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17 Benefits Of Voice Of Customer

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

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

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

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

3.Leverage Customer Voice into “Explosive Sales Growth”

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

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

6.Voice of the Market Identifies Key Buying Triggers

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

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

9.Voice of Customer Finds “Sales Secret Weapons”

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

11.Improve Sales Productivity With Voice of the Customer Research

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

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

14.Customer Voice Research Identifies Content Buyers Need Today

15.Identify Purchase Influencers with VOC

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

17 Voice of your customer identifies new markets and channels

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

How often do you conduct this research?

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

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

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

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

Identify Purchase Influencers with VOC

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One of the leading reasons why sales do not grow as planned is something changed and your team did not adapt. Your salespeople are selling like they have been trained and coached to sell but it is no longer effective. Companies who identify change(s) and more importantly adapt to changes hit their numbers. Understanding the voice of your customer today empowers your team with current buyer information. In this post I will share how the voice of your customer helps your team identify buying influencers.

In my last post I shared how understanding the voice of your customers helps your team create content your buyers need when they buy. Companies who clearly understand what buyers must have to make a purchase today create new content that is used on their web sites and in sales tools to help move buyers through the sales funnel to a closed sale.

Understanding the voice of your customer also helps teams identify people who influence a purchase decision today.

What is an Influencer?

The influencer-marketing manifesto by Brian Solis shares:

“Influence is the ability to cause effect or change behavior. Influence is not the act of trying to influence. Nor is an influencer someone who simply has a lot of followers. It should be very clear. Someone who influences does so because they have the capacity to have effect on something…”

What do companies who focus on influencer marketing have to say?

81% of marketers who have executed Influencer Marketing campaigns agree that influencer engagement is effective

65% of brands have plans to spend more on Influencer Marketing this year vs. last

Influencer marketing guide

Ad weeks shared an article that Influencer marketing is the next big thing in marketing. The article went on to share …

“There are few things that drive a sale more effectively than a warm word-of-mouth recommendation. A study by McKinsey found that “marketing-induced consumer-to-consumer word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising.” And of those that were acquired through word-of-mouth had a 37 percent higher retention rate.

Influencer marketing presents a glaring opportunity for brands to leverage the power of word-of-mouth at scale through personalities that consumers already follow and admire.”

I was asked to help a company that manufactured wheelchair accessible vehicles grow their sales. We spent a considerable amount of time out in the market speaking with consumers in wheelchairs to understand..

Why they buy?

Why they don’t buy?

What is their buying process?

What are the key criteria they must have to buy?

Who are the leading influencers in your purchase?

We discovered for consumers who recently started using a wheelchair because of a medical condition and or an accident their influencers included certified driving instructors, association groups like the MDA, MS Society, Veterans Association , personal injury attorneys and many more. However one key influencer they all shared was their rehabilitation therapist. As one consumer shared with me…

“When I need something or face a new challenge I turn to my rehabilitation therapist who taught me how to get dressed or take a bath again…”

We developed and initiated an influencer-training program where our regional mangers would conduct in service trainings at rehabilitation clinics and educate one of our top buying influencers about our vehicles. We shared how they worked, the right vehicle based on the five most common buyer personas and provided education and information. We connected training and education with these influencers with our local mobility dealers. Our local mobility dealers did a great job of building a relationship with therapists and were on call to answer any questions they may have.

The key to influencer marketing is education or as I share in my next book: “Serve don’t sell”. The quickest way to shut down an influencer is if you start selling.

Your mission is to provide much needed information and education the influencer can share. If you have created new content as I recommended in my last post you can leave that content with your influencers and or show them where they can find it so they can share it.

What our dealers experienced over time was consumers coming into their dealerships already sold so to speak. Their leading influencers shared our dealer who they had a relationship of trust with. The therapists shared content specific to what consumers needed to make a buying decision.

Understanding the voice of your customers identifies leading buying influencers in the purchase process.

Who are the leading influencers for your buyers?

Does your team strategically educate and share content with influencers?

Does your team understand the voice of your customers today?

Influencers play I critical role in the purchase decision today. As markets shift and change, influencers also change.

Make it a key initiative for your team to understand the voice of your customers today and whom they turn to as purchase influencers.

Customer Voice Research Identifies Content Buyers Need Today

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Companies who understand the current voice of their customers and markets outperform teams who keep selling the way we have always sold. Customer voice research helps your team identify shifts in how buyers buy today and the criteria they must have to make a buying decision.

In my last post I shared how understanding the current customer voice helps sales teams spend more time selling and less time searching for and creating content.

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

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

What about benefits to your buyers?

How can understanding the voice of your customers and voice of your markets help your buyers?

In a recent article by Sales Benchmark Index they shared how buyers only have so much time to search for information. The article shares how one company uses content to help buyers solve problems.

“For content marketing to generate revenue you must know exactly what your customers need, where they need it, how often they need it, and in what form they need to consume it. Miss any of these items and your content marketing efforts will fail to contribute to revenue growth in any meaningful way.”

Steve Keifer/Leaseaccelerator

If your team clearly understands why your buyers buy, why they don’t buy and the criteria they need to buy it puts you far ahead of your competitors to capture buyer mind share.

With as much as 57%-70% of the buying process occurring before a buyer speaks with a salesperson, market leading teams take the time to understand what their buyers need to buy today. Teams create content based on the feedback received from customer voice research. They update their sales tools and web site to include the content your buyers are searching for.

What content is your buyer actively searching for today to make a buying decision?

What criteria does your buyers need today?

Does your website provide content your buyers are searching for?

Who will buyers perceive as a market leader…someone with the perfect content they must have today, or a company that is not even found in their online research?

Capturing the voice of your customers today helps you understand how your buyer buys. In that buying journey it often includes research for meaningful content they must have to make a buying decision. When buyers find that content on your web site it starts to build trust with them.

Spend time understanding the voice of your customers and develop content that helps them buy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My what if questions are …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why do buyers buy from your company?

Why don’t buyers buy from your company?

What does the buying journey look like today?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Improve Sales Productivity With Voice of the Customer Research

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Each year sales reps hit the streets armed with their new goals and striving to hit their numbers. The sad reality is close to 80% will not hit plan. Why? There are many reasons but the leading cause is they are using dated value propositions. Your sales team is saying what they have said for years and it does not resonate with buyers today. In this post I will share how to leverage the voice of the customer to improve sales productivity by understanding your customers today.

I read an excellent report: The State of Sales Productivity report. This repost is the result of the authors surveying a number of sales leaders to understand how they plan to achieve their new sales goals. 56% of sales representatives are expected to hit a sales growth goal of 20% higher than last year. What gives me pause is close to 80% of those same teams failed to hit their number in the last sales calendar year. How can VP’s of Sales and Marketing change this trend?

In my last few posts I have been sharing the dramatic sales increases companies can realize once they capture the voice of their customers and markets today. As I have shared the key part of that thought is the word “today”.

With voice of the customer / market work you will understand:

Why your buyers buy from you and why they don’t?

What is your buyers buying process today?

What criteria do your buyers need today to make buying decisions?

With this information you will create a repeatable sales process that mirrors how your buyers are buying today, and create new sales tools that proactively provide the key buying criteria.

Once you create this for your sales team we must conduct sales training to insure your salespeople understand the sales process and are aware of the new sales tools, where to find them, and how and when to use them.

Voice of the customer work improves your sales teams’ overall productivity!

What percent of the time are your salespeople actually presenting and selling customers?

I have seen some teams where sales spend less than 20% of their time actually selling. In the report mentioned above they found salespeople spend 32% of their time selling. Having been the president for two companies and CEO for one, this is the kind of data that drives me nuts!

What are my salespeople doing most of the time?

Searching for data and content to help them sell, 30% of the time
If they can’t find it they are creating their own content (that should really scare you)
Updating CRM and reports
Administrative duties
Customer service functions

Sales spends as much time selling as they do searching for meaningful content and or creating their own sales tools.

That’s a broken unproductive sales model.

In this report 79% of sales leaders plan to hit their numbers by improving sales productivity.

62% said they plan to increase head count.

What if sales were spending 60% of their time selling this year?

*30% of the time selling as they have been

* And 30% more time selling because they are trained in the right sales process and where the right content tools can be found

In a recent post I share one company I helped that sold training. We conducted customer win loss interviews; mapped how the buyers were buying today and identified the HR managers had experienced a shift, a roundabout in the sales funnel where sales stalled and spun out of the funnel. HR managers now needed to get budget approval from the CFO and or CEO. (Something that was not the case prior). We listened for places in the sales funnel where sales experienced roundabouts and created tools to keep the sales on track to a close. We created content. We developed a very short slide deck to help the HR manager win budget for our training. We adjusted the sales process and introduced the instructor earlier in the process. We conducted sales training and shared the new sales process with our team, the slide deck for HR managers and other key content to be used in the trust building early funnel activities as well as case studies to be used after our quote. Within months we experienced a 200% sales increase.

Was our process perfect out of the gate? No, but we were experienced significantly improved sales close rates. I coached sales to adopt the new sales process and challenged them when I saw they shifted back to old sales tools or created their own.

We kept listing to our buyers, adjusting and experimenting with content until we consistently realized our sales objectives. This took a focused effort for over 12 months and after 12 months are team was breaking monthly sales records.

What percent of the time are your salespeople selling today?

How does your team measure sales productivity?

Do you track team and individual close rates for example?

To close this report also shared that 80% organizational leaders felt creating meaningful content and helping sales find it was a top priority.

However only 35% of those surveyed had a plan to do so.

Let me help your team improve sales productivity and not have to keep hiring more people.

Spend the time capturing the voice of your customer. Once you understand how your buyers buy, the journey they take, and the criteria they must have you will be able to create a repeatable sales process and sales tools that help your buyers buy. Your process will be a GPS system that takes your team, step by step to closing more sales.

I would appreciate your feedback…

What would be a good reason not to do this and set your sales team up to hit their numbers this year?

Understanding your customers and markets creates a foundation for a sales business development plan that creates sales velocity for your organization.

Speed of Trust and Sales

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In my last post I shared why most sales are lost is: Trust. Although salespeople and even buyers may say price, the real reason you did not win the sale in most cases is the buyer did not trust that your proposal would solve their problem. In this post I will share an excellent book: The Speed of Trust, the one thing that changes everything, by Steven Covey and how to apply its wisdom to increasing your sales.

How much time and effort does your team dedicate to establishing trust with your customers and markets?

Companies that understand the importance of building trust with their internal and external customers thrive.

Could growing sales and leading people really be that simple?

From what I have experienced over the last 30+ years I believe it is.

I have been read the book: The Speed of Trust, by Steven Covey over the holidays. I highly recommend this book to anyone who leads a team, and anyone who sells products or services.

The Harvard Business Review just published an article referencing this book focused on how if your employees don’t trust you its up to you to fix it.

If that is a problem you have in your team I recommend you read this article.

In this post I want to discuss how to build and leverage trust to help your team win sales quicker and more profitably.

Steven Covey shares:

“When trust goes down (in a relationship, on a team, in an organization, or with a partner or customer), speed goes down and cost goes up.… The inverse is equally true: When trust goes up, cost goes down, and speed goes up.”

I can confirm this is true based on my experiences. When I have served leaders who trusted their teams, and teams who trusted our leaders we accomplished record setting accomplishments in sales, market share gains, increased profitability, quality, buying experience and overall team morale. If things went wrong or not as expected, (and they often did) we had a culture that focused on the problem not the person. One outcome of this culture was employees freely sharing mistakes they made and we all learned from them and made corrective action. In our meetings we discussed things that mattered and were not weighted down by hiding political secrets that were an issue but no one wanted to touch them. The same is true with customers. I have served some large accounts and once trust is built we talk about things that matter. Customers who have trust buy more and openly share new problems that often turn into new products an services. As i shared in one post, a new market problem turned into a $38 million sales increase in 18 months.

Covey does an excellent job of discussing how a lack of trust adds friction. Friction can be caused by unethical behavior or ethical behavior that that was not executed properly.

In companies with low trust they see friction that slows down or even halts their progress.

The author shares;

“Low trust creates hidden agendas, politics, interpersonal conflict, interdepartmental rivalries, win-lose thinking, defensive and protective communication – all of which reduce the speed of trust.”

On the other hand, when trust is high you loose friction and realize speed.

“the greatest trust-building key is “results”. Results build brand loyalty. Results fire up a winning culture. Consistent results also put suppliers under the main tent as strategic partners, which is so vital in this new world class, knowledge-worker-based, global economy”

Steven Covey

What can we do to build trust with our customers to drive results?

Work on a trust culture in your business

I have seen companies identify in their value statements the importance of integrity and ethics in everything they do. Where the rubber meets the road is when something goes wrong. How does your company behave internally? How you behave sets the tone, and your salespeople carry that behavior into the market place.

Some sobering statistics on trust:

Only 51% of employees have trust and confidence in senior management
Only 36% of employees believe their leaders act with honesty and integrity
Over the past 12 months 76% of employees have observed illegal or unethical conduct on the job
So chances are you have some degree of trust issues too both inside and outside your organization
Less than 20% of sales teams hit their number in 2016 ( buyer trust issues?)

Hire the right people

Make trust, ethics and integrity a key part of your hiring process. One bad hire can contaminate an entire department and if left unchecked your whole company over time.

Training

Train your teams to act in a manner that builds trust. For example I am amazed how many salespeople feel they must have all the answers. So when asked a question they wing it and it often breaks trust. If you train your teams it is OK (safe) to admit they do not know the answer but they will follow up with the answer. I have seen sales people commit to a delivery date there is no way their team can execute so they don’t lose a sale. Be honest, if you can’t make this orders arrival date tell them what you can do. Even if you lose this order, you will be able to quote future business. Lie, and you have broken trust with that buyer and you may not ever have another sales opportunity. Train your teams to understand how your buyers buy and the criteria they need to buy today.

Coaching

When trust is seen as important it is very easy to recognize situations that violate trust. Should one occur it should be handled immediately. Discuss what just happened, why it was wrong, reinforce your companies focus on trust and integrity and share a better way this situation could have been handled. Using a coaching tone also builds internal trust and reinforces that trust and integrity is not just today’s buzz words and will fade away. They are seen as a critical component in our team’s success.

Content

One of the quickest ways I have seen teams build trust with new customers is understanding their buying process and criteria and providing content that supports what the buyers need. Most web sites for example spend way too much time talking about …best in class, best quality, we have been in business for 80 years and so on. Buyers want solutions to their problems and companies who have experience solving their problems. That is why I advise the teams to update their web sites and all sales tools designed to share the problems they solve. I recommend this be done with data sheets, third party studies, case studies, customer testimonials and past customer success stories. This content will also be used as sales tools for your salespeople when prospecting new customers.

Do what you say you will do

Trust is built over time. In a sales environment it’s about doing what we say we will do. If you say you will follow up on next Tuesday, do it. If you promise your order will arrive on the 15^th make sure it does. A big part of this is your sales teams clearly understanding your company’s capabilities. If a salesperson does not understand your company’s capabilities today they run the risk of promising something your team cannot execute and this breaks trust. Salespeople run the risk of promising something that was once true and may not be true today. If you ask for a 20-minute meeting to present your company end the meeting at 20 minutes. If the buyer wants it to go longer that’s fine, but you are doing what you said you would do.

Truth

Take a hard look at all your company’s communication and make sure it is true…today. Nothing breaks trust quicker than stating something that is no longer true. I was in a meeting once and the salesperson said, what he was trained to say 15 years ago…”our company is the only company in North America with these capabilities”. That statement was true 15 years ago, but the buyer had completed her research and shared 3 other companies now offering it in North America. Make sure all your communications are true today.

The above are ways I have helped teams improve their trust with their customers and markets and increase sales and profits. The author shares 13 behaviors of high trust in his book.

Steven Covey does an excellent job of bringing home the financial implications of trust with the concept of a trust tax. Many of the teams I have served were led by someone who grew up through the organization in the accounting and finance side. I think this chapter will really get their attention.

“ in many interactions, we are paying a hidden low-trust tax right off the top-and we don’t even know it!”

Covey shares that the trouble is low-trust taxes are not a line item on your financial statements, if they were many more companies would focus on reducing their trust tax.

“- in a low trust culture, it’s possible that your being taxed 30,40,50 percent or more for something you didn’t even do”

…and that impacts both sales and profitability!

The author also shares the upside of high trust…

“ When trust is high, the dividend you receive is like a performance multiplier, elevating and improving every dimension of your organization and your life”

I hope you buy The Speed of Trust and apply it to your company and how you serve your customers and markets.

As we begin a new year why wouldn’t you make building trust in all you do a key priority?

Personal and professional credibility are key in winning in our markets today.

Make it a key objective of yours to build trust and watch your team thrive.

Avoid “Mariah New Years Eve Moments” on Sales Calls with Market Research

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Why are some sales won and others lost? If you ask salespeople they tell you “price” is why sales are lost. However if you ask buyers “trust” is why sales are lost. The buyer did not feel your salesperson understood the entire buying iceberg, so they did not trust their proposed solution. In my last few posts I shared how understanding customer voice drives profitable sales. In this post I will share how it feels when sales does not understand their market and buyers and the impact it has on hitting their (your) numbers.

It was New Years Eve 2016 and my wife and I decided to make a fire in the fireplace, have a nice dinner at home for a change and watch the ball drop in New York City. We flipped between channels and watched various entertainers. For the past week the TV stations have been building up for Mariah Carey ‘s performance New Years Eve. Mariah took the stage and if you watched the show it was by far the most uncomfortable performance have ever seen.

We had such high expectations based on her singing abilities and the build up to this presentation. It was terrible! In her defense there were a number of technical difficulties like not being able to hear her music, the songs were in the wrong order and so on. She has an amazing vocal gift as an artist and this performance was not representative of her gifts. She looked beautiful but from the beginning of the performance to the end it was awkward at best. She tried to find her place in the song and regroup but failed. She tried to move around the stage and even tried a few dance moves and one of the other dancers almost dropped her. She eventually asked the audience to sing her song and at the end walked of the stage.

My wife and I were both so disturbed by how awkward that experience felt for us. My wife is a Mariah fan and felt bad about her technical difficulties. I shared the reason you practice and have training is not for when things go right, but its for when things like this go wrong.

Did you watch the attempted performance? If not you can view it here since social media was lighting up during and many hours after.

How did it make you feel,.. I mean feel inside?

It felt uncomfortable, awkward, and if you are like my wife you may even feel a bit sorry for her because we know she is much better than what we just experienced.

How you feel watching this is the feeling I get when I help sales teams who attempt to sell buyers but have dated value propositions, no formal sales process, and little if any sales tools or training for how buyers buy today.

One of roles when I help teams increase sales and fix sales a problem is assess and coach salespeople. I do this with a review of their KPI’s, past account feedback, CRM activity, but my favorite way is on four legged sales calls with them and their customers and prospects.

I use these joint calls to capture the current voice of the customers and markets, and I want to see (feel) if the salespeople are presenting their buyers in a trust building authentic way or does it feel canned, awkward, dated and not what the buyers need today.

When traveling with salespeople look for:

Conversation tone, comfortable and authentic?
Market and customer knowledge?
What sales tools were used(if any)?
Trust building conversation, use of stories and case studies?
Product knowledge / service knowledge?
Customer knowledge by salesperson?
Sales tools used at the right time?
Was the day planned well?
Active listening to understand not to just reply?
Buyer non verbal communication?
What sales tools were used?
Did the salesperson know how to get to the account (don’t laugh I have seen this too)?
Did sales ask questions and take notes?
Did buyer(s) ask any questions about product or service we could not answer?
Did buyer require some criteria we were not prepared to deliver?
Understand key buying criteria and rank them?
Did we find all players involved in buying decision?
What are the competitors doing well?
Did the person we met with have the power to buy?
Does sales understand any shifts in buying at their accounts?
Would I buy from this salesperson?

I prefer to be in the market with my sales teams constantly learning how buyers are buying and what they need to buy today. I prefer to experience what our buyers hear and feel and coach sales quickly after each sales call.

After each buyer call I make it a practice to have a coaching opportunity with the salesperson:

How do you think the call went? ( do they know a good call from a poor one?)
What do you think the buyers biggest pain is today?
What did you hear the competitors are doing well?
How do you think your presentation went?
If you had to do it over again is there anything you would change?
What are our follow up items?
What new pain did we discover?
When do they need our follow up?
Are we dealing with power?
On a scale of 1% to 100% what % to you believe we will win this opportunity and why?

If your team has recently conducted market research in the form of customer voice work, win loss analysis, and or a value proposition audit your salespeople know their markets, common problems you solve for your buyers and have strong value propositions they often share in the form of stories. Because your team understands the buying journey and criteria today, you have the right sales tools that are used at the right time and you win sales.

What kind of sales calls are your team members having with buyers in your markets today?

A quick example…

I was asked to help a company whose sales were climbing consistently for years but then stalled for the last three years. I was asked to help get sales growing profitably again in the quickest way possible. As I have shared, the first step of my process understand market truth by meeting with customers and prospects. I asked the CEO who was his top performing regional manager because I wanted to experience what was working so we could scale it. I made arrangements to travel with Jason who has been a regional manager with this company for 20 years and has two of the company’s top customers.

Jason picked me up at the airport and we were off to the first meeting. On the way Jason was a very likable guy and was really curious about why I asked to travel with him first since he was one of the first regional managers. I shared that the CEO really valued him and I thought I could learn a great deal quickly working with him. We made small talk on the 90-minute drive and I heard about his career with the company, all the changes he has seen and how strong his relationships were with all his customers.

Our first call was with the company’s second largest account in North America. As soon as Jason turned the engine off his car door was opening and he was ready to charge in. I asked he slow down and help me understand what we hope to achieve in this call today. So Jason got back in the car and seemed somewhat aggravated.

The conversation went like this:

What’s our plan?

We are calling on our second largest account.

What do we hope to achieve?

Introduce you to account and follow up from my last meeting a month ago.

What did you present a month ago?

Our new product launching this month, the buyer promised to support it.

Great, so your goal today is to walk out with orders or a commitment to buy?

(Another awkward look) well let’s see how it goes this guy loves working with me and I am sure we will win some orders.

We signed in and were escorted to a very impressive conference room. I opened my note pad and got prepared to meet with the buyer. Lou the buyer came in and had a number of people with him: the engineering director, their sales manager, and the director of customer service and training.

Jason started out introducing me and letting me ask a few questions as the “new guy”.

Jason asked the buyer the status with the pre-order for the new product launch. He said everyone at our company is looking forward to his continued support and we want to make sure we ship you on time.

The room was like someone sucked all the air out of it. Everyone, from a non-verbal communications, was uneasy. The director of engineering was looking at our buyer; the buyer looking at customer service manager and the sales manger was visibly frustrated. Even Jason looked uncomfortable, as his face grew very red.

The buyer looked at Jason and said:

When we met a month ago I said I was very interested in supporting this new product launch, but since you are displacing an existing vendor who we too have a long relationship with we needed to have all the decision makers in the room and have you present your products to win placement.
I gathered all team members for this meeting and we expected you to come here today and present the products about to launch and answer any questions each of our department heads had.
After your presentation we meet, discuss the opportunity and give you our commitment unless there was some unforeseen issues within two weeks.

Jason was having a “Sales Maria New Years Moment”!

He did not understand the buyers expectation for this meeting
He did not understand the buyers buying process for displacing current vendor partners
He did not know the other buying decision makers/ influencers or what they needed in terms of criteria
He was not prepared, no sell sheets, no lap top presentation, no content on the problems this new line of products solves, why we were introducing it, or why its better than the current vendor’s.
He did not know nor was prepared to discuss a program to help the distributor sell out the current vendors inventory, and the buyer expected one

Jason showed up and counted on his relationship with Lou to help him place the new product line (like he did 10 years ago). He was not prepared for what the account needed to make a buying decision. He did not understand the impact such a change would have on other leaders at this customer. At one point of the meeting it was as if the audience was singing the words he should have known. The meeting was awkward to attend and we did not gain a commitment.

Being the new guy in the room I wanted to somehow save this opportunity while Jason cooled off.

“It sounds like we have some homework to do. Being new to this industry I would really appreciate each of you sharing what you would have liked to hear from us today.”

Engineering – is your product a perfect replacement for what we are buying now or is modifications required, if so what are they and did you factor those into your price? He had some very specific technical product questions we were not prepared to answer as well.

Sales Manager- what is your plan to train my sales team. A number of my guys love our current vendor and their rep. Do you plan a SPIFF to launch? What is it? When would you have a sales training? Do you have new brochures? When we explain to our customers the change to your product why is it better? It would be great to have some third party tests or any data you had.

Customer service training – since so many of our orders come in over the phone what’s the plan to train my team? When would that happen? Will the sales incentive contest include my team? Is your product a perfect replacement? Will your product ship with bar code labels like our current vendor? Will you drop ship my customers with our invoice?

Buyer – you know based on our purchases we buy in volume. What is my truckload price? Can I include this new product with other current products to get my free freight quicker? What is your program to blow out my current inventory? Will you province upfront money or a discount off my orders over time? Can I place a blanket order and draw from it to get a good cost like the competitor or is price based on each order? What is the delivery window from order placement to arrival at our warehouse? We moved to a just in time model and I am now being evaluated on inventory turns and dollars in inventory.

We gathered as much information as they would share and scheduled a follow up presentation in two weeks and offered to make it over lunch. I apologized this meeting did not go as they expected and assured them they would have everything they needed in two weeks.

In the car Jason and I went over the coaching questions about the meeting and I could tell Jason felt uncomfortable. He shared: ” I can tell you are new, no one has ever asked me so many questions after a call before here at ______”

Like many salespeople who have sold for 20+ years Jason is a strong relationship sales person but needs to adjust his style to grow his market’s sales today. I wish what I experienced here was rare or unusual but it is not. Every day salespeople are showing up and trying to win sales like the always have and are losing sales they should have won. Why? The main reason is they do not understand how buyers are buying or what they need to buy today. They lack updated sales tools that speak to needed buying criteria.

So what do they do?

They count on having “good relationships” and lose sales they could have won with some market research preparation, sales coaching and training.

Are your salespeople having “Sales Mariah Moments” with your customers?

How would you know?

If this was a new customer what probability do you think we would have of selling them? or a second meeting?

Who on your team understand what your buyers need to make buying decisions today?

The rest of our meetings that day went pretty much the same. They were what I refer to as “ Hi how are ya” meetings. (Almost as bad as dropping off donuts and logging it as a sales call in the CRM) They lacked a purpose and often left me feeling like we wasted the buyers’ time. They felt reactive and not proactive. Jason is a great guy and has done many favors for his customers over the years. All his accounts shared how much they liked him and appreciated him fighting on their behalf with corporate. But Jason’s account sales were flat and he has seen limited success placing and selling new products. Looking at the sales data he hit his numbers when his large accounts had good sales years but has not added any new accounts in 18 months.

Today is a new day with buyers having as much as 60%-70% of the buying process done before they meet with salespeople. The buyer obviously trusted Jason and we can build on this, but some of that trust was broken when Jason failed to listen to what the buyer’s process was, who else would be involved in the buying decision and what those leaders needed. Was it beyond repair? No. Jason must do a much better job of taking notes in meetings and following up. The company owes Jason a repeatable sales process to follow based on how the buyers buy today and new sales tools for each of the common buying influencers in this market.

“Sales Mariah Moments” are painful to experience and expensive in cost of sale and lost sales we could have won.

Understanding your markets and buyers is key to avoiding Sales Mariah Moments. Like Mariah Carey your salespeople are talented and all have gifts. Your company provides quality products and good service. We must insure we equip and train our salespeople to win in their markets today.

No matter how long your salespeople have worked for you they still need to make adjustments to how they present their customers. My guess is if I not had been at this meeting the CRM would have read:

“Good meeting, buyer loves us, we have some tough competition in this account and we need to revisit our price strategy to win. I am confident if we give them a volume cost program we will win their support”.

Does your CRM have a number of “Good Meetings” notes with no sales increases to follow?

To insure sales and sales leadership understands and implements a proven sales process and tools based on how buyers are buying today you must understand your markets and have sales training and coaching.

The sales training and practice role-playing is for when meetings don’t go as planned but you still can salvage a commitment.

Coaching is to insure your team knows this is not some new fad that will go away in a month or so but your team is committed to a formal sales process to win more sales.

The foundation of your sales success lies in understanding your buyers and helping them buy the way they are buying today.

Market research is critical parts of helping your sales team win today.

What happens if your team fails to understand what your buyers want and need and how they buy?

Your team will have “ Mariah New Years Eve Moments” leaving you to explain to your board and investors why so many good meetings are not helping you hit your number.

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

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Understanding the current voice of your customers and markets is critical to winning sales. Companies who take the time to capture the voice of their customers understand how buyers buy, what they need to buy, and the criteria they use to make buying decisions and leverage that information close more sales . In this post I will share how the voice of your customer ensures your sales proposals resonate with buyers and close sales quicker.

Why do buyers buyer from your team?

Why don’t buyers buy from your team?

If you can answer the above questions accurately you are well on your way to designing a sales and marketing plan to hit your number this year.

When I ask this question I usually get a very quick answer on why buyers don’t buy. As much as senior leaders want their sales teams selling value, I often hear “price” is why buyers don’t buy. I often hear many reasons why buyers do buy, and it usually accompanies stories of how they have won over the years. It is very rare however that I hear what I am looking for :why buyers buy and don’t buy today.

Think about all the changes we have seen in the last 15-10-5 years. We serve rapidly changing markets and it should not surprise any of us that market leadership positions change about every 10 years or so. Why?

“New market leaders emerge after identifying shifts in the buying process, buyer problems and or criteria and leveraging those changes.”

-Mark Allen Roberts

When sales says they lost a sale due to “price” or that buyers buy based on “price” this is what I hear…

You do not understand the value of your product or service to your buyer
You lack a strong current value proposition, or the one sales is using is dated
You do not clearly and completely understand the problem the buyer is seeking to solve
You do not completely understand how the buyer buyers and what they need to buy
Because you have not taken the effort to understand your buyer and their business, you have not earned the right to know all the buyer needs to buy today.

Earn the right to know?

Yes!

There was an excellent article recently in Brand Quarterly by Dave Tovey titled: Did Price Really Lose the Sale?

In this article Tovey shares that:

“Price is often blamed when we got something else wrong.”

Sales people are trained to sell; I think we can all agree on this. Salespeople have a very high utilitarian trait. If I do this …I get this reward quickly. That is why salespeople should not own the voice of your customer. ( but many leaders think they do) The voice of your customer, voice of your market work does not produce immediate reward. That is why salespeople should not own this information. It is their nature to sell, and buyers will feel their probing , open ended questions as a manipulation, a trick to win a sale and trust is broken. Marketing and or a senior executive in the organization must own deeply understanding the voice of your customer and markets no salespeople. Having been the VP of Sales and Marketing for a number of organizations I made it my job to own this information while my sales teams executed their sales development plans.

The author does an excellent job of describing what its like to meet with a new buyer. New buyers often act like Ernest Hemingway used to write…with the iceberg principle or often referred to as the theory of omission. Basically, they share just surface information and do not share the whole story until they trust you. What I like about the iceberg analogy is it’s not the 10% of the iceberg that you see that will sink your ship. (Your sale) It is the other 90% you do not see, or do not know. Most sales are lost because the buyer did not trust you completely understood the problem and therefore did not trust your proposal.

The author leaves us with this:

You earn the right to hear more than a client’s story of omission when:

You ask insightful questions
You listen for understanding
You avoid manipulation
You behaviors are congruent with your marketing messages
You are authentic; selling ethically and with integrity.
You are human – remembering that buying is rationalized emotion.

The voice of the customer, voice of the market follows the above.

Market leading teams take the time to understand the voice of their customers and markets…that other 90% of the purchase iceberg. They know how buyers buy, what they need to buy and the criteria they must have to buy today. They are constantly scanning the horizon and sensing for shifts in how buyers buy and the problems they are trying to solve today.

Why do buyers buy from you?

Why don’t buyers buy from you?

What do your buyers need to buy today?

What does the buying journey look like today for your buyers?

Who else is involved in the buying decision today? What do they need?

What new problems are your buyers searching to solve today?

When your team understands the voice of your buyers and voice of your markets you know the answers to the above. Understanding this information you will train your sales teams to serve your buyers with exactly what they must have to solve the problems they may not share with everyone. Your sales proposals stand out in a sea of RFP’s because they speak to real needs your buyers must have.( and that they failed to share with competitors who only scratched the surface) When your competition is just scratching the surface with price your team will be providing a complete solution your buyers must have.

Stop blaming price for why your teams fail to win the sale and understand all buyers need today and you will find price is not even high on the list.

When you understand the voice of your customer today and the entire buying iceberg, you will equip your sales teams with the big picture and they will build trust much faster with buyers because they will demonstrate they understand them. While competitors are scratching the surface and awkwardly trying to build trust, your sales team will be discussing meaningful solutions.

How Yeti Realized Sales Leadership Nailing Their Value Proposition

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In my last post I shared a process to conduct a value proposition audit. The goal of this exercise is to insure the value proposition your sales team is communicating still resonates with your buyers. Once you understand how your buyers buy and key buying criteria you can shape your value proposition so it instantly connects with the buyers in your market. One company who has done an excellent job of this is Yeti.

Ryan and Roy Seiders identified a market problem they understood intimately. The coolers on the market were just not holding up for outdoor adventurers. The lids would cave in, handles would break, and latches would snap off and gave them a bad overall experience. Could Colman or Igloo or others owned this market for high-end coolers? Yes…if they were listening to problems their users were having. They both were in the market long before Yeti.

Like Gunner Kennels, these two brothers set out to solve a market problem. In 2006 they were on a focused and simple mission…

“Build a cooler we’d use everyday if it existed. One that was built for the serious outdoor enthusiast rather than for the mass-discount retailers. One that could take the abuse we knew we’d put it through out in the field and on the water. One that simply would not break.”

The more intimately you understand the problem to be solved the clearer your value proposition will be. Just as I shared how InVue has a simple yet clear value proposition, so too does Yeti.

What started out as a quest to make an indestructible cooler has led to other products the market needed when they searched for problems to solve. Each of these products are designed based on customer feedback.

“ We decided early on product innovation would come from necessity and first hand experience”

Once they solved the problem for outdoor enthusiasts they asked themselves who else might have similar problems and they share this …

“We are so glad we were not the only ones looking for a Yeti. Today it is the cooler of choice for outdoor enthusiasts, pro tailgaters and back yard barbecue kings.”

As the company continues to solve unresolved market problems I believe they will add other buyer personas to their list. For example, my son is a police officer and he and all his other officers use Yeti to keep their coffee warm and their drinks cold.. As my son puts it…

“I can put some ice and a beverage in my Yeti rambler and I will have ice cubes in my drink at the end of an 8 hour shift.”

I now see road construction crew members, firemen and other service professions paying a premium to solve their problems with Yeti products. Knowing Yeti you will soon be seeing other indestructible products for service professionals who work outdoors.

When you understand the problems to be solved the burden is on you to communicate how you solve them. Yeti does and excellent job in their point of purchase that only a market leader would do.

So how about your company and your market…

What unresolved problems are your buyers facing today?

Are you going to build a category based on an unresolved market problem?

What if your competitor finds it before you do?

Is there any reason why you would not want to do a value proposition audit to find unresolved market problems?

Why Does Sales Growth Stall?

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Your sales team has been hitting their sales goals and it’s an exciting time for your organization. Your problem to be solved shifted from growing sales to shipping orders on time. Then something happens …what seemed like an ever-growing sales pipeline goes dark. Sales stall and in some cases decrease. Why? What causes sales growth to stall and more important what can you do to prevent sales from stalling?

It was an exciting time. Our sales team had opened the majority of the targeted new dealers we wanted and we were hitting new sales records. The President and CFO were stopping by my office to give me high fives and our senior manager meets had almost a fun playful tone. My sales people were achieving their individual sales goals, hitting bonuses they have never experienced before. Everyone, even the workers on the assembly line who were getting all the overtime they wanted were happy.

Our strategic planning meeting was spent discussing fun things like how will we invest to support this sales growth…. And then everything changed quietly, slowing at first and then our sales stalled. What happened? Why do sales stall and more important what is the plan to get our sales back on that sales velocity of 140% year over year growth we were enjoying?

I have seen the above scenario play out many times in companies. I have heard CEO’s say: “ Mark the reason we are talking to you is sales were growing strong year over year and then we hit a plateau, we are stuck and we can’t seem to get back on the same growth trajectory we one had.”

What Causes sales growth to stall?

If you read my content you know I like to read. Like is not strong enough of a word. I have a passion to read and research topics that impact sales team’s performance. One of my mentors at Frito-Lay used to say, “Leaders are readers and if you want to be a leader the burden is on you to constantly sharpen your saw”. I recently finished an excellent book I highly recommend: When Growth Stalls, How it happens, why your stuck & and what to do about it, by Steve McKee.

A quote that jumped out at me early was …

“One of the biggest challenges any business leader faces is generating consistent, profitable growth. But stalled growth is the rule, not the exception, even for the best-managed companies. That’s especially true in today’s tumultuous economic environment”

The author does a great job of capturing examples of market leading companies who experienced a growth stall like; Home Depot, Bear Sterns, Excite, Lehman Brothers, McDonalds, IBM, Kodak, Lucent Technologies, Sears, Kmart, Sun Microsystems, Tidy Cat, Mercedes, The Gap, Chrysler, and many more. Growth stalls impact both large and small companies. Publicly traded market leaders and privately help family business all experience stalls.

Most companies experience a sales growth stall at some time, and some experience a number of sales plateaus.

So what causes growth stalls?

Want a quick answer?…Look for what changed!

Today’s markets are dynamic. The first question you need to ask if your sales growth stalls is: What changed? The one thing we can all count on is change. If your sales were showing strong sales velocity then stalled I promise you something changed.

Changes can occur outside your organization as well as inside.

Outside your organization you can have a number of factors impact your sales growth…

Economic downturn

Market shift

Changing Industry Dynamics

Aggressive move from a competitor

New technology

Buyers need new criteria to make buying decisions

Buyers use a new buying process

There are also internal changes that can cause a sales growth stall…

Change in service level

Quality of product or service decline

Chance in price model

Lack of management consensus

Loss of Focus

A dated Value Proposition

Loss of company nerve

Inconsistency within your organization

Your culture becomes dysfunctional

Any one of the above can cause what the author refers to as a “seismic shift” that disrupts your sales growth. If your team experiences a number of both internal and external changes your sales growth does not just stall, it starts a steady decline. The longer it takes your team to identify what changed and make a course correction the more difficult and the longer it will take to correct. If internal and or external changes go unchecked long enough you will experience what I refer to as a sales death spiral.

The best business book I have ever read is the Bible. The Bible does not say we might face adversity…it says we WILL face adversity. Adversity is a time teams can rally together and grow united or do blame storming and drift apart.

The first step is to identify what changed or as I prefer to call it… throw the skunk on the table. It is very uncomfortable to discuss problems for most teams. Teams with strong cultures openly discuss any issues that could be preventing them from achieving their objectives. Discussing problems, like having a dated value proposition that no longer resonates with buyers, becomes emotional.( been there have the T-shirt)

Someone companies may have developed processes and procedures (web sites) 10-15 years ago and now that person sits in the CEO’s chair. If you have a strong culture and a leader with a high emotional intelligence you will discuss the issues. One sign of an unhealthy culture are what I refer to as PIMS. This stand for: Politically Incorrect Market Secrets. Your team knows the issues holding your teams back from achieving their sales objectives but they do not feel safe to share them. I actually love it when someone who reports to me says…Mark, I just don’t get it, you are asking me to ——- but the market and even the buyers at some of our accounts are saying ——-. Awesome, let’s pivot and win the business!

The author shares how to get your company back on a strong sales velocity track in practical and applicable ways. I highly recommend this book for two kinds of companies:

Companies who have experienced their sales growth stall or decline
Companies who have not experienced a sales growth stall (yet)

How about your company…

Have you seen your sales growth stall?

Has your team thrown the skunk on the table or is still just stinking up the place?

What other kinds of shifts/ changes have you experienced that stalled your team’s sales?

How did you fix them?

If you are in a business experiencing a sales growth stall this book will help you identify places to look that may have changed. It will also teach you ways of getting un-stuck and practical steps you can take to getting sales growth back on track.