Page 94 - 914INC - Q2 - 2013

in your area next Tuesday or Thursday to get together and answer any questions— which day is better for you?”).
Petrocelli has also perfected the art of follow-through—something he believes is crucial in sales. “If someone says, ‘I’m not interested now; give me a call in six months,’ I make sure to call in six months,” Petrocelli says, singling out one account who strung him along in six- month intervals for two years. After final- ly landing the meeting, Petrocelli spent over two hours with the business owner and walked out with the company’s entire insurance portfolio. “He stayed on as my client until retirement,” Petrocelli says.
He also points to treating every client like they are your only client as another key element of sales success. If someone has a question about one of our insur- ance products, “we never say, ‘Here is our 800-number or our web address, do it yourself,’” he says.
But it is Petrocelli’s own personal motto of “Never go home with a ‘no,’” that he credits for much of his staying power. “If something doesn’t go well at the end of the day, I will stay in the office and call people until I get somebody to say yes to something,” he explains. “It doesn’t matter if it’s just a client saying yes to breakfast. That way, I go home with a positive attitude and I’m in a good frame of mind for the next day.”
call Griffin made to a Westchester health- related firm shows how the teaching and tailoring approach can work: The company was concerned about compliance issues under the new health care reform laws, and its current software provider hadn’t offered any expertise. “We spent 20 minutes dis- cussing potential fines and penalties the company could face, what they need to do daily to maintain compliance, and how our products and services could help them,” Griffin explains.
When all the research, teaching, and tailoring doesn’t result in a sale, Griffin is sure to go back and analyze what went wrong. The usual culprit, he says, is going in at the wrong level. When a deal dies or gets stalled, you often find out that you were talking to someone who didn’t have final say, Griffin explains. He recommends going back and asking your contact to arrange a meeting with the appropriate decision-maker. “You don’t want to rely on the controller to sell the services, he is not as effective,” he says.
Griffin’s last tip? “Don’t cheapen your deal. If you are confident in your sale, you can go big and get it done.”
JGohn Doolan HEINEKEN USA
oing out for a beer may be a spontaneous event, but selling beer is not, accord- ing to John Doolan, vice president, Northeast Sales for Heineken USA in White Plains. “Sales success starts with planning,” he says, noting that every employee in Heineken USA’s sales group is responsible for daily, monthly, and annual sales plans. “If you don’t have a plan of attack—based
on knowing your customer, what they need, and how they operate—you will
be dead in the water,” he warns.
The “plan of attack” Doolan advocates includes a few basic elements: knowing your
brand, viewing customers as partners, and carefully analyzing successes and failures. It’s a formula that has worked for Doolan since he began in the adult beverage business 16 years ago, selling Guinness Extra Stout bottles in Brooklyn.
Today, the Iona College grad and former Eastchester resident espouses these sales tactics to a team of 85 people across the Northeast territory, which includes the New York region— the biggest US market for the Heineken brand. Under Doolan’s Stewardship, Heineken’s beverage lineup reached an impressive distribution level of 93 percent in 2012 (meaning only 7 percent of potential retail outlets were not carrying Heineken products) in the Northeast—a region in which roughly 25 million cases of Heineken products are sold annually. Doolan also helped to successfully fold Dos Equis into the Heineken USA portfolio, growing the brand by more than 20 percent over the last four years.
While Doolan admits it is a salesperson’s nature to want to do all the talking, he believes listening is a far more effective tool. “If you sit back and listen to your customers talk about their challenges and opportunities, they’ll think of you as a partner—and it gives you time to connect the dots in terms of the brand, the plan, and what you want to bring to that specific account,” he explains.
Heading into a Mamaroneck Avenue restaurant with the singular goal of selling a Heineken draft line, for example, may not be the right approach if the bar already has five lager-style beers on tap. By instead recommending an amber like Dos Equis, you can save the sale and prove that you want to be an asset to their business, he explains. “If your customers feel that you are a true partner and you want to make them successful via your brand, you’re going to be in a really good spot,” Doolan says.
Part of Doolan’s ongoing success in sales comes from examining his results, both favor- able and not. “One of the biggest things we focus on is recapping,” he says. “You can
add a lot of value when you understand what went well and what went wrong during a sales call. Then you can tailor your approach so you don’t make the same mistakes twice.”
Sometimes, however, even the best salesperson gets a “no.” But that isn’t the end of the line, Doolan insists. “It’s okay to get a ‘no,’” he says, “but if you have it in your plans to follow up and listen effectively on why you got that ‘no,’ you should have the ability to figure out what went wrong and then
go back with a different approach.”
Who wouldn’t drink to that?
If you sit back and lis- ten to your customers talk about their challenges and opportunities, they’ll
think of you as a partner.
westchestermagazine.com
93