Author Archives: Suzanne Burgess, SalesBytes

Unknown's avatar

About Suzanne Burgess, SalesBytes

Suzanne Burgess is the owner of SalesBytes, helping garden centre owners grow sales and profits.

Are Your Clients On Your Competitor’s Sales Meeting Agenda?

Leave a reply

Of course you’ve realised that just as you are holding your weekly or monthly sales meetings, so are your competitors.

Right now – on your competitor’s sales meeting agenda, it’s more than likely that they are busy “plotting and scheming” on how to take your biggest clients right from under your nose.

Sound dramatic? Not really. Just as you have their existing customers in your sights, they have yours in theirs. When you’re discussing when THAT big contract comes to an end and what your strategy is to jump in at the right time, chances are that they are doing exactly the same with your biggest contracts too.

The sales lesson? Make sure you are looking after your existing clients really carefully. Your competitors are always hoping that you mess up really badly.  They are looking to get their foot in the door. Your job is to keep it tightly shut. Locked and bolted.

There is absolutely no point in working your butt off to create new opportunities in your pipeline when your  client base is dwindling due to bad service. It’s like filling up the bath and taking out the plug at the same time. Your net sales gain at the end of the year will be almost zero.

A case in point: I consulted to a large organisation a while back and was tasked with helping the sales team focus on new opportunities, tracking them with laser-beam accuracy.  By monitoring their overall sales efforts, it soon became obvious to me that the folks managing their ecurrent client base weren’t doing their jobs particularly well and/or perhaps management’s will to address the problems was lacking.

Their customer service was so bad that they were shedding clients regularly – almost on a monthly basis. The new business folks were taking a great deal of flak from prospects about their name in the marketplace for poor service and standards. This made the acquisition of new business even more difficult.

Although I brought it to their attention, senior management still insisted on concentrating all their efforts on the sales pipeline as a way to increase their market share and sales figures.  And no, the contracts that their competitors were taking from them  were not ones they wanted to lose – far from it.  Now, a few years later they are still in the same boat – healthy pipeline, unhealthy overall net sales results.

If your type of sale is repeatable, expandable, annuity-based, contract based or similar, invest in your client base. Guard it carefully.  AND go after those rather appealing new prospects.

Just A Blank Notepad

Leave a reply

A consultative approach in business-to-business selling is perhaps the most effective these days.

When you spend time with the right decision maker/s and understanding their needs before offering any solution, you have a much stronger chance of doing business.

Believe it or not, many salespeople still roar into action from the very first minute spent with their prospect and start presenting before finding out what their needs are. In Brian Jude’s words – “that is telling, not selling”. Others refer to this approach as a “product and feature dump”.

What type of approach do you use? Are you trained into a generic approach, or have you crafted an approach that works for you? By  “approach”, I mean preparing the questions you need to ask a prospect about their needs and their business. Not just a one-size-fits-all question list, but a list of questions referring specifically to that prospect, based on what you have already researched or found out about their business. It’s called pre-call planning – an essential step in consultative selling.

After asking those quality questions and finding out what their exact needs are, it is worth reviewing and agreeing what their specific priorities are.

Quality questions and a blank notepad is all you need for your first meeting, not a trillion brochures and an order book.  However if your particular product or service lends itself toward a short sales cycle, and if the buyer is ready to make a decision right then and there (i.e. at that phase in their buy cycle), perhaps you could present your solution at that early meeting too. 

Here’s to your first appointment success!

Regards
Suzanne Burgess

Turn On Those Sales Ears

Leave a reply
Mutual understanding. That’s the result of effective communication.

Listening is an extremely important selling skill. I still wince when someone says “he’s got the gift of the gab, he can sell anything” because I’m a believer in the ‘One mouth, Two ears’ practice when it comes to selling i.e. less talking, more listening.

Listening attentively shows respect. It builds rapport. It makes the person really open up. Isn’t that what we sales professionals want our clients to do as early up in the sales cycle as possible? Sharing their  REAL needs and drivers is what we want in order to determine whether or not we are a good fit in terms of providing our service or product.

Asking the right questions is of course, paramount. However sometimes prospects do open up of their own accord and let you know exactly what their problems are. This enables you to get to the bottom of their needs and requirements instead of just scratching the surface.  That is, If you can hold back on butting in excitedly in order to try to sell them on a solution immediately.

Sometimes in our attempts to show a prospect that we really “get” them, we end up cutting them short in their explanation of the real situation. Let them talk.

Encourage them to open up even further. Challenge them to look at something from a different perspective. Make sure you re-state the facts and what you’ve picked up about their perspective so that you can check your understanding. Then, summarise what you have learned and use this as the basis for building your proposal or walking away i.e. making a “go” or “no-go” decision.

Cheers for sales ears!

Regards
Suzanne Burgess

Should I stay or should I go now?

Leave a reply

(With apologies to The Clash for hijacking the name of their song)

As a consultant, sales coach and recruiter I’m often asked for advice from sales folks – both salespeople and sales managers who lead a team of people – about whether I think they should ‘hang in there’ at their current employer when things aren’t great or if they should try and seek greener pastures where a better sales environment might exist. Even in today’s uncertain economic conditions.  

There is no ‘one size fits all’ answer to that question. It all depends on your level of disatisfaction with your current situation and what the exact reasons are for wanting to look further afield.

If it is your boss that you simply can’t work for a day longer then perhaps you need to think twice before throwing in the towel. Do you have anything to do with the way he or she is managing you? it’s time to be brutally honest with yourself here. Perhaps your unhappiness is because you don’t like being called out for not reaching your sales targets. Perhaps your unhappiness is because your manager is simply disrespectful and, for want of a better word,  a total ‘jackass’ who couldn’t manage his or her way out of a paper bag.  (For example, a sales manager who starts a sales meeting witht the words “Hey, am I in the mood for firing someone today!”) Remember, many sales managers are promoted to a management role because of their sales achievements, not their management prowess.

Perhaps the reason is because you’ve totally lost faith in the company. For example your ops team can’t deliver on your sales promise. My advice would be in that case to pack your bags.  Once you’ve lost your belief in what you are selling, unless senior management is aware of the problems and taking some drastic action to address them, there is no point in staying on. One way or another, it is going to affect your sales self-confidence, your sales performance and/or personal drive.  We all know that we have to believe in what we are selling in order to do well and feel comfortable with who we are. Being an authentic salesperson or sales manager is essential.

Are there sales or sales management opportunities out there right now? For sure. However do your homework carefully. My personal view is that generally speaking, companies are not as well structured in their sales environment as they ought to be. Many companies don’t have written sales strategies, many sales managers don’t coach or know how to get the best out of their sales team.  You need to know what type of sales environment will suit your strengths and personal preferences. If you know you need strong management support to keep you on the straight and narrow, then don’t join a company where the manager only floats in once every two weeks.

There’s no excuse for not being a sales professional. The internet is an encyclopedia of sales advice available to anyone and everyone who has a computer or even a phone.  Take every free sales or management assessment you can find to get to know yourself better. Take one or two more in-depth sales assessments where you have to pay for the results – that is of course, if you can afford to do so.

Just do what is right for you. Be accountable for the situation you find yourself in and as I read somewhere once “if you can’t change your circumstances, then change the way you think about your circumstances”.

Think Twice Before You “Fabricate” Your CV

1 Reply

It is extremely concerning to me when I come across a potential candidate’s CV when searching a CV database on an online job portal and find it completely different to the version that I have on file from a previous job application. 

It happened again today. I’ve just looked at a CV of a technical sales rep whom at first glance I thought would be the “perfect fit” for a senior sales position that I have just started recruiting for. On the version of the CV that I have on file from 2010, the gentleman listed 3 different positions from 1999-2004. On the new updated version, this has now been changed to one position from 1999-2004 with a completely different company.  In addition, there are a number of other changes of not only months, but years of tenure at various companies since then.

This “fabrication” has not only ensured the gentleman has completely blown the credibility of his working history and everything else he has listed on the document, it also calls his honesty and ethics into question.

On top of this, the contactable reference he listed for the new 1994-2004 position is someone who also applied for a position via our agency, thus it calls that person’s honesty into question too – if he is prepared to lie for a colleague. I happen to know that they are friends and have no doubt that he would have agreed to “cover” for this gentleman.

So both of them now miss out on any future job opportunities we may have for them – and we exclusively manage quite a few  top-notch, high-paying technical sales positions every month. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot in a tight job market!

Please do not under-estimated the importance of ensuring your CV is a 100% accurate reflection of your working history. If a lie doesn’t come back to bite you when searching for a job months or years later, it may do so when you actually land a new position.  Lying about something on your CV may provide an employer with a valid reason for firing someone should it influence their ability to perform their duties and responsibilities.

Most professional recruiters ask you to sign off on their application form that your CV is a true and accurate account of your working history, achievements, personal details and academic qualifications. We strongly recommend that you ensure that it is. 

If any recruiter ever advises you to change details on your CV “because it doesn’t look good”- please report that person to both the MD of their company and APSO immediately – this is probably the worst advice you could receive. And again, calls that person’s honesty and ethics into question.

Question: How Long Should A Sales Newbie Be Given To Ramp Up?

Leave a reply

Answer: A new salesperson should be given a reasonable amount of time to find their feet and ramp-up to full speed. 

But what is the norm for what is considered “reasonable”?

To calculate a fair ramp-up period, the employer should allow for the following:

1. A 20-day product knowledge/learning curve – longer if your products or services are more complex or technical
plus
2. The length of the average sales cycle for your products or services
plus
3. Whether or not the newbie is given existing accounts to work with (which may shorten the sales cycle) or if theyneed to develop new accounts from scratch with no assistance from marketing whatsoever.

To be frank, many sales managers I speak to do not know the average length of their selling cycle and often thumbsuck an answer. Instead of guessing at it, one should do some proper research and analyse the last 10, 20 or 50 sales to get an average time of how long it takes a rep – from finding and qualifying a lead, right through to receiving a signed order with a definite delivery date. 

This is as important as knowing things like how long it takes to turn a non-performing team around. Imagine if you as a sales manager took a new position where the CEO was expecting a sales turnaround in 6 months when it was realistically a minimum of 12 months.  (Again, taking the sales cycle into account, among other factors). You’d be pretty upset to be held to account unrealistically.  The same applies to your reps. Just give them a fair shake is what we’re suggesting.

Here’s a scenario:
A rep joins a company in January. The average sales cycle for the product range is about 7 weeks from cradle to grave. He is given no accounts or existing leads to work with. It’s a complex product. 

The sales manager is so busy that he can’t spend much time with the newbie on training. However, come the end of January, the rep is expected to hit 100% of his target before his commission scheme kicks in. Under serious pressure to deliver results by the end of February,  the newbie has managed to self-study most of the product range and makes his first sale but only reaches 75% of his target. The company has a policy of carrying forward the deficit on the monthly target.

Although he reaches target in Month 3, the rep is penalised because of the deficit brought forward from January and February and receives no commission. This seriously affects his enthusiasm about his new job, he’s completely stressed out and wonders if he’s made a mistake. The manager is already thinking “performance management”.

What do you think? Is this a fair shake? Personally I think it’s a raw deal. Having said that, he should have clarified the company’s expectations of him and the exact sales targets and ramp-up period BEFORE he accepted the job offer. He should have asked how long the sales cycle was and the sales manager should have had that information at hand and ready to discuss it with him properly long before he accepted the offer.

Both parties are at fault and there are serious negative consequences that could have easily been avoided by being very clear upfront.  I’m in the process of educating as many sales reps as I can to ask the right questions of potential employers way ahead of time – in fact if they are working with a recruiter, they should find out all of these details when they take the job spec. Recruiters should be able to share that with the applicants.

In a nutshell:  Calculate and allow a newbie the appropriate amount of time to ramp-up. Be clear about this in your interview. Stagger the targets if necessary. Give thorough and proper sales and product training. Measure performance on sales productivity during the ramp up phase not just gross sales achieved.

The bottom line is:  Look after your newbies and you’ll drastically improve your sales growth, staff retention rate AND reduce your stress and sales costs.

Organise Yourself For Future Success

Leave a reply

In your sales career you need to decide what you want to achieve, whether it be: peer or professional recognition, outstanding results, a business breakthrough, being a person of integrity or being a truly successful person who balances home and business life. Or a combination of the above.

 Having crystallised your thinking on the worthwhile goals you want to achieve, it is wise to capitalise on your sales strengths, talents and skills which distinguish you from peers and competitors. 

Take charge of future success by aligning yourself with like-minded achievers who have an unstoppable attitude and positive expectancy to win. Develop a blueprint and written plan of action in which your long-term goals are broken down into practical, measureable activities.

 By planning your progress step-by-step, day-by-day, week-by-week, a productive,  results-orientated routine emerges. Diligently allocate and diarise regular time slots. Set deadlines and organise activities systematically. 

Disciplined, self-confident action and focus will ensure success. Above all, with dogged determination, follow through on your dream!

Is April An Annual “Go Slow” Month for Sales Folks?

Leave a reply

April – the bane of many a sales rep’s existence here in South Africa – eclipsed only by December (and the first half of January)  in terms of slow sales.

There’s less selling time because of all the public holidays, all of our prospects have disappeared, half of our co-workers are missing from their desks, all of our deals are so much harder to close …

Is this true or is it our mindset that’s holding us back from achieving stellar sales results?

Here we are, at the beginning of a brand new month, the start of Q2 and in fact we’re only losing 3 selling days in April, not half the month as some folks would like us to believe.

There are many selling activities that don’t have to stop just because it’s holiday season. Prospecting, lead research and client communication can all be stepped up. So what if your key contact is basking on the beach or watching a hippo take a bath – the whole company hasn’t closed down – what about the other 5 people involved in that buying decision that you haven’t spoken to yet?

Selling always requires innovative and creative thinking and action – the month of April puts us to the test.

Should Sales Managers Sell?

1 Reply

If there’s one raging debate in the sales world, it’s whether or not a Sales Manager, i.e. someone who has a team reporting directly to him or her – should also be responsible for having to meet a personal sales target.

I recently asked a few of my friends and colleagues in sales to share their view on the subject in around 100 words or so.  Please take a few minutes to read the varying comments of “yay and nay” and then tell us who you agree with the most.

WHAT SALES TRAINERS, INDUSTRY EXPERTS AND SALES FOLKS HAVE TO SAY …

 Should sales managers sell? It depends!

In general, part time sales managers, like part time salespeople don’t usually work out well in the end. You either manage or you sell.

Sales’ managing is a full time job. When you split the job into two parts, sales and sales management, the incumbent is likely to favour one function over the other. This results in one of three things happening:

1)  Good sales manager and poor salesperson
2)  Poor sales manager and good salesperson
3)  Mediocre sales manager and mediocre salesperson.

There is an exception to the rule and this depends upon the size of the sales team.

If the sales team has 10 or more salespeople, a dedicated sales manager is in order.

If the sales team has 5-9 salespeople, a part time sales manager should be considered, keeping in mind that one of the three conditions outlined above will apply.

If the sales team has less than 5 salespeople, there is no designated, formal, sales manager. This does not mean that they don’t need to be sales managed; it means that there is no dedicated sales manager. In small sales teams, the best sales management is self-management.

I hope these insights help.

 Brian Jeffrey
Brian@SalesforceAssessments.com
www.salesforceassessments.com

 __________________________________________

My experience since joining my present company in Lagos was that my National Marketing Manager (19 years with the company) had been allowed to sell cars and keep the commission. I recently persuaded my MD to allow me to change the commission structures to even the playing fields and she resigned.

What was happening , she had built up a substantial client base over 19 years and would not allow any of the sales people to get near her customers and as a result she would out sell them 20 to 1. Not only was this demoralizing for the sales staff but also dangerous for the company the following aspects;

* She had control of a large percentage of the companies customer base.

* Her time was been taken up selling and not managing. 

* The sales staff were looking for other illegal means of earning more money due to lack of proper supervision.

The structure that I now have in place is that my Manager does not actively sell and any sales that do come in as a result of him / her is a “dealer sale”. The manager earns a percentage of the overall sales departments controllable net profit. The sales people were on a fixed Naira amount per vehicle, they are now on a two tier sliding scale , volume and net profit.

Stephen Gladwin
General Manager
Mandilas Toyota
Lagos Nigeria

 __________________________________________

 This is probably a hot potato only in our own minds. Usually the sales manager get to this position because he is a great sales person. He is usually your best sales person bringing in the most revenue. He is usually put in the position because we hope that he will transfer his skills in a practical way to his sales team.

We need the sales manager to lead by example and the only lasting way is ‘do as I do’. It all depends on the size of the business, the small & medium size businesses cannot afford for the most effective sales person (usually the sales manager) not to be generating their own revenue. I firmly believe that the sales manager should have their own personal sales target.

Stephen Varty
Managing Director
Life and Analytical Sciences (PTY) Ltd.

 __________________________________________

 A sales manager is someone who increases sales by making their people stronger. In essence the sales manager is coach, trainer and mentor. They may still sell but it should be in a modeling – coaching role. When the sales manager is also salesperson, reps question the manager’s motives and it totally undermines the manager. You can’t name one sport where the coach is also player. In my opinion the only time for the sales manager to also be sales person is as a transition strategy while building the sales team. That means 1 year max in a dual function!

Andy Miller
Sales Consultant and Strategist
www.AndyMillerInternational.com

 ___________________________________________

I have been on both sides of this argument.  A sales team needs guidance, encouragement, a sounding board and commercial guidance.  A Sales Manager should drive the overall sales strategy. Also a brilliant sales person does not necessarily make a good manager – and I have seen the downfall of sales teams when the mistake of promoting a successful sales person to manager, has been made.

I strongly believe there is a conflict of interest when a Sales Manager also has their own personal targets. The personal target is going to dominate above the support the sales members needs. And the bigger the sales team, the greater the requirement for support and overall strategy of the sales drive. If, however there is a huge deal that requires the expertise of Management then the Sales Exec can be guided in the process and can complete the leg work required, while the Sales Manager assists with strategy, networking and presentations.

So in short….. No.  Manage a team. Or sell.

–  Ex Sales Manager and Sales Person

 ___________________________________________

 My two cents. Yes and no.

Yes in the case of :
Small sales force
Short Sales Cycle
Simple Product

No in the case of:
Large sales force
Long, complex sales cycles

Mark Annett
Maximizer GM – Gauteng
www.maximizer.co.za

 ___________________________________________

 My opinion is that a Sales Manager should not have a personal target.  The main focus of a Sales Manager should be to lead, inspire, motivate and empower his/her sales team, consistently driving sales through facilitating, coaching, mentoring and offering new selling ideas to their team. Sales Manager derived sales can distract from the main focus of her/his role and can lead to unnecessary rivalry and tension between the manager and team.

The sales management and sales person’s skills and personal profile make-up are also almost diametrically opposed.

It is not a bad idea for the sales manager to handle a couple of ‘house accounts’ to keep her/his hand in and be able to tap into the market that the clients are operating in.

Charmaine Brough
Branch Manager: Johannesburg
Homemakers Fair

A Sales Metamorphosis

Leave a reply
metamorphosis (noun)
“a process in which somebody/something changes into something completely different,  especially over a period of time”  – The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

We’re all familiar with the most common example of a metamorphosis in nature – that of a tiny butterfly’s egg becoming a caterpillar and then becoming a butterfly.  What about using the same descriptor to change from a sales newbie or underachiever to top achiever?  Is it possible that by applying a process, giving someone enough time to make the changes and to do the hard work, that they could metamorphose into someone at the top of their sales game?

Of course it’s possible. The deciding factor is the amount of hard work one is prepared to do in order to make the transition. Who knows how hard it is for that little caterpillar to spin that cocoon. Who knows how hard it is for the baby butterfly to crack that cocoon open in order to escape. The one thing we do know is that if the caterpillar was wired to have a choice between doing the hard work or not, it may never experience the freedom of the skies. 

If we want to metamorphose into sales achievers, the choice is ours.  We can choose to do the hard work of figuring out what makes a successful sales achiever in our particular sales environment. We can choose to continually learn and practice the selling skills required. We can choose to continually gather the business knowledge necessary to make the transition. Or we can continue to do absolutely nothing.