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Do You Have A Sales Pipeline or Pipedream?

In the complex and often unpredictable sales landscape, differentiating between a realistic sales pipeline and an elusive pipedream is essential. Understanding these contrasting concepts and mastering their nuances can enable sales professionals to maximize productivity, streamline strategies, and enhance results. This comprehensive article dissects these concepts, explain their implications, and illuminate the road toward more productive and strategic sales ventures.

Understanding the Sales Pipeline and Pipedream

The Sales Pipeline: An Operational Lifeline

The sales pipeline is a vital strategic tool, functioning as a visual snapshot of where prospects are in the sales process. It serves as the backbone of sales operations, offering a comprehensive view of pending sales and facilitating reliable revenue forecasts based on the likelihood of deal closures. A robust, well-maintained pipeline is the cornerstone of predictable and stable revenue.

The Pipedream: A Mirage in the Sales Desert

In contrast, a pipedream in sales signifies a deal that, despite its enticing allure, is unlikely to come to fruition. It often stems from overly optimistic assumptions and can lead sales professionals into the trap of investing resources into opportunities that offer little to no return. Sales leaders mistakenly share the information in their sales pipeline with their CFO, and that data is used for the senior leaders and shareholders. If your team has a pipedream and not a sales pipeline, it is just a matter of time for you to feel significant friction as we close 2023.

Delineating the Difference

The distinction between a sales pipeline and a pipedream hinge on the principles of reality and feasibility. While a sales pipeline represents tangible progress of leads through the sales cycle, a pipedream rests on fragile hope for sales prospects that may never materialize. Unfortunately, more than 50% of salespeople are not trained in selling skills. As a result, they are often overly optimistic and need help distinguishing between genuine buyer interest and put-offs.

The Impact of Supply Chain Constraints on Sales

Supply chain constraints have provoked a unique response from buyers. Anticipating shortages and delays, many have begun to over-order, hoping to ensure their required quota is met. Though born out of necessity, such practices can lead to inflated sales pipeline figures.

This inflation of sales orders can distort the perception of a company’s sales potential, creating a mirage of a booming business that, upon closer examination, is based on uncertain and potentially unfulfillable orders.

The Shift to Smaller and Less Frequent Orders

As the dust settles, a new trend is taking shape – smaller and less frequent orders are becoming the norm. Though this shift could be construed as an economic warning sign, it’s not necessarily indicative of a recession on the horizon.

Instead, this trend reflects strategic inventory management practices spearheaded by CFOs. As businesses work through excess stock, order frequency has decreased, leading many optimistic sales pipelines to morph into doubtful pipedreams.

Sales Pipelines vs. Pipedreams: Unmasking the Current Realities

The Balloon of False Hope

In the present climate of excess inventory and dampened demand, many once-promising sales pipelines are inflating into balloons of false hope. The perceived sales potential from extra orders may be merely pipedreams as demand dwindles.

The Imperative of Pipeline Auditing

Considering these revelations, the importance of auditing sales pipelines has never been more pronounced. Companies must meticulously qualify each order to discern opportunities from pipedreams and update their forecasts.

I have all my clients auditing their pipelines now, and one client discovered approximately $2 million in products they planned to ship in 2023 would not send. The impact of such a large order and profits from that order trickling to our bottom line is enormous. This team felt they had plenty of orders and an operations plan to deliver the revenue and make their sales plan promised to their investors. Luckily, we have several months to implement a revenue acquisition plan with current, inactive, and targeted new customers. The sales motions this account must accomplish now are much different than their plans just 30 days ago.

Identifying a Pipedream: The BANT Method

The BANT method – a well-regarded acronym for Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline – is an incredibly effective qualifying strategy employed by sales professionals worldwide. It’s longevity and widespread adoption is a testament to its effectiveness, aiding sellers in evaluating the potential of prospects quickly and comprehensively. Using this method, sales representatives can efficiently gauge a prospect’s financial capacity, role within their organization, business needs, and the expected timeframe for implementation.

The BANT methodology is easy to remember but requires a nuanced understanding to apply effectively. Here’s how you can leverage each criterion:

Budget

Understanding a prospect’s budget enables sales professionals to gauge if a candidate can afford the solution. The probability of converting that lead into a sale is low if the funding is insufficient. Probing questions like “Have you allocated a budget for this purchase?” can help ascertain this.

Authority

Does the prospect hold the decision-making power? If not, sales representatives must navigate their way to the key decision-makers. Without their buy-in, the deal is unlikely to materialize. You might ask, “Who else, apart from you, will be involved in making the final decision?”

Need

The most critical component of the BANT method is identifying the need. The offered product or service must fulfill an immediate requirement or solve a problem for the prospect. Sales reps should delve into the prospect’s business pain points and demonstrate how their offering addresses those issues.

Timeline

A prospect may have the budget, authority, and need for your product. Still, if they’re not planning to implement a solution shortly, it could signify a low-priority project that gets delayed or shelved. Establishing the prospect’s expected timeline can help manage expectations and sales forecasts.

Using BANT to Spot Pipedreams

Using the BANT method, recognizing a pipedream from a viable lead is significantly easier. If a prospect cannot satisfactorily respond to the BANT questions, the chances are that the information is a pipedream. The candidate might have expressed interest, but the lead will likely prove fruitless without the budget, decision-making authority, a clear need, or a feasible timeline. Redirecting resources away from these unlikely prospects to more viable leads can optimize productivity and increase sales.

The Bigger Picture: BANT and Sales Strategy

Understanding the implications of the BANT method is critical. It’s not just about distinguishing a promising lead from a pipedream; it’s about formulating effective sales strategies. By focusing on tips that meet the BANT criteria, sales representatives can concentrate their efforts on the most lucrative prospects, leading to improved conversion rates and increased sales..

Remember, the BANT method is about more than disqualifying leads hastily. It’s a strategic tool to understand where a prospect is in their buying journey and how your offering aligns with their needs. It facilitates a deeper understanding of your prospects, leading to more meaningful conversations, better customer relationships, and improved sales outcomes.

Conclusion

In the challenging sales arena, distinguishing between a healthy sales pipeline and an elusive pipedream is crucial. This discernment enables sales professionals to identify and qualify viable opportunities and avoid the pitfalls of unfruitful pursuits. Implementing systematic pipeline audits using the BANT method can ensure sales efforts are well-targeted and effective, steering your sales team clear from pipedreams and toward the promise of tangible, achievable sales.

Do you have a sales pipeline or a sales pipedream?

Do your salespeople understand the difference between buying signals and put-offs?

Do your sales leaders understand how to coach salespeople and help them move sales through their pipeline?

We suggest every sales team conduct a pipeline audit immediately. In this uncertain and volatile economic time, sales teams must know the sales they can count on in their pipelines and the new sales they will need by year-end to achieve the goal. We must avoid discovering mis November; we have a pipedream and not a pipeline. Teams must adapt now. Adapting often includes sales training in skills like discovery, qualifying opportunities and handling objections.

Let’s schedule a call if you would value help to audit your sales pipeline or to improve your sales teams’ effectiveness.

If you just discovered a shortfall in your sales plan and need to adjust your plan, we can help.

Sales Pipeline Mastery: Nurturing and Converting Prospects for Continued Business Growth

In today’s competitive business environment, the key to sustainable growth lies in the robustness of your sales pipeline. This pipeline, a visual representation of your sales process, is the lifeblood of your business. It not only fuels your company’s growth but also provides a roadmap for future business expansion. This article will delve into adapting sales strategies, mastering discovery calls, fostering customer retention, and developing key accounts.

Adapting Sales Strategies When Business Slows Down

Every business, regardless of its size or industry, faces periods of slowdown. These periods can be triggered by various factors, such as economic downturns, seasonal changes, or shifts in consumer behavior. However, rather than viewing these slowdowns as an insurmountable challenge, it’s essential to approach them as a chance to adapt and innovate.

Identifying the root causes of a slowdown is a crucial first step. This requires a thorough analysis of both internal and external factors. As we discussed in another article voice of customer research and Win/Loss analysis provide us the insights we can leverage. For instance, are there industry-wide changes affecting your business, such as new competitors, regulatory changes, or evolving customer needs? Or is the slowdown caused by internal factors like outdated sales techniques, product issues, or operational inefficiencies?

Once you’ve pinpointed the causes, you can start making informed adjustments to your sales strategies. For instance, if you discover that new competitors are taking market share, it might be time to revise your unique selling proposition or explore new markets. If internal issues are the cause, you might need to revamp your sales process, improve product quality, or enhance operational efficiency.

During periods of business slowdown, it’s also vital to focus on high-potential prospects and opportunities. This might involve segmenting your market and targeting customer profiles that show a greater propensity to engage with your product or service. By focusing your resources on these high-value prospects, you can maximize your sales efforts and ensure that you get the most return on your investment.

Investing in your sales team is another crucial tactic during slower business periods. Upskilling your team can improve their performance, increase their motivation, and boost their morale. This can involve providing training in areas such as negotiation, customer relationship management, or new sales technologies. Additionally, providing opportunities for professional development can help your team members feel valued and appreciated, leading to increased loyalty and productivity.

Finally, remember that while a slowdown can be challenging, it can also provide opportunities for reflection and growth. By adapting your sales strategies and investing in your team, you can navigate these periods effectively and emerge stronger than before. After all, the ability to adapt to change is a hallmark of a successful business.

Building a Sales Pipeline with New Customers

Building a robust sales pipeline involves identifying your target markets and developing ideal customer profiles.Thoroughly understanding who your prospective customers are will guide you in crafting compelling value propositions and messages that resonate with them.

Once you’ve defined your target audience, it’s time to generate leads. Effective lead generation strategies vary across industries and markets. It could involve inbound marketing, outbound sales, or ideally a combination of both.

After generating leads, the challenge is to engage and nurture them through the sales funnel. This process may include personalized email campaigns, informative webinars, or one-on-one meetings, all geared towards making your prospects understand and appreciate the unique value your product or service offers.

Discovery Calls: Engaging and Learning from Current Customers

Discovery calls are a powerful tool in building and maintaining relationships with your customers. These conversations provide a platform to learn more about your customers’ needs, challenges, and opportunities.

Preparing for a discovery call involves researching the customer, understanding their industry, and anticipating potential pain points. During the call, your goal should be to listen actively, ask insightful questions, and showcase empathy.

By understanding your customers on a deeper level, you can tailor your products or services to meet their needs, thereby creating a win-win scenario.

Customer Retention: Keeping Clients Loyal and Satisfied

Customer retention is critical for long-term success. Retaining an existing customer is often more cost-effective than acquiring a new one, and loyal customers are more likely to become brand ambassadors, recommending your business to others.

Providing exceptional customer service is one way to keep customers loyal and satisfied. This involves going above and beyond to meet their needs and solve their problems.

Upselling and cross-selling are also useful strategies for customer retention. These involve offering existing customers more advanced products (upselling) or complementary products (cross-selling).

Finally, implementing a customer feedback loop ensures continuous improvement. This involves regularly collecting and analyzing customer feedback and taking corrective actions based on the insights gained.

Key Account Development Plans: Maximizing Customer Potential

Identifying key accounts and understanding their unique characteristics are the first steps in developing an effective account plan. A key account is typically a customer or client that provides significant value to your business, either through high revenue, strategic alignment, or potential growth opportunities.

Once you’ve identified your key accounts, develop tailored account plans with clear objectives. These might include revenue growth targets, customer satisfaction scores, or specific product adoption goals.

Success with key accounts requires alignment of internal resources and teams. This can involve cross-functional collaboration among sales, customer success, and product teams to deliver value and meet account objectives.

Monitor progress regularly and adjust your strategies as needed. This flexibility allows your business to stay responsive to changes in the account’s needs or the broader market landscape.

Conclusion

In conclusion, mastering your sales pipeline is an essential aspect of business growth. Adapting your sales strategies when business slows down, effectively engaging with new and current customers, retaining clients, and maximizing customer potential through key account development plans are all pivotal elements of this mastery.

How healthy is your sales pipeline today?

Are you experiencing rollercoaster revenues or predictable revenues and profit growth?

If you would like to discuss how to improve your sales pipeline, lets schedule a call.

As we’ve explored, sales pipeline mastery isn’t a one-time effort, but an ongoing process. Encourage your sales team to continually refine their strategies and tactics, always keeping the customer at the center of their efforts.

In today’s customer-centric business world, customer engagement and retention should be a top priority. If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to invest in understanding your customers, meeting their needs, and exceeding their expectations. After all, your success is directly tied to theirs. So, take the first step today, and watch your business grow beyond measure.

How Top-Performing Salespeople Leverage Social Selling 

Let’s face it, how we sell today differs from how we sold even five years ago.

Salespeople are finding it harder and harder to engage with decision-makers.

Why?

What are some reasons, and what can sales and marketing people do about it?

Five years ago, we saw 2-5 decision-makers involved in a buying decision.

Today, when we conduct voice of customer research, we find as many as 6-10+ people involved in the buying decision.

Decision makers are busy.

Most teams have been run very lean since the pandemic, with fewer people being asked to do more.

We also see the impact of technology.

Companies once could make a high net income serving customers in their region of the country.

However, the IoT has changed the game.

When you might have had 2-3 local competitors in your region, today, you are competing with thousands just two clicks away.

Finally, a big reason salespeople are having a more challenging time connecting with decision makers is what I refer to as …

Salespeople Behaving Badly.

Just over 50% of salespeople have never received sales skills training. They have the product, applications, and company systems training, but they lack sales skills like having conversations that lead to revenue.

Salespeople who have never been trained in sales skills call decision-makers and give them a terrible experience.

Florida State did a study with buyers, and they asked buyers in a 60-minute meeting with a salesperson how many minutes were valuable to them.

Are you ready for it? They said 6!

Only 6 minutes.

A new study relaced last month shared that 33% of buyers chose not to engage with a salesperson.

How do we market and sell in this new digital world?

That’s what this post is about.

Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your business. If you are a new business and haven’t been utilizing social media, you may not know how to navigate this sometimes complicated road.

The good news is that your social media marketing will be on autopilot once you get the hang of it. Here are some things you need to remember to ensure that your social media marketing is effective.

Reduce Your Sales Pitch

Since your ultimate goal is you are trying to sell more, you should not sell on social media. It may seem strange not to include a sales pitch in every post. However, selling every time is the last thing you should do. You need to make sure that you balance your content.

Your content should educate, entertain, and sell to your audience. Make sure you do more educating and entertaining than selling.

This is the best way to ensure that your content is well-balanced. When you give people a lot of free valuable information, they are more likely to purchase from you when it is time to sell them something.

People are on social media because they want to connect with their friends and family and be relaxed. Bear this in mind when you try to sell.

Focus on Brand Awareness

Another thing you should focus on is brand awareness. People must get to recognize your brand through frequent postings.

They will also share your most popular posts with your friends and family, which will help increase your brand awareness. Make sure that you brand your content on social media with your logo and website URL so that when your posts are shared, people can go to your website if they want to find out more about your products and services.

You can run ads to sell your products on social media, but you can also run ads solely for brand awareness. While you may not make a sale immediately from brand awareness campaigns, when you run these ads, you are putting your business in front of a receptive audience interested in what you provide.

In the future, if they ever need a service, your business may be the first one that pops into their head.

Choose Platforms Wisely

When it comes to social media, your business must be everywhere. However, with this being said, you need to ensure that the people you want to buy your products and services are on these platforms.

When you’re a new business or even a more seasoned business just getting into social media, you will need to look at what your competitors are doing.

Chances are if your competitors are active on social media, they already know what it takes to drive engagement. Look at their platforms and the type of posts they use to generate interest.

You can incorporate this into your style in a unique way that matches your brand.

Be Consistent

What’s Omnichannel marketing, and what do you need to know?

Omnichannel marketing is about having your message in many places, both inbound and outbound.

The key to Omnichannel marketing success is that each message says the same and feels the same to the decision maker.

One thing that you must do on social media is to be consistent. Even if you only post once a week, you must ensure you get it done. Although, if you want to grow faster, it is always best to post more often, especially when dealing with a platform such as Instagram.

Your posts on Instagram do not last as long as they would on platforms such as Pinterest or YouTube. You always need to keep your content fresh to satisfy your fans.

Remember that short-form video content is viral right now. Instagram promotes reels more than any other post type, so if you want to grow your social media following, it is always best to consistently do reels on Instagram.

When I post a short video on LinkedIn, for example, I receive 5-10 times the views, comments, likes, and shares of an article. YouTube now has shorts, and Pinterest has idea pins. This means you can make one short-form video and cross-promote it on all these platforms.

Conquer Social Selling

Over 70% of the top-performing salespeople leverage social selling in their sales process.

Conquering social selling is a must if you want to be of the top-performing salespeople today. You need to engage with your audience as most of them will be on social media.

Try several things on social media to see which strategy works for you. Once you find a strategy that works, the best thing you can do is rinse and repeat. This will give you the most success.

If you sell B2B products, you will find Linkedin a great way to identify and connect with new prospects.

We developed some short training and coaching courses to help salespeople adapt and sell in a digital world.

To be one of the top producing salespeople on your team, you will need to develop your skills in social selling.

If your team needs help adapting to the digital world, give us a call.

 

 

Restructure Your Sales Team? Shorten Time to Revenue

 

 

 

By Mark Roberts

 

Many sales organizations are reorganizing and retooling their sales teams. They are determining how their customers want and need to be served with voice of the customer research as well as net profit by customer analysis.

 

Market leading sales organizations are assessing their sales skills by salesperson to ensure they put the right salesperson in the right role. This assessment also helps salespeople assigned to new roles create individualized learning plans based on the sales competencies needed to be successful in that role.

 

If your organization is like many I’ve worked with, the first few weeks for sales representative in a new role are intense and their training often feels like they are drinking from a fire hose.

 

However, it takes the average sales rep twelve months to ramp up after training and apply the skills they have learned and that’s a lot of runway to reach full, quota-carrying potential.

 

Sales organizations that take the long view on salesperson on boarding have the best chance of producing a high-yield, low churn team. Here are some new sales roles on boarding and post-on boarding activities that can help to this end.

 

How long does it take a salesperson in a new role to be effective in your organization?

 

What value would it deliver to your bottom line if we cut that time in half or even more?

 

Given today’s business climate can you wait months or a year for a salesperson in a new role to add value?

 

What steps can you take to help on board salespeople assigned new sales roles?

 

 

 

Sales Effectiveness Assessment:

 

Does this candidate have the skills, beliefs and Sales DNA to succeed in your organization and the sales role? The quickest way to shorten ramp to revenue is have an assessment that looks for the sales mindset of your top producers.

 

We do not expect all salespeople to have all the sales competencies needed to succeed but they must have the right sales mindset and beliefs about sales.

 

We can improve skills, product and systems knowledge but changing mindsets like needing to be liked, working remotely, and or having difficulty talking about money are much more difficult and take longer to improve.

 

Post New Role Assignment:

 

Sales Welcome Packet- After you place a salesperson in a new role, but before they start is an excellent time to send them a welcome packet from the sales organization they are joining.

 

Include things like corporate history, sales org chart, high-level sales process workflow chart, high-level brand messaging, vertical market marketecture (how the product(s) solve problems for the major verticals, and some comprehensive case studies. Provide them a clear value proposition that you know resonates with the buyers they will be speaking with in today’s buying climate. On the salesperson’s first day, ask them a few questions about the material to ensure they’ve had the opportunity to absorb it.

 

On boarding:

 

Content- For on boarding a salesperson into a new role that better suits their skills , motivations and beliefs, it’s critical to have the right content and have it ready for consumption because they need to learn many things quickly. Think of your on boarding content as everything a sales rep needs to be successful in that particular sales role and when they need it. Start by deciding what topics matter for your salespeople and then back into engineering the content format.

 

When possible, a subject-matter expert should produce the content and use known best practices from top sales performers I that role today. Many teams are leveraging short videos from top performers by role.

 

Enlist marketing, sales peers, product management, management, and training to record themselves explaining selling strategies, solution offerings, sales wins, and losses. Supplement this content with quizzes to verify comprehension. This content should be available in a learning library the new sales associate can easily access from their cell phone or other mobile devices.

 

Sales Skills- In this case, skills refer to sales competencies. Did you know that according to CEB, salespeople only average 14 hours per year on sales training? Assuming you’ve used as assessment tool pre-hire, you now know what skills are needed to fill in the gaps. Competencies should be taught by outside experts or internal top-producers and focus on data-driven best practices. This prescriptive individualized learning is key to training engagement. Additionally, salespeople may require instruction in soft skills such as collaboration, communication and active listening.

 

Repeatable Sales Processes– Ensure salesperson is educated on your sales processes and funnel. A sale can quickly go awry by not understanding sales processes. Earmark time to teach new sales reps on lead follow-up, sales engineer resource requests, finding and using your sales collateral, proposal processes, contract reviews, and new client on boarding. Sales reps who understand and use your well-defined methods will outperform reps who do not and give your customers the best buying experience.

 

Practice and share tribal knowledge- Salespeople learn sales with application and repetition. Work with the salesperson to have them deliver an elevator pitch, value proposition,  full-deck presentation, and objection handling in their own language. It is critical they do not sound like they are using a caned pitch and words they or the customer would not normally use in conversation.

 

Help them become a part of the process by assigning them a task to shape content to their normal language and that of their buyers. They should also know a few client success stories verbatim.

 

In the success story it is critical the story include: the situation and or problem, how you diagnosed the problem, the proposed solution and the financial impact of implementing that solution for your customers.

 

This practice can take place in front of a peers, for the entire team or on the salesperson’s own time with their sales manager. Tribal knowledge lives in every sales organization, but it doesn’t always filter down to every salesperson by role. Share your best practices and tips at scale with guided lessons, videos, or other interactive activities to draw out hidden ideas.

 

There are many LMS systems that offer peer to peer learning opportunities. If you have more than one salesperson starting at the same time, set up some friendly competition over who presents best, anything that gets reps to practice before conducting a call will increase training comprehension and build their confidence.

 

Scorecards- Gamifying achievements is a great way to keep the salesperson engaged in the training process, and it helps you know if your on boarding program works. Develop an on boarding scorecard that measures fundamental metrics by salesperson by role and then tracks how they perform over time.

 

If performance isn’t improving, adjust additional training and coaching accordingly. If you are starting multiple salespeople, new employees in the same roles will naturally compare themselves to each other.

 

Managed right, this helps everyone ratchet up their performance together. The peer relationships they develop in training often remain years after the new role on boarding program is over.

 

Social Selling- Many of your salespeople are probably millennials, so some of your training methods may be outdated. To reach these salespeople, the sales tech stack and social networks need to be a central part of your on boarding.

 

Use video, social media, and content sharing tools to encourage dialogue, development, and interaction.

 

Studies have shown that using social selling tools can increase win rates and deal size by 5% and 35%, respectively. Training is much stickier when it uses communication methods favored by the student.

 

Post new role on boarding:

 

Leverage start groups- A start group is an association of employees who start with your organization at the same time. On boarding groups of various roles of staff together has an efficiency and effectiveness advantage. Group new role on boarding makes better use of the time of all those involved. Cohorts can help and push each other along the way, especially naturally competitive sales reps.

Assign a sales mentor year one – This mentor is not their sales manager but an experienced subject matter expert who has years of sales experience in this new role and scores very high in sales effectiveness assessment evaluations. They need to have a strong knowledge of how we get things done here coupled with product and sales skills. What you are looking for is someone who coaches the new associate on how to find answers to their questions.

 

Territory Planning Sales Playbook- Salespeople assigned new roles often are suspect of their sales goals. Their sales goals can seem impossible to achieve. Encourage sales representatives in new roles to take their quota number and build their plan, their sales playbook. As most experienced sales representatives have found, the best approach to successful sales is having a territory plan and working that plan each day.

 

While sales territory planning can seem time-consuming, territory planning is a useful exercise, especially for salespeople in new roles, as it helps them learn the ecosystem of their territory.

 

Here some essential territory planning tips for new salespeople:

 

First, conduct an overall review to analyze the region and review the current situation before projecting future goals. A global review should include an evaluation of business from the previous year; an analysis of customers who are currently the strongest and which are the weakest, a review of the best-selling products, and a list of top prospects for future clients. Have your new salesperson help in gathering the data.

 

Second, identify and profile clients to target. Marketing can be helpful with customer modeling. Your data is a great source to identify your ideal customer profile. As discussed in other articles the whale curve is a valuable tool to identify the types of customers you want your salespeople prospecting based on their net profit contribution.

 

The salesperson should also make a list of specific discovery questions for approaching each customer type. What works for one customer will not necessarily work for another, so the salesperson should be making use of personas and targeting technology.

 

Your sales training for each sales role should provide market specific sales problems your product or service solves and discovery questions to find them so that new salespeople earn trust quickly.

 

Third, create growth goals and strategies that, if successful, will get the salesperson to quota. For instance, the representative’s goal might be to add a specific number of new clients to the territory or expanding sales of a product by a certain amount or growing current client share of wallet.

 

The growth strategies need to be data driven and focus on known behaviors that drive performance in your organization.

 

Fourth, the salesperson should review their plan regularly to ensure their performance is on target. It is easy to forget goals unless they referenced, so the sales plan should be a constant reminder of territory objectives as well as regular sales manager coaching.

 

This requires strong systems for goal updates and reviews. The data should not require salespeople to become librarians and key account data should be quickly and available in easy to read dashboards.

 

Fifth, establish a coaching cadence and expectations. Clearly explain what you want the new salesperson to report on each week and make the discussion data driven. A popular discussion is: What did we say we would do? What did we accomplish? What did we say we would do but have not done yet? What is our corrective action plan to get back on track? How can I help you?

 

Remember, the more you can do to help your salespeople internalize new information, the faster they will ramp up.

 

By using the salesperson in new role hacks above, you can scale and ramp up your new salespeople quickly.

 

How long does it take a new salesperson to ramp up in your business?

 

What would the value be shortening that timeframe by 30%?

 

Do new sales associates have mentors assigned to them?

 

Is your training accessible on mobile devices to review and refresh topics? 

 

Have your sales managers been trained to coach?

 

If you need to strategically reorganize your sales team and would like to take a data driven approach in doing so please reach out and we can discuss the process I use that can be accomplished in most cases in 10 days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is your sales team automation proof?

By Mark Allen Roberts

 

Your mindset is critical to your success in sales. (any job really) I work with a many sales teams and there is a fear just beneath the surface with many salespeople: “will my job be eliminated with automation?” Some transactional sales roles that involve order entry and or order verification and communicating ship dates will be replaced by automation, it’s just a matter of when. However, there are skills our sales teams need to develop that the Bots cannot replace. In this post we will share skills that will help your salespeople become “automation proof”.

The future of work looks grim for many people from a recent Harvard Article asking if you are developing skills that won’t be automated. The author predicts 10% of jobs will be automated this year.

A recent study from Forrester estimated that 10% of U.S. jobs would be automated this year. Deploying automation is reshaping the jobs of human employees. In 2019, Forrester predicted that automation will become the tip of the digital transformation spear, impacting everything from infrastructure to customers to business models.

In another report from McKinsey estimates that close to half of all US jobs may be automated in the next decade. Automation technologies including AI and robotics will generate significant benefits for users, businesses, and economies. About half of all work activates globally have a technical potential to be automated by adapting current technologies.

No wonder some sales teams are fear filled.

The trouble with fear is it does not motivate but cripples’ salespeople. When you are afraid the creative problem-solving part of the brain that is strategic and delivers key insights shuts off and blood is rerouted to the oldest part of the brain that is about survival.

Buyers today are sharing what they want from salespeople and it is those product and market insights they cannot find in online searches or from any Bot’s today.

The trouble is many sales teams are not organized to meet the needs of buyers today and the sales value pyramid.

This leads us to the question:

What skills can we develop in our sales teams that are automation proof?

In a previous post I shared what author Anita Neilson’s new book: Beat the Bots, How your humanity can future proof your tech sales career offers as excellent insights on how sales must adapt. Salespeople today must develop their skills in human to human (HTH) skills not only survive and thrive, and they will be in high demand for years to come.

The author shares a great deal of advice you can apply.

Some of my favorites are:

·     The critical importance of personalization

·     Understand and be able to communicate your value is critical

·     Active listening and understanding your buyers, their challenges and the business of their business so you can provide valuable insights to add value is imperative

·     3 types of value (General, Company, and Personalized)

·     How psychology is at the heart of all sales

·     If you capture rational and emotional forces at work in your buyers’ minds you develop    messages that resonate with them

One big takeaway I will always remember from this book is the metaphor the author uses of how driving behavior change is like the story of the rider, the elephant and the path.

The rider relies on evidence, data, and analysis to pick the direction.

The elephant’s behavior is influenced by experiences and feelings. The fear of risk, loss and pain are huge in how the elephant makes decisions. Elephants hate change and like sameness.

We quickly see the conflict that goes on in most of our brains and based on the elephants’ size and power who do you think wins most of the time? Is it any surprise the status quo costs sellers more sales than competitors?

Why this metaphor is so powerful is every B2B sale I have ever made involved change.

·     Change the vendor partner

·     Change in process

·     Change in relationships

·     Change in pricing and terms

Our job today as modern sales leaders are to shape and coach the path strategically understanding both the rider and the elephant.

In an article by Global Banking and Finance the author shares 10 “automation proof” skills.

Judgement

More specifically, automation won’t be able to mimic our innate ability to tell what’s right from wrong: judgment.

Conflict negotiation and resolution are two other skills that will remain intact in the face of AI and robotics.

Communication Skills

According to Statista, an average adult American spends nearly 12 hours consuming media. That’s lots of information, implying that communication skills will form an integral part of our everyday life in the future.

The truth of the matter, however, is that people still prefer their news and information to be written in a compelling and sensible way.

Content Creation Skills

On the same but lighter note, the ability to create original and captivating content will still be in high demand. In fact, it’ll be hard to automate original content creation – the art of being able to communicate about a given topic in a succinct and refreshingly unique way. As such, if you have a combination of the skills and expertise to churn out new knowledge, you will be able to keep robots at bay.

Creative Skills

Having great imagination and a knack for creativity means that you will be able to invent new solutions and create new concepts that don’t already exist. Bots cannot beat human creativity.

The good news is that creativity can always keep you a step ahead of the pack, including robots. Whether you have a way with words or a knack for creating innovative products, your skills and crafts are in safe hands.

Empathy

If there’s something that makes us human, it’s empathy. True, robots can carry out simple human interactions like reply to an email or offer customer support via an automated answering machine. Even with top-level AI, they cannot empathize with someone. In other words, robots cannot truly understand nor connect with people on an emotional level.

Athleticism and Physical Skill

From time immemorial, humans have always been fascinated by the utter physical skill of our minds and bodies. Athletics, for instance, is a profession that will always been appreciated despite the epic speeds, dexterity, and agility robots can deliver.

Planning Skill

Being able to plan ahead fast and accurately is an incredible skill that can come in handy in just about any business or career. But that’s not something robots can do. Yes, they can schedule appointments, but they cannot anticipate shifts in priorities, unknown outcomes, and missing information.

Tech Management Skills

It might seem counterintuitive, but it’s true. It is somewhat laughable because most at-risk skills are those associated with technology. But when all’s said and done, we still need someone with the skills required to manage and stay on top of the automation tech itself.

Teaching Skills

Proliferation of technology has made it possible for millions to access information and educational materials in an instant. However, teaching as a skill calls for understanding the context. That’s why talented tutors, coaches, and teachers will remain the cornerstone of our education system despite automation.

Leadership and Social Skills

Nothing will change the fact that machines/robots are soulless. That’s why their interaction and connection with us will always feel “fake” and cold. As such, they’ll not cultivate or exercise leadership. Good leaders, as they say, have an affinity for caring, empathizing, and connecting with others on a personal level. Nothing of the same can be said of robots.

What sales skills and competencies is your training program focused on today?

What sales skills do your salespeople have and what skills do they need to develop for today?

Do you need to restructure and upskill your sales team?

Are your salespeople “automation proof”?

We have shared skills that automation won’t replace in the foreseeable future. These are the “human to human skills” author Anita Neilson discusses. They all have a foundational emotional element in one way or the other. AI and robots might actually help us sharpen these skills but won’t replace them.

From my experience buyers’ value trusted advisors who listen authentically and deliver value in every interaction. Buyers want and need powerful market and business insights that will impact their bottom line. My advice to those salespeople and some sales managers that fear their jobs may be eliminated is focus on developing skills that are automation proof.

If you are curious about your sales team, the skills they have and the skills they may need in the future please contact me and let’s discuss how we can quickly answer those questions and help your team become automation proof.

Increase Sales Profitably: Put a Collar on Non-Selling Behaviors

 

 

What % of your salesperson’s time is actually spent selling today? (are you sitting down?) The average salesperson is spending less than 20% of what I call “sellable time” actually doing sales behaviors today. That’s a problem, a big sales problem we need to fix to keep our sales leaders, owners and shareholders happy. In this post we will discuss how to put a collar on non-sales behaviors.

 

Meet Duke, pictured above. He is our current Lab rescue. Our family fosters Labs, and Lab mixes for the Lake Erie Lab Rescue. (an awesome non-profit organization of people who love animals) When the rescue found Duke he was a hot mess: two ear infections, could not put weight on a hind leg, underweight by about 20 lbs., lime disease, and also anemic.

 

For the last few months we developed a plan to bring him back to health so we could find him a forever home. Our plan had very specific behaviors we executed, tracked and even logged on medical forms. We gave him various medicines and a special food. We slowly started walking him and exercising him including water therapy. We put drops in his ears and basically loved on him. He was not thrilled about all these new behaviors but is a gentle old soul and went along with it.

 

The last thing we always do before adoption is spay or neuter. The surgery went great and Duke came home. To insure the incision healed we had to make sure Duke did not bother it. We corrected him many times but his nature was to lick the incision and it started to get infected. So we collared this behavior with a cone he wears for a few weeks.

 

So what does a lab rescue with a cone collar have to do with growing your sales profitably?

 

I thought you would never ask!

 

If you want to increase your sales profitably and create sales velocity for years to come you need to reinforce the sales behaviors you have seen that drive profitable sales and collar non-selling behaviors.

 

Like what?

 

If you read my content you know I have served many companies in a variety of markets both domestic and international over the last 35 years. At the fear of sounding like an attorney, the answer to what behaviors drive profitable sales for you depends. It depends on your company, markets and what your buyer’s journey looks like. That is why we do voice of the customer work and data analysis before we develop strategies and plans.

 

If you have done your voice of the customer work you understand what your buyers want and need in their buying journey. You know their buyer personas, and the value drivers for their businesses.

 

I have worked with 1,000’s of salespeople that have been on my teams and on distributor sales teams and some of the common behaviors I have seen salespeople doing include:

 

Lead Generation

Building and leveraging relationships

Qualifying opportunities

Qualifying prospects

Qualifying leads

Follow up

Making presentations

Servicing customer needs for information on deliveries

Account management

Networking

Trade shows/ Industry conferences

Territory management

Creating monthly email newsletter blasts

Training and education

Training accounts and distributors

Handling Quality issues

Helping AR collect past due funds

Searching for content

Driving and transportation

Creating new customer target lists

Lead nurturing campaigns

Writing content for industry articles and trade publications

Weekly reports

Call reports

CRM updates

Phone calls

Emails

Social Selling

Customer visits to your plant or corporate office

Applications advice

Helping customers sort parts that may have quality issues

Visiting end users with distributors

Tracking order status

Expediting ship dates

Finding out why orders did not ship on time

Dealing with product damages that occurred in shipping

Reviewing plant inventory

Personal Social Media

Personal emails

Webinar training updates

Team sales meetings

Product demonstrations

Creating content

Working with field service to resolve customer problems

Entertaining customers

Booking hotel rooms

Booking airfare

Booking rental cars

Expense reports

Family time

Workout time

Plant tours with customers

Driving late orders to customers

Picking up material and driving to your plant to help make late order re-promises

Meeting with customer engineers and influencers

Meeting with other buyers at key accounts

Meeting with C-suite executives at key accounts

Product installation and repair

Monitoring and helping with product tests

Distributor training

Distributor management

Customer audits and assessments

Computer and IT issues

Booking advertisements

Managing point of purchase

Ordering content for customers and distributors

Company vehicle cleaning and maintenance

Ordering and stocking sales tools

Creating new sales tools

Customer events and outings

 

And you thought you had a lot to do…

 

Is it any wonder when we ask salespeople why they are not prospecting for new business at current and new accounts say it is because they are too busy?

 

Is it any surprise we find the below statistics for sales teams today?

 

The Average Salesperson spends less than 20% of their time selling today

 

30% + of time searching for sales tools (or building them and that’s really scary)

 

40%-50% administrative

 

10%+ non-selling activities

 

Multitasking decreases productivity by 20-40%

 

Workers waste an average of 40% of their workday because they have never been taught organizational skills and how to focus on behaviors that matter.

 

I have yet to meet a salesperson that is not busy. We are all hard working competitive people and the top performers are seen as strategic advisors by their customers.

 

The question becomes: is your sales team busy doing the behaviors you know drive profitable sales based on the VOC work and sales analysis data, or are they just busy?

 

Here’s the deal…some salespeople believe if they are busy they are safe. So they get real busy. How do they determine what to do? There is a high probability they are doing what their sales manager did when they were in sales. They are prisoners to an out-dated sales process…Let that sink in a minute or two.

 

“You mean to tell me my salespeople are doing the behaviors my sales team did say 20 years ago? 20 years ago before we had a customer service department, the Internet, a CRM system, a formal sales process? Before we spent all that money with the consulting firm? Before invested in new IT systems? Before we invested in a marketing department?

 

Yep!

 

Salespeople, like all of us, will gravitate to their comfort zone of behaviors they like to do. If someone has been in sales for any length of time they likely spend a great deal of time in service and relationship activities.

 

One last consideration is fear. Sales people have been managed (not led, true leaders inspire and motivate they do not use fear) by fear for years. If you are fear filled the creative and strategic part of your brain shuts off. So they do not see what behaviors drive the best results so they do what they are told and stay “busy” to feel safe. They are in fight or flight mode.

 

The shame is busy salespeople lack focus and they often experience problems and not hitting their sale numbers like 70% of the sales people and then what do you do? We put them on a PIP…performance improvement plan and share what happens if they don’t improve. Then we see behaviors that really hurt the bottom lines like unnecessary discounting, extended payment terms, promises our products and services could never meet. This results in more fear, even more busy behaviors, more stress, altercations with other departments and so it goes.

 

How do we put a collar on non-sales behaviors?

 

Do your voice of the customer work

Create buyer personas

Map buying journey and what buyers need today to make a buying decision

Mirror your sales process to the buying process 

Determine the behavior your data shows drives sales velocity today

Determine the top 5 behaviors that drive the sales you want

Train your sales leaders 

Train your sales people 

Train support departments on new sales process and how they help

Establish / reinforce service expectations for support departments

Track support indicators weekly

Create leading indicator behaviors sales must execute

Measure those behaviors

Have sales report on those behaviors weekly and in each coaching discussion

Coach those behaviors on four legged sales calls with your team

Coach sales to eliminate, put a collar on non-selling behaviors 

Inspect what you expect

Reinforce behaviors you want

 

When we implemented the above in a number of companies we experienced:

  • Sales growth exceeding 20%-40% year over year
  • Gross profit increases of 6%-10% in 18 months
  • Customer satisfaction increase
  • New business increases at current accounts
  • New customers (one company realized over 200 new large accounts in 12 months)
  • Sales close rate increases of 30%-50%
  • Improved moral inside sales team
  • Improved sales efficiency
  • Reduced cost of customer acquisition
  • Improved relationships with other departments
  • Reduced marketing expense
  • Improved engagement form entire team
  • Reduced turnover
  • Reduced recruiting expenses

 

If you want profitable sales increases you must focus your sales teams behaviors on those activities that drive the maximum return. When your sales team is aligned with what buyers have shared they need and you deliver it when they need it in their buying process your team too will experience the healthy sales results above too.

 

As for Duke, he is meeting with his new forever family today. He is happy, healthy and not only walking on his hind leg but running! He did not want to do everything we had to do get him strong and healthy but we coached and trained the behaviors that would lead to this day where he will be placed with a loving family, and put a collar on those behaviors that did not support our long term goals.

The Oscar For Best B2B Sales Methodology Goes To: Value Based Sales

 

 

 

What is the best sales methodology for B2B sales today? What are the most popular sales methods and why do so few B2B salespeople use Value Based Sales? In this post we will review a number of sales methodologies used to improve sales performance and why the Oscar for best B2B sales methodology goes to :Value Based Sales.

 

Sales has changed over the years. Salespeople and the companies they serve are constantly searching for the best sales method.

 

As I watched the Oscars the other night I thought how we need Oscars for sales and marketing strategies.

 

To understand why a Value Based Sales methodology outperforms other sales methods we need to briefly unpack how sales people sell and how sales has evolved over the years.

 

What are the sales methods salespeople have used and are using today?

 

Selling on Price

 

This is not a method most CEO’s and business owners want to hear. In this method you must have the lowest cost to manufacture and your team leverages this low cost-manufacturing competency to win and keep business.

Salespeople sell on price when they do not know or believe your value proposition or no one has trained them how to connect the dots between what you sell and the value proposition for customers.

Why this method is so common is it is what buyers want.

Buyers want to commoditize all products and services so the only differentiation is price. Just as we train our salespeople, companies like Karrass teach buyers to dismiss sales pitches and gobbledygook sales and marketing teams spew and quickly make the key buying decision all about price. If you have the lowest price you win today. When the vendor you displaced finds they lost the business what do they do? They drop the price and you loose. This starts a gross margin death spiral and the only one who wins is the buyer.

If you have never hear the term “gobbledygook” it means all those things we say and share on our web sites that no longer mean anything since everyone we compete against claims them too like:

Innovative

Best in class

Best Quality

Top performance

Flexible

Groundbreaking

Scalable

Robust

Cutting Edge

If you would like to learn more I encourage you to download the Gobbledygook Manifesto

What I have found disturbing over the years when I ask salespeople why we lost a particular sale or account for that matter they say “price.”

When I conduct Win-Loss interviews with buyers, “price” is rarely one of the top reasons why a buyer buyers or chooses not to buy.

In this model your salespeople do not understand or believe your value proposition and they do believe the only thing that matters to buyers is the lowest price.

Sales finds all kinds of ways to sell , selling on price internally like : volume discounts, sales incentive rebates, volume purchase discounts, blanket order discounts and so on.

All of these and more are sales based on price.

 

 

Relationship Sale

It is true people buy from people they like. Buyers will have an impression of you within 7 seconds. In this model the salesperson strives to be liked by the buyer. They work hard to build a friendship through social lunches, dinners, and ball games. As one relational seller told me years ago: “I was the only rep invited to this buyer’s daughter’s wedding. “

In meetings you often wonder whose side the relationship seller is on? The buyer’s or yours? This seller believes their relationship with the buyer is their value proposition not your product or service.

A relational sales methodology is all about building a relationship and reinforcing that relationship through acts of service.

When I work with relationship sales people they often bring donuts and bagels and “check in ” with buyers and purchasing decision makers. When the relational salesperson is in the customer’s building everyone loves them. Rarely do they close the sale, or ask for the sale for that matter. They never have a pre-call sales plan and believe they will win whatever business the buyer has based on their relationship.

After a sales call with target accounts you will hear a relational salesperson share “it was a good meeting” although the sale did not advance and they did not win an order.

We find relational salespeople in sales farmer roles because they are terrible sales hunters.

Do you have relationship salespeople?Look where your salespeople spend their time. Are they selling and creating sales presentations? Or, are they checking on orders, when orders will ship, how we can ship them earlier, following up  with customer service to determine when something will ship? If so, you have a salesperson using the relational sales method.

This is the least effective sales methodology, but unfortunately the one most underperforming salespeople rely on.

 

Product Sales

In this methodology the salesperson’s product knowledge is leveraged to win sales. The thought here is your salespeople are trained in features and benefits of your product or service. As Mike Shultz President of The Rain Group shares “If your people cannot speak fluently about your product and service offerings and ask the right questions to uncover specific needs that your solutions fulfill, then they are leaving money on the table and losing you deals.

Here you will find companies that are often very inward looking and not customer centric. They design and manufacture products but their salespeople are not trained on what specific types to customers to call on and what problems their products solve.

As I have shared in the past, I have observed salespeople trained in the product methodology “show up and throw up”. It’s like they are playing feature and benefit Bingo with buyers just hoping one buyer will jump to their feet and yell: “BINGO! I know a problem you can solve for me!” When you are working with a product salesperson they speak 80% of the time in the sales call and do not ask many qualifying questions. After all what they are selling is so amazing a buyer would have to be an idiot not to buy right?

Every seller must understand their products and services. However today , with as much as 70% of the buying process being over before the buyer speaks with sales this method is not as successful as it once was. Back in the day, before the internet of things, buyers had to meet with sales to learn about products and services. Today this buying criteria is just one mouse click away.

Product knowledge is a part of a top performing salesperson, but can not be their sales method today if they want to achieve quota.

 

The Lone Wolf / Sales Mercenaries

In this sales method the salesperson relies on their personal sales skills, abilities and experience to close the sale. They have been through the school of hard knocks, feel they have been there, done that and nothing will surprise them. They are very self-confidant and often deliver results even if they can’t share how they do it.

The Lone Wolf / Sales Mercenaries are often the product of a poorly designed compensation structure and a culture that does not value salespeople. They are hired sales guns that sell their sales services to the highest bidder. Salespeople who use this method are masters at following their own instincts, and writing the rules as they play the game. They win various games but often leave sales, money, on the table because they are only focused on what benefits them the fastest personally.

I had a friend share once:

Salespeople are like water, they find the path of least resistance.”

Lone Wolf Mercenaries are often found at inward facing companies who believe their product or service is so smart “even a monkey in kakis” could sell it. Their company not only does not value and appreciate the salespeople; they treat them like a necessary evil. Salespeople are treated like they are only as good as their last…sale. Their compensation plan creates commission junkies looking for their next fix not strategic partnerships with clients.

Lone Wolf’s have a high utilitarian trait. Other words if I do this I expect to get that.

The shame is these folks could create much more value if they were valued and appreciated.

They will get-r-done many times but how they do it will leave a mess to clean up and they are very hard to manage.

 

Consultative Sales

In this sales methodology salespeople are trained in product features and benefits and how to  find buyer pain and solve the pain. Salespeople are trained in markets, and common problems their products solve in these markets.

In these buyer calls the salespeople speak about 50% of the time and ask open-ended questions searching for a problems they know they can solve. They are problem solvers.

When you observe salespeople using this method it feels like the child’s game we played in the pool “ Marko Polo”. “Marko… do you have this problem?” “Polo…yes we do” and sales races to tag the buyer and close the sale.

This model produces results if the buyer can connect the dots from the product or service to how it will impact their business drivers.

 

The Challenger Sale

This methodology became popular in the book The Challenger Sale, authors Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson present a sales model to give buyers new ideas to solve problems they may or may not be aware they have. In this book the author shares 40% of high sales performers use this model. More than 50% of sales superstars use this method.

In the for what it’s worth column this was my sales method for a number of years.

This model teaches the selling to take control of the sales process.

You will find some sales calls feeling more like a debate than trying to solve the buyer’s problems. In this model you uncover issues the buyers may have they are unaware of that need solved.

I continue to recommend this book to business owners and salespeople wanting to improve their skills.

I have some advice if you choose to use this model:

First, it requires you to have some experience and knowledge about your customer, their industry and the business of their business. When I have seen young salespeople try to use this model is when they lacked the emotional intelligence and situational awareness to pull it off. They failed to earn the trust early in the relationship so their challenge felt like a canned marketing pitch not a real solution.

Second, I don’t want salespeople feeling they are in charge of the buying process. You are not. You can influence the buyer’s process but if you think and act like you are in charge you will fail. Top performing salespeople clearly and intimately understand the buyers buying process and criteria and they help move the sale by giving buyers what they need at each step of their buying process.

Don’t believe me?

Ok, how many of you reading this like to buy stuff? Almost all of you right?

How many of you like to be sold? Oh, big difference yes?

Enough said.

 

Agile Sales

A recent article in Selling Power shared how Agile Sales is the best method. You can read this article here and it shares the methods top sales performers use. The article is basically saying don’t get all hung up on one sales method or another. Top performing salespeople have situational awareness and they adapt their sales method based on the situation and buyer.

This thought leading article poses the question: what if we taught our sales teams 4-5 top sales methodologies and trained them to know what to use when? The author’s share having agility, flexibility does not imply we want sales teams “winging it”. We want them to have the EQ and situational awareness to be agile within defined parameters established in sales training.

I guess what gives me pause, is so many sales teams I have been asked to help lacked a formal repeatable sales process. Their leaders and owners thought they had one. How would we implement 4-5 when sales is not even executing on the one you thought they were using? Secondly, companies often provide very strong product training and little if any situational and sales scenario training. Companies will need to do voice of the customer work prior and identify the most common sales scenarios before training their sales teams.

I have adapted my sales method based on the industry, buyer, buying process and buyer personas over the years.

The difficulty is in tracking what worked when and where and in what scenario so it is difficult to scale throughout the sales team.

I believe Agile Sales Methodology is a smart strategy but is has so many moving pieces it will be difficult for most companies to implement and scale.

 

Value Based Sales Methodology

 

This is by far the best sales methodology I have experienced over the past 34 years of leading sales and marketing teams.

In this model you know your product or service. You know your market and ideal customer profiles. You have built rapport with the customer so you can have a meaningful business discussion. You know the problems your product or services solves and you have content and case studies to prove it. Your salespeople understand business acumen and speak in the language of business. They help buyers connect the dots between their proposed solution and how it impacts one or many of their key business drivers like…

Increase Sales

Reduce Costs

Increase Net Income

Improve Efficiency

Increase Market Share

Reduce the Cost of Sale

Increase Sales Close Rate

Increase Gross Margins

 

Salespeople who use a value based sales method are about creating value for their customers and in so doing win the sale today and create lifetime customers.

Don’t get me wrong, these salespeople are likable, but they are also not afraid to challenge customers. They help buyers connect the dots to how their product or service speaks to one or many of their business drivers.

This sales method has seen tremendous success and when used properly you will see it impact your business by:

 

Faster selling cycles

Higher Gross Profits per sale

Higher lifetime value of customer revenue

Higher sales to close %

Higher customer satisfaction

 

… but admittedly it is not easy!

 

From my own experience less than 10% of salespeople use a value based selling method. The reason why so few salespeople use this model is they too often struggle with connecting the dots between what they are selling and the value impact their customers receive.

As I have shared before salespeople who are not adequately trained in your value proposition assume the position of your product or service. The value based sales method requires mastery in commercial sales skills, business acumen, product knowledge and understanding of your value proposition, knowledge of the customers’ industry and common pain points, competitive analysis and the ability to propose innovative ideas professionally.

In this sales method you qualify and identify ways your product and or service can impact one or more of your customers’ business drivers.

Is that why so few of salespeople use it? They lack an understanding of how to impact a businesses’ bottom line?

Salespeople have told me this model is hard and takes way too long.

My argument is how can you enter into any negotiation with a customer until you understand and establish value? Or is that why so many salespeople resort to relationship and selling on price? Salespeople trained in value based sales know how to impact the customer’s bottom line so they can establish and reinforce value.

 

What Sales Methodology do you want your salespeople using?

 

What Sales Methodology are they using?

 

How do you know?

 

When was the last four legged sales call you went on to inspect what you expect?

 

Is there any scenario value based sales would not be the best sales method for B2B sales?

 

Congratulations… the Oscar for the Best B2B sales methodology goes to Value Based Sales.

 

Best supporting Oscar without any drama goes to Sales Enablement.

 

10 Sales Enablement Resources to Improve Sales Results

 

 

 

In my last post I shared how teams want to fix common sales problems they need to break free from the prison of out dated sales processes.  We shared how to determine if your sales process is out dated and  how voice of the customer work helps understand your buyers, how they buy and what they need to buy today. Sales enablement is about strategically giving your buyers the right content at the right time in the right format to help sales close faster and at higher gross margins.

 

I received emails and calls from past clients wanting to learn more about the topic of Sales Enablement since it has such a large impact on increasing sales revenue and having a greater ROI on the marketing assets you create.

 

Below are 10 resources I found particularly useful on the topic of Sales Enablement.

 

1.Sales Enablement Infographic 

 

2.The definitive guide to sales enablement

 

3.Sales Enablement Best Practices

 

4.Sales readiness technology buyers guide 

 

5.The Value Shift eBook: Designing and Implementing A Mobile Sales Enablement Strategy 

 

6.8 keys for a successful Sales Enablement Program

 

7.What is Sales Enablement?

 

8.Sales Enablement buyers checklist

 

9.Use Buying Process Exit Criteria to IncreaseYour Sales Effectiveness

 

10.GARTNER’S MARKET GUIDE FOR DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGEMENT FOR SALES

 

 

Sales Enablement is about providing the right information, in the right format at the right time in the buyers buying journey.

 

When your team does your voice of the customer work to understand the buying process and criteria your buyers must have, and implement a sales enablement business development strategy your team will experience:

 

Sales revenue increases

 

Gross profit per sale increases

 

Increase in sales close %

 

Higher customer satisfaction

 

Sales will close faster

 

Increase in engagement in your sales team

 

Improved retention of sales top performers

 

Sales will hit forecasts

 

Increase in Brand value

 

New product launches that meet or exceeds ROI targets

 

Open new profitable markets

 

 

If you have found other useful articles and or EBooks and web sites that share useful Sales Enablement information please share the links in the comments below.

 

Has your team implemented a sales enablement strategy?

 

What impact has it had for your business?

17 Benefits Of Voice Of Customer

 

 

 

 

Understanding the voice of your customer is critical to achieving your sales and profit objectives today. Taking the time to clearly understand your buyers, how they buy, what they need to buy and why they don’t buy today is critical in developing a strategic business development growth process.

 

Below are 17 reasons why companies who capture and leverage the voice of their customers consistently win year over year.

  

1.Fix Sales: Knowing Buyer’s Journey is like Creating a GPS for Your Sales Process

 

2.Fix Sales Problems With The Power in the  “Voice of the Customer”

 

3.Leverage Customer Voice into “Explosive Sales Growth”

 

4.Who Owns the Voice of Your Market and Voice of Your Customer? . Hint (not sales!)

 

5.Voice of Market Identifies “Roundabouts” in your Sales Process

 

6.Voice of the Market Identifies Key Buying Triggers

 

7.Increase Sales: Key Buying Seasons Surface in “Voice of Market” Work

 

8.“Voice of the Customer” Increases Profits…Lesson from a Christmas Ham

 

9.Voice of Customer Finds “Sales Secret Weapons”

 

10.Voice of Customer: Understanding the Entire Iceberg of Purchase Decisions Today

 

11.Improve Sales Productivity With Voice of the Customer Research

 

12.What is The Biggest Threat to Customer Voice Research? (It may surprise you!)

 

13.Give Salespeople More Time to Sell With Voice of The Customer Research

 

14.Customer Voice Research Identifies Content Buyers Need Today

 

15.Identify Purchase Influencers with VOC

 

16.The End Of The Greatest Show On Earth and What We Can Learn About Training

 

17 Voice of your customer identifies new markets and channels

 

How does your team capture the voice of your customers today?

 

How often do you conduct this research?

 

Is there any reason you feel you should not understand the voice of your customer today? (please share)

 

Have you experienced other benefits from capturing the voice of your customers?

 

We serve dynamic markets today. How buyers buy today is much different than how they bought 5 to 10 years ago. How buyers buy tomorrow will likely change as well.

 

Market leading organizations understand the importance of capturing your customer voice today and leveraging what they learn to increase sales and profits.

Give Salespeople More Time to Sell With Voice of The Customer Research

In my recent post I shared that capturing the current voice of your customers has many benefits as listed below. One of those benefits is improved sales efficiency. In this post I will share how understanding the current voice of your customers reduces non-selling time for your salespeople and gives them more time to sell.

Capturing the current voice of your customers has many benefits as I shared in a guest post recently.

  • Increased sales
  • Increased Profits
  • Increase in market share
  • Improved sales close rate %’s
  • Identify new product needs
  • Improved operational efficiencies
  • Increase in current customer sales
  • Increase in new customer sales
  • Strong overall buying experience for your customers

One side benefit I failed to share is customer voice work reduces non-selling activity for your salespeople freeing more time to do what you pay them to do…sell.

With the various Internet tools and social networks there is no excuse for a salesperson not to be prepared for a sales call with a current or potential new customer, and your salespeople know this.

When you study what salespeople do with their time as I do, I would argue all of the social networks and Internet search capabilities actually hinders their sales performance. It’s human nature to feel overwhelmed when we have too many options. In my experience salespeople are spending way too much time searching for information your company should already have.

In a recent report the authors shared the average salesperson spends approximately 30% of their time selling today. I have helped teams where I observed sales was spending less than 15% of their time in what would consider sales activity so I guess this report did not surprise me…but it was still disturbing.

What was the next time allocation? The next one surprised me in a way and confirmed my fears at the same time.

Salespeople today spend 30% of their time search for and or creating content to help them sell. (As much time as they spend selling)

Is that really how you want your sales teams spending time? …Yah, I didn’t think so.

I am a huge believer in sales having prep time before making a sales call. As leaders I see this as an opportunity to serve our salespeople and help them become more effective and efficient.

My what if questions are …

What if you had a repeatable sales process that mirrored the buyer journey your buyers take today?

What if your company had a content library, a library of tools, your sales teams knew how to find, and you trained them when and where to use those tools based on your customer voice research?

What if you clearly understood common problems your customers and prospects like your customers had today?

What impact would it have on your sales if your salespeople spent 15%-25% more time selling?

When my family moved back to Ohio from Arizona (yes on purpose) we found a beautiful older home built back the 1970’s. It has as the TV shows say “great curb appeal” but the inside was dated. Back in the 1970’s dark oak wood must have been the main design feature. Over the past couple of years we have been slowly bringing the interior of our home up to date. We took our dark oak kitchen and painted it white. We painted all the woodwork white.

I saved the painting jobs that take a lot of time for last like our stairway spindles. Anyone who has done painting will tell you just like sales the most important part of painting is prepping the area to be painted.

I had put this stairway off too long so imagine my surprise when I returned home from meetings to find my wife prepped the stairway as the picture above illustrates. A project that probably would have taken me 4-5 hours I now completed in two hours!

This reminded me how market-leading team’s work as a team. Sales sells and marketing owns understanding the voice of the customer and how buyers buy today.

What if marketing did the sales prep work through voice of the customer research and created the needed sales tools for your team?

What if your research shared how your buyers buy today and the criteria they must have to buy?

What if your salespeople where trained in a repeatable sales processes that helped buyers buy?

When conducting voice of the customer research you want to answer the following questions:

Why do buyers buy from your company?

Why don’t buyers buy from your company?

What does the buying journey look like today?

What criteria must you buyers have today to make a purchase?

In addition you are listening for common roundabouts as I call them where a sale stalls and or spins away from you. Each roundabout is a place you need a new sales tool.

Once you have completed your customer voice work I highly recommend you adjust your repeatable sales process to mirror how your buyers want to buy.

Create a digital library of sales tools based on what buyers told you in your research.

Train your teams to use the new sales process and where to find the tools quickly.

Monitor and coach salespeople to insure the new sales process and tools stick.

Salespeople will still need to do some research and prep prior to the sales call but you will increase selling time between 15%-25%.

What would your sales results look like if your team spent 45%-55% of their time selling?

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