Business Operations

Doing sales, the right way is still a challenge, but we make four times as much money and often more doing sales the right way. Below are common sales mistakes and their better way counterpart.

I was in Beverly Hills last week keynoting two events in the financial industry. At both sessions, the audiences were financial advisors who sold insurance products. Feedback was extremely positive, as it tends to be for my live work, but one person’s comments stood out.

The circumstances that lead people to the wood products profession range from the ironic to the serendipitous but, in my case, I like to say the industry ganged up on me!

As business leaders, it’s important to build your knowledge and stay current of trends affecting our industry, in particularly, recruiting and hiring given that low unemployment and high demand for talent are feeding a recruiting environment where job seekers have higher expectations for their job search.

Lumber isn’t glamorous, they say. I’ve had a taste of that life, and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. At the start of my college years, I aspired to a career in fashion—it doesn’t get more glamorous than that, right? I thought so, too, until I entered a fashion merchandising degree program and found myself surrounded by superficiality.

We need to talk to people in a way that’s in their best interest, without fear of losing the sale. We need to talk to prospects in a way that’s helpful to them, in a way that nobody else talks to them.

The fact that the lumber market moves is one of the things that makes working in the lumber industry interesting and exciting. I worked on a trading floor that owned hundreds of cars and trucks of lumber daily. We were always on one side of the market or the other—and sometimes both at the same time.

A couple of months ago, I got a call from a client who was clearly frustrated. Over the previous year he had restructured his customer service team, he had put in place a new reporting structure, he had rolled out a new set of performance goals, and he implemented a new financial incentive plan. He also gave each customer service representative an additional $1 per hour to incent the behaviors and outcomes he was hoping his new structure would achieve.

When selling a program, we will have to make a written proposal.  Even if we are talking to the owner, often the person will need to at least consider the proposal, and often will have to sell it on the inside of their organization.