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Sales Leaders – Manage Your 50% Minority5

by Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

In the past I have written about the propensity of sales leaders to accept and live with the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule. For example, 20% of your reps deliver 80% of your revenues, I know one team with 9 reps, where 2 sellers are responsible for 71% of the revenue. At one time, in the Shanto Principle I asked the question what if organizations could move the dial to 70/30, what would the impact be?

Companies continue to struggle with this reality, in many instances the 80/20 looks more like this:

20% – Top of the pack, consistently successful, adaptive and responsive to market movements, often spearheading the change in sales that are required to keep and win more business.
55% – Steady players, not always winning, or delivering 100% of plan, but put in a steady (just enough) effort to be in the 70% – 90% of plan zone. Room to improve, but bad enough to fire (although you have to wonder).
25% – Perennial underachievers. Steadily underperforming, while you don’t invest time in them, they are still part of the team. While you know you should fire them, you give in to the voice that says they are better than nothing, while I look for a replacement.

You may think that the above is a variation on the traditional A, B, and C player model, many do, which is a mistake.

I strongly suggest that you look at it more like:

A Players – The top 20%, Group 1

B Players – The top half of the 55%, Group 2

C Players – The bottom half of the 55%, Group 2 X Players – The bottom 25%, Group 3

I have always argued that leaders should focus their time and attention to the A players, show the most love to those you want to lose least. Show no time or attention to the C Players; the lack of attention clearly communicates that they either need to adopt and contribute, make their way up to B status, in order to get attention, or move on to organizations. The B’s need to be put on a path to achieve A status. NOTE: this is once the sales rep has been on-boarded, trained on your systems, and integrated into the process. This could be as little as three months, or as long as a year, but there does come a point where they need to deliver on their own. I still stand by this, but have ratcheted things up a bit, by encouraging you to not waste time, resources or emotion or keep that bottom 25%, the X Players. Rather than pretending that they are C players, suggesting some hope, when in fact they are a toxic waste in your sales organization, meaning you have to dump them ASAP.

Accepting the Status Quo, (yes, we do it too), is riskier than many sales leaders want to pretend, and here is why. Any way you slice it, the majority of the sales team is missing quota. It is true that more sales teams collectively are making quota, even while most individual contributors are not. What is the take away for those on the team who continuously are missing targets? Sales teams are like any other collective of people, there is a perception of majority rule, and if the majority is not making quota, then that soon becomes the norm. Not something sales leaders should encourage or tolerate, but by not acting quickly and strongly to end that, it soon becomes the norm, and worse.

If more than 50% of the team is not making quota, rationalizing becomes easy; “it’s not me, it’s the product”, “it’s the price”, “it’s the whatever”. “After all, look at all the people who are also in the same boat, it can’t be me”. Those few that are making quota, well they become the anomaly, the pack will stick together to comfort their own, and ostracise the others.

One of the top priorities of a sales leader, and their managers, has to be to ensure that at the minimum, more than half of the team exceeds their quota. This needs to be done across the whole organization, and by each front line manager locally with their teams; having a patch quilt of teams that do and don’t is not acceptable. While ultimately we want everyone to make their goal, this is a start; 50% plus of each team, and 50% plus of the whole organization.

How do you do that, a simple upward rotation is a good start. Not only do you heavily reward success, you simultaneously punish failure. Start with the of 10% rule, every year fire the bottom 10% of each team, not just the entire sales organization, but on each team managed by a front line manager; and if they have two teams, fire the bottom 10% from each team. Many are often reluctant to do this, telling me they can’t afford to have a vacant territory, if you ask me, the opposite is true, you can’t afford having territories run by these X Players. You can’t afford having your clients be attended to by these X Players. By the way, you don’t have to wait for the end of the year. If they are not executing the activities required to win, it will not take a year to realize things. One company I know fires those who are in the bottom 10% three months running. They are transactional, and can tell early, you may need to wait the year, or not. You just need to ensure that the period you choose allows for slumps and temporary factors that you can address and correct.

As this pruning takes place, especially as it becomes the declared policy, you’ll find that those in the middle of the pack begin to self-correct and do things that drive them ahead, realizing that as the bottom is lopped off, they either move higher or face being the next to go. This upward rotation pays dividends across the team, the C’s and B’s begin to move up, and the A’s realize they have company, and their personality trait kicks in, and they improve their game to maintain the gap with the B’s. Lifting your results to higher and higher levels. You may even find after a few years of this approach that you do more with less players; alternatively, expand products and markets with a more qualified and talented team.

Once you get to where more than 50% of the organization is making goal, the dynamic switches. Rather than people rationalizing why they are not making quota, after all those who are not are now in the minority, people look for ways to make and exceed quota, and begin to share their best practices. Majority rule! If you do find yourself in an enviable position where all you reps are making or exceeding goals, may still be a viable way of ensuring continuous improvement and growth.

This may seem a harsh route, but as leaders, that’s why we get the big bucks, for big decisions and big differences. Any way you look at it, it will never be as harsh as having to explain the alternative to the executive committee.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

You Do It Now – They Can Talk Later – Sales eXchange 2010

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Last Wednesday May 15th, I had the opportunity to be on the Charles Adler show. We look at the potential fallacies in long term predictions, this on the heels of a piece I did for the Globe and Mail Report on Small Business, regarding the need for execution in sales, not long term predications, and the fact that in BC, the elections did produce a majority government, but not by the party everyone was “predicting” would form the government.

Have a short listen, then let us know how you’ve found action and results to be of more value than predictions.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

It Doesn’t End With the Sale: Managing Customer Relationships0

The Pipeline Guest Post – Megan Totka

Customers are the lifeblood of any business, and attracting new customers while strengthening your relationships with existing ones is a constant challenge. The best way to do so, however, is a matter that often leaves your sales and marketing staff at odds. Your sales force is focused primarily on closing the deal and landing new customers, while your marketing department wants to nurture customer relationships before and after the sale. No matter what your role at your company, however, it’s to your benefit to continue to nurture customer relationships long after they’ve paid their invoices.

Why Long-Term Customer Relationships Matter

We’ve all heard the adage that it’s cheaper to retain a customer than it is to acquire a new one. After all, you’ve already done the wooing. They already love your brand. If you maintain the relationship, they’ll come back to buy other products or services from you, increasing their customer lifetime value.

A customer with whom you already have a relationship is more likely to refer more business to you. They’re happy to tell others about how much they enjoy your brand when communicating through social media, review sites like Yelp, and face to face with friends. A single customer can help attract business from friends and family if they’re happy. And the best way to keep your customers happy is by paying attention to their needs and staying connected.

Managing Your Customer Relationships

Customer relationship management tools like Insightly and Salesforce make it easy to create profiles for each of your customers. You can track critical data like purchases, each customer’s birthday, and communication preferences. Companies use this data to better engage with customers. If you have your customer’s birthday, you can send her a email with a special birthday offer. If you know she has looked repeatedly at a certain item on your website, you can offer her a discount for it. Building a profile is a great first step; if you are in regular contact with a client, take notes each time you speak with them.

Social media is another fantastic tool for staying on top of customer relationships. Since Hootsuite lets you set up custom streams based on your preferences, it’s a snap to set up a stream containing the social media content generated by all your customers. From there, it’s up to you how far you drill down. You could create streams for different types of customers, such as those buying women’s clothes in one stream, children’s clothing in another, and men’s clothes in the last stream. You could set up a search for a keyword that relates to your industry to see who’s talking about it, and connect with them. The possibilities are endless, but what matters is using the info you gather to enhance your customer relationships.

Once you’ve set up customer profiles, it’s simply a matter of paying careful attention to what’s being said, especially if it relates to your product or brand. If a customer’s unhappy with your company, they might not bother to tell you, but reach out on their social network instead. If you’re monitoring your customer Tweets using your new setup, it’s much easier to discover customer concerns—and address them—before the situation escalates.

From a more positive angle, if you notice a customer tweeting about her search for product or service you provide (that they may not realize you offer), your sales team has a fantastic opportunity to respond and develop that interest into a lead.

Email is another great way to stay on connected to your customer. Don’t bombard your customers with emails, but do make your emails frequent and relevant enough to remind them of why they chose to give you their business. Sending one newsletter and one promotional email at specific times each week or month is a good start, but with a little creativity and careful data management, you can create targeted email campaigns for special occasions or broken out by demographic. Using the data gleaned through your customer relationship management software, you can deliver even more sophisticated and targeted messages, such as discounts for a customer’s birthday for example. The better targeted the offers, the better your connection with your customers.

The aim is to keep growing the connection. With intelligent application of the information you gather, you can build real and lasting relationships with your customers that won’t end with the sale.

About Megan Totka

Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.

Stop making sales predictions and start executing0

by Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

As some of you may be aware, I have a monthly column on the Globe and Mail’s, usually the third Tuesday of each month. These pieces are unique from what I usually post here on The Pipeline. I will post links to these posts as I think they will be of interest to regular readers of this blog. As always, I invite you to share and comment on the articles on the Globe and Mail site, here, or both.

Enjoy: Stop making sales predictions and start executing

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Conditions Are Not Objections (#video)0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

In the heat of a sale, it is sometimes easy to confuse a condition to the sale with an objection. The key is to understand what you are really dealing with, and respond accordingly. Done right, it could solidify the sale and the resulting relationship with the buyer.

Take a look, then download the Objection Handling Handbook, and let me know your thought.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Why Are You In Sales? – Sales eXchange 20020

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

At the end of this post I will ask you a specific question that I would love you to answer, and I thank you here in advance.

Two things happened this past week or 10 days that led to this week’s Sales eXchange being a bit different than the usual, and isn’t that what we always strive to be in sales. First is the fact that this is the 200th Sales eXchange post, and while I had given it much thought, someone asked if I will be marking the fact in any way. The person that asked me was a young person at an event I participated in recently. The event was organized to present young people with different options for their life after school.

One of the questions going into the event was “What do you want to be?” Some had very clear ideas, knowing exactly where they want to go. One young lady was determined to become a speech pathologist due to a friend she had in grade school. She structured her high school curriculum to set her up for a path of success in post-secondary school, and to her dream career. Others stated a number of different career plans, some very specific, marketing, finance, construction, software design, and more. Others were a bit more general, the young man who asked about the 200th post simply stated business. As an aside, it seems he had been spying my blog (and others) to glean ideas for his high school business class, at least someone is getting value at an early age. But in the end no one said they wanted to go into sales, not one.

Consider that according to the United States Department of Labor, there just under 14 million people employed in sales as of May 2012 in the USA. The same department pegs the number of lawyers at under 1 million, and software developers (systems and applications) also under 1 million. Yet fewer than a handful of institutions offer a degree in selling or sales.

There were a number of kids who talked about becoming lawyers, software developers, doctors, even golf pros, but not one said sales. Which begs the question that if no one sets out to become a sales professional, where the hell did we all come from? Are we progressing as a profession, or just a modern day version of post war refugee camps full of people making due while they find their next destination? Are we a repository of other professions outcasts, with the occasional diamond in the rough? After all, almost 50% of sellers do not make quota, this would not be tolerated in any other department.

So here is my ask – take a minute and think about where you are in sales as a career, how you got here, how you’re doing. Then take a minute and in the comment box below, tell me:

Why Are You In Sales?

Tibor Shanto

Things You Can’t Fix0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

There is a lot of pressure on sales people, from customers, prospects, managers, and self-imposed pressure. The last thing sellers should do is add to that, but they do, every day, and in the most unnecessary ways. One way is focusing on things out of their control, spending resources, energy and time on things they can never fix; at times compounding the issue because they involve others in the discussion who are just as powerless to change things, and as result more time and resources down the drain.

Highlighting things that may not be working is not a bad thing, especially when the goal is to improve the client experience, add value, and or improve sales for you or the company. An example would be being part of the feedback loop, where direct feedback from customers via front line sales is invaluable. What’s at question here are the things that sellers complain about, or choose to focus on that do not bring value or are likely to be different as a result of the exercise.

The best way to avoid this time and energy sucking is to organize and compartmentalize. Start with a blank sheet of paper, or better yet a large dry erase board. Top centre, write down your key objective, it has to be concrete and quantifiable. A specific revenue objective, landing a specific account, or just opening the door at a named account. Then write down all perceived obstacles or barrios, perceived or real. Don’t think about it too much, write it down no matter how obvious or farfetched.

Once the list is up there, look at the list and eliminate the things that are not real, those that may have been one way a year ago, they have changed but you have not. Then eliminate those things that are real and an action plan has already been put in place. What you’ll have left is a short list of real things you can change, and list of things you cannot change or get someone to change on your behalf; and it really doesn’t matter if it is real or not, because the fact that you can’t change it trumps both.

The on the list that are real, things you change or impact, commit to changing or find someone willing to take ownership, but there has to be an owner, someone accountable for the outcome, and develop an action plan, including time lines, the start and end of the process.

As for the things you can’t change, don’t let them side track you. You can either find alternative ways of addressing the issue or move on. I am not suggesting you give up, but you know what they say about I moveable objects. You should always try to figure things out, consider alternative ways, but if they do not present themselves, then wasting time and resource will only put you behind. Complaining about them or letting them prevent you from succeeding should not be an option. Maybe you need to find another prospect. You’ll be surprised how creative you can get when you approach it like this; or how much sense it may make to move on and find a real, and winnable opportunity.

At times though, I can’t help but think that some sellers focus on things they can’t change as a means of avoiding things they can, and thing that do need to be done.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

It Is Personal0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

One questionable piece of advice sellers are given is not to take “things personally”. While I understand the sentiment behind it, encouraging sellers to not go down a dark hole, there is something wrong with telling professional sales people, in fact professionals of any type, not to take it personally. The reality is that part of successful selling is conviction, not just in your ability to add value to the buyer, but and in how you sell. It is hard to have that and not be passionate about selling, and as soon as passion is involved, it also becomes personal.

Certainly there are parts of the sales cycle that you can remove yourself somewhat from the emotions of the sale, usually during the prospecting stage, especially if you are a proactive rather than a passive prospector. When you first reach out to a potential buyer they don’t know you from Adam, and the goal is to get them engaged. Initial rejections are more situational than directed; meaning that they are not rejecting you as an individual, but what you represent, an interruption. But as you get engaged and are working through the sale, you get more emotionally involved, things do become a lot more personal.

It is that emotional involvement that often allows you to go deep with a buyer. Passion and enthusiasm are contagious, and it’s something you want your buyers to catch. After all, we are constantly reminded that people buy on emotion, then rationalize their decision, so it only helps if you are going to connect with the buyer on that level as well.

A more workable and realistic goal is to understand that you do need to get involved on a number of levels, that it does get personal, and that you need to be able to deal with and manage the outcomes whether they go your way or not. The ability to step back, assess the circumstance, and move on to the next sale. No different than the expectation and practice in professional sport.

By assessing the outcome you achieve a number of positives that help with the personal aspect. First you can evaluate how well you did execute you plan and process and understand why perhaps you lost the deal. I say perhaps, because there isn’t always a clear answer all nicely wrapped, if the result of the assessment is ambiguous, you will still have to deal with the outcome and move on.

But if the analysis of the deal and outcome are not ambiguous, then you are in a great position to learn, both what you want to repeat and to accentuate moving forward, and what to avoid and improve. While this may not take away the sting of a lost deal, it does help you benefit in some way, cope, and have a reason to give it another go with your new insight.

It is very much the emotion we bring at sellers that helps us win deals where most all other things are equal. It is precisely then that you need to go deep, and leave yourself open to disappointment, and yes it does become personal precisely because of that; and given the opportunity I would advise you to get emotionally involved and deal with the outcome win or lose. After all, they only give you the advice about it not being personal when you lose, it seems they are OK with it being personal when you win.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

What’s A Better Seller? – Sales eXchange 1990

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of discussing sales and selling with Charles Adler, Canada’s Boss of Talk. Charles had read my piece in the Globe and Mail on the difference between a blue-collar approach to selling and the white-collar approach. We explored other aspects of sales and successful people, take a listen, and let me know or Charles (@charlesadler), know what you think.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Can Technology Undermine Trust?14

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Had an interesting discussion with a rep Jim, last week around the area of trust. He works for smaller company, they use various technologies to help them with lead gen and nurturing. Two specific apps enable him to track who has opened his e-mails, and the other lets him know who has visited his company’s web site, right down to specific pages. As you can imagine, with the right content, laced with specific links, a seller can gain some great insights.

Having worked with the team, I know that they are diligent about avoiding and or removing objections. Jim was on the phone with a potential buyer who asked that Jim send him some info before committing to an appointment, Jim tried everything we put in our Objection Handling Handbook, but in the end had to send some info. As per the teams SOP, he only sends e-mail, chock full of links, and scheduled a follow up call to review. Over the next few days Jim saw the prospect read the e-mail, both in the office and on his mobile device. He saw the footprints on the website, hitting critical target pages, Jim was ready for the call back.

The Objection Handling Handbook, instructs sellers to continue taking away objections on call back, encouraging sellers to start the call by saying: “Hi Mr./Ms. Prospect, this is Jim calling back, following up on the information I promised to forward, you probably haven’t had a chance to read it, have you?” Thus taking wary the obvious and common dodge.

Feeling confident as a result of technology, Jim skipped the take away, and left himself open, and disappointment by asking the buyer if he had reviewed the e-mail, and letting the facts get in the way of process, he assumed the buyer would lead with the fact that he did read the note and visited the website.

Well guess what, yup, the buyer took a left turn and you know it, “Jim, I am up to my eyeballs in alligators, and just have not had a chance to get to it, leave it with me and I’ll get back with you as soon as I have”. Jim, got back and program and managed to secure a face to face appointment with the buyer, and the cycle is progressing.

Jim was upset for two reasons, one he could fix, specifically the approach and methodology. By executing the follow up call according to plan, regardless of whether he knew if the prospect had read his e-mail, or visited the desired pages on the company web site.

The second was a bit more problematic for Jim, while not being naïve, he was looking to establish trust with the buyer and felt that the buyer had undermined that opportunity. While he will continue to engage with the prospect, and will continue to be honest, straight forward and ethical with the buyer, he says he will always have a hint of doubt as to the integrity of what this buyer will tell him, and by extension other buyers.

In the end technology does not replace human interaction, and with any interaction there is some give and take. I pointed out to Jim that the buyer may have had some reasons for not being straight with Jim, including bad experiences with other sellers, perhaps looking to see what kind of rep Jim is, or any number of reasons. Trust is not instantaneous, it takes time and familiarity, which why I am surprised when some pundits talk about being able to establish trust right out of the gate, or even on a voice mail.

More importantly, technology is there to support the effort, not replace it, had Jim stuck to the program, he would have been able to respond to the situation more effectively, but he had painted himself into a corner, not the technology.

Having said that, it does raise the issue of how fragile trust is, and how easily it is undermined by technology. While the buyer may argue that they were being spied on, they should also be aware that there are no secrets on the internet, and any time you click a link, you have company.

What do you think of Jim’s dilemma, and whether technology can in fact undermine trust?

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

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