Home / Archive by category "Time Allocation"

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

Dude, You’re Gonna Need More Than 15 Minutes3

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Sales people are constantly working at communicating value to their buyers, especially in the early stages of the cycle, lead gen to prospecting and engaging the buyer to where they could complete an effective Discovery process. After sellers have done all the work involved in getting to the point where they can engage with a buyer, I am always surprised at how easily they are willing to undermine it, and risk their opportunity by saying something completely unnecessary, and serves only to sooth their nerves.

The expression that does this most is “I just need 15 minutes of your time” or “A quick 15 minutes”. Both are stupid and useless, the second is one I never did get, how is a “quick 15 minutes” different than 15 minutes, don’t all minutes have 60 seconds, it is just the quality of the content that seems to make some minutes last a lifetime.

I know why it is used, generally comes down to two things, both can be dealt with more intelligently and effectively. First is the popular notion that if you can get 15 minutes, and do well, they’ll give you an encore and you can stretch it out; I guess we all think we can do a good job. On the other hand I used to work for a VP of Sales who managed his calendar down to the minute, busy guy. He would ask you how long you needed, and would book you in for that time, if you said 15 minutes, he would end the meeting right at 15 minutes. He wasn’t rude, he had to get to his next scheduled meeting, if you couldn’t live up to the expectation I set, it was your issue, not his, you had to deal with it, not him.

Which brings us to the first contradiction, most decision makers have more than what to do in a day, how realistic is that they don’t have other meetings behind your, or other things that require their time and attention. Yes, no doubt we have all had instances where we were able to extend 15 minutes in to 45 or even 60 minutes, but an occasional anomaly does not make for a sound strategy.

The other issue with this approach is that you are in fact misleading the prospect before you have even met them. Think about it, do you really want to start things off by lying to the prospective buyer? Any way you rationalize it, that is exactly what you are doing, not a good foundation for a trust based relationship.

The second reason sales people do this is linked to the first, and just as weak. Specifically they are trying to minimize the apparent impact on the buyer, trying to make it “easy” on them, “Your time will not be wasted”, is the implication. But unless you are selling a coffee service or window cleaning, how much real or tangible value can you effectively communicate. More so, when you are selling what you would call a “solution”, where information has to be exchanged, 15 minutes is not going to get you there, you can pretend all you want, you are going to pitch, worse, you are going to ‘speed pitch’.

Some will tell me, “I can at least get things started”, sure then comeback and continue, with a bit of recapping, you are costing you and the buyer more time. By asking for 15 minutes you are undermining your so called “value proposition”. What the prospect hears is that this is so basic and unimportant, what they are asking themselves is as follows: “we’re going to make real progress in 15, can’t be that important or unique, maybe it can wait, or I can delegate it to someone who deals with unimportant things.”

Think about it, assuming things get started, small talk, while you assume they checked out your web site, you have to validate; if they did, you still need to create context, if they didn’t you have to do a bit more than that. From here, you need to at least go through the motions of gather information or executing a Discovery of facts and objective. Ah, look at that time is up! I remember someone trying to sell me an ad in local board of trade directory, they said they just need 15 minutes, I pointed out to him that he will need to ask me some questions, I will certainly have some for him, so let’s get real, how much time will we really need, he was honest enough to come across with a real time frame.

What’s worse, it is usually the seller who brings time in to the equation, not the prospect, again communicating a lack of confidence in their offering, or their ability to sell, or both. Just stop this juvenile practice, and sell.

Now I know that there times when you will be asked by a prospect how much time you need; in my case I gear my first meetings to about an hour, I am the one that gets antsy after 50 minutes. But rather than saying “one hour”, I pause, and ask, “how long can you give me?” They usually come back and say “is an hour enough?” Touch down!

But assuming they ask again, I just say “I usually need about 30 minutes for Discovery, I assume you’ll have some questions, so 40 minutes is safe.” If I feel they have a sense of humor, I add “any longer than that I take as interest on your part.”

I do have people who say “I can give you 30 minutes.” Great I can work with that; if they offer 15 minutes, I say no, I know what is going to happen, it is not a good use of my time, my most important resource. Either we can find a mutually better time, or on to the next one. If you have lots of prospects, this is not an issue, if you only have one or two, you may have to settle for the scraps that a quick 15 minutes represent.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

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Short Cuts – Do it Now or Do it Later0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

The pressure of time, or more specifically, a lack of time, for sales professionals continues to build for sales professionals. Sales people often ask me for ways to achieve something by skipping steps or finding short cuts for critical steps of the cycle. Especial when there are specific things that have to be executed in one stage of the cycle/process before you can move to the next; some may not seem important at the time, but are fundamental to a successful sale, and there is no escaping them. In some ways in sales it is very much like the old Fram commercial, you can do it now, or you can do it later.

In an environment of declining resources and increased demands and expectations, utilization of time continues to grow as one of the most critical skills for successful sellers. Given the choice between someone who is a good seller or a good user of time, give me the time skilled individual any day. Doesn’t matter how good you are, if you can’t get around to using the skill. Notice I have avoided the term “time management”, because it is never about managing time, but about how we choose to allocate and use time for critical activities; activities are what need to be managed. In most instances, with all things being equal, it is more likely that you miss deals because you ran out of time, rather than running out of skills.

With all the pressure growing each hour and day into the depleting selling year, it is not a surprise that sellers are always seeking short cuts, or tips to reduce time. While I understand what’s driving the desire, I would caution you to focus on the objective and desired outcome(s). Better to look at a sale as an exercise in building. You need to build a solid foundation before you erect the house on top. If you rush things, opt for a short cut and start before the foundation is dry, you’re going to have to go back and do it again, do it right, which will cost time, resources and money.

One example is the propensity to present proposal way too soon, long before key facts are uncovered. I know sellers face tremendous pressure, especially when others are willing to submit at the drop of a hat, but in the end, a bad proposal is a bad proposal no matter how fast you get it in, which why so many come down to price, no foundation.

I was taught that there are five things that have to be in place in order for a proposal to be properly underpinned and solid. Sure I can submit with only four, but more times than not, I have to go back and resell that missed portion or the whole thing. Slowing me and the sale down, if not risking it all together. Again, I know there is pressure, and the other guy is in, but I am will to bet they usually win on price not based on value or the merit of the product or proposal.

The problem with short cuts in sales, is the same as the oil filter, you can do it right the first time, or you can do it later. Problem with later is that it ends up sucking up more time, money and nerves.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Open Ended Sales Meetings?4

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Not long ago I posted a piece about the positive side of “closed ended” questions, and their place in the sale cycle. As with many things it is rarely the case of one versus the other but more of which is more appropriate for the scenario, and in sales for achieving the objective you set out to accomplish.

Sellers can and should take the concept of open ended and closed ended, and apply it to actual sales meetings. What you’ll find is that sales meeting properly executed should be more of a closed ended event, but all too often they end up being an open ended, in fact too open-ended, often becoming ever meandering affairs. The kind meeting which seem like they may never end, especially when you add a torturous layer of PowerPoint; or they end without a specific conclusion or direction. The meetings which follow frequently seem to be another try at getting it right, instead of moving things forward.

The problem usually comes down to what the objective is going into the meeting. I have written in the past about sales people not having a handle on the length of their sales cycle, saying things like “It depends”, or offering an unrealistic “oh 3 – 6 months”; that’s a big variable given that time is your most precious resources, and non-renewable to boot. Taken a step further and asking them how many meetings it may take to close the deal, they answer with less confidence and more ambiguity.

Well if you don’t know how many meetings it may take, (live or by phone, webinar, smoke signals), it becomes really hard to have specific outcomes or objectives for each meeting. This is why sellers at time lose control of meetings, leaving the client to take the meeting to a conclusion, one with no real next step.

Knowing what you want out of each meeting allows you to plan objectives, primary and secondary, plan next steps, and build a structure for the meeting, including questions, that will help you and the buyer meet mutual objectives. Absent that, it begins to look like an experience with the “Be found” camp, having abdicate their role as sellers, they are hoping the buyer will find something to continue for, something to buy. I propose they are hoping the client has a need, hoping they can strike a relationship based on something other than the buyer’s objective, hoping for the order.

Having clear objectives, measures and next steps defined and planned in advance will also allow you to do one other thing with great confidence, that is disqualify buyers. If you cannot achieve your stated objective, having executed your plan, you have to seriously consider that you are not dealing with a real buyer, real like the ones who buy when you achieve your mutually stated objectives.

I remember working with a “rock star” in Boston, he confidently told me his deals on average take four meetings, great, what was his measure of success for the first meeting, his objective? With expected bravado, he proclaimed “to close the deal man!” He did not have an answers as to why he bothered going back three other times if he was going to close the sale during the first meeting. Although there is a prospect I have, who will never buy from me, but he loves the same bands I do, and makes a great espresso, I love going there, but I leave my order pad in the car.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Just Do It NOW! – Sales eXchange 1850

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

I often think that Nike got their famous tag line only half right, they should have added the word Now to Just Do It!

If you are a follower of this blog, you know I am big on process, a structured approach and a tight approach to time and what activities we spend time on. Many mistake this for rigidity, and often push back on how it limits their creativity and spontaneity. I beg to differ and here is a specific reason why.

I have been working with a group of experienced (or at least tenured) sales people. Many too experienced to learn new tricks or skills, they know what they are doing and resist new things, man that sounds a lot like some prospects we all know, don’t it. Working with one fellow, I noticed he had a running list of names on a note pad, when I asked he explained that these were people who popped into his head during that day, people he should call. Either because he “had an angel on something” or he had not thought about them, and thought “I should give them a call”. When I asked him when he calls them, he said “as soon as I get around to it”; when was the last time he did, “just before Christmas”, why the wait, hadn’t gotten around to it yet, nor did he get around to getting quota, coming in at about 83% last year. What was he busy with that he could call them, was the initial thought still valid, no answer.

Personally, I call these people right away, hand held laws be damned, if I think of a good reason to call a prospect, or an up-sell potential client, I do it right away. Before the thought and ENGERGY fade. Call Now is my mantra. If I am in a meeting, I make a note in my note book and it is the first thing that gets done when I am out of the meeting.

Waiting has a lot of risk. First and foremost, is the call not getting done. Even if it gets done later, it lacks the urgency and energy of a call made right there and then. This kind of energy is just electric over the phone, the prospects feel your excitement and get caught up in the moment along with you. There is few things as effective as telling a prospect “Hey Jon, I was just thinking about you!” People love to be thought about, and if you tell them why and what you see happening next, it just gets through and makes a clear and powerful point. The spontaneity, the excitement in your voice is contagious and effective.

I attribute my ability to make these calls, and succeed in making them to my process, the time I build into my day to experiment with selling and do off hand things like this when they present themselves.

So here is the challenge, next time you think about calling someone, call them, don’t make a note, don’t rationalize, call them, you never know what will happen, but I can predict what will be the outcome if you don’t. So just do it NOW!

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

This time of year is an interesting time for the retail trade. As memories of the holiday season begin to fade and the last of the Boxing Day (week, month) sales come to a close, retailers begin another annual ritual, the “Inventory Clearance Sale”. Makes sense, retailers want to clear old and non-selling inventory, freeing up cash, so they can reinvest it in more profitable inventory. In the process the can also open up shelf and storage space, again to make way for newer more salable goods; not so much out with the old in with the new, more like out with lower potential goods and in with better margin and turnover potential.

There are some lessons here for B2B sales people as well. Consider your pipeline as your inventory of prospects and opportunities, add to that the notion of time representing your shelf space, both finite, both needing active management. As such, applying the concept of inventory clearance could be very beneficial for B2B sellers.

When you look at your inventory of prospects, the reality is that no matter how much potential they had when you first decided to carry them, over time and as a result of a number of factors, the likelihood of that inventory turning over changes, usually diminishes, often to a point where they have a negative impact on your pipeline and success. Prospects are similar, in as much that some will close, many more don’t. Either way they need to be removed from the pipeline, or else you can’t bring in new inventory.

This is why sales people need to develop rules for purging their pipeline of bad prospects. Sales people hang on to bad inventory, many look at their pipelines emotionally, the fuller they perceive their pipeline to be, the lesser the propensity to prospect for new opportunities, fresh inventory, confusing a lot of inventory with quality salable inventory.

Bringing shelf space into this in the form of time, you can begin to remove bad inventory before it hit “best by date”. Prospects and opportunities time out, if 80% of your sales close in 75 days, what’s the point in keeping it in the pipeline on day 121; if 80% of the time you can complete the Discovery stage in 3 weeks, should you really continue the Discovery into its 10th week?

It is important to remember that these concepts also apply to your account base, not just prospects. How many low margin accounts are using up resources that if applied to other accounts or new ones would make for better revenues, margins and all around customers. Putting those accounts on the clearance list would allow you to achieve more, be happier, and probably have a better attitude towards new opportunities.

Clearing out bad inventory, be they clients or prospects, should be an ongoing process throughout the year, but even for where it is not year-round, doing it at least once a year, at the start of the year, can bring immediate and yearlong benefits. So good ahead, develop your policies, and hold that “Inventory Clearance”

The Art of Sales Contest Winners!

Congratulations to:
Kristin Geenty and Alan Hart, they are the winners of the tickets to the Art Of Sales, in Toronto next Tuesday January 29.

Enjoy and profit!

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

What’s the old saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? Well there should be a variation of that for sales people and how their road to failure is paved with plans not captured.

Every day sales people set out “to do things” that have to be done to succeed, some they like, others (like cold calling) they don’t. Some they see as important, these get scheduled, and get done; ones they don’t see as important, or do not like to do, do not get scheduled, and guess what. Important or not if a crucial element of the sale does not get executed it often kills the sale. If you don’t schedule it wont get done.

What’s the other saying “if it is not measured, it doesn’t count”, how about if it is not scheduled – it is not done.

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What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

“Leveraging Value from Engaging the Buyer to Closing the Sale” – A Sales Association Webinar
Tuesday, October 30 – 2 p.m. EST / 1 p.m. CST / Noon MST / 11 a.m. PST (1 hour in length)

On Tuesday October 30, I have the privilege to deliver a webinar for The Sales Association – I will be talking to specific steps sellers can take to delivering and leveraging value throughout the sale.

Almost every conversation about selling 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. Without a clear and actionable definition of value, many conversations between buyers and sellers are less than effective, and do not help create a buy.

Starting with a clear definition of value, participants will learn the five-step process to leveraging value throughout the sale, from the initial engagement to winning the client.

Steps 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 for quality conversations
A structured follow-through approach to maximize impact and progress

Participants will learn how to use this process to create alignment with the buyer, their objectives and buying process.

Click Her to Register Now!

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Some things in sales can be called by various names without much consequence, the underlying subject being very much the same, prospect – potential buyer, information gathering – discovery, and many others; it comes down to words not actions or outcomes. In other cases the semantics are very important, and cannot be simply interchanged for convenience. A stellar example of this is the confusion between pipeline reviews and opportunity reviews. They are not the same, you can equate a pipeline with a funnel and funnel review, it is not the same as an opportunity review, and pretending they are will cost you time and money.

For me both type of reviews are important, in many sales organizations necessary, and if not done right, or just plain not done, could have big consequences. One of the biggest is lack of engagements by the reps, many having spent countless tedious and unproductive hours in some of these meetings, simply stop taking them seriously, a disengagement that has big negative impact on success.

A pipeline review is a snapshot of the state of the pipeline and the directly contributing factors, usually activity. Regardless of how you look at your pipeline or funnel, it is likely to have a minimal number of clear stages or sections. Lead – Prospects – Pre-Proposal – Proposal – Initial (verbal) Agreement – Won Business (Closed). A pipeline review just needs to look at the opportunities at each stage – are they real, next steps, and volume based on the individual rep’s documented conversion rates. Are there enough leads to sustain the subsequent stages, and is the rep focused on the right activities. Reviewing this in a brief efficient, and frequent fashion, leads to continuous movement of the right things through the pipeline or down the funnel. You can do this review in as little as five minutes per rep, if you have 8 reps, you can be done and wiser in 40 minutes. If you have a large volume of deals you can cut it back to a more than significant representative sample that will ensure short and snappy meetings. These pipeline reviews should be done as a group, and in my opinion weekly, you don’t all need to be in the same room, and with today’s technology can be done from anywhere, including the parking lot of your next appointment.

An opportunity review is much more, and could involve a heavy dose of coaching, as such the first difference is that these are done individually with each rep, and therefore not as frequently, not more than once a month. In this meeting you review each opportunity, how the rep arrived at where they are, strategies on what to do next, and develop a specific action plan. This where the coaching is key, using the review not only to impact the outcome, but to directly impact how your reps can sell better using a real live scenario as a springboard. Helping the reps to not only widen their view of the deal, but others like it. It is an occasion to examine why some opportunities died, and why specifically some were one, or did not take a decision.

Trying to cram both into one meeting is useless, and typifies the KPI mentality many bring to the process, “did it, I can check it off the list”. They conduct these meetings neither to help their reps, or to understand the state of their pipeline (all their reps’ pipelines rolled up to one), they do it as a CYA exercise. Usually because they have to go into to a meeting with their seniors, and want to be in a position to answer questions they anticipate. If they were to conduct both types of meeting separately, ensuring they achieve what they need to from each meeting they would be way ahead. They would be in a position to directly influence the outcome of their reps activities, and by extension the outcome of the meeting with their reps and results presented. They would also be in a stronger position going into the meetings with their superiors, not only answering anticipated questions, but presenting in a way and with content that would negate the questions and focus on results.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

You know how they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder; we can take a variation of that and apply to prospecting and many sales reps. Beyond the obvious, that attitude has a direct impact on execution and success, how you view a specific sales activity determines the outcome and quality of execution.

Many sales people see prospecting, especially telephone prospecting, as an undesirable task, a dreaded chore, and approach it in that way, making it a negative activity long before they even begin. This in turn very much affects how they do the task, leading to no results or even worse, and it’s all downhill from there when it comes to pipeline success. While they may blame the market, the process or the prospect, they need to look closer to home.

By looking at it as a task they create unnecessary challenges and obstacle. The goal, and if you talk to people who are successful telephone prospectors, is to change a chore into a habit. Habits are life long, tasks are onetime events, requiring different preparation, different energy. By adopting a habit you don’t get bogged down in the rituals one has to go through to complete a task.

This not to say that developing, adopting and mastering a habit is easy, except maybe bad habits. I believe it was Stephen Covey, who said it takes 21 days, and putting something into practice seven time before it becomes a habit. So if you only prospect occasionally, “when I have time”, how will it ever become a habit? Especially when you have made a habit of find fires to put out when it is time to prospect.

Much like adopting a fitness routine, you need to do more than buy a membership, go once in a while and hope for the best.

Start by knowing how many of your prospects need to come from telephone prospecting, you may be surprised how much less has to come from this source than you estimate. Often when I ask groups how much of their time needs to go to prospecting they will tell me 25% – 30%, that 12 hours a week, more than two hours a day. Right away I know they do not have the prospecting habit, they haven’t got a clue how much they have to do. Work backwards from your goal to determine how many prospects you need on a weekly or monthly basis. Once you know that, you’ll be able to know how much time you’ll need to allocate, and then set that time aside, every day, every week, put it in your calendar, just like you would any other important activity, like a closing meeting, or gym time.

At first it will be hard, not pretty, but like the gym, you will develop your technique, improve your execution, and over a short period of time it will become a habit. You can look at it as an ugly task, or reap the benefits of your habit in the form of prospects and sales, you are the beholder.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

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What's In Your Pipeline?

Things You Can’t Fix0

Dude, You’re Gonna Need More Than 15 Minutes3

Short Cuts – Do it Now or Do it Later0

Open Ended Sales Meetings?4

Just Do It NOW! – Sales eXchange 1850

Inventory Clearance B2B Style0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Schedule It!80

Don’t forget to vote

A Sales Association #Webinar31

Pipeline Vs. Opportunity Review – Sales eXchange 169128

Make It A Habit Not a Task57