1- 330-413-8552 Mark@NoSmokeAndMirrors.com

Sales

Increase Sales: Do a Value Proposition Audit 

In my last post I shared how critical a value proposition that connects with your buyers is in today’s climate. Every industry seems to be undergoing some kind of a change. Market leaders are agile and they identify those changes quickly and they adapt.

What kinds of changes can impact your value proposition?

  • Your business was bought or you bought a new business ( buyers will fear the unknown, and your competitors will feed that fear)
  • Environmental regulations
  • New Laws and or regulations
  • New competitor enters the market
  • Technology change- think the impact the internet of things is having on your customers and markets
  • New innovative solution enters the market
  • Market consolidation
  • Major market shift like the impact the low oil cost is having on everything from fracking, trucking, truck building, and all the other trickle down businesses that are touched by oil and gas.

I have a list on a post I did about what causes growth to stall and you can review them here.

Market leading teams quickly identify changes, shifts in their markets and adapt their value propositions to what is important for their customers.

One thing we can count on is change. As you are reading this I would like you to think about the changes you have seen in the last year, last 3 years, and perhaps the last 5 years.

What changes to you expect next year?

If your team is like most, you have products you launched; services you introduced and your salespeople are diligently presenting those products and services as they were taught to do. Trouble arises when your salesperson uses a dated value proposition.

This is a problem for two reasons…

First it shows your salesperson and your company do not understand the market of today. This is something your buyer will feel and instantly doubt their ability to trust your team.

Secondly, and even more costly is when your sales team uses a dated value proposition, it will negatively impact future sales. Again, look at it from a buyer’s point of view. You have some salesperson in pitching a solution to a problem you no longer have. If they would have just read your website and or one of your brochures in the lobby they would have known more about your company. If they would have started the meeting asking questions instead of showing up and throwing up you could have helped them understand your current problems.The buyer will create a perception about the sales representative and your company based on this experience and it will hurt your ability to serve this customer in the future.

How do you know if your salespeople are using a dated value proposition?

The first step is to identify the changes buyers in the markets you serve have experienced since your sales team was trained, your web site was launched and your sales brochures were developed.

Second, I ask your VP of sales and or VP of Marketing to travel with salespeople and visit at least 10 of your current large accounts, call on at least 5 of the accounts you want to add and 2 you have lost. These four-legged sales calls as I refer to them are critical in identifying how your buyers buy today, the criteria they are using, and the problems they are solving today. While your salesperson is selling, you are asking questions like:

How is your business doing today?

Have you seen any significant changes that have impacted your business, how you are buying, your role?

I understand you buy some products from our competitors? That is not surprising, …what do you find they do very well?

If you were running our company ___________ what would you do to grow sales with your company and other companies like yours?

We are thankful for your business. If someone called you on the phone and asked: Why do you buy from ______________ what would you say?

(For customers you have not sold yet, or lost)

We would like to earn your business. If someone were to call you today and ask: Why don’t you buy from ___________ what would you say?

I am sure there are lists of customer questions you can ask, and you should have some very specific questions that illustrate your current market knowledge.

A couple of quick rules when doing this kind of a value proposition audit:

  • Ask and listen, do not try to defend or sell through any issues identified. This is the quickest way to end a conversation.
  • Do not have your salespeople ask these questions and report to you. You need to hear the information first hand. Besides, you need your team selling.
  • Do not do this process in a survey. Why? The most valuable part of this process is capturing the current market problems your buyers are having in their voice. A survey will not do this.

Once you have current market data you need to ask yourself one key question…

Based on what we heard from our customers, customers we lost and prospects we want to be customers, does the value proposition and tools we give our sales team match what our buyers told us?

In most cases what I have personally observed is the value proposition sales teams are using is dated and needs some tweaking to reconnect. Those seemingly little tweaks however will demonstrate you understand your markets and what is important to your buyers today. It will make your sales team stand out in a sea of other sales reps saying….

We are the best at….

We have the most….

We have been in business 70 years and….

We have the best quality in the industry…

We have the most innovative solutions…

You get the idea…

Instead, your salespeople will lead with questions that came out of your “value proposition audit” and they will stand out positively in your buyers minds.

Having served company  Presidents for over 30 years I hear that voice saying…” I hear what you are saying Mark but this seems like it is a lot of work and will take a great deal of time…we have numbers to hit…” If that is a concern you are wrestling with let me assure you, this market work should only take 30-45 days and it will make your team more effective, efficient, and become a way your company will be distinctive in your market.

What happens if you don’t do a value proposition audit?

You will hope what your salespeople are saying is connecting with current and new customers. If what your salespeople are saying, your sales brochures discuss and worst of all your web site says is dated it created a breach of trust with your buyers.

My challenge is why risk it? If you feel traveling to your top accounts is too expensive visit your top 2 and call the rest.

If you are looking for some great content on creating your value proposition after your audit I recommend the following sites:

Useful Value Proposition Examples (and How to Create a Good One) 

4 steps to building a compelling value proposition

How to write a value proposition that works

Three points to create a value proposition

How to wire a great value proposition

Words that get meetings

So how about your company?

When was the last time you updated your value proposition?

Do you feel comfortable sharing the impact that had on your sales?

Are you sure what your salespeople are saying is helping your business or hurting it now and into the future?

I promise you this value proposition audit is not difficult and can be completed in 30-45 days

If it sounds expensive I want to challenge you…

How expensive is it to not be selling buyers you could be selling

How expensive is your travel costs that do not produce new business

What impact would a 20% increase in your sales close rate have on your bottom line?

The biggest challenge, if you are the leader of your company is hearing the voice of the customers in some cases. You must have a culture where your team is free to discuss things that may not be politically correct but can impact your business. The comments you are hearing are based on buyer perceptions today. If the value proposition you personally wrote 5 years ago is no longer resonating it is not about you! When you wrote it , it worked! Something changed. This exercise is not about you as a leader, your vision or capabilities. If you are a leader in your organization you have secured that position by making many good decisions over time. It is about positioning your products and services to win orders and growing your business profitably.

One last thought, assume you do a value proposition audit and find what your salespeople are saying does resonate with buyers. Great! If sales are not hitting your sales numbers you can now zero in on other areas where you can coach your team.

 

 

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

There is strong power market leaders leverage in understanding the current voice of the customer and voice of the market. As markets change the key buying criteria may change and or change its priority in the buying decision making process. In this post I will share how understanding the voice of your customer and market will help your team better understand and prioritize key buying criteria and how this will result in increased sales and profits.

I heard a fun story a few years ago. It seems this couple recently got married, bought a home and wanted to have everyone over for Christmas dinner at their new place. So they went out and bought a huge ham and all the fixings.

The guests arrived and everyone was seated around the dining room table for the holiday feast. Much to the husband’s surprise the wife brought out two Christmas hams, or to be more specific she had cut the ham they bought in half. As the dinner went on the husband had to ask: honey, why did you cut the ham in half then cook it? She quickly replied well that’s how my mom always cooked it, Her mother chimed in, yes and that’s how grandma always cooked it. Grandma smiled and said: I had to cut the ham in half because our oven was so small, but with that huge oven of yours there is no need…

When I work with teams it is not unusual to find “Christmas hams” being cut in half when they no longer need to be.

Does your team clearly understand the buying criteria your buyers must have today to make a buying decision?

Of the criteria buyers are asking for, do you know the most import to least important?

Sales teams often make the mistake of assuming they know, based on how buyers have always bought.

If that is the case in your company, one of two things is happening

  • Sales leads with a dated value proposition and the buyer does not buy
  • The buyer buys and the rest of the team scrambles to execute on something that is no longer a key criteria costing your team frustration and margins.

I was asked by a private equity group to help one of the companies in their portfolio struggling with both sales and profitability.

The first step in my business development process is establishing market truth. So I joined this companies’ salespeople on four legged sales calls with key customers. For the most part I was pleased the customers were happy with the products’ performance and (being the new guy) I asked a lot of questions.

One common sales approach all their salespeople were using was promising two week delivery. In this market the competitors typically delivered orders in 8-10 weeks but the company I was helping was offering two weeks. So I had to ask the buyers:

When you decide what vendor to order from, how do you make that decision? Or put another way…what is important when you pick a supplier?

I heard things like;

Quality Products

Good service

Do what they say they will do

Ship products on time

Reports from our engineers the product solved the problems I bought it for

Competitive price

Service after the sale

Warrantee policy

Payment terms

So I asked: if you had to rank the top three, how would that look?

#1 Reports from our engineers the product solved the problems I bought it for

#2 Do what they say they will do, I trust them

#3 Ship products on time so we can meet our commitments on time

What I kept hearing was: “ship on time” but not ship in two weeks.

So being the new guy in the room I had to ask:

How important is it that we ship our products in two weeks?

The buyers all consistently replied that it used to be really important 8-10 years ago when they lacked the buying planning systems that they have today. “Back then we were kind of ordering blind based on the past, however today our systems give us buyers a look into what production plans in the future and we order appropriately.”

How far out of a view are you able to see?

I can see as far into the future as I want, but I typically look 4-6 weeks out.

So if we shipped you product in 4-5 weeks you would be happy?

Yes, as long as it shipped and arrived on time.

We learned other things like new products our competitors were about to launch, problems our competitors were having with one particular product line and so on. We learned the warehouse employees at a number of the OEM accounts did not like the pallets we were shipping on because they did not fit on the common rack designs

After spending over 30 days on the road in front of customers we gathered how buyers were buying today and what they needed to buy today. We gathered very useful information calling on prospects about how they buy, the steps they go though and where and how they search. For example they shared the key words they used when searching for solutions like ours and none of them were on our web site.

I presented the findings of our (VoC) work to the private equity firm and the management team.

I had to ask: In each of the calls I went on, sales was promising two weeks delivery, but none of the customers were requiring that anymore? When did that start?

The previous owner identified our ability to ship quickly as how we could win business from the competitors and that is how we have done things for the last 12 years…. (a Christmas ham , cut in half!

As you can image, operations and quality were thrilled to hear buyers no longer needed two-week delivery.

To execute two-week delivery this company had a large amount of inventory and whip in hand since most of their vendors for the electrical components required 6 weeks and the glass vendors were 8-10 weeks.

As we kept peeling this onion we discovered;

  • Over 40 % of orders required overtime at time and a half assembly labor
  • To meet two weeks we were expediting component parts from New Jersey and paying overnight freight charges
  • To make our deliveries in two weeks as promised we were paying for overnight delivery more often than anyone realized
  • Because we worked people overtime we saw a direct correlation to an increase in quality rejects during pre-shipment testing when our assembly workers worked overtime
  • Since we had to order and store the glass components, they were often damaged and thrown away from moving them around the plant
  • We had to buy a truckload of the pallets we were using and we paid a premium for them. It seems the original owner designed this unique configuration to maximize the number of master cartons we could ship per skid and then designed our bin rack system to accommodate them
  • We occupied a large warehouse with expensive rent based on our perceived need for so much inventory, and proximity to the previous owners home

As a team we ranked what our buyers valued most today, and we created a number of projects to better serve our customers while reducing costs (and often frustrations)

Over 12 months our quality failure occurrences dropped to almost zero and our on time vendor sore cards improved significantly at our two largest accounts. We moved to a much smaller warehouse and we started using standard pallets that fit our customers’ racks. Standard pallets were a much lower cost and we bought them just in time not tying up cash in slow moving pallet inventory. The result of our voice of the market work was sales increased by 125%, but profits increased over 20%.

When was the last time you captured the voice of your customers?

Could your team be cutting a Christmas ham in half for no reason today?

How would your buyers rank their buying criteria? Do you know?

Could your team be jumping through flaming hoops customers no longer value

How excited would your owners and investors be to realize a 20% profit increase

Capturing and leveraging the voice of your customer helps your team understand what is important to your buyers, how they buy, what they need to buy and how they shop…TODAY.

Sales teams that “assume” buyers are still buying like they have for 10-15-20 years are losing sales they could have won, and or losing margins they could have enjoyed

Market leaders leverage voice of customer to increase sales and profits.

Why not understand the voice of your customers today and leverage that information to increase sales and profits?

I guess you can “assume” your team knows, but you know what they say assuming makes you and me…

 

 

 

 

Is QDD Crippling Your Sales Growth?

Salespeople are disqualifying 70% of leads, why? Of those 70% of possible new customers disqualified, 80% go on to buy from someone in the next 12 months! Those lost sales are sales you could have (and should have) won. In this post we will identify a disease called QDD and how to cure it and fix your sales problems.

Your marketing team developed a lead generation strategy that is dropping a number of potential opportunities into your marketing and sales funnel. The accounts feel like they have a good possibility of becoming orders since they are from your core industries and you know they are buying products and or services just like yours. You have been tracking this  activity and it looks like you will see a strong return on marketing dollars invested based on the number of new opportunities. The entire senior management team and the board are excited and they are waiting in anticipation of hitting the sales and profit numbers. However as the sales leader you are not seeing these opportunities moving along the sales journey from opportunity to prospect to customer, and you are not seeing closed sales dollars increasing? Why?

Your salespeople are suffering from QDD.

I get excited when a team embraces the concept of marketing and driving what should be warm opportunities to my sales teams. They took the time to do voice of the customer research and determined problems their markets have, understand how buyers buy, and what buyers need today to make buying decisions. They positioned their products as solutions to those current problems in their markets. They understand their company’s value proposition and launched their message. The number of new opportunities is climbing each week and reviewing some of the account names you know they buy a product or service like yours…but you are not seeing new orders? How can this be? Having lived this scenario more than I care to admit, what you are experiencing is QDD; Quick to Disqualify Disorder.

When presented with new opportunities sales super stars say;

“awesome, I know they buy products like I sell and I will one way or the other figure out the problems they currently have and help them”.

If your salesperson is suffering from QDD they say;

“ah, I have heard of this company( even if they haven’t) , I tried to sell this company six years ago( one voice mail) , I doubt they will buy, they are probably happy with their current supplier and just price shopping us, so I will follow up.”

Do you hear the difference in mind set? The sales star understands the value he and your products bring and is excited to help authentically serve one more person. The salesperson suffering with QDD will “go through the motions” but already believes he or she will not sell the account. ( and they won’t) The sales star is seeking to serve; the QDD salesperson is focused on disqualifying the opportunity quickly so no one asks the status and next step to win their business. Who do you think will win the sale?

How do you know if you have someone on your sales team suffering from QDD?

By the Numbers

The first thing I do is look at the numbers…how many opportunities has this person been given in the last 3-6 months and how many went from possible opportunity to lead to close? Compare this to others on your team and if you find a disproportionate amount of opportunities are not turning into qualified leads, your salesperson has QDD.

By Mix

Review the product mix sold by your team. Quickly you should see a few patterns emerge. Look for anyone on your team who does not meet a similar product mix. What I am particularly looking for here is new products; sales from products you have been aggressively marketing. Salespeople suffering from QDD will have their product mix heavily weighted with older products or services in your offering.

By Margins

Assuming your marketing group has done their job and the products you have and are launching are brilliant solutions to unresolved market problems, you should have priced them at a higher margin based on the value they provide. Salespeople with QDD will have the lowest blended profit margin for their area of responsibility. They do not understand how to sell value so they take a commodity and relationship selling approach.

By Listening

Sales super stars will focus on the value, the value the customer will receive once their problem is solved. They are excited to help the customer, serve the customer they are shocked if they don’t move to the next step in the sales process. Salespeople with QDD will tell you their (your) customers are all about price and we are too high.

The shame is when I interview buyers on why they do not buy, rarely is price even on the list. What buyers do say is the salesperson did not seem to understand my problem, did not listen, and therefore I did not trust their solution. You very likely could have, should have won their business, but because your salesperson is suffering from QDD the buyer lacked trust.

You will also hear another why you are not able to break into this account and it will sound something like; “a competitor’s got a great relationship with his current supplier and won’t even consider us.” Relationships are important don’t get me wrong, however if a buyer trusts you can better solve a problem than a current supplier you should at least move to the next step in your sales process and not be dismissed so early.

View the CRM

Take time to review the CRM entries. Sales stars will be logging discussions, and have future appointments scheduled and maybe even new business quoted. Salespeople with QDD will have a series of entries that say; “left voicemail” and “sent email” and the prospects will only have one or two entries. Sales stars know you need to engage with buyers 8-15 times before activity occurs. QDD salespeople go through the motions, as if to say; “yes, I did my job, I made the call, but they obviously were not interested or they would have called me back,” They are focused more on showing activity than driving results.

One company I helped had a 42% close rate historically so 58% of the time they did not receive a return on their lead generation and cost of sale investment. Each of their sales team had QDD to some degree. Over the years they tried to fix their sales problem by adding more people, more costs and focused on having more quotes. They even rewarded sales with a variable compensation based on numbers of quotes ( not quotes closed). Sales were declining and profit margins were dropping.

We did customer voice work, created a repeatable sales process, trained sales, coached sales launched a strategic business development program and increased the average close rate to 68%,and key whale account close rates to 90% in 18 months.

We opened over 250 new customers and sales from new customers represented over 24% of total sales year in year three.

The good news is QDD is curable and does not need to be terminal. 

So how about your sales team.

Are you hitting your sales and profit goals?

Do you have one salesperson consistently missing their goals?

Do you have a number of new leads that are not turning into revenue?

Are you seeing this salesperson not moving opportunities through your sales process to the next level?

Are you concerned one or more of your sales team has QDD?

QDD cripples sales and profit growth efforts.

QDD salespeople believe if new sales were out there they would have already won them. They are not sold on how sales occur today and are waiting for things to get back to normal. Well, this is the new normal and they must adapt.

The first step in solving any problem is identifying you have it.

If this post made you wonder (or made you a but nervous) about one or a couple of salespeople on your team I recommend you take the five steps above to learn if one of your team members has QDD.

Aside from lost sales and profits you team could have won, should have won, I want to warn you QDD is highly contagious and must be identified, quarantined and cured as soon as possible.

This condition is curable if the salesperson agrees they want and need to fix it.

Some teams will put the QDD salesperson into more of a farmer than hunter role.

The trouble is QDD cripples sales results for new products to current customers just as selling new customers.

If you find QDD has infected your sales team you must cure it or remove to as soon as possible while there is still time to hit your numbers.

Why Your Salespeople Need to Feed Seagulls To Close More Sales

Why do some sales continue to a close while others somehow die just before sales attempt to close them? You have every sign the sale would proceed to close, but something happens? Keep reading if you want to find out how feeding Sea Gulls will help your sales close rate.

Salespeople have a difficult job today. Gartner’s research shared that 33% of buyers no longer wish to speak with a salesperson and would prefer more of a sales self-service model in a digital experience.

It often takes over 20 touches to have a conversation with an ideal targeted customer.

Once we engage, we often find there are 7-10 people involved in the buying decision.

Who is typically involved in buying decisions today?

Influencers

End users

Purchasing

The person searching for a solution

Gatekeepers

The Decision Maker

Executive Sponsor

Quality

Safety

Engineering

Commodity Manager

Controller

CFO

CEO

 

Depending on the industry you serve and your type of product or service, you need to identify and understand the pain points for each of the above personas.

The one person we did not mention but is critical to identify is your corporate Sea Gull.

Who are corporate Sea Gulls, you might ask?

These are the people who can be in various roles that always lead with no. Their answer to everything is no in hopes that people who offer new products and services will go away.

Why do I refer to them as Sea Gulls, you might ask?

I had one sales mentor who used to ask me before every large sale who the customer Sea Gull was and what I had done to ensure they did not swoop in at the last minute and crap all over the sales I should have won.

At first, I found this to be a difficult task.

Working with current customers is easier since we have built a relationship based on trust and competence. So, I often would ask….

Help me make sure I can deliver this product and help your team please…who are the various influencers in this decision and who on your team has a history of flying in at the last minute and disrupting new purchases?

The burden is on sales to identify and reach out to this known corporate Sea Gulls, feed them the information, data, and answer their questions before you attempt to close the sale.

Does your sales team have a strong relationship matrix at each of your current accounts or just relationships with purchasing?

Would you like to significantly improve your close rate with new business and increase your share of wallet with key accounts?

Has your sales team identified Sea Guls at each of your growth accounts?

Take my advice to feed the Sea Gulls in your accounts and watch your revenue grow.

Let’s schedule a call to discuss my process, training, and coaching to fix this common sales problem.

 

 

Pre- Sales Checklist :The Secret to Hitting Your Sales Number

Salespeople who are prepared for meetings outperform others who just show up and throw up; it’s as simple as that. We all know this right? Not being prepared for buyer meetings is one of the top reasons over 50% of salespeople will fail to achieve sales quota each year. Our markets and how buyers buy has changed significantly with as much as 70% of the buying journey being over before a salesperson meets with a buyer. In this post I will share how I coach salespeople to prepare for sales meetings to drive the maximum sales results in an authentic way.

I have led sales and marketing teams for over 30 years and I am a practitioner of what Pragmatic Marketing refers to as “NIHITO”. This stands for: Nothing Important Happens In The Office. Therefore I travel, check that, …I travel a great deal in the market doing four legged sales calls with my sales teams.

One area that is a common sales coachable skill is pre-sales call planning.

Traveling often I have taken a number of flights. As sales leaders we can learn a lot about being prepared for our mission of increasing sales profitably by watching airplane pilots. Before each and every flight pilots conduct a pre-flight checklist.

They have a standard checklist that starts at the left wing tip and they walk around the plane, checking each wing, each tire, the tail section, the nose of the plane, the cockpit instrumentation panel. They check the fuel manifest to insure they have enough fuel to fly safely to their destination.

Ben Franklin said:“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Why do salespeople fail?

There are 3 major reasons that salespeople fail.

  1. Lack of mental preparation
  2. Lack of physical preparation
  3. Poor quality of conversations

… all of them involve being prepared.

What are the top five things sales super stars do to prepare for each sales meeting?

  1. They’re prepared for anything – especially the negative circumstances
  2. They’re genuinely interested in their prospects
  3. They check their ego at the door
  4. They master the art of managing expectations
  5. They have done their research

The below checklist must be completed before trying to start a journey with a buyer today.

Buyer information

  1. Who will you be meeting with?
  2. What is their role, and title?
  3. How long have they held this position?
  4. How long have they been with their current organization?
  5. Where did they go to school?
  6. Where did they work prior to this company?
  7. Do you share any mutual contacts, if so call them and ask them about this buyer
  8. When was the last order?
  9. Do you have a buyer persona for this type of buyer? If so read it.
  10. Is there a current order in the system?
  11. If so when will it ship and arrive?
  12. What is the status of the accounts payments, do they have any money past due that may interrupt service if not paid?
  13. Has the buyer and or their teams experienced any quality issues with products and or services in the last 6 months and were they resolved?
  14. How is the buyer measured?
  15. What are your buyers’ key performance indicators?

The account

  1. How long has your company sold this account?
  2. What are your current sales with this account, and how does this compare to last year?
  3. Does this customer buy predominantly one or two products or do they support your full line of products and services?
  4. When was the last buyer call or phone discussion on the CRM?
  5. What was the topic of the last conversation and action items?
  6. Were the action items completed?
  7. Visit their web site, click on “press” and or “news’ …what is the most recent news event they posted?
  8. What are your customers value proposition to their customers? You can gather this by cutting and pasting their landing page copy into an I cloud service and see prominent words.
  9. Who are their competitors? Do you sell them?
  10. Who else is involved in buying decisions?

The Industry / Market

  1. Google this industry read top three articles.
  2. What is news worthy in their industry in the last three months?
  3. Visit industry trade association web pages and read last three news articles. What is news worthy in trade groups?
  4. Is the customers’ market up, down, or flat?
  5. What are the future projections for this market?
  6. How is this customers market segment performing for your company?
  7. Is this customer’s sales performing at the industry average, below, or above and why?
  8. Have competitors introduced any new products or programs in the last six months?
  9. Prepare two to three questions that illustrate you know the buyers’ industry, what is happening and can be used to build trust.
  10. Is their industry consolidating or highly fragmented?

Competitor information

  1. What other companies like yours also sell this account?
  2. What are their strengths?
  3. What are their weaknesses?
  4. What are your competitors’ value propositions?
  5. Do any of your other customers also use these competitors and if so what have they shared with you?
  6. Visit competitor(s) web sites, what is new?
  7. How do your competitors market their products and sell their products?
  8. Know your competitor price strategy.
  9. Does the competitor provide products you do not?
  10. Do you have unique and or patented products your competitors do not offer?
  11. What is your competitor’s service history compared to yours?
  12. What are your competitors shipping and delivery policies?

 Your Strategy

  1. Why are you meeting with this account?
  2. Why did the buyer agree to meet you?
  3. What is the buyer’s expectation for this meeting?
  4. Is meeting with the account in person the best form of communication based on your objectives?
  5. What sales tools will you need to be successful?
  6. Will you require any video or computer presentations?
  7. Will you require access to the Internet? If so bring a device to give you access in the event the company cannot allow you to access their connection.
  8. What is your value proposition? Answer the question: Why your company?…and or your product?
  9. Who are your competitors at this customer and what are the strengths of your competitors and their products?
  10. What are the perceived weaknesses of your competitors’ products?
  11. What case studies should you bring to support this sale?
  12. What STAR stories will you share in your presentation to build trust?
  13. What will you leave with the buyer?
  14. How many copies will they need for other influencers in their company?
  15. What is your buyers buying process?
  16. What criteria must your buyer have from you to make a buying decision?
  17. What does this account, this buyer’s journey look like?
  18. What are your 2-5 challenger questions for this meeting?
  19. How will you judge if this meeting was a success?
  20. What are typically next steps in the follow up process you can offer proactively in this meeting?

 

I hear some of you saying…

“but mark that’s a lot of information to have before we meet with someone! On a normal trip I can meet with up to 8-10 customers…do you expect me to have all of the above for each meeting?”

My answer is YES!!!

The markets we serve are dynamic and competitive pressure is only growing. In your buyer’s world they too are experiencing pressure and demands on their time. Buyers want to meet with salespeople who do their homework and understand their account, and their markets and any challenges they may be facing. Buyers are hungry for authentic salespeople who want to understand and help buyers and their companies solve urgent market problems.

The days of …Hi how are ya meetings …are over!

The days of just dropping buy, or my personal favorite…. buying two dozen donuts are over!

…“But Mark I want to build my relationship with this buyer….”

Then do your research prior to your buyer meeting and demonstrate the following:

You know the buyer and have an interest in helping them

You know the industry and share how you help buyers like them

You understand your competitors

You know the buying journey

You know the criteria your buyers must have today to make a buying decision

You understand your products and services and the problems they solve

You build trust with buyers by being prepared

Doing your pre-flight checklist before each buyer meeting will insure a safe buying journey and help you land are your desired goals. 

Are your salespeople prepared to meet with your buyers?

What is your cost of sale today?

Do you believe having a pre-call checklist can improve your sales cost as a percent of sales?

Does your team have a pre=call checklist?

How often are your salespeople prepared for each buyer meeting?

Have you experienced a buyer meeting that took a nosedive because your salesperson was not prepared?

Below are some great articles on preparing for a sales call.

Pre-call planning the forgotten step https://www.customercentric.com/news-and-resources/articles/pre-call-planning

4 tips for effective pre-call sales planning https://www.jillkonrath.com/sales-blog/bid/130501/4-Tips-for-Effective-Pre-Call-Sales-Planning

7 steps to ace pre-call sales planning https://www.jillkonrath.com/sales-blog/bid/130501/4-Tips-for-Effective-Pre-Call-Sales-Planning

Pre-call planning: It’s more than just research http://www.sellingpower.com/content/article/?a=2847/pre-call-planning-it-s-more-than-just-research

Finally–a Sales Pre-call Checklist That Will Help Your Opportunities Soar! http://customerthink.com/finally_a_sales_pre_call_checklist_that_will_help_your_opportunities_soar/

Three Steps to better Pre-call Planning http://www.sellingpower.com/content/article/?a=1458/three-steps-to-better-pre-call-planning

How to prepare for a winning sales negotiation https://www.salesreadinessgroup.com/blog/how-to-prepare-for-a-winning-sales-negotiation

Preparation and Sales Success http://blog.anthonycoletraining.com/Sales-Training-Sales-Brew/bid/30683/Preparation-and-Sales-Success

Pre-call planning strategy checklist http://www.mentoru.com/sanfilippo/pre-callplanningstrategy.pdf

8 Steps to successful sales call https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/207016

Develop your companies’ pre-sales call checklist and watch your sales and profits soar!

Put a Collar on Non-Sales Activity

What % of your salesperson’s time is spent selling today? (Are you sitting down?) The average salesperson is spending less than 20% of what I call “sellable time” actually doing sales activities and behaviors today. (I have seen  in some companies less than 10% of the time is spent selling) That’s a problem, a big sales problem we need to fix to keep our sales leaders, owners, and shareholders happy. This post 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 incredible 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 anemic.

For the last few months, we have developed a plan to bring him back to health so we could find him a forever home. Our goal had specific behaviors we executed, tracked, and even logged on medical forms. We gave him various medicines and special food. We slowly started walking him and exercising him, including water therapy. We put drops in his ears and loved 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 the adoption is spay or neuter. The surgery went great, and Duke came home. To ensure 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 wore 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.

What sales skills, behaviors, beliefs, and motivations have you identified that deliver the sales results you want and expect?

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 salespeople on manufacturer and 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 quotes
  • 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
  • LinkedIn research
  • 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/ dealing with supply chain challenges
  • 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
  • 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 sales goal management
  • Customer audits and assessments
  • Computer and IT issues
  • Booking advertisements
  • Managing point of purchase displays and updating them
  • 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 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 scary)

40%-50% administrative tasks

10%+ non-selling activities

Something else we need to discuss is we know multitasking decreases productivity by 20-40%.

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

From my observations working with clients, salespeople often lack time management expectations by sales behavior.

I have yet to meet a salesperson that is not busy. We are all hard-working competitive people, and our customers see the top performers as strategic advisors. I encourage my teams and sales managers to embrace the idea that movement (activity) does not ensure sales goal achievement.

How do best-in-class salespeople spend their time according to Revenue Storm?

  • Targeting Demand 10%
  • Creating Demand 28%
  • Shaping Demand 19%
  • Capturing Demand 20%
  • Fulfilling Demand 8%
  • Personal Development Activities 6%
  • Internal Communication/ reports 9%

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

Are your salespeople spending their time like Best-in-Class salespeople? Top Sales Performers?

Here’s the deal…some salespeople believe if they are busy, they are safe. So, they get swamped. 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 often prisoners of an outdated 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? Twenty 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 investing in new IT systems. Before we invested in a marketing department? Before the pandemic?”

– CEO of one of my clients

Yep!

Like all of us, Salespeople will gravitate to their comfort zone of behaviors they like to do. If someone has been in sales for any time, they likely spend a great deal of time in service and relationship activities. If not managed, the key activities your research found drive sales results never happen because “ I just did not have the time…”

One last consideration is fear. Salespeople have been managed (not led, true leaders inspire and motivate. They do not use fear) by fear for years. If you are fear-filled, your brain’s creative and strategic part 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 do not hit their sales numbers like 70%+ of the salespeople, 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 hurt the bottom lines like unnecessary discounting, extended payment terms, and promises our products and services could never meet. This results in more fear, even more busy behaviors, more stress, and 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 find activities that produce value for customers
  • 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 salespeople
  • Train support departments on the new sales processes 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 / Coach behaviors you want

When we implemented the above in several 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 20%-50%
  • Improved morale inside the sales team
  • Improved sales efficiency and effectiveness
  • Reduced cost of customer acquisition/ cost of sale
  • Improved relationships with other departments
  • Reduced marketing expense
  • Improved engagement
  • Reduced turnover
  • Reduced recruiting expenses

 

If you want profitable sales increases, you must focus your sales team’s 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 will also experience the healthy sales results above.

When we assess your team’s current state of sales effectiveness and then prescribe training and coaching to close any skills gaps, we discover our key deliverables are met.

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 to get him strong and healthy, but we coached, trained, and reinforced 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.

If you feel your salespeople are “busy” but not hitting the key sales deliverables your shareholders want and need, let’s schedule a call. I would be honored to help get you back on track to a profitable year.

 

“Pushing Mud Uphill” …Launching a New Product or Service Without Four Clear “Yes’s”

One of the most exciting things you can do in business is launch a new product, service, or entire business for that matter. As high as six out of ten US adult consumers are thinking about launching a business at any given time. If you chose to take the leap yourself, you will experience what I refer to as the “50 ugly truths…” but in so doing you will become stronger, and if you survive you will ultimately help people solve problems.

I can’t imagine anything more rewarding than helping someone solve a problem they thought there was no solution for. If this is true, then why do over 70% of new products (businesses) fail?

They fail because they failed to answer “yes” to four simple but key questions.

Question 1

Do you clearly understand the problem you are trying to solve and does your product (service) solve that problem completely? (if you have already said “no” stop, gather more data)

Question 2

Are there enough people, a market of people, with this problem to meet your desired ROA? ( if your answer is “I think so” stop and validate)

Question 3

Do the members of the market you validated as big enough have the ability to pay to solve their problem? (there are all kinds of problems we all have, but we are not willing to pay to fix)

Question 4

Are the members of the market you validated that is big enough, with the problem you solve, and ability to pay, “willing” to pay now? (there are many problems we have, and we have the ability to pay for, but not the willingness to pay for)

If you answered “Yes” with current market data (not data from three years ago when you first came up with this idea) go for it!

But remember; An Idea is not a product and it’s definitely not a Business.

Where most entrepreneurs blow it …as Jim Collins refers to it is; Hubris. They believe because they have launched products in the past and they were very successful they trust their gut and intuition that there new endeavor will also be a huge success.

So what happens if you launch based on emotion and Hubris?….

Your sales may come, but slowly

You will miss ROA targets

Need to add investment, instead of cutting bait

Your sales team (who trusted you) will push mud uphill each day…the good ones will leave due to frustration

You strain your entire organization (who is probably already multi tasking) morale suffers

You demonstrate to your market you do not know them

Personally you will become frustrated, aggravated, distracted, and you will loose focus

How can I rattle the above off so quickly?…Because I have done it. I have experienced the rush of growing companies by launching new products and or new divisions and when I find what feels like a huge unsolved problem in a market ….I get excited (emotional).

Instead of gathering current market date, I used to move into; validate my gut mode.

Instead of admitting what I did not know… and finding answers…I relied on past experiences to get me through the unforeseen roadblocks.

I have felt the emotion that builds, and heard that little voice in your head that says; “I don’t care what engineering, marketing, operations, and sales thinks we should do, or the more information they want to gather…we need to launch before someone else beats us to market”

 

What I lacked back then was a filter…simple filter that quickly cuts through the emotions and feelings and quickly lets you know if you have an “idea” or a “business”. The above four questions are the filter I recommend everyone use PRIOR to launching your new product, service, or business.

How about your company….

Have you ever had to push mud uphill?

While your team loyally pushes mud uphill, what is the opportunity cost of their time?

Do you have other questions to add to the filter to insure the products you launch do not fall into the 70% of those that are an expense without a ROA?

Again, having launched products, services, even new businesses in my career I understand that inner rush of adrenaline that makes your creative juices fire on all cylinders…I do. Maybe it’s an age thing…but I now highly recommend a pause, a strategic pause, before you launch and ask yourself the above questions.

To insure you maximize your percent of wins and your ROA for new products, make sure you use a filter, get the four “yes’s” prior to launch.

If you do not use mine above, I have also used the economic value added model back in the day. This model helps insure decisions are not made of Hubris.

Whatever you do, do not rely just on your gut, and or your key accounts, friends, and family members saying “go for it”.

If you would like to read more about this topic, I recommend you read;

Tuned In

How the Mighty Fall

Delivering Happiness

 

How we Sell is More Important Than What We Sell Today

I recently presented at the popular Whizard Summit in Bolder Colorado and share how selling has evolved in the past two years.

In my opening remarks I shared I recently delivered a keynote for an association for C-suite leaders. There were 160 CEOs, CFOs and other senior leaders in attendance focused on strategically adapting in the post pandemic new normal.

When I speak at events, I prefer to make the presentations interactive to create engagement while improving retention. I opened the session with a question:

How many leaders in attendance feel, with 100% certainty their sales teams have the right sales structure, process, systems, beliefs and skills to deliver this years’ sales plan?

Not one arm was raised, so I changed the question.

How many leaders feel with 75% certainty their sales teams have the sales effectiveness to deliver this years’ sales plan?

This time about ten arms were raised.

How many leaders feel with 50% certainty their sales teams have the sales effectiveness to deliver this years’ sales plan?

Now about half the room have their arms raised.

When CSO Insights surveyed sales leaders, they found only 16% felt their sales teams have the right sales skills to effectively deliver to their sales plans.

Working with clients I also observe similar findings, particularly with building and supply leaders driving to increase sales more than 10% year of over year.

 

Recognizing less than 50% of most sales teams have not received any formal sales skills training we often confirm specific sales skills gaps when we assess the sales teams’ current state of sales effectiveness.

Common skills gap we see in building and supply sales teams include:

  • Discovery and qualifying skills
  • Prospecting skills
  • Consultative Selling
  • Value Selling
  • Closing
  • Negotiations

When we conduct voice of the customer research for our clients, they also confirm common sales skills gaps.

  • Listening skills
  • Talking too much
  • Pitching too early
  • Negotiations feels like win-lose
  • Poor or no business acumen

One of the CEOs in attendance asked a common question I hear today.

Why is it so hard for my salespeople to book meetings with customers today?

I could tell from the expressions in the audience my response surprised them…

Because too many salespeople are untrained and are behaving badly!

What do our buyers want and need today?

They want business consultants masquerading as salespeople.

Buyers want salespeople who have industry insights and share things not found on their websites. Buyers want and need sales reps to evolve into trusted advisors.

What skills do top performing trusted advisor salespeople have in common?

  • The will to sell
  • High figure it out factor
  • Resilient
  • Comfort talking about money
  • Need to be respected is greater than need to be liked
  • Business acumen
  • They speak the language of their customers

We closed the keynote sharing how sales roles are evolving.

Hunters – these salespeople are constantly searching for net new customers and closing their business.

Farmers– this highly skilled role is singularly focused on gaining a greater share of wallet with our key accounts.

Fishermen – this new sales role is in response to digital marketing and social selling. The focus of the fishermen is to reel in those current and potential customers who have engaged with content marketing and or reached out for assistance. They need to be skilled at having conversations that lead to revenue and they also need strong qualifying skills and know when to cut bait.

Babysitters – a concerning role that has emerged post pandemic is this role. This individual is not selling products or services. They are transactional focused, and you often wonder if they work for you or your customers. Recognizing the assessment instrument, we use indicated 60% of once face to face salespeople struggle adapting to a virtual hybrid sales model, many have become babysitters. Their focus is “keeping the customer happy” at all costs.

Do you have the right people in the right role with the right skills for today?

Are you paying for salespeople who deliver sales and profit growth but some of your salespeople are babysitters not delivering the ROI you expect from your investment in their role?

In a recent sales effectiveness assessment, we discovered 26% of their sales team were babysitters and should not be in a sales quota carrying role.

Many leaders are struggling to find more salespeople.

Are you sure you need more salespeople?

As I challenged the senor leaders at the keynote and the leaders at the Whizzard summit, do you need more salespeople, or do you need to improve the effectiveness of your current sales team?

Over 60% of CEOs surveyed shared they have adjusted post pandemic.

When we assess the sales skills, beliefs, motivations, systems and processes today we can determine if our sales teams need training and coaching.

If you would like to be above to raise your hand high with 100% confidence your sales team will deliver the sales plan you promised your shareholders, we suggest eh following.

  1. Assess sales skills by role
  2. Capture the voice of your customers
  3. Invest in sales skills training and coaching to close any skills gaps you discover

If your team would like to learn more about sales effectiveness please reach out and I would be happy to help you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time Kills Deals, Do You Have Frozen Pipes?

Here are a few questions you should ask your salespeople:

  • How long has the opportunity been in the pipeline?
  • How long has the opportunity been in this phase?
  • What does the buyer need to move the sale to the next phase?
  • What is the decision-making process for this account?
  • What is the cost of not solving this problem to the customer?
  • When was the last time you spoke with the decision maker?
  • How many decision makers and influencers are we speaking with?
  • Do your salespeople have the right skills and tools to accomplish key account growth?

If you would like help discovering the answers to the above and more…please schedule a free 15-minute consultation by visiting the contact page on my website, or calling or texting me at 330-413-8552.

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