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What Sales Skills Can We Develop That Makes Salespeople Automation Proof in a Digital World?

By Mark 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 negatively impacting their performance today: 

“Will my job be eliminated with automation?” 

“Will e-commerce and digitalization be the end of salespeople?

“Will virtual sales be the final death blow to face to face selling?”

The reality is 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 product and market insights they cannot find in online searches today.

Buyers are hungry to meet with salespeople who can connect the dots between what they are selling and how it will impact the buyers’ bottom line.

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. (Senior leaders)

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. (Salespeople)

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. Below are some from that article that apply to salespeople.

Judgement

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

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

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 deliver 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.

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 up skill 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.

Need to Improve Revenue? Run a MRI on Your Business Today

By Mark Allen Roberts

When I ask CEO’s and Sales leaders: “how do you plan to end 2020 strong and hit the ground running in 2021?”…I receive a variety of responses. Some have plans and specific strategies and tactics but the majority are more focused on this month and this quarter.

I spoke at the NAW event in Washington DC last year before the pandemic and asked a room of CEO’s and business leaders to raise your hand if you felt with 100% certainty your sales organization has the skills to hit your sales and profit objectives in 2020…. not one hand was raised. This was concerning but not surprising.

I have helped organization improve their sales and deliver more shareholder value for over 30 years.

CEO’s and CFO’s have always expressed a concern that sales are more of a dark art than a science.

For years I have heard: Why can’t sales run more like my plant with systems, processes and deliver predictable results?

In this post we will discuss how to run an MRI for your business now and strategically pivot and lean into the data to structure, train and coach your sales team to drive the outcomes leaders desire.

You have a smart team and with good, up to date data you can build strategies that deliver the results you want and need.

There was an interesting article in the Wall street Journal some time ago about a reporter who wrote about healthy lifestyles discovering he had a blocked Carotid artery although he was not currently showing any symptoms.

As I read this article it reminded me of how many teams I have served were experiencing small symptoms of problems but needed to dive deeper to find the root causes and heal them.

Many CEO’s and sales leaders I speak with have issues just below the surface in their businesses that need a business health MRI to identify them.

Let me ask you a few questions:

What if we could provide a data driven scan for the health of your business today?

What if this scan could predict your business’s future health if things remained the same?

What if we used a scan of your businesses health today that could help us prevent your business having a stroke and or going out of business in the future?

What if we had a Business MRI and we could scan your business and share specific areas that need to improve before they become fatal?

For over 35 years of my career I was hired to “fix sales problems”. The first thing I would do with each client is gathering and assessing data from various parts of the business and your markets and determines the organizations’ overall health.

Organizations have strong leaders and senior leaderships teams who if they had unbiased, unfiltered data can and will create short term and long term plans to adjust to current market constraints.

 This process has been the same with each team I have served and I believe it is more critical now than ever given the change so many of us have experienced.

Could common sales clots be forming in your pipeline today that will cause a sales and or profit stroke in your business or worse?

If we could run a diagnostic scan of your sales and your overall business health what would we look for?

I would suggest seven areas of your organization to scan to give your leadership the data they need.

Voice of your customers

Here we capture things like how your buyers buy and why they buy from you and why they don’t. What is your net promoter score? Capture how your buyers are buying today and what criteria they need to make a buying decision. We spend time understanding your customer’s business and their economic drivers as well as whom their customers are.

Systems and Processes

Does the team have a Sales Plan?  Do you have a formal Sales Process that is buyer centric? Are the systems in place to support profitable growth that provide salespeople valuable insights to prescriptively growing their business? Do you have a CRM and why or why not are sales using it? Do you have a strong sales support focus to ensure customers have a strong buying experience?

Marketing

Does the team have a strong digital marketing competence? (If not you must accelerate this now) I suggest running a value proposition audit to ensure you clearly understand what your buyer’s value after the last 90 days of disruption. Do you clearly understand the various buyer personas of your customers and decision makers and have you equipped sales with the right tools and messaging for each? How active is your website? Is your website found and does your site speak in the language of the channels you serve?

Sales support

Here we look at all the sales support tools ,systems and processes to ensure they are aligned to drive profitable sales growth while making it easy for customers to buy from you. Do you have a sales enablement function? If not who is responsible for helping sales improve their success? Does sales have the right tools for each stage of the sales process? Does your sales process mirror your buyers buying process today or is it out-dated? When we look at sales support we also look at the skills of sales management and sales leaders. Have they been trained in the new skills to grow from rep to manager? Do sales managers know how to coach? Do they want to coach and more importantly how effective is their sales coaching?

Sales Mindset

We want to determine things like what do your salespeople believe about things like: pricing, quality, selling, business outlook, accountability and motivation? Ultimately we are determining if your sales team knows how to sell and will they sell? Do they have a high emotional intelligence and empathy? Is their focus to produce value for their customers as trusted advisors or are they commission junkies just focused on their goals?

Sales Skills

The main focus here is to determine by salesperson and sales manager if they have been trained and do they have the sales skills needed in your market of today? Do they understand how to sell based on value and not just price? Do they feel comfortable asking strong qualifying and discovery questions to get to the root of the buyer problems? Do the sales people know how to negotiate and close? Can they shape their conversation style based on the personality of the buyer? Are they comfortable creating a business case and talking about money? Do they know how to have insightful conversations with various influencers all the way up to the CEO? Are the right people based on skills and mindset in the right roles?

Metrics and Data

Here we dive into the data often buried deep in your servers and CRM. We look at things like on boarding new sales associates and time to revenue. We review KPI’s (leading and lagging indicators) and are they the right ones for the business today and in the future, by sales role. Naturally we look at sales, profits by salesperson, by customer and by channel. What is the cost of sales? Cost per lead? What is your net profit by customer today? What is our close rate average and by team member? What is our market share and share of each key customers’ wallet? What were our planned and unplanned sales associate turnover in the last 24 months? Does your team have a strategic pricing system or just a common margin for all products and services?

Once we scanned your organization for all of the above, we diagnose the overall health of your business today and predict the future success of your organization. We are establishing a data driven current state for your business health.

Most of the teams I have served have a much clearer vision of their future state they desire than the current state they are working in today.

We look at your business and customers today then create a plan and connect the dots between your current state today and where your team desires to be in the future.

I hear some of you saying: “Wow Mark that’s a lot of work, I am already buried in work and so is my team how will we find the time to gather this information? “

Or another common concern: ” This sounds like a pretty big change and we are not typically strong at change management.”

My challenge is if not now when?

If you have been following any of my articles or attending my webinars there is a powerful sales effectiveness instrument and data gathering process to gather the above.

We leverage technology to gain the insights we need to shape a healthy strategic business plan for the future.

If you want to DIY your business health assessment have at it. Many teams will try to gather everything they need but find themselves distracted by today’s challenges and the flaming trashcan of today.

Another challenge to doing this data gathering yourself is with the rate of change we are experiencing in this VUCA economy by the time you gathered everything yourself it may not be relevant anymore.

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The other consideration you must assess is the organizations culture if you want to DIY your sales and profit health project.

Your organization culture is like the blood flowing throughout your body. It touches every organ or as in this case every person, process and system.

Culture 

When we assess a culture we look for things like: Is the culture innovative or are they defensive and protecting the fort? What is the team’s comfort with change? Do the senior leaders have a fixed mindset…” the way we have always done things around here”…or open to new ideas and a growth mindset? How is the organization structured? Do they have business silos? What is their decision making process? Do they have a continuous learning culture? We need to understand any deep biases early and introduce data before we begin developing our business health plan. 

My recommendation is you want a 3rd party to give your business a BMRI so the data is not biased.

There is a tremendous value of hiring an outside heretic when it comes to adding value to your bottom line. They gather the data and share it without a filter and politically correct biases.

“Smart experienced teams when presented unfiltered data make strong strategic sales and profit plans.”

– Mark Allen Roberts

If you want help running an MRI for your business now and have the data to make strategic pivots let’s chat.

Healthy businesses will survive now and thrive in the years to come!

Are Your Salespeople Selling Naked Today?

By Mark Roberts

As companies adjust and learn to sell in the midst of a pandemic we need to clearly understand our buyers and the problems they have now and the skills our salespeople need to be effective. Unfortunately many salespeople are using dated value propositions, sales processes, sales tools and lack sales skills training …they are selling naked.

One of my favorite children’s is a book: The Emperor’s New Clothes. If you are not familiar with the story: there once was an emperor who spent a great deal on money on clothes. One day two swindlers came to town and said they would make the emperor clothes the most beautiful he has ever seen, but if anyone could not see the clothes they were unfit for their positions.

The deception begins and the emperor does not want to admit he can’t see the clothes so he pretends to put on this invisible garment. His minister does not want to admit they do not see it in fear of being judged unfit so they pretend to see it and they compliment the emperor.

The emperor proceeds to walk around town naked and no one tells him until he comes across a little boy who is our heretic in this story and shares the emperor is naked.

I was recently asked to be a guest on the popular podcast MFG Out loud and the hosts were intrigued by this idea of salespeople being forced to sell naked and they asked I unpack this topic a bit. In this post we will discuss the 7 signs your sales team is selling naked.

1.) If your sales team cannot quickly share your repeatable sales process…they are selling Naked!

Let’s start with the sales process itself.

The process of sales does not need to be as difficult as we make it.

Market leading organizations understand it all starts with understanding your market, buyers, and the process and criteria they use to make buying decisions.

Once you have a clear understanding of your buyers you position your product or service in your market with a value proposition that resonates with your buyers and you are on a path to a sale.

When I work with sales teams we discover with our skills assessment they do not have a formal repeatable sales process and this is an interruption for most CEO’s. Their salespeople are basically winging it each day, with each customer and on each call.

I refer to winging it as “random acts of sales.”

(no wonder CEO’s are frustrated that sales seems like more of a dark art than a science)

As businesses reset and retool we can’s afford random acts of sales and must give sales teams a system to follow that drives the profitable outcomes we expect.

This can quickly be corrected with voice of the customer research and conducting a sales skills assessment.

Once you develop a sales process based on how your buyers are buying you must train your sales team and coach them to use each step..

2.) If your sales team cannot share your value proposition …they are selling Naked!

If your sales team is using a dated value proposition it will no longer resonate with your buyers and will damage the buyers perception of your salesperson’s competency and their ability to trust them.

When your sales team lacks a current value proposition and distinction from competitors they are being asked to sell naked.

We can create a value proposition that connects with your top buyer personas and train your salespeople when and how to use them as we develop their selling skills.

3.) If your sales team has not received sales skills training…they are selling Naked!

With as high as 50% of salespeople not receiving any sales skills training we should not be surprised when we observe clogged or non existent sales pipelines.

We should not become angry when salespeople sell on price and not value.

We should not become disappointed when salespeople lack the ability to strategically grow their current customers.

The good news is this is easily corrected with sales skills training and prescriptive analytics.

4.) If your sales team has not received business acumen training …they are selling Naked!

Today’s buyers want and value salespeople who deliver ways to add more value to their bottom-line.

How can your salespeople sell based on value if they do not have business acumen training?

Are your salespeople speaking the language of business and able to create a compelling business case?

5.) If your website has not been updated in the last year…they are selling Naked!

With as high as 70% of the sales process being over before a buyer speaks with your salesperson your website is more critical than ever.

The difficulty arises when companies have a website that is more of a virtual brochure about them and not the problems that they solve for their customers and not leveraging digital marketing best practices.

Buyers are searching for solutions to their problems. They are looking for companies and salespeople who can provide more than a transaction.

Does your website share the problems you solve?

Do you offer e-commerce for buyers who know what they want and can quickly and easily buy?

In the last 90 days have you adjusted your value proposition and messaging on your website based on the needs of your buyers today?

6.) If you have not provided virtual sales skills training…they are selling Naked!

 Covid-19 has impacted the way we serve our customers.

Many states implemented constraints that caused salespeople to sell virtually.

A big issue we need to unpack is almost 60% of salespeople will have difficulty working remotely without training and coaching. (This statistic comes from the sales skills assessment tool I use that has assessed over 2 million salespeople globally.)

Have you provided your salespeople virtual sales skills training and the technical tools to be effective and efficient in virtual sales?

Have you trained and coached your salespeople how to build meaningful business relationships virtually?

Are your salespeople calling all your current customers and implementing a retention strategy?

7.) If you have not assessed your sales teams’ skills by role…they are selling Naked!

How effective is your sales team today?

How much more effective could they be?

How long would it take to improve their sales effectiveness?

What impact would improving your sales team’s effectiveness have on your bottom line?

Are your salespeople selling based on value or just price?

All of the above and much more can be answered by conducting a sales skills assessment. With this valuable information you can quickly make sure you have the right people in the right roles and develop sales skills training to close any skills gaps you discover.

With all the changes we have seen in the last 90 days it’s imperative you have the right salesperson in the right role with the right skills.

As I shared in a recent podcast, Warren Buffet’s quote is particularly relevant in today’s business climate

“ When the tide goes out you can tell who has been swimming naked”

90 days ago the biggest challenge most businesses had was finding and retaining employees to support their growth

Business was good and growing.

Many leaders had plans to invest in sales skills training, digital marketing and exploring inside sales models. But sales were coming in and they did not want to rock the boat. They were so busy in the business they did not have time to work on the business.

As the revenue tide went out for many businesses, it became very apparent their sales teams needed training and coaching.

With as high as 50% of salespeople not receiving any formal sales skills training in skills like: qualifying, discovery, up selling, cross selling, consultative sales, how to build strategic business relationships, negotiations skills, value based sales skills, closing skills we should not be surprised many sales people are struggling and selling naked today.

Unlike the king in our story the sad reality is your salespeople in many cases know they are selling naked.

They may not call it “selling naked” but what they have always done is no longer working today

The sales team and sales managers know something is wrong but they do not know what it is

Some are just trying harder and working longer hours making more phone calls and growing more stressed, frustrated and fearful each day.

Are your salespeople selling naked today?

If any one of the 7 signs I shared is happening in your organization your team is selling naked and losing sales they could have won.

Spend time assessing your sales teams skills and the voice of your customers and provide your salespeople the training tools and coaching to help them stop feeling naked and afraid when calling buyers today.

If you would like my help assessing your sales skills, net profit by customer and understanding the current voice of your customers let’s schedule a call.

To learn more about selling naked you can visit this post titled: Stop Asking your Salespeople to Sell Naked

Do You Have The Right Salesperson In The Right Role For Todays Market?

By Mark Roberts

Many of the CEO’s CFO’s and sales leaders are taking action now to react to the sales challenges brought on by Covid-19. We do not know when this crisis will be over but we do now have a months worth of data to gather insights and make future predictions and plans. Many organizations have already reduced marketing expenses, operational costs, experienced a reduction in sales expense, and overhead across the organization and now they are forced to strategically retool sales.

Reorganizing and retooling your sales team for the market of today is difficult and emotional  in good times.

What we must consider includes…

What does our sales team need to look like today and for tomorrow based on what your buyers are saying? 

Do we have the right people and are they in the right roles?

Who on the sales team needs training and will perform?

In this post we will discuss a data driven way to answer these questions to maximize your sales teams sales effectiveness and performance.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that the Pareto Principle definitely applies to sales team results. The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, advises that 80 percent of any output will be generated by only 20 percent of the total input utilized. Therefore, as applied to sales organizations, 20 percent of sales reps produce 80 percent of the business. Those salespeople in the 20 percent also are more likely to get more promotions, perks, choice-of-territory, and (of course) income.

Your top 20 percent of sales performers typically deliver:

Higher profit margin per sale

Greater new product sales

Higher new customer acquisition revenue

Have a greater share of wallet by customer

Have at least 2 X customer retention rates

More referrals

Higher customer satisfaction scores

For today’s market customer retention is king.

As sales teams retool, right size and reorganize how do we identify those top performers, those on your current team that can be top performers and those that should move into another non-selling roles? 

Disconcertingly, it follows that the 80 percent of a current sales team only brings in only 20 percent of sales, so what does that mean for your return by salesperson? It means odds are you probably have people in sales roles today that should not be in sales roles…and it is costing you.

When your business was busy those sales associates not skilled in sales or having the right mindset for sales were often hidden by sales transactions.

Warren Buffet shared a quote:

“Everyone can see who was swimming naked when the tide goes out”

For many businesses the tide went out quickly and is remaining out.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, estimated that his own bad sales hires had cost Zappos 100 million dollars.

How do we take a data driven strategic approach to reorganizing our sales teams that ensures we have the right salesperson in the right sales roles for today and tomorrow?

What should we consider when right sizing our sales teams to the market of today and tomorrow?

Here are a few suggestions:

  •     Assess the sales skills, beliefs and motivations of your current team. ( determine current state)

○Who are your top sales performers in revenue, skills, beliefs and pipeline?

○Who could be top performers with training, new sales tools and coaching?

○What sales roles are critical to your success today?

○Who on your team is best suited for each role?

○Who on your team is best suited for non-sales roles?

  • Identify the ideal sales roles and sales process-This is a crucial step. To develop a role description, use these questions as a guide:

○      How are buyers buying today?

○      What sales role and sales process best serves buyers today?

○      What resistance and objections will the salesperson encounter and how must they be trained and what mindset will they need?

○      What sales skills should the salesperson have for this role?

○      What’s the competitive landscape they will confront?

○      What kind of support, supervision, coaching will they get from management?

○      What competencies do your top 20 percent of sellers have in this role today?

  • Search for the ideal candidate by sales role based on assessment data–

Describe the role with leading and lagging indicators and measures of success. Look at your current sales skills, motivations, sales mindset, profit and revenue by salesperson.

Review past performance reviews and assess the quality of their sales pipeline.

We must also understand how buyers are buying today and what they want and need from a salesperson today.

When companies retool and reorganize their sales teams they often make the mistake of running a sales and profit report by sales rep and making decisions based on this data alone.

Things to we must also consider…

What if your top revenue salesperson lacks sales skills but just inherited a great territory?

What if a salesperson with lower than average revenue has a stronger sales pipeline, higher profit % per sale and sales hunter skills?

What if you have a sales hunter in a sales farmer role and if they moved to a hunter role they would be more effective?

If you were to open a new territory, new market, lead the launch of a new product or service whom on your team would you pick?

Retooling and reorganizing your sales team today is much more than drawing a line on a sales by descending Excel report.

Market leading sales teams will use this reset to better define how their buyers buy, why they buy, why they don’t buy and the best terms of trade for each market vertical and customer.

Market leaders and future market leaders will use this time to strategically pivot into what their buyers are asking for and the data insights share and design buyer centric sales processes.

Before you retool your sales organization there are some questions I ask you to consider.

What are the right sales roles for the market of today and tomorrow?

Who on my sales team best fits those roles?

Who on my sales team has high skills but is in the wrong role today?

Who once trained will figure it out and apply the training quickly?

Do salespeople need to be liked by their customers?

Are they rejection proof?

Are they comfortable talking about money?

Do they know how to sell?

Will they sell? (Do they have a sales mindset)?

Can they work remotely?

Do they understand how to use a CRM and what it is for? 

Do they have the skills and mindset you have seen in your top 20 percent of performers in that role?

Remember it’s the talent on your sales team that will determine your success when hitting quotas and achieving your company’s future goals.

Identifying top performers and having them in the right roles is the difference between your company’s victory or failure in competitive markets and challenging times.

Have you ever assessed the sales skills, beliefs and motivations of your current sales team?

Are you sure you have the right people in the right roles for the sales environment of today?

What is the total cost of a bad hire for your sales team? 

What is the cost of having a sales farmer in a sales hunter role?

What is the cost of having someone in a sales role without sales skills and lacks a sales mindset?

Once the salesperson is in a new sales role do you have an individualized learning and coaching plan to fill skills gaps?

When was your last Voice of your customer survey to determine how your buyers buy and what they want and need from a salesperson today?

If you would like to chat more about this subject let’s set a time to discuss your challenges.

If you would like to see a system that answers the above questions and more lets book a Zoom meeting.

Fix Sales Problems: Stop Playing “Kick the Can”…with Buyers

 

The role of sales has changed significantly over the last 10 years. On the one side we now have buyers who now are 60% to 74% through the buying process before they speak with a salesperson. Buyers today do their research online. They check out your product, what your customers are saying about your company, your products and service, and they are doing searches on the salesperson individually. Over 90% of buyer’s today report they do not respond to cold calls. On the other side of this sales tug of war we have CEO’s and other senior team members concerned sales is leaving money on the table in how they price products. They are commonly concerned the sales team  is “selling on price” and not “selling on value.” To respond to this tug of war some salespeople often play “kick the can” with buyers and lose sales they could have won today and in the future.

When I was growing up in Cleveland Ohio a game we often played when the sun went down was kick the can. If you are not familiar with this game it is kind of like hide and seek. One person is “it” and everyone hides. The person who is “it” searches for those hiding and once found they must go back to home base, where there is a small can in the street. The game gets challenging when the person who is it, is out searching for more players, a non-captured player sneaks up to base and kicks the can freeing all those captured to hide once again. If you are “it” this game is very frustrating and would often last until our parents would call us home for the night. The more kids you had playing the more the can would be kicked and the odds of the person who was “it” ever getting to hide and have fun was rare.

When I first started my sales career we had all the information. There was no internet, chat rooms, social selling, LinkedIn industry groups or Twitter. You met with buyers, listened to problems and presented solutions. We had our sales bags with three ring binders full of sell sheets, data sheets and pricing. Buyers had to meet with you, or at least speak with you, to learn about products, and gather competitive information on the products they bought. We built relationships with buyers at target accounts and after answering the buyers’ questions over time you would work your way into an account. Buyers respected the reps who never gave up. Most reps, even today quit the sales process after two contacts but most buyers engage with new sales people after 8-12 interactions. Today however, not only are buyers searching for solutions long before they speak with a salesperson, they can conduct searches from their smart phones at any time of the day in an instant.

Buyers today have researched your product, your competitor’s product and have a perceived market price for your product or service before they speak with a salesperson. As Dave Meerman Scott shared this week’s in his post about the new edition of New Rules of Sales and Service : “many people are failing to engage their audiences by continuing to apply the old rules in a new age “.Unfortunately some salespeople are counting on getting a second chance to quote ( a second kick at the can)  and lead with a high price. They are counting on an old rule tactic of “kick the can pricing” and lose sales they could have won.

Not familiar with kick the can pricing?

It goes something like this….

A salesperson has been working an account for some time and gets an opportunity to quote a product or service. This same salesperson has heard from their leadership they need to sell on value and not price. If the salesperson does not know the market value or the value to the buyer for the product or service they quote at a high price with the assumption that if they quoted too high they will get “another kick at the can”, a second chance to quote. The trouble with the second kick at the can belief in today’s market is it just does not work. Just as sales has changed dramatically so has purchasing.

-Buyers are doing research and know a fair market value for your product or solution. Failure to fall in that range, unless you have a significant distinctive competence, breaks trust and you lose the sale (and probably all future quote opportunities).

-Buyers have seen more and more products being added to their responsibilities due to corporate consolidation. Their work load has increased based on the assumption they can leverage technology to do more with less. Buyers today want to source products that meet their buying criteria, solve purchase needs and move on to the next purchase. Kick the can pricing involves opening a purchase they have already solved. If you are trying this tactic, you must have a significant compelling reason to open a purchase they considered closed.

-Many buyers are buying just in time and make buying decisions quicker. By the time you try to kick the can again it probably has moved on.

-There are more people involved in the buying decision, particularly from new vendors. Buyers present their data and make buying recommendations to a team in some cases. The team decides who to purchase from. It is difficult (I have heard near impossible) to ask a buying committee to review a second quote from a salesperson playing kick the can.

-Buyers today often ask for proposals from 3-5 or more vendors and expect sales to lead with a price and service proposal based on the value their product or service provides. Their solution will be compared to the relative the market price the buyer discovered on their buying journey. When sales tries to kick the can, and ask for another try to win the order, they basically release all the prior captured quotes and free every other possible vendor to play the re-quote game.

-Buyers are looking for better solutions, a new supplier with a distinctive competence and if your product lacks one or has a dated value proposition, then all buyers can look at is price.

-Many buyers today have sophisticated purchasing systems that make it difficult to revisit a particular quote and some have estimator tools on what your selling price should be.

What’s the best solution to solve the “kick the can” pricing game in your organization?

Market knowledge…knowing your market, the value your product has to the customer, and having a clear value proposition.

Products today, more than ever before must be priced strategically based on the market value to the customer. Cost plus pricing and kick the can pricing games stopped working when the buying power shifted to the buyers.

Do your salespeople ask buyers for another kick at the can?

Does your sales team understand your value proposition?

Does your value proposition resonate with buyers today or is it dated?

How’s that working for you?

Has your sales close rate gone up or down in the last 12 months?

Do your buyers at your company allow salespeople to take a second (or third) kick at the can when they sell your organization?

How can we price products strategically in this “new world of sales and service?”

 

Just as buyers have more information readily available to them than ever before, sales and marketing teams also have data if they know where to look and learn to price their products and services strategically.This requires market knowledge , understanding the value your product provides to customers, and positioning .  Salespeople sell on price when they do not understand your value proposition or it no longer resonates with your buyers today.

How do you price strategically? That will be the topic of my next post.

 

Congratulations you are a Sales Manager…now what?

 

Only 40% of sales teams will achieve plan this year on average. Why will 60% of sales teams fail to hit plan this year? Have you recently been promoted to sales manager and you find yourself saying now what? Do you have sales managers reporting to you and you lack a sales background? Are you a sales manager looking for a road map on how to add the most value? If so this post is for you.

I just finished the book: The High Impact Sales Manager, a no-nonsense, practical guide to improve your team’s performance. The authors from the Sales Readiness Group defined the role of sales manager and built a strong foundation that defines the sales manager role and helps new sales managers have the greatest impact.

Where do most sales managers come from? Sales managers are often sales super stars who are promoted into management with little training and plan to achieve the sales goal. I have seen it repeated over and over again in the past 30 plus years…. A company has a sales super star that consistently hits or surpasses sales plan. They open more new business than their other team members, sell more new products at launch and their customers love them. The leaders of the company want every salesperson performing at their level so they promote the sales super star with the vision they will help the entire team operate as they have done.  However in the majority of these cases the new sales manager will fail. Why? This was your sales super star eight months ago…what changed? More important, what can we do to set new sales managers up to win in their role?

 

The authors describe the scenario of the top sales producer becoming the sales manager as the “Star Athlete Syndrome”. The sales star consistently produces to plan but grows tired of the daily grind of sales. They dream of moving up in the organization. After all how hard could sales management be? It sounds easy, almost intuitive…I know how to sell, I have demonstrated the ability to sell, …I can be a sales manager. If it is so easy why do so many sales super stars fail in the role of sales manager?

Answer: As a sales super star you drive results on your own. As a sales manager you must lead a team and drive results through (I prefer with) other people.

What is the definition of a sales manager?

A sales manager, someone who directs an organization’s sales team, oversees its processes, and is typically in charge of talent development and leadership, benefits by having clarity into the company’s future. As a sales manager oversees a company’s operations, an effective sales management process will allow them to drive their company forward. They’ll have a clearer vision of where they stand amongst their competition and know how to stay above their competition.  

The key words in this definition include: process, oversees, talent development and vision.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the roles of salespeople and sales managers in hopes of determining why the star athlete syndrome occurs so often.

To be an effective salesperson you need the following skills:

What skills are required to be an effective sales manager?

Can you see how there is a skills disconnect between a star salesperson and a sales manager? Is it any wonder sales managers who are not trained fail to produce high impact results?

The Authors of The High Impact Sales Manager do a great job of discussing this skills gap and they present a roadmap to becoming a top producing sales manager. I highly recommend this short book.

How about your team…

Will your sales team achieve sales plan this year?

Has your sales manager received training?

What are the most important tasks of a high impact sales manager?

If you research the word “sales “you will find millions of articles and advice on selling. If you look for “sales management” there is much less content and the content that does exist applies more to “general management” and not specifically sales management. This book will establish a foundation your sales managers can build upon and help them focus on the right activities and not get sucked into the daily grind and firefighting.

Fix Sales problems: Are “Gaps” Holding Your Sales Team Back This Year?

 

Do you have Gaps that need closed to improve your sales team’s performance this year? Is your team hitting their sales plan or do you have a sales problem that needs fixed? (and fast!) In this post I will share how identifying and closing three key Gaps will improve your team’s performance,  sales effectiveness and sales engagement.

I recently enjoyed the book: The Three Gaps, Are you making a difference? by Hyrum W. Smith. If you read my posts you know I like to read…Ok, I read a lot! This book was recommended in one of my social feeds and what captured my attention was the question: “Are you making a difference?” Isn’t that what we all really want at the end of the day?…to make a difference in our families, our church, our social networks and our work? Are you making a difference? The author shared in a quote…

“Inner peace comes from having serenity, balance, and harmony in our lives through the disciplined closing of three gaps”

  • Hyrum Smith

So what are these three gaps and how can I help close them to better serve others?

Values Gap

Time Gap

Beliefs Gap

Let’s unpack each one but really spend some time on the beliefs gap.

Values Gap

The values gap is the gap between what you value most, and what you are actually doing. It asks the question: How are you spending your time, energy and resources compared to where and how you want to be spending them? When you read the book the author does a great job of explaining this with a story of a beam stretched over a deep canon. Of all the crazy things to be afraid of, I am afraid of heights so this story really resonated with me. Would I run across this beam for $1000? …Probably not.  $10,000? $100,000? Now let’s add some new information…its pouring rain and winds are blowing 35 -50 mph…would you run across the beam for $ 1 million? Unfortunately I think my answer would be no. Now let’s change the scenario… I look across this deep cannon and a rain soaked beam and winds howling and see someone about to drop one of my children over the side…I would run across the beam!

“When daily Activities are in concert with your highest priorities, you have a credible claim to inner peace”

  • Hyrum Smith

 

Time Gap

For as long as I have led  teams I have heard; “ I don’t have the time to do all the things you are asking of me and have a life outside of work too” The truth is we are in absolute control of your time. Every minute, every second you are making decisions on how to spend your time. Right now you are choosing to spend time reading this content ( thanks by the way) but you are also choosing not to make that call to the new sales target, have that meeting with your underperforming sales regional manager and so on. I am choosing to write instead of watching TV right now. So we all have “time” it’s how we choose to spend it is the real issue. The author does a great job in sharing three principles to help us better manage time.

 

Beliefs Gap

This is my favorite gap and the one that I believe if we spend some time on closing we can help heal our companies, ourselves and help our sales teams get back on track. The author shares how we all have a beliefs window through which we see the world and it is a function of our age, life experiences, training and so on. Now picture this window with little see through pictures on it. These are your beliefs. I was taught at a seminar long ago: a thought, true or false, repeated over and over again becomes a belief.  So my challenge to you is what if you have incorrect beliefs on your window clouding how you see your market, your companies’ value proposition today, and your salespeople and so on? The author shares a simple test. If you want to know someone’s beliefs, check their behaviors. For example, I believe the best thing I can do to serve my company is be in the market meeting with customers and prospects listening for unresolved problems. I listen and ask questions about those problems, and even note the words they use to describe them. My friends at Pragmatic Marketing would say I am practicing “NIHOTO”. So it should not shock anyone I am writing this post from a Holiday Inn in Indianapolis after attending an industry trade show for one of our markets. If you look at my behavior: travel 50-60% of the time it shows you what I believe. The author also shares how our beliefs drive future behavior.

“Any belief that drives behavior that does not meet your basic needs over time is an incorrect belief”

  • Hyrum Smith

So let me ask you the million dollar (goal achieving) questions…

What do you believe about your markets?

What do you believe about your current customers?

What do you believe about salespeople?

What do you believe about your salespeople?

What do you believe about marketing?

How do you believe your buyers shop today?

 

Now let me ask one more question so you can get back in control of your time and serve someone…

Are your beliefs true (today)? Or are they based on some past experience or how we always to do things around here? How you answer will have more impact on your sales and future sales than you can imagine. If there are disconnects between what you as a leader in your organization believe and what is actually true it is negatively impacting your team’s performance. Your beliefs shape how you interact with team members and even the strategies you ask them to implement.

Let’s assume you are not from a sales and marketing background. Let’s assume you grew up through the ranks of your organization in other areas like accounting and maybe operations like a number of company leaders. Twenty years ago when you were working hard to serve your company, salespeople used to drive you nuts. They seemed to ask for things we were always out of stock on. They complained that what we just shipped was late and when it arrived it was defective and now the customer is upset. They all drove fancy foreign cars and when you were in accounting you saw those expense reports at expensive restaurants, golf and hotels. Or let’s say you had a bad experience with a poor example of a sales manager who only cared about his personal income, a commission junkie as I call them in other posts. So as you look through your window from now the CEO’s seat and you look through little snap shots, thoughts that you have repeated over and over again for the last 30+ years and you believe all salespeople are:

  • A pain to deal with…they are just different than everyone else
  • Always complaining, never happy
  • Are on the customer’s side and not yours
  • Not accountable
  • Commission junkie’s who only car about themselves and not the long term health of the organization
  • They lie
  • They sell on price not value
  • Spend company money foolishly
  • Feel free to fill in your own….

Can you see how those thoughts are plastered over and over again on your window explain why you don’t trust salespeople? (and why they don’t trust you?)

Chances are you probably have met poor salespeople who had bad behaviors ( like I have)  but I can assure you not all of us like that. The role of Sales has also changed over the years. Just look at the statistics on “the internet of things” and its impact on how buyers buy. Salespeople today have more resources to sharpen their saw and get more effective at their craft than ever before.

If you study why sales super stars leave organizations just like yours it might surprise you to learn it is not one of your possible beliefs: more money. (you can learn what it really is here) If you do not feel like checking out the link…the number one reason why sales super stars leave is their belief if you value them. So do you?

If you want to get the most out of your sales team it’s time to come clean. Scrub all those past thoughts repeated over and over again off your window and take the time to understand what your salespeople  and buyers are really like today and what they are doing and why. You need to practice what I refer to as clean sales management. Once you have done this, I highly recommend you and a few of your senior executives spend time meeting with customers and prospects in your markets to determine if your organizations ‘beliefs match who they really are today. I recommend you conduct win loss interviews or hire someone to do it for you and understand your markets today. They will tell you the unfiltered truth, the truth not clouded by your past.

This a great book and I highly recommend it to leaders or those wanting to be leaders to help you close the three key gaps that stand in the way of your success. We have all read articles on the impact engaged employees can have on the bottom line. Closing the 3 Gaps will fix your sales problems and help your organization get back on track to a profitable sales year.

This book is written on a much broader context to help you close three common gaps to help us as individuals. The author shares that getting our own life together is the first step in having a positive impact on the world. In this post I shared how to apply his content specifically to helping to heal sales problems.

Are Your Salespeople Guilty of “Sales Malpractice”?

 

How do market leading sales teams consistently achieve and surpass sales goals? What is the secret sauce…if there is one? Why do buyers buy? The main reason why buyers buy is a feeling of trust the salesperson understands their problem to be solved and what they are proposing will solve it completely. If your salespeople are not taking the time to qualify buyer pain they are guilty of “Sales Malpractice”.

Let’s say you were feeling off, just not right. You noticed a lack of energy and you occasionally felt dizzy.  This goes on for a while then you notice when you climb stairs you have a tightness in your chest. If you are like me, you probably ignore the symptoms and hope they go away. But then one day you mention them to your wife and the next thing you know you have an appointment at the doctor’s office.

You arrive and the doctor’s office and He or She quickly looks you over and starts talking…”I see you look to be in your 50’s or so? Based on my experience my patients in their 50’s have issues with blood pressure so here’s a prescription for Lisinopril  , and you look a bit overweight so you may have type 2 diabetes so I will prescribe Meltormin . You know, based on how you are dressed I am guessing you are a busy executive, and over the last 6 months I have seen a great deal of patients like you with anxiety so I will give you a prescription for Paxil. Oh and as we age, and if you have any history of heart disease I will give you a prescription for Coumadin. Please pay my office manager on the way out.”

Question: would you trust this doctor and fill the prescriptions?

I hope your quick answer is; NO!

Why?

I heard a great quote I want to share:

“Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice “

Is the doctor in the above example a bad person? No. Is there a high probability based on the frequency he or she sees people one of the above may solve your problem? Possibly? So where did they fail, why do you lack trust in their prescriptions? The simple answer is they did not take the time to understand you. They did not run tests to determine if the symptoms you are having can be tied to a specific problem. The doctor in the above example “assumed” what has worked for people who look like you will work for you.

“Mark, this is a crazy example, no doctor would do this, and they would be sued for malpractice!”

I hear you and you are right. Now let me ask you…

Are your salespeople guilty of malpractice?

Do you know?… I mean really know for sure?

What are some signs your salespeople are guilty of  Sales Malpractice?

  • Poor close rate on new customers
  • Lower than industry gross margins
  • Not prospecting the right customers
  • Having to deliver on promises your product or service was not designed to solve
  • Poor customer satisfaction survey results
  • Low repeat purchase percentage
  • New accounts slow to pay and or request return authorizations

If you ask salespeople why buyers buy and why they don’t you will often hear one of two reasons;

  • Price
  • Relationship with current vendor

If you ask buyers why they buy and why they don’t “price” is not on the list. You will hear things in the win loss call like;

  • Salesperson did not do their research on our company, asked me questions my web site could have answered
  • Salesperson did not understand the problem(s) I need to solve, so I did not trust their proposal ( prescription)
  • Salesperson assumed what my problems were and pitched me asking for my current vendors business.
  • Since I do not understand how this new salesperson and the company they represent are different, all I can do is compare price

Years ago I heard a great quote: “Salespeople are like water and they seek the path of least resistance” If you are a salesperson you have that sales goal monkey on your back. You are accountable to a specific number and everyone in the company sees your results and asks questions if you fail sell. A common problem I have seen salespeople do is what we refer to as “spill their candy in the lobby” in hopes of closing sales faster.

When salespeople meet with buyers they have a bag of offerings (their candy) they can offer. Maybe it’s an onsite audit of your current system for free for a large commitment. Maybe they can offer extended terms if they need to. Your company may have the ability to do 100% outgoing product inspection, and if it’s a retail product your sales may be  empowered to offer free ½ page ad to support a large enough order.   The salesperson is so anxious to sell and get their goal monkey off their back they proceed to spew all offerings hoping one or more connects. In my training I refer to this also as “Feature and Benefit BINGO”. As I shared in a video in 2010;

Feature and benefit BINGO is a game untrained salespeople play far too often. They “show up and then they throw up” and they spew all the features and benefits they can think of waiting for your buyer to jump up and yell”…BINGO….I get it….I figured out what problems you can solve for me…”

Will a salesperson occasionally make a sale this way? Sure. What I recommend is teaching your salespeople meaningful questions by market and by buyer persona type that helps them clearly and completely understands the buyer’s pain. If your salespeople fail to understand pain they are guilty of Sales Malpractice and it will cost you….

  • Sales you could have won
  • Profits if you win the sale
  • Customer retention
  • And worst of all cause” brand damage”

How about your company….

Are your salespeople guilty of Sales Malpractice?

Have you experienced any of the above signs of Sales Malpractice?

Have you seen other signs of Sales Malpractice?

Our markets are more competitive than ever before in the history of your business. Your buyer’s problems change and your salespeople must be skilled at asking questions, qualifying pain and prescribing solutions that make that pain go away. The quickest way to see if your salespeople are spilling their candy in the lobby is attend 7-10 sales calls with them. Once you train your team to diagnose buyer current pain you will be back on track to achieving your sales objectives.

Photo credits http://www.abpla.org/what-is-malpractice

Does Your Website Clearly Convey Your Brand Promise?

leatherBeltsCOL667_large

 

How do you compete with huge accounts that seem to have bottomless pits when it comes to advertising and media buys?…Smart internet marketing! The average buyer decides if a web site is right for them in 3 seconds to 1 minute. As I shared some time ago: you have a minute to win it when it comes to online sales. How do market leading companies insure buyers find what they are shopping for quickly, stay on their website and buy? I found a new company that clearly understands how to sell products online: Buffalo Head Leather.

As I watch retailers scrambling for position in the minds of buyers for black Friday sales I can’t help but be somewhat amused by the poor branding and positioning. Do these retailers who now sell online not understand marketing and positioning or they have become so lazy and complacent they just hope throwing it on the wall to see if it sticks is good marketing? Are they now aware that up to 60% of the buying process is completed online before a buyer interacts with your company?

When I look at the ads and the visual imagery chosen to sell a particular product I often wonder what if any consideration occurred for the brand of the retailer and the product when designing the communication? Who are their buyer personas? How well do they know them?  The ads that now fill my newspaper, television and websites I visit are all the same. They have dumb-ed down their marketing, positioning and branding as if they assume “everyone “could be a customer.

So imagine my delight in finding a new company online: Buffalo Head Leather. This new company makes and sells leather belts, wallets, key holders and accessories made from buffalo hides. When you visit their website they clearly understand the importance of imagery to support your brand and positioning. In addition this site loads fast. More searches are now done on mobile devices than desktops. I have read studies that share you web site has 3 seconds to load or a consumer will quickly bounce to the next site listed in their Google search. This site loads quickly and it was designed to be mobile friendly. Web sites that are not mobile friendly are quickly becoming invisible as I shared in a post titled; Is your web site invisible.

When I found this new company they obviously have done their homework in terms of marketing specific to branding, positioning, their ideal customer and buyer personas. The imagery found on this site says to me;

  • We make a high quality product that is competitively priced
  • Our research shows to target men
  • Our products for successful people who value quality
  • We did research and it showed consumers have a concern that Buffalo’s are endangered
  • The shopping experience is easy and fast
  • We believe in creating images and content so our customers can easily share us
  • We are not the cheapest

This site reminded me how new companies often execute better than companies who have served markets for years. New companies understand the market today and do their research. New companies take the time to define their buyer personas and their imagery and content supports their brand and positioning. I just ordered a book titled Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper (and what to do about it). I look forward to reading this book and discussing this topic future posts.

I was so impressed by marketing strategy well executed and the quality of their products I reached out to the company. I spoke with one of their owners who has experience in marketing buyer personas and visual imagery. I asked if my perception of what he was communicating online was correct and I think he was surprised how much I knew about his brand after just a few minutes on his website.

Below are a few of the questions I asked:

Any challenges in his market verification stage? He shared that when they tested their messaging prior to launch a common concern buyers expressed was a perception that buffalo leather was stiffer than cow hide leather and actually the opposite was true so he directed me to a web page that shares the difference and how products made from buffalo are actually softer.

I noticed you are not the only site or the first site, how do you plan to compete? Authentically sharing who we are, what we represent and everything we do is about a total quality experience. We are committed to knowing are targeted buyers and helping them buy , helping them shop.

What else? We believe in speaking to communities, the “tribes” Seth refers to. We have a facebook page, a newsletter, pinterest and instagram presence.

Why pinterest and instagram when your buyer persona is successful men who value quality products? Our research showed men want quality products, accessories if you will. Some shop searching for imagery and clicking pictures that match what they are looking for hoping the image brings them to a site to purchase. More importantly, we found successful men are hard to buy for, and women often shop for gifts for them on line. So based on how many women use pinterest and instagram we had to establish a presence there.

 

How about your web site?

 

Does the imagery speak to your buyer personas?

 

Does your web site proactively speak to concerns your buyers have that interrupts their buying process?

 

Is your web site mobile friendly?

 

Is your company at risk of a branding and positioning savvy new competitor entering your market and being 10 times better and faster?

 

 

Does your website imagery and content clearly convey your brand promise?

 

Congratulations to the buffalo head leather team for doing your market work prior to launch and positioning your products. It is time we all take the time and clearly understand our markets, buyers and buyer personas. We must create content and imagery that quickly resonates with our targeted buyers or they will find another site that does.

How do I  correct sales problems after a market shift?

 

foccet

Your sales team was aligned and equipped to have a strong sales growth year. Your team created sales playbooks, buyer personas and new sales tools to insure you hit your sales goal (this time). Your team was building a strong momentum and then it feels like someone turned off the sales faucet. What just happened? What probably occurred is your team has experienced a market shift. How do you fix sales after a market shift? In this post I will share the strategy I have used when we experienced a market shift. ( and it’s not likely you are starting in the right place)

 

Before we discuss the strategy to refocus your sales efforts I want to remind you of a quote from my last post that shared various caused of market shifts. I used the below quote for years as a filter when asked to help companies in the middle of a market shift or more often after a market shift.

 

“Are you prepared to stake everything, change anything, and do whatever it takes— even if it means altering long familiar habits, redeveloping precious programs, and redeploying sacred assets?”             

  – Tom Bandy

A market shift will cause your company to change and adapt to the new reality. The degree of the shift and the severity of the shift’s impact on sales performance will determine just how much your team will need to adapt.

 

I can hear some skeptics saying …”We have been doing business this way for 15 years and we do not need to change, we need to wait until the market goes back to normal” The trouble is when your market shifts, you will never go back to normal.

 

Don’t believe me when I say  how much markets change and shift? OK, how many people reading this have a Myspace account? From 2005 to 2008 Myspace was the most visited website in the United States, even more than Google! Today? Myspace is ranked 1272 on most visited website. What happened? A shift! New companies felt the shift and created products buyers wanted to buy.

 

Or listen to a leader who transformed shopping with Zappos.com.

“There’s a trans-formative shift in business, and what worked before is no longer an option. It’s time for evolved entrepreneurs, visionary creators, and change makers to rewrite the rules of business for the 21st century.”

Tony Hsieh,  CEO of Zappos.com

 

Or read one of my past posts about when sales plans fail and how to adapt.

 

Do you agree markets shift ?

 

 

Assuming you are willing to adapt and change: “how we have always done things around here” in this post I will share the process I have used over the years to help sales teams fix sales problems due to a market shift.

 

 

 

 

Meet with your key customers who represented 80% of your sales opportunity before the shift. What you are looking for in these meetings is to clearly understand what shift occurred, when, and more importantly how your buyers plan to react to this shift.  Having faced market shifts many times the first reaction for most sales teams is to target new customers. You may need to do this if your current market is not likely to produce sales to meet your sales goals. You must clearly understand what changed, how your buyers are and have reacted to that change.

 

 

Improve overall buying experience. Take the information you have gathered and update the way you deliver solutions to your market based on the way they want to buy and receive them.

 

Explore for technology shifts. Was the shift due to a technology shift? (72%) of business leaders think technology will transform their company’s competitive landscape in the coming years according to an IBM report .

 

While meeting with your key accounts ask if there are other departments within their organization that would value your team’s distinctive competence. Why? One of the reasons why buyers do not buy is risk. Can this new vendor execute what they are promising? Is their quality as good as they say? Will it be easy to work with them of difficult? The more a buyer feels there is risk the less likely they are to engage with a new vendor. The exception occurs when you are a:”vendor of record”. Your company is  in their system. You are set up to receive purchase orders, get paid and so on. Assuming you have done a great job you can share your on time service statistics, your billing accuracy and have your other buyers refer you.

 

Based on meeting with your accounts you need to gather what you learned and create the following I shared In a post some time ago :

 

Write a market truths document based on gathered current data

 

Highlight strategies and tactics in your current sales plans that are no longer in alignment with the market of today

 

Asses your internal truths, capabilities, discard action items that do not support your objectives

 

If your team lacks a motivation to serve your market, create one

 

Determine your ideal customer profile

 

Write a plan you will execute based on the information you have gathered from the market and your capabilities. (allow some flexibility, design your sales plan to be Agile)

 

 

Once you complete the above you need to determine if making adjustments in your current markets with current customers will provide sufficient sales opportunity to achieve your sales goal. If yes proceed with executing your plan and you will not need the following steps.

 

After you have gathered your current market truths and internal truths and you determine your market does not have the opportunity necessary to achieve your sales goals please continue with this process and complete the following steps:

 

 

 

Find other accounts in the same market you have not sold yet. In most of the companies I have helped their “customers” have represented 20% to 30% of the entire market. In this step you will identify other accounts in the same market that are likely to have similar problems as the account(s) you have been selling. Keep in mind when business slows down buyers have time. They have time to meet with new vendors and they often have new goals like specific cost savings targets. When you discover this to be the case make sure the solutions you propose are shared in a way that speaks to the buyer’s company and personal goals.

 

Explore surrounding markets that include accounts buying products like those you supply. I look for adjacent markets that are interconnected to the markets I have been serving.

 

Expand your search for new markets that have similar problems your current market has. The key is to clearly understand your companies’ distinctive competence. What is your product or services’ value proposition? Is that value transferable into new markets? Ideally you want to find one to three accounts and test your assumption. In this process you will learn new information and a new language for the new market. Assuming your test clearly demonstrates value, you will want to scale that solution in the language of this new market.

 

Design new Innovate solutions if your current products no longer solve your current customer’s problems.

 

Share innovative new products in your current markets.

 

Share product innovations in adjunct markets

 

Share product innovations in new markets

 

As you lead your team through the above process you need to stop when a step will achieve your desired sales goals. For example, let’s say as you explored adjacent markets and you found a number of new accounts who agree with your value proposition, have agreed to buy your products and their sales will help you meet goal. Stop and execute.  Stop following the steps and focus on executing in the adjacent market. Why? Why wouldn’t you have us do all of the above just to play it safe? Three reasons;

 

Focus – you want to lead your sales team with as clear a focus as possible. When you lack focus your team will be “very busy” but fail to achieve desired results.

 

ROI- The farther your team expands from your known core business the less RIO you will realize in the short term.

 

Timing – Often when sales teams experience a problem they have a short window to fix the sales problem. The farther you move from your core the longer it will take to win sales.

 

 

Have your sales taken a downward turn?

 

Did your sales team experience a recent market shift?

 

How does your sales team fix sales problems due to a market shift?

 

We serve dynamic markets and we need to expect them to change. When you experience a  market shift the key to reacting and fixing your sales is clearly understanding the shift and having a systematic approach to finding new sales to insure your sales goals are still achieved. Most inexperienced sales managers will quickly launch into a new market. Why take this strategy that has a history of the slowest contribution, lower ROI per sales transaction and highest risk when a current market or a market close to your core will fix your sales problem? The above is the process I have used for years and I welcome comments on other processes and advice for when market shifts occur.

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