don’t help you sell, and they copy rather...

New Sales Simplified Summary Part 4: New-Sales Step 3 | Chapter 14: Execute the Sales Effort

After selecting your targets and developing your key sales tools, the final step in the new-sales model is planning and executing by pursuing the prospects on your list. Many salespeople like to talk about selling, but when it comes to prospecting, fewer actually do it. Three ways to make prospecting a priority and get it done are time blocking, creating a personal business plan, and maintaining a balanced “pipeline” or portfolio of active accounts.

Block Time for Prospecting

Time blocking is reserving stretches of time for activities that are priorities. Schedule blocks of 90 minutes to two hours at least twice a week for prospecting. (Three is probably the maximum you can concentrate and be free of interruptions.)

If you’ve done little or no prospecting, consistently devoting four hours a week to it should significantly improve your results. If you have aggressive business development goals, scheduling eight or nine two-hour blocks a week—still only a third of your working hours—will get superior results.

The keys to successful time blocking are:

• Put the time blocks in your calendar (don’t just mentally reserve the time).
• Treat the time as inviolable...

Shortform Exercise: Take Action to Win New Sales

Developing a target list and sales tools such as a sales story are useless without action. To succeed at news business development, you need to make it a priority and create a personal business plan to keep your efforts on track.

How much time per week do you currently devote to prospecting? How could you amend your schedule to time block at least four prospecting hours a week in two-hour chunks?

New Sales Simplified Summary Chapters 15-16: Final Thoughts on Sales Success

Now that you know how to develop a target list, create a sales story, make effective cold calls, conduct a sales call, and execute news sales, here are a few final tips for sales success:

• Mind your manners: It pays to be polite and considerate to receptionists, assistants, and other gatekeepers at a prospect’s company. Making a good impression on people in the company can only help your sales efforts. When you get an appointment and meet an assistant in person, take time to express appreciation to them for their help.
• Stay upbeat: A salesperson needs to be in top form every day. While others such as accountants can be...