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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

Are You An Enabling Manager? – Sales eXchange 1900

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Probably the most important role in a sales organizations ability to ensure successful and consistent execution of their sales process is the front line sales manager. They are the ones that distill the central message down to the local team. They are the ones who ensure that the discipline and the measures that are required to succeed are implemented, adhered to and improved, both in day to day interactions with their team members, and in their design and delivery of the individual sales reps’ annual coaching plan. They are the ones who hold the individuals on their teams accountable for their activities, SOP’s, and the delivery of revenues/clients. No one in the organization is in a greater position to enable their team members to succeed.

The question then becomes, what are they enabling. As with parenting, enabling involves more than just providing, you need to be actively involved, you need to be actively setting the example. By this I don’t mean showing your people how to sell, but setting the example by adhering to the process yourself. How do we expect sales people to do all the things they need to do to succeed, including the mundane and trivial activities, if we don’t do ours as managers, if the manager can take shortcuts or deviate from the process, well why not the rep.

Many parents enable their kids by looking the other way when they find them doing things that could be negative or harmful, as o many sales managers. Some rationalize things by pointing to the fact that the rep is good, delivers the numbers, they don’t want to interfere. Unless you feel that your company’s processes are bogus, you could be missing a great opportunity for that same rep to improve, deliver more, or deliver their current success with less effort or time. By looking the other way you are letting the rep down and your team.

If you have reps who are not always delivering, the 80%-90% of goal reps, and they see that you are letting some people pick and choose, you are asking for more issues. One is that you don’t really care what they do or how they do, basically they are on their own till the end of month/quarter tally. In this vacuum of leadership and lack of support, two things happen; first, absent the manager’s involvement, they look around to see who is succeeding, and do what those successful sellers do; and as discussed above, they are not following the proven process, so they conclude that they don’t need to either, but since they lack the god given skill, they are doomed to stay where they are or even regress after a time. Second, these 80%-90% players looking to improve become great recruiting targets, often for no other reason than the opportunity to be coached, supported and enabled to be 100%+ players, something you can enable them to do here and now, just by getting active and involved.

Enabling takes planning, action, work, and accountability. Like many parents you can say that you enable your kids by letting them make their own choices, and deal with the outcome. Or you can actively engage, set parameters, expectations and an example, and in the process enable them to succeed, rather than enabling them to no succeed; both are enabled.

What’s in Your Pipeline
Tibor Shanto

One of the greatest things invented by the financial service industry was “Compound Interest“. Save for the fact that no one is paying much interest on money these days, the reality of Compound Interest still holds and delivers added gain regardless of how low of high rates are. I was watching a teacher explain the concept to a grade 5 class, and he brought it down to “a little to start, a little from here, a little from there, and over time you end up with more than straight interest”.

As you assess your plan for sales success in 2013, you can take advantage of “Compounding” to achieve greater success. Rather than resolving to do new things in new ways in 2013, why not resolve to improve a little here and a little there with things you already do or need to do; but do it in a way that ends up being greater than the individual gains on your efforts.

Read On…

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

A reminder that there is a class this afternoon, 4:00 pm Eastern

GAP Selling – Leveraging Process and Execution

GAP Selling – Looks at how to deliver value to buyers across the entire sales cycle.
Almost every sales conversation starts or ends with the concept of value; at the same time there are as many different understandings and definitions of value as there are sellers and buyers.

This course delivers clear and actionable definition of value. Starting with that definition of value, participants will learn the five step platform to leveraging that value right through the sale, from the initial engagement to winning the client. The overarching goal of the platform is to focus on the buyer’s objectives, and delivering specific means of helping them achieve those objectives.

These include:

Identifying and validating buyer’s objectives
Understanding why buyers really buy
Why Buyers buy and don’t buy from you and your company
Converting the above to impact questions and quality conversation
A structured follow-through approach to maximize impact and progress Participants will learn how to use the above to create alignment with the buyer, their objectives and buying process

Join us at 4:00 pm Eastern today

Prerequisite – An open mind to learning and selling better

Test – Your weekly Pipeline Review

By now everyone is aware of the increasing talk of the need for alignment between marketing and sales, with some organizations realizing that it is healthier to look at the entire Client Life Cycle as one function rather than two. Some organization have acted on their commitment by creating the role of Chief Revenue Officer, having both functions coalesce behind a singular purpose, function and execution.

This indeed is a step forward as it aligns and consolidates the organization’s resource to better serve the most important element in selling, the customer. While it may seem basic and fundamental to mention the buyer, but they, the customer, are often absent from the discussion, and are instead represented by their common proxy, revenue.

Read On…

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

The six elements of a perfect sales meeting19

The Pipeline Guest Post – Matt Heinz

Do you dread the weekly sales team meeting? Feel like it’s wasting your time? If so, somebody’s not doing it right.

Reviewing a pipeline report may not be your idea of fun, but effective sales meetings are well-planned, well-executed, and full of information highly relevant to making reps better and both extracting & sharing information that can help the entire organization accelerate sales, customer and revenue growth.

Here are the six elements that, combined, make for a powerful regular sales team meeting.

1. Metrics
This is where you start. An empirical, objective, numbers-based look at current performance and what’s left to achieve. This is cause for celebration and alarm (often with the same dashboard), and will set the tone for the rest of the meeting. There shouldn’t be any surprises here, but it can drive urgency and focus in both the hour and days ahead.

2. Recognition
Take the time to recognize great performances across the team. It can be something as big as a huge new enterprise deal, or a small as the new guy’s first successful appointment. No matter how difficult your market or month is, there’s always something to celebrate.

3. Voice of the Customer
We’re not selling in a vacuum. At each meeting, the customer should be heard. This can be an overview of new research, feedback from a recent customer briefing, review of new market trends or analyst data, or even a quick presentation or interview (live or recorded) with an actual customer. No matter how you present it, ensure the customer has a place at the sales meeting table on a regular basis.

4. Training
Constantly make your team better. Bring in outsiders to teach a skill or customer insight. Review the latest product features. Practice objection-handling or consultative selling skills. Do role-playing. Review & discuss a new perspective, blog post or article you found. Training and learning is an everyday thing for the best salespeople in the world. Institutionalize this in your organization more frequently than you do it today.

5. Deal Drill-Down
Choose someone on the team to walk through a current or recent deal. This can either be a recently-closed deal and how it happened, or it can be a deal that’s stalled (and how/why it got there). The former allows an opportunity for your team to learn best practices from others in context, and the latter allows the team to help each other break through roadblocks and move deals forward.

6. Motivation
End each meeting on a positive note. This is different and separate from individual recognition. This is about firing up your team to burst out of the conference room and back on the phones or into the field. How great sales managers do this is personal (a video clip, a joke, a motivational quote, etc.), but we know sales is an emotional job. Play to that and send your troops back out to victory.

What have I missed in this list? What are essential elements you have used or experienced in great sales meetings?

About Matt Heinz

Matt Heinz brings more than 12 years of marketing, business development and sales experience from a variety of organizations, vertical industries and company sizes. His career has focused on delivering measurable results for his employers and clients in the way of greater sales, revenue growth, product success and customer loyalty. Matt is President of Heinz Marketing Inc.

Dec 9th, 2011 Attitude, Business Acumen, Coaching, Emotional Intelligence(EQ), Guest Post, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Meetings

Attitude, Communication, execution, Guest Post, Leadership, Proactivity, Sales Meetings

Do You Smell Desperate?26

The Pipeline Guest Post – Trevor Stevens

November 1st was a beautiful day up here this year, sunny, high 70′s, in fact so nice I had to treat myself to an afternoon latte. But when I got to my favorite coffee spot, I was greeted Christmas decorations and Christmas Muzak. Hang on a minute, I had not even rifled through my kids’ Halloween loot, fought with my wife about Thanksgiving dinner, and it’s Tall Christmas already? How desperate I thought.

But you get the same desperation in B2B selling every day, and the reality is that your customers can smell the desperation on a sales person, and they know how to take advantage of it every time. This either results in a sales where you are forced to make unnecessary concessions that are not limited to price, and have long term implications on profit. Worse they often cause a sale not to happen, as many customers will not deal with someone they perceive to be weak or desperate.

Sometimes there are big signs of desperation, outrageous promos that telegraph your inability to sell; after all your firm is saying “forget all those good reasons to buy, we are giving it away, why would you take it at the price?” But there are also things that we sales people do and say that erode the buyers confidence and perception of us. Every time you say things like:

I was just
I was hoping
I just need a few brief minutes
I promise you will see value if you give me a few minutes
What do I have to do to get your business now

I knew one company that had a desperate sales process. Their whole plan was to reach out to the client at the start of the month, present the latest issue’s table of content, they sold trade journals, and offered to mail it out to them. They followed up in a week, and again a week later if they needed to. And they always needed to, because clients had figured out that if they wait to the last week of the month, the company would cave in a sell at a discount. Many saw the desperation of the company and their reps the last week of the month, and just waited for it.

It does not take much to avoid having to be desperate, but it also doesn’t take much desperation for the clients to smell it on you and take advantage of you. You can avoid this by spending time preparing and knowing how you can deliver value to the client, and focus on that. If you make the sale about them, you win, if you come across as focused on the sale and your quota, you smell desperate. Worse, as you develop a reputation for being desperate. It becomes hard to shake, both as a trait, and as your reputation.

In the end I bought the coffee, wished her a Happy Hanukkah, she asked if that was grande or venti, I told her it was two months too soon.

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Nov 11th, 2011 Attitude, Business Acumen, Coaching, execution, Guest Post, Proactivity, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Success

Accountability, Attitude, Commitment, execution, Guest Post, Leadership, Proactivity, Sales Success

Execution Based Coaching64

This article has been selected for DeFinis Communications’ “Sales Coaching: Top Tips for Increased Productivity” Blog Carnival. You can enjoy even more posts from other exceptional bloggers at their website.

An effective sales coaching process needs to be based on two pillars of sales success and continuous improvement process: activity and process. By focusing on executing an organization’s standardized sales process, Managers are able to deliver objective coaching, taking subjectivity and personalities out of the mix. This in turn drives mutual accountability and focus on high value activities and results. By driving specific sales process related activities, coaches are able to tailor and evolve plans for each individual member of their team based on their specific skills, abilities and current results.

Sales Managers must understand and embrace the difference between Managing and Coaching, applying both as needed to develop their teams. Manager are expected to set role expectations, clearly defining specific objectives, including financial goals, client acquisition, renewal and penetration targets, specific time allocation and activity levels for key success activities. Without understanding and acceptance of these fundamentals, it is difficult for sales teams and individuals to succeed, nor for managers to successfully lead their teams and individuals to consistent success.

Once the sales rep understands and accepts the role definition and related metrics, the Manager needs to inventory the reps’ skills, attributes and ability to deliver agreed on expectations and objectives. This allows the Manager to develop near term and long term coaching and development plans for each rep based on their abilities.

Once the expectations have been accepted by the rep, the Manager needs to transition from Manager to Coach, helping the individual rep to consistently execute the process with continuous improvement in results measured against plan.

A fully effective Execution Based Coaching model is implemented on two parallel tracks, a week to week reinforcement of the sales process, including related activities and metrics; and a longer term development plan based on the individuals’ ability to deliver against plan and over all development goals.

Week to Week Application

Based on pre-agreed on levels of activity, opportunities at various stages of the funnel based on the individual’s conversion rates. Because the review is driven by metrics and a standardized process, they require little time, and can be conducted as a team to encourage knowledge and market information sharing. Executed properly (according to the Renbor way), these are short crisp meetings with each member of the team taking no more than five minutes. Because reviews are weekly, and focus on real opportunities, real being specifically defined based on pipeline criteria, not the interpretation of each member of the team; this is one of the key things established in the expectation phase above.

Longer Term Development Plan

In order to deliver long term development, Managers also need to develop and implement a long-term and ongoing formal Coaching Plan for each rep. This part of the model is rooted in the teams’ success plan, and is tailored to meet the needs of the individual. It involves a three step process.

First, Coaches set high level goals for the team based on skills and attributes, developed based on role expectation and skills gap identified; ongoing development and evolvement of individual sales rep through mentoring and individual motivation.

Second, as important as a long-term development plan is, the reality is that a year is a long period with many changes throughout the year. To facilitate this, Managers need to break down the over all plan to a series of short 6 to 8 week action plans, bite size versus big and daunting, relevant now versus distant change. This makes for greater acceptance by reps, drives adoption and implementation of specific steps. It also allows reps to celebrate success along the way, and encourages them to want coaching, driving mutual accountability, making coaching a positive regular practice rather than event based.

Third, this allows the Manager to update and revise plans based on daily realities in the field, and impact the sales reps’ activities and actions based on how well they are executing and responding to market conditions, and the output from the weekly reviews, linking the near-term and long-term tracks.

While to some this may seem like an involved process, the greatest value a sales coach can bring to an organization is the development of their reps.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

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The Importance of Sales Management in a Recovering Economy10

The Pipeline Guest Post – Ken Thoreson

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During the past two weeks I have been in Miami, Phoenix and this weekend I have been speaking in San Antonio. We have met with Sales Leaders from around the world, lead workshops, presented keynotes and developed new long term relationships with our client base. It’s been a great few weeks. I have also noticed an uptick in my own prospects and business opportunities. Have you? Based upon my conversations almost every sales leader is optimistic and pipelines are filling. Are you ready to participate in the recovery?

During the past 13 years I have been consulting, writing and speaking on the fact that sales management is the lynch-pin that drives successful organizations; sales leadership sets the tone, the culture and drives the organization to greater levels of revenues and profitability. And now, during the past six months the topic of participating in the economic recovery and the impact of great sales management on the organization has been a critical and hot topic. The topics of surviving or working in a challenging economic time are over. “Economic recovery?”.. Yes, just reading the USA Today, on Monday January 24th, the quotes are all over the paper:

Are you more or less optimistic than you were 3 months ago about the economic outlook this year? 91% of 46 Economists answered YES.
Over the next 12 months, which will have the greatest positive impact on the economy? 48% said BUSINESS, 45% the consumer
The US economy is expected to grow at an annual rate between 3.2% to 3.4%, that is up from October forecast of 2.5% to 3.3%
They expect employers to add 200,000 jobs a month-more than double last year’s rate.
The DOW is over 11,961 at the time of this blog

What is the role or action points for sales manager’s in a recovering economy? I listed a few steps to focus on:

Build your Hiring Plan; Sales Managers should know today when they expect to add new salespeople for the next 18 months. Based upon your revenue goals for the next 24 months you should have a plan set defining what months you will need hire new sales talent to achieve those new higher sales targets. If your next hire date is March, then your recruiting plan must in effect now, is it June? October? Make sure you also plan on members your current team could leave or be fired also.
Get aggressive on increasing your individual salesperson strategy sessions, winning now is critical to build momentum. Schedule special sales team sessions or hold a small group of salesperson discussions weekly to strategize each sales opportunity.
Increase the culture building and building belief in your offerings and your organization. If you want an article I published on that topic send me an email. Ken@AcumenMgmt.com Your sales team needs to believe and feel the change in economic conditions, you want to create their desire to participate in the recovery. “Take advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime, during the life time of the opportunity”.
Retool your sales compensation to ensure it is in alignment with your corporate objectives or if you have already rolled out 2011 compensation plans, create an aggressive sales contest or special incentives to win Net-New clients or upgrade existing clients or hit higher levels of revenues/margin. Drive the sense of urgency to win.
Sales management must now focus, as always, but more importantly now on “Brilliant Execution”. If you and your team are 2 steps ahead of your competition during the next 4 months your summer and fall business opportunities will accelerate. Focus on increased levels of sales management planning i.e. sales training, one on one coaching and managing the number of calls per month per salesperson and even schedule weekly telephone blitz days to find those businesses that need your solutions to participate in their own recovery.

Sales leaders are the key to success, you can make the difference and NOW is the time to take advantage of opportunity and participate in the economic recovery.

What else do you think you should focus on to grow your business during the next 18 months? Let me know your thoughts….

About Ken Thoreson

Acumen Management Group Ltd. “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 12 years, our consulting, advisory, and platform services have illuminated, motivated, and rejuvenated the sales efforts for partners throughout North America. Move up and move ahead!

Ken’s books: http://www.yoursalesmanagementguru.salesgravy.com

Ken provides Keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance.

Ken@AcumenMgmt.com www.AcumenManagement.com
Blog: www.YourSalesManagementGuru.com

Jun 10th, 2011 Attitude, Business Acumen, Coaching, execution, Guest Post, Productivity, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Tip

Accountability, Communication, execution, Guest Post, how to sell better, Leadership, Sales Success, sell better, Success

10 Fail-proof Tasks to Help Turn Your Prospects into Buyers22

The Pipeline Guest Post – Rochelle Togo-Figa

Prospecting is a term that’s been around for a long time. Remember in history class, learning about the miners digging for gold in the 1800s? Your business strategies are the same as the gold-miners, except instead of digging for ore, you’re digging for customers, with your mind focused on this: you want to find the right prospects—the serious buyers. When you find buyers who are interested in your product, it’s as though you “struck gold.”

There are steps to follow that can make prospecting easy and effective. Let’s take a look at 10 fail-proof tasks to help turn prospects into buyers:

Before the Call

Identify Your Market – Find a market that interests and excites you; a market you’re comfortable with and knowledgeable about. Go where you know you have something to offer.
Make a List – These could be past clients you’ve worked with, people you know can benefit from your services, people who expressed interest but didn’t buy from you in the past, or companies you’ve been wanting to break into to inform them of your product or service.
Do Your Research -Organize yourself before you pick up the phone. Find out who the contact person is, who the buyer is, their phone number and email address. In short, learn everything you can about a prospect before you call. They’ll be very impressed that you’ve gone the extra mile to learn about them.
Craft a Compelling Message – You have about 30 seconds before the person you call decides whether or not she even wants to stay on the phone with you, so you don’t have a lot of time. Make sure to make those first few seconds of your call matter most by delivering a statement that grabs their attention. Your phone call should be anywhere from 1-3 minutes and include the following:

- Identify yourself and your company.
- Say what you do.
- Position you and your company as the expert.
- Mention something you saw about them on their website.
- State the reason for your call.
- Close for the meeting.

After the Call

Follow Up – I’m amazed to hear entrepreneurs say they only follow up one or two times and sometimes never at all. People may not be ready today to buy from you but if they expressed interest, they’ll probably be ready to buy in the next several months. Remember, it can take 7-10 or more touches to move the client to making a buying decision. You want to come up with creative ways to stay in touch, so when they’re ready to buy they’ll remember you.
Reactivate dormant accounts – Reaching out to past clients can make customers for life. Let them know you’re there for them and be generous by offering some ideas to help them in their business. One phone call can make a huge difference. Think about it. When you go the extra mile and show them you’re there to help them, they’ll appreciate you and remember that when they’re ready to do business.
Make special offers – Offer a product or service at a special low fee for a limited time. Give catchy names to these special offers. Some examples are: Close-out Sale, Scratch and Dent Sale, Half Price Sale, Birthday Sale, My Dog Maxx’s Birthday Sale, Free 30-Day Trial. You’ll need to put a time limit on the offer to encourage people to buy now and not later. Also, it helps to explain why you’re having the sale, so they know you don’t just drop prices whenever you feel like it.
Up sell – When a client purchases your product, you can offer other services at a nominal fee that will compliment the product they’ve just purchased. This is done in many places. For example, at many hotels they now charge you a ‘resort fee’ of $20 a day. And for that fee, they list a series of amenities you receive. Although this is a small fee, with the volume of customers, this fee adds up.
Add value to existing services – During times when your customers may be concerned about pricing, another way to win them over is offering the best value for their dollar. You can do this by enhancing your service with “extras.” An extra might be faster delivery than your competitors, a larger selection, easier payment options, or a better guarantee.
Be positive – I’m a big believer in staying positive. If you are confident in your abilities and product, others will be as well. Don’t let a “No” or two get you down. Most of all believe in yourself and stay in action! Remember, the only difference between you and the big businesses is, they’ve had more “No’s” than you have.

Of course, I’d love for all of you to be getting referrals and leads from people you know and by word of mouth, but prospecting is a legitimate way to generate leads and new business opportunities. Like all selling strategies, it takes time and consistency.

Remember, your purpose for calling is to get a meeting—nothing more than that. Provide enough information to stimulate their curiosity enough to hear them say, “Yes, I will meet with you.” Then, follow up and try new combinations of strategies to find what works best for you.

About Rochelle Togo-Figa

Rochelle Togo-Figa, The Sales Breakthrough Expert, is the creator of the Sales Breakthrough System™, a proven step-by-step sales process that will help you close more sales, sign on more clients and make more money with ease and velocity. To sign up for her free sales articles and teleclasses on closing more sales, visit http://www.salesbreakthroughs.com/ or connect with her on Facebook.

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May 27th, 2011 Attitude, Business Acumen, Coaching, execution, Guest Post, Proactivity, Sales Success, Sales Technique

Attitude, execution, Guest Post, how to sell better, Planning, Proactivity, Prospecting, Sales Skills

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Things You Can’t Fix0

Are You An Enabling Manager? – Sales eXchange 1900

Compounding Your Sales Successes40

Read On…

School Is In53

Sales Force (Mis)Alignment34

The six elements of a perfect sales meeting19

Do You Smell Desperate?26

Execution Based Coaching64

The Importance of Sales Management in a Recovering Economy10

10 Fail-proof Tasks to Help Turn Your Prospects into Buyers22