Stress is caused by not knowing what the hell is going on.
Stress is caused by not knowing what the hell is going on
1 Reply
Author Archives: Suzanne Burgess, SalesBytes
Remember To Dump Your 2012 Sales Baggage
There’s no use in holding onto old sales baggage. Whilst it’s best to do a mental sales “detox” on a daily basis, sometimes we forget and before we know it, we’re carrying a whole load of sales junk that weighs us down mentally. It’s a sure way to dampen our spirit and enthusiasm for this brilliant career path we’re on. Selling is as fun, exciting, interesting and rewarding as we make it.
So forget the orders that didn’t happen, the delivery frustrations, the missing documents, the duff up with the commission calculations and all those little things that can side-track us from doing what we love – being in front of prospects and clients, trying to help them to offer a better service or product to their customers.
Start 2013 off on a clean sales slate. Dump last year’s B2B sales trash and take only the lessons learned and the very best memories into the New Year.
Here’s to Your Abundant Sales Success in 2013 – we’re with you all the way.
Speed On The Bases
In his book “Baseline Selling” Dave Kurlan uses a term called “Speed On The Bases” in relation to sales.
To explain: in the game of baseball, if you want to advance your team’s score you can steal a base, you’d better be quick – you’ve gotta get your foot on the next base before the pitcher can throw to first base and run you out. And boy, do you get the pitcher’s full attention.
In professional selling, the same principle applies. You need to be quick on the bases AND quick off the base so to speak.
Whether it’s a lead from your website, an inmail from Linked In, returning a telephonic enquiry, a quote or some or other document, be very quick and you’ll get your prospect’s undivided attention. Even if you can’t help them, it still leaves a professional impression.
Such a simple principle but sadly overlooked by so many people in sales. I do try my absolute best to respond immediately to each and every request I get and if I somehow miss one, I’m the first to apologise. The reason I’m sharing this with you is because it works exceptionally well for me and it will work for you too.
Don’t take a day to return a call, don’t put off responding to an email from a prospect. Your speed on the bases is a winning strategy. It sets you apart from your competition. Try it.
You’re Not Making Progress – Now What?
I read somewhere that if you’re not moving forward then you’re going backwards. Selling can make you feel like that. One step forward, two steps back.
You get one exciting new prospect, you lose two other opportunities from your pipeline. You close a deal, two others get put on hold. It’s the nature of selling – dealing with rejection, disappointment or loss should be par for the course for us all. It should be “like duck off a water’s back”.
A classic article about sales archetypes in Harvard Business Review some years ago refers to good salespeople as “happy losers”. Quite a strange term, not exactly complimentary (I was a bit miffed at first) but what the author meant is that good salespeople get over seemingly “bad” news quickly, they get up again quickly after being knocked down, they get stuck back in quickly – without batting an eye.
So if you’re just had a sales door slammed in your face, don’t spiral down into the murky depths of sales despair. Smile. Laugh. Brush it off. And move on. Quickly. Get that till ringing again. Chi-ching.
Thinking under Pressure
As salespeople, when month-end or a deadline looms and those “definite orders” don’t materialise, we may go into panic mode and start phoning as many customers as possible, literally begging for business and giving away unneccessary discounts.
Alternatively, we may shift into strategic thinking mode, then calmly and carefully work out where to concentrate our best efforts. As a result, we pull in worthwhile orders just in time, without giving away all the profits.
What type of a thinker are you under pressure?
The demise of the “hunter”
I’ve always been uncomfortable with the word “hunter” when referring to salespeople. The connotation of the word implies that there must be prey. Which again implies a win/lose situation i.e. the salesperson wins at the prospect’s expense – literally. This might have been true in the old world of selling when hardcore salesmen (no women allowed in those days) went out to track down unarmed customers. Customers who didn’t really need what they were selling but were bedazzled into buying it because of the relentless pressure and persuasive fast-talk salespeople had been trained into. But today, if you try to hunt a prospect down, you’re more likely to come up against someone with a more powerful weapon. That weapon is information.
Prospects are extremely well-informed about their needs and already know what options are out there and how your product or service stacks up. Many will have already googled your company and perhaps even your name before you arrive for that first appointment. (That’s why those er … interesting party photos on Facebook ain’t such a good idea).
Prospects are attending training about professional procurement in growing numbers. I sat in on one such programme a long time ago. It was quite an eye-opener in terms of just how knowledgeable buyers are about sales methodologies. “Closing techniques” got quite a laugh.
“Hunters” who chose to hang on to their old outdated ways of bringing in new business are going to go mighty hungry. Sincerity, authenticity and expert knowledge of your business sector and of course, up to date selling skills are what’s required.
Here’s to the final demise of the word ‘hunter” when it comes to describing us sales folks.
Regards
Suzanne Burgess
PS – I’ve tried to find the source of the lion pic attached that was forwarded by a friend but to no avail – for now I’ll credit it to “anon” and keep searching.
Sales Pipelines Are Not “Optional” – For Sales Professionals
One of the basics that all sales professionals have in common is owning a clearly-defined personal sales pipeline. Even if it is just a basic spreadsheet typed up in Microsoft Word or Excel. It doesn’t necessarily have to be housed in a state-of-the-art customised CRM software system that your employer has invested in to help you be more successful.
When interviewing job applicants, it really concerns me when a sales executive is unable to produce this selling tool on request. In this day and age, maintaining a well-documented personal sales pipeline is deemed ‘Sales 101’ by ALL sales experts worldwide.
Contrary to popular belief, It is not the sole responsibility of a sales manager or employer to set it up for the team. Having said that, many sales managers and/or their organisations already have an excellent sales process or pipeline framework in place. This should be viewed as a bonus for any sales pro to have as a base to work from. It’s what helps to define a professional sales organisation. But to me, it is still the individual who is responsible. Just because a company doesn’t have a system in place is no excuse.
Maintaining a well-documented personal sales pipeline shouldn’t be viewed as a grudge-admin-duty to keep your sales manager (aka The Sales Police) happy. The benefits to your personal sales and your pocket far outweigh this outdated perception. A sales manager has every right to ensure that you keep and maintain your personal pipeline – that’s part of his/her responsibility as a team leader. That’s professional Sales Management 101.
Consistency Keeps Clients
Consistency. Defined in the Oxford Dictionary as ” The quality of always behaving in the same way … happening in the same way and continuing for a period of time”.
Delivering quality, consistent service keeps clients happy. Happy clients stay with their suppliers. (Note the emphasis on “quality” – it doesn’t help to be consistently pathetic by not returning calls, not delivering on time, not invoicing correctly etc, etc.)
No matter how much new business we B2B sales folks bring in, if the company as a whole doesn’t deliver consistently once the honeymoon period is over, the potential value of that account is lost. A tad frustrating, especially when commission earnings are based on annuity sales or spread over a lengthy time period. Not to mention the personal embarrassment experienced by salespeople who then have to apologise, make excuses or even feel forced to lie to their clients on their company’s behalf. It’s enough to make someone resign.
Ridiculous, isn’t it? To allow a business scenario to evolve where, after such a happy-smiley start to the relationship, clients end up having to nag and nag and then literally throw their toys to actually to get something that they are paying hundreds, thousands if not millions of rands for. In some cases clients should be sending their suppliers an invoice for their time.
Be consistent in every way. It says “You can count on me”.
Sales Meetings: Going, going, gone … virtual
The worldwide trend is for sales teams to meet online … “virtually”.
In layman’s terms: a virtual meeting is when everyone logs in to a telephonic conference call from where ever they happen to be located. The manager then runs it like a face to face meeting, with a tight agenda of course.
The more sophisticated virtual options extend to sitting in front of webcams on connected speakerphones and logging on to a common software portal via laptops. Each person can hear and see each other and is also able to view a presentation, or look at “live” visuals of their sales pipeline. With virtual meetings when everyone is viewing the same things online, you can easily add a humourous movie clip, a stunning graphic, a useful skills or product training insert and carefully-chosen motivational quote to end off on.
By now you’ll have guessed that quality content for virtual meetings need to be prepared in advance. Nothing says “I’m a professional team leader” quite like a fantastic sales meeting. Taking the time and putting in the effort to raise your sales team’s level of motivation, recognise their achievements, add a sprinkle of humour and teach them something new will pay huge dividends in terms of sales results. Always end off each meeting on a motivational high, no matter how stressful some discussion points may have been.
Virtual meetings certainly have their advantages over traditional face-to-face meetings. Especially in a sales environment where it’s difficult to round everyone up because of remote/regional locations. Going virtual is also useful in a local office where the new business development team is always on the road, doing what you’re paying them to do i.e. staying out in the field every day, making sales.
Virtual or face to face, in the boardroom, at a local coffee shop or from everyone’s remote location – it’s your choice, however please don’t undervalue the importance of hosting regular and effective sales meetings with your team. It’s absolutely essential. Not bringing the team together regularly and closing the feedback loop from the team and their clients is a management failure in itself. The benefits of hosting well-planned and frequent sales meetings far outweigh both the perceived and the real costs.
Is it time for you to investigate going virtual? Well, if you’re pressed for time or really struggling to get everyone together, you might want to invest in simple tools such as Skype and webcams and/or something like “GoToMeeting”, or “Webex” or similar meeting technology. The virtual meeting platform is also perfect for one-on-one coaching and pipeline reviews – it affords the manager the opportunity to really investigate each deal in the pipeline and coach the rep on how to move it forward.
In summary: Your sales meeting – whether face to face or virtual, is your platform of sales management excellence. Excellent leader, excellent sales meetings. Mediocre manager, mediocre sales meetings.
Setting new sales targets? Be more scientific about it.
A great deal has been written by the experts in sales consulting cyberspace recently about the negative impact of simply increasing the sales target year-on-year by ” X” percent.
One of my first questions when consulting to senior management on this issue is “What is your reasoning for this year’s sales target increase?” Only some are able to articulate the process of how they arrived at the actual figures. Most are based purely on historical data or straightforward financial calculations relating to retaining profit margins.
International sales research gurus, CSO Insights recently questioned why companies are continuing to increase sales targets year-on-year in the face of such a tight economy. Makes sense to me. If your entire sales team didn’t make their targets in 2010, (and missed out on any commission associated with it) then why would you still increase THAT unattained target by an additional x percent instead factoring in their actual sales? This, whilst being denied any additional budget for sales training, additional staff, support systems or basically anything that would assist the sales team in driving the new numbers.
This issue is too complex to go into detail in this little newsletter I’m afraid, but it is something that needs to be discussed thoroughly both at senior level AND with the top achievers in the sales team who are closest to clients and prospects in niche markets.
All I’m suggesting is that more work needs to be done on setting targets in the first instance.
Just to clarify: I’m not making a case for simply reducing sales targets or keeping them static. After very careful consideration to the how, where, what and when of the sales of a company, it may become obvious that existing sales targets are actually way too low, given the amount of untapped opportunities in some emerging niche markets and the amount of resources you’ve pumped into sales.
The bottom line: Each sales rep must know how and be able to present his or her detailed territory growth strategy to their sales manager in a professional manner, based on their sales cycle, the actual numbers previously attained as well as detailed research and understanding. And then be held accountable for results.
The sales manager needs to be close enough to the sales team to confirm or reject the proposed growth strategies based on measured facts (including activity levels), not just on his or her point of view or a thumb suck. And be held accountable for results too.
This more scientific approach will either validate or invalidate existing and/or new sales targets. Whilst lofty, realistic sales targets may spur some people on to achieve more than they thought possible, those which are seen to be unrealistic will simply be a demotivator to most folks out there.
Moving the goal posts too often and too far is interpreted by most sales achievers as “trying to con me out of my commission.” This is one of the reasons why we always find so many excellent salespeople in the job market, no matter what state the economy is in.
Here’s to your best personal sales year ever, regardless of the “number” placed on your goalposts.
SalesBytes 