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Getting Your Sales Year Off To A Fast Start
With more demands, fewer resources and tremendous competition, it’s tough for salespeople to focus on critical actions that get big results. On December 13th, we’re hosting a webinar The 5 Keys to Getting Your 2012 Sales Year Off To A Fast Start. We’re going to share our insights from working, firsthand, with more than 5,000 salespeople. We’ll be highlighting the key actions that allow the great ones to get more traction – with less effort. We also have a bonus for attendees (watch the video to learn what it is).
Here’s a preview:
RSS Readers that don’t see this video click here to watch.
I hope you can join us.
The Key to Differentiation: Be Bold, Be Different
Sunday, while watching The Washington Redskins (finally) win, I saw an interesting ad from Chevy. I have to admit that it tugged at my heartstrings a bit.
It told the story of a family who tracked down their father/grandfathers original 1965 Chevy Impala SS. The emotional message was, “More than a car…a Chevy.”
I’m not sure how effective the ad will be in selling more cars, but I certainly hope its effective with the management and senior leadership of GM, and other companies. See, the thing that created an emotional bond between Dad and his Impala, is that, like it or not, the Impala was not a boring car. The Impala had character.
GM’s problem today (and for most of the last 20+ years) is that their cars are boring, me-too vehicles. With the possible exception of the Corvette (which has stayed strong), there’s nothing interesting about a Chevy. With all due respect, what the heck is a Chevy Malibu? Don’t get me wrong, the Malibu is not a bad car (I drove one recently when traveling), there’s just nothing special about it. It’s like every other car I’ve driven.
If GM, or you, want to be more than just your product or service – a worthy goal – then take a risk. Stop differentiating and do something different. It’s not a guarantee for success, but I promise its a great first step.
Sales Webinar: 5 Keys To Starting Your Year Fast
If you’re a salesperson you know how special the months of January through April are. Four uninterrupted months, when your customers and prospects are back at work, focused and ready to do business.
Your performance in the first four months of the year will determine how good 2012 is.
The 5 Keys to Getting Your Sales Year Off to a Fast-Start
Join us on Tuesday, December 13th at 2pm EST, we’ll share the secrets we’ve learned working with the best salespeople in the world that allow them to get their year off to a tremendous start. Once again, we are waiving the registration fee for this program.
In this 35-minute webinar we’ll share:
- How to hyperfocus on your best opportunities
- Identifying “target rich environments”
- How to break through the noise, stand out and get heard by your prospects
Plus, we’ll share a secret to access the tough to find “ultimate decision maker.”
The Best Way To Fill The Sales Funnel
If you want to leverage your sales efforts; if you want to grow revenues faster than expenses; if you want to lower your sales costs, you must – MUST – invest in developing valuable content to support your sales and marketing efforts.
The most frequent conversation I’ve had following our webinar last week on Successful Lead Generation for B2B Companies is about the critical role content plays in successful lead generation. From the comments I’ve received, it’s probably the biggest surprise attendees left with.
I’ve learned that content is not something many small and mid-market B2B CEOs think about. They spend a lot of time thinking about their strategies and tactics. They spend countless hours working with and addressing their people. They worry about pricing and competition, and they’re always tinkering to improve their products and services.
However, with overwhelming neglect, they seem to ignore content. Content is the glue that enables a business to leverage its sales and marketing efforts. With valuable content (the keyword being valuable) you give your prospects a reason to pay attention to you. You are able to distinguish yourself. Without it, you are like every other peddler chasing down sales. If you are different, content showcases your difference.
I understand that developing content is difficult, complex and, at times, painful. I realize that it’s typically not in the wheelhouse of senior team. I appreciate that the task can feel overwhelming.
But, so is building a highly profitable businesses that consistently grows and creates wealth for owners and employees.
Insights When Hiring Salespeople
I’ve been interviewing salespeople for clients lately, and I have to tell you I’m disappointed.
The good news is that companies are engaged in growth, and I’m seeing more of them understand the need to bring on quality salespeople to support the effort. The bad news is that it doesn’t appear most salespeople are ready to take advantage of this.
So I share these insights with those who are hiring, and those sales candidates who are looking for a new place to call home.
What’s interesting is the entire challenge rests in the one part of the hiring process sales people should absolutely thrive – the interview!
Hiring managers should be aware that the salesperson is at their best in the interview. Here’s what that means:
- If the salesperson sounds like every other salesperson in an interview – it’s probably because they are. If they can’t differentiate themselves there, they’ll struggle differentiating your product/service when they’re with a customer.
- If a salesperson doesn’t ask penetrating questions that both takes the conversation deeper and allows you and them to understand your issues better, they’re don’t going to ask penetrating questions to enable you to Move Beyond Price when they’re with a customer.
- If a salesperson doesn’t share with you real mistakes they’ve made, how they’ve learned from them, and how they will apply those lessons in the future – they are lying, have no self awareness or both.
- If a salesperson doesn’t show tremendous curiosity in the interview, they won’t in the job.
- If a salesperson isn’t completely prepared at any stage of the interview process, they won’t prepare once they’re hired. They should understand your business (or have very good questions to understand your business), have a solid idea of the results you’re looking for and be able to discuss barriers from the beginning. If they can’t it’s a good bet they’ll peddle your offering, just like they peddle their services.
Feel free to share any insights you’ve gained in assessing salespeople in the comments below. By the way, I recently updated an article on avoiding the 10 most common mistakes when hiring salespeople.
The Purpose of Lead Generation
For those of you that are subscribing to our Fast Growth Weekly Tips, this post is a reprint. I got several comments on the tip and felt like sharing it with those that aren’t subscribed.
I realize that this may sound obvious, but lead generation needs to focus on starting the sales process, not finishing it. Yet despite that, I’m constantly perplexed by how often lead generation tactics focus on late stage/buy issues.
As a B2B selling organization there are two clear hurdles you must clear to successfully selling. The first hurdle is, “Why should I (the prospect) talk with you?” The second hurdle is, “Why should I (the prospect) buy from you?”
Your selling process is all about the second hurdle. The purpose of lead generation is clear the first hurdle.
When you focus your lead generation efforts on “selling” why people should talk with you even if they don’t buy from you, your lead generation efforts will work far, far better than when you mistakenly focus on the sale. As I often advice my clients: ” Stop selling and start helping.”
Ask yourself:
- What are the top 3 problems that a prospect has that you can help them with?
- How can you communicate your ability to help them, without confusing that with how or why they should buy from you?
- is the focus of our lead generation message why people should talk to us, as opposed to why they should buy from us?
By the way, if you’re looking to get 2012 off to a great start (sales wise, at least), you won’t want to miss our upcoming webinar on November 2nd: Successful Lead Generation for B2B Companies.
Successful Lead Generation for B2B Companies
Since the beginning of time (or least since salespeople have been around) the the search for leads has been like the search for the Holy Grail. Good leads, better leads…The Glengarry leads.
Yet, with all of the attention on lead generation, and all of the tools available, small and mid-market B2B companies continue to struggle with to consistently and effectively generate, cultivate and convert highly qualified prospects.
The reason is that most lead generation efforts are built on faulty a premise. If you’d like to invigorate your LeadGen efforts, you won’t want to miss our upcoming webinar.
Successful Lead Generation for B2B Companies
Learn the 3 Reasons that Lead Generation Efforts Fail &
The 5 Critical Actions That Will Dramatically Increase Quality Leads
When: November 2, 2011 2:00 – 3:15pm EDT
Where: Online
Today’s business environment requires every company – especially small and mid-market B2B companies – to be able to do more with less.
To succeed selling organizations must be able to do two things extraordinarily well:
- Increase the number of prospects that want to do business with them, and
- Increase the quality of those leads.
The vast majority of lead generation tactics are not only ineffective, they actually commoditize your products/services, increase the likelihood that prospects will shop you and decrease closing rates. As a matter of fact, the best business opportunities are lost because of these lead generation techniques.
That’s right – most lead generation efforts eliminate the highest quality opportunity and attract the lowest quality. It’s no wonder that sales costs are skyrocketing and closing rates are plummeting.
It doesn’t need to be this way! Join us on November 2, 2011 at 2pm EDT as we share The Secrets to Building An Effective Lead Generation Machine For B2B Companies.
This information is so important that we’ve decided to waive the registration fee entirely. You’ll learn:
- Why many B2B companies aren’t ready for lead generation.
- The 3 reasons lead generation efforts fail
- The 5 critical actions to build an effective lead generation machine
- How to utilize lead generation tactics to increase referrals
- How to increase the ROI of your lead generation efforts by 500% or more
Don’t wait – your 2012 sales results are depending on you attending this webinar.
The Toughest Lesson
Without question, the toughest lesson I’ve every learned in sales (or life for that matter) is that you can do all the right things and still not get the outcome you want. You can ask the right questions, make the right connections, zig when you’re supposed to zig, and zag when it’s time to zag…and you still may not win the sale.
When you lose, you want something to blame. You want to fix something. It can be demoralizing to look at a lost sale and not find where you went wrong.
That is why it’s so important that you keep activity levels up. I always caution CEOs and salespeople that a 99% probability of success still leaves a 1% chance of failure – and in a world with 7 billion people, 1% events happen to 70 million people A DAY. And, unless the contract is signed and the check is cashed, there is ALWAYS a chance things will fall through.
Sales, especially in The Drought we’ve been in for 3 years and counting, is a marathon run at a sprinter’s pace. You can’t assume anything. You’ve got to keep things moving.
I remember a speaker who told an audience of CEOs that you’ve must grow by at least 15 – 20% per year. If you didn’t grow at that rate, you would fail to account for the “oh shit” factor. The same is true in sales. You can never become overdependent on any single opportunity, because even if you do it everything right…you may not get the sale.
If you’re looking for some insights in making this approach systematic, I encourage you to download an article that I just published – The 5 Adjustments Every Sales Team Needs to Make.
Hiring The First Salesperson
Monday, I discussed two grave mistakes made when small and mid-market companies hire sales and marketing people. If The Wall Street Journal is to be believed, more small businesses are planning to hire in the next six months than those that aren’t; and the sales and marketing is the focus for 50% of those firms.
Given the size of firms that were surveyed (under $5 million) I’m certain that many of these firms will attempting to do the single, toughest thing in business – hiring the first salesperson. As I shared Monday, hiring any salesperson is difficult, but hiring the first salesperson in a company borders on the impossible.
Going from an entrepreneur/leader led sales effort to a salesperson led effort is a HUGE shift for any company, and it is ALWAYS underestimated. I often advise clients hiring a first salesperson that they may need to expect to go through 3 hires to get it right.
The reason hiring a first salesperson is so difficult is actually quite simple. Solving the problem is a bit more complicated.
When you hire a salesperson, the sales process paradoxically fails to create value. When led by a principle or services provider (a la accounting, law, engineering, etc.) the “seller” is constantly creating value. They’re not “selling” in the traditional sense. They’re probing, solving problems, enlightening the customer about what is possible. Sure, they violate 90% of the rules of selling, but they create value.
When a salesperson is hired, they stop creating value and instead communicate value. The process becomes a series of “we-do’s.”
The problem is that even when the salesperson is saying the exact same things that the non-salesperson was saying – they’re not saying the same thing. The non-salesperson was constantly diagnosing and designing, while the salesperson is constantly telling. The non-salesperson (accidentally or on-purpose) was problem focused, the salesperson is solutions focused.
Now you can’t blame the salesperson most of the time, because the only training the salesperson gets from a company is about the solution. They’re told stories, talk to successful customers and study all of the wonderful things the company does. Little to know time is spent on understanding the customers problems better than the customer understand their own problems. There’s no diagnostic sales training teaching and supporting the salesperson’s ability to dig deeper with the customer.
A successful salesperson brings a critical capability and focus to a company. They don’t have the expertise of the founder, the leaders or the subject matter experts. So they need a process that ensures they create value throughout the entire sales process. They must be trained to understand – diagnose – the critical few problems that your company solves. They must be supported by a marketing effort that supports that message and provokes the customer.
Merely hiring a salesperson and sending them into the field is not a recipe for growth. Hiring a salesperson is a defining moment for any company – and it must be treated as such.
If you are hiring salespeople in the near future, you can download Avoiding The 10 Critical Hiring Mistakes When Hiring Salespeople.
Successfully Hiring In Business Development
Potentially good news for the economy. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, reports that “More small businesses plan to hire in the next six months than those that won’t, with demand strongest in sales and marketing, a new survey shows.” Interestingly, 48% of those planning to hire are focusing on sales and marketing jobs.
My hope is that these businesses hiring realize that people are one (critical) part of a successful growth effort. My fear is that these businesses will overestimate the importance of the people decision and underestimate the other components of success; and will fail to achieve the growth they desire. My experience would indicate the latter is the most probably outcome.
I’ve said it before, the key to successful, sustainable growth is the implementation of an effective system that supports people. Like it, or not, the system comes before the people. Hiring someone before the system is in place is a recipe for disaster.
There are two grave mistakes that small and mid-market companies (SME) make time and again when hiring sales and marketing people. If you’re one of those companies that is looking to hire in the next six months I implore you to avoid these common mistakes.
Hiring Someone to “Develop The System”
This mistake is especially common when the founder or the CEO is not the sales and marketing expert. It’s such a dangerous mistake because it seems logical and just makes a lot of sense. It was Bill Parcels who said, “If you want me to cook the dinner, you’ve got to let me shop for the groceries.” Let’s hire someone who has the experience and let them build the system.
So the business goes out, hires someone who sold for (fill in name of major company). Six months later the company is still dealing with the same basic issues they were dealing with before. “It’s okay,” the CEO rationalizes, “these things take time.” One year later, the only thing that has measurably changed is that the SME has higher sales costs. They’re still commoditzed, still fighting for share and price, and still wondering why salespeople just don’t work.
The reason that this fails is that hiring someone to develop and implement a system is a very different hire than a hire to lead, which in turn is a very different hire than one to sell. Just because someone has worked in an effective sales or marketing system does not mean they have the ability to build one.
Confusing Delegation with Abdication
One of the things I’ve learned working with SME’s is that many heads of these companies don’t enjoy the sales or marketing function. They would prefer to do the work or to serve clients than to deal with the insanity called sales and marketing. When they hire on the sales and marketing side, they use “delegation” as an excuse to abdicate.
I’ve got news for the owners/CEOs of 98% of companies with less than $100 million. Like it or not, you are the chief sales officer and the chief marketing officer. You can hire someone to execute. You can even hire someone to lead the effort. But, until the company is truly and totally independent of you, you are the chief there. You must be invested and involved in the process. While this approach can appear to be more painful, it will save you tremendous aggravation in the long run.
Please, Don’ t Lie
I understand the temptation to lie. If you’re a small company, you want people to think your big. If you don’t have experience, you want people to thing you do. If your big and bureaucratic you want people to think you’re quick and responsive.
Okay, let’s not call it lying. Let’s call it stretching the truth when positioning our company or selling proposition.
Whatever you call it, I encourage you not to do it.
You create three critical problems when you do this:
1. You position yourself to your weakness. If you’re small, and you talk and sell like you’re big, you’re giving credence to your customer that big must matter.
A few years ago I was discussing a potential large engagement with a prospect. They asked me if I had international experience. Half of their revenue came from outside the US, so it was a legitimate question. I was tempted to, how shall I put this, shade the truth. I thought about saying yes, justifying it by the fact that companies that I’d worked with did have international divisions. I thought about talking around the subject, hoping they wouldn’t notice. Instead I just said, “No, I don’t.” A minute later the COO on the call, asked the CEO on the call, did international experience really matter for the problem they were trying to solve. The CEO responded that it wasn’t.
What if the opposite were true? What if international expertise did matter? The reality is that if I had shaded the truth, I would have either lost the business because the moment they started asking me about international issues, but inexperience would have shown. Or, even worse, I would have still won the business, only to let the customer down later.
2. You diminish your people.
While I’ve met many salespeople who’ve lied, I’ve yet to meet a quality salesperson who enjoys it. Look, I’ve, umm, stretched the truth in my day in selling. Frankly, it was the part of the job that always made me feel a little dirty. It’s probably one of the reasons that I ended up running my own business. If you’re telling your salespeople to tell people you’ve got lots of experience when you don’t, that you’ve got massive buying power when you’re buying power is merely good, you telling your people that your company is not good enough to win business fairly. You erode their confidence, and confidence is the MOST important component to making sales.
3. The opportunity cost will kill your business
Probably the biggest cost to lying is that when you play to your weaknesses, you steal from the time to build your strengths. Every advantage is the seed of a disadvantage, and every disadvantage is the seed of an advantage. If, instead of positioning around your weakness, you found ways to exploit your strengths and to find the prospects who value those strengths (instead of valuing your weaknesses) you experience faster growth, lower sales costs and greater margins.
Plus, you’ll feel good about how you’re growing.
The Most Important Thing To Remember When Hiring Salespeople
If your sales plans call on you to get a quality salesperson it is critical that you remember:
When recruiting salespeople your are COMPETING with every other sales opportunity out there.
Recruiting salespeople is harder that selling your product or service. It’s an interesting riddle. First, there are a finite number of great salespeople. Second, there’s a finite number of great companies. You’d think it would be easy enough to match the two – the problem is that it is not, actually it’s quite to the contrary. (For those thinking, “Gee, I don’t need a “great” salesperson, good will do,” should read this post immediately!)
The signal to noise ratio is off the charts. Far too many companies have been ripped off by hiring inadequate salespeople and far too many quality salespeople have been ripped off by working for companies that don’t stack up. The result is that so many barriers have been put up, that it’s almost a miracle when the two find each other.
So if you’re in the market for a salesperson that can drive results, what should you do?
Most importantly, stop sounding like every other company that treats salespeople like a commodity . For example:
- If you’re talking about your product/service as a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity, STOP! Just like my mom told me, “If the opportunity is too good to be true, it probably is.” If you’re a salesperson who moves the needle you have no shortage of opportunity. Rather than hearing about great vision, amazing technology, unlimited market sizes, etc., quality salespeople want to hear about execution. What are you going to do, how are you going to do it, how can they help?
- Like it or not, quality salespeople have the leverage. There are far more companies looking for quality salespeople than there are quality salespeople. This doesn’t mean that you should be stupid in the hiring process, but stop talking to these quality professionals about taking all of the risk. Quality salespeople bring value to the table – and they expect to be paid for it. You wouldn’t hire an operations manager on commission only, and you shouldn’t hire the person responsible for getting you to the right people, in the right way on 100% commission either.
- Be honest. Quality salespeople can smell bullshit from a mile a way (remember, a key to their success is their ability to separate real opportunities from fake ones). Quality salespeople are not afraid of a challenge. They just want to know that there’s a realistic approach backing them up. I remember when I interviewed for a position. They told me how they the “right salesperson” could bring in $3 million in new business. So I asked how much business they were doing. When they told me that they’d been in business for 12 years and were doing $2 million, I knew that was the wrong opportunity for me.
- Talk to any sales consultant and they’ll tell you the care and feeding of quality salespeople is a must. Remember, care and feeding begins long before the salesperson starts. Does your website speak to the salesperson? Do you have the tools and process that a quality salesperson can utilize to make their life easier? Do you demonstrate the ability to respond to market feedback, and to adjust as necessary?
- Stop talking about accountability as a one-way street. All executives are really good at telling salespeople whet’s expected of them. How much time do you spend talking with salespeople how they can hold you accountable? What can they expect from you?
Remember, the salespeople you want are wanted by just about everyone else out there. You must have a proposition and process that stands out from that competition.
The good news is that so many companies are doing a horrible job at this, that a few changes will help you stand out.
Making August Productive
It feels like yesterday when I was saying goodbye to 2010 and hello 2011. In the blink of an eye, 2011 is more than half way over.
Tomorrow we welcome the “dog days of August.” As a salesperson, I hated August more than any other month. It seemed like the world stopped, no one was available and every day was hazy, hot and humid.
August is, in fact, a very difficult month for sales and marketing activities. It is also an opportunity for those salespeople who take advantage of the slower pace August allows. I can’t do anything about the weather (and all indications say August is going to be really hot for most of the US), but I can give you some insights into how to make August a productive month that can drive a profitable fall.
I asked my friend, and Get In The Door expert, Caryn Kopp to share an article she wrote a couple of years ago about August. She generously said she would. So, please review the keys to making August productive.
The Sales Focal Point
When determining the focal point of your sales efforts, you must understand two characteristics in potential buyers:
- There are those who can, and
- There are those who care.
Those who can. have the power to make changes. They might not be able to change things by edict, but they have real power, influence and enough control to cause change to happen. Those who care, deal with whatever it is you are talking about regularly, they live with the pain.
The objective is to focus your sales strategy on the people who can AND who care.
The challenge is that often those who can, don’t care about what you do; and those who care don’t have the power or influence to cause change.
Because most companies take a solutions (instead of a business results) approach, their focal point is often too low in the organization, and those who care, can’t do anything. For example:
- I worked with a relocation company. Their problem was that the person who lived with the relocation program problem had no power to change the process or resource allocation decisions to fix it.
- I worked with an audio/visual teleconferencing company that promised increased productivity and longer life of equipment. Their problem was that they geared their approach to the facilities manager who didn’t care about productivity and had no control over budget.
- I work with an IT company that promises efficiency and a more positive environmental impact. The problem is that the people who manage the process they impact (they’re the ones “who care”) have little to no power in determining how the process will be defined or implemented (those who can).
When confronted with challenges like these, you must identify who has enough power to lead to the change you want and answer the critical question, “What do they care about that we can impact significantly enough to matter?”
In the case of the relocation management company, we realized that we needed the authority and sponsorship of the senior HR people AND the CFO/Finance office. As mentioned, we knew they didn’t worry/care about the relocation program. What they cared immensely about was having the best talent to drive company initiatives. So we stopped being a relocation company that supported talent; we became a talent management company that supported relocation.
Please know, that it required more than a shift in semantics. It required a shift in being. We started conversations at talent, and the talent issues that prevented them from achieving their business results. We then traced those issues to how a relocation program impacted them. Then we were able to work deeply with the people who cared, with the support of the people who could do something about it.
Value Over Replacement of Salespeople
One of the things that I love about competitive sports is the ability to measure success. Wins and losses…Hits…Errors…Goals scored…Goals given up…Averages…and on and on.
Those are the obvious ones. If you’ve ever read the book Moneyball you know that the obvious numbers aren’t always the best measurements. Too often numbers like hits, runs or home runs measure correlation with success rather than causes.
Anyone who’s spent any time analyzing the sales function quickly makes connections to the sports world. We talk about wins, home runs etc. But, how often do you really think about the value – the true value – your salespeople are creating for you? Last year I wrote about an idea I called salesperson alpha. Recently I’ve been thinking about another number.
In baseball (any surprise I’m referring to baseball Beth?) they use a measurement called wins over replacement(WAR). WAR basically looks at a player and asks the question, “If this player got injured and their team had to replace them with a minor leaguer or someone from their bench, how much value would the team be losing?” More and more, WAR is being used as a key measurement when negotiating player contracts. And you’d may be surprised by some of the big names that have low numbers, and some anonymous names that have high numbers.
How often do you ask the question, “If I were to replace my current salesperson with someone else – would I lose anything?” Or, “What would I lose if I replaced an existing salesperson with someone paid less?” My experience (since been backed by a study conducted for Harvard Business Review) is that most companies wouldn’t lose much.
This is NOT an argument to pay salespeople less. Quite the contrary, I think one of the major obstacles small and mid-market companies have in growing their business is that they underfund their sales function, and, as a result, get salespeople that don’t drive real results and end up commoditizing themselves.
This IS an argument for maniacally assessing your people and acting upon those assessments. We all need to take advice from Netflix’s management philosophy:
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Resources
Doug's Washington Business Journal Columns- Intelligent Growth Articles
Third Wave Selling Blog
Products to Grow
